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Every console has hacks and bootlegs. The Genesis is actually home to quite a few good ones, some good enough to pass for licensed retail releases, with original sprite work and designs. Contributor Greg Jurkiewicz examines some of the best to see which are actually worth tracking down. Read the full article for more details.
Excellent article! Here's hoping we'll eventually see some reproductions of those titles that haven't been done yet.
Umhh?? Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan is not a hack or a pirate and doesn't make sense in this list.
It is a pirate.Quote:
Originally Posted by vintagegamecrazy
It uses stolen content, and doesn't have any license from Sega, therefore it's a pirate title. Albeit a good one with with a great deal of original content, but still, plenty of stolen stuff in there too, most notably the Terra theme from FF6 and the voice samples from Streets of Rage. Some of the sprites are apparently also ripped from Street Fighter, though I don't know exactly which ones because I'm not that familiar with the SF games to be able to spot them. Either way, having even one piece of stolen property in there combined with the lack of licensing makes it a pirate.
The lack of a license doesn't make it a pirate, but the stolen content, like music or graphics, does.
Yeah that's true, the way I always look at it is:
no license + all original content = homebrew
no license + stolen content = pirate
license + stolen content = law suit lol
Anyway, all the games I mentioned in the article use stolen content to lesser or greater degrees.
so why not mentioning rick dangerous md :D
great article btw
About Pocket Monsters: the graphics from the first level is taken straight from stage 3 of Magical Taruruuto-kun. Literally, the enemies, the trees, everything o_O;
Sonic Megamix was released on cartridge, no? If so it'd be a walk for the best pirate game.
Either way it's nice to see you do understand what constitutes a pirate.
It was. Though it was an early version.Quote:
Originally Posted by StarMist
http://info.sonicretro.org/images/6/...u_md_cover.jpg
Was a Russian pirate BTW.
A cool member on here made me a repo of Sonic Megamix a few years back; proudly sits in my collection between Sonic Spinball and Sonic 3D. And the artwork is infinitly better than that crap above.
Ooh, I totally forgot about that. Although, I wouldn't really call your work piracy since you openly admit that it's a port of an Atari game. I'd put this closer to the homebrew side of things. I'm actually planning to write another article in the future where I talk about home-made ports of games like the Mairtrus port of Super Mario Bros (http://devster.proboards.com/index.c...lay&thread=613), Uwol (http://www.rgcd.co.uk/2011/04/uwol-quest-for-ports.html) and most definitely I will include Rick Dangerous in there. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by pascal
Awesome! Thanks for the info, I was wondering where some of those weirder enemies were ripped from. That game is a goldmine of stolen content. I'd love to figure out where all the components originated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sik
Thanks. I try to be reasonable about the distinctions between non-licensed games. As for Megamix, technically it's a rom hack, the original creators never made carts of it. Although some Russians got a hold of the rom and started producing cartridge versions, so I suppose those carts are pirate work, while the rom they contain isn't (since Team Megamix openly admit that Sega owns all the rights to Sonic and related material). It's a bit of a gray area with this but I think I'd rather keep Megamix to the category of Rom Hacking, about which there's already an article, and there will likely be another one devoted to the topic since a lot of those hacks got updated and new ones have surfaced.Quote:
Originally Posted by StarMist
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cornholio857
Yep those carts contain Sonic Megamix V.3, it was the last cartridge version before Team Megamix switched over to the Sega CD. In a way that last version is a lot more complete than the latest one for SCD, there are a lot of difference as well since they redid a lot of the game when they switched platforms. The cart version is a lot more like Sonic 1, the Sega CD one feels more like a completely new game. Both are very good and it's worth it to play both of them IMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Jackal
And yeah, I have a repro of it myself, it's a fantastic game. Mine has the artwork that I designed (http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...ciation-thread!), not sure which one you're using Jackal.
I guess in some sense the difference between a ROM hack and a pirate is that the latter is bought and sold as a physical release, and usually isn't forthright about its origins.
(Homebrew ports of licensed properties are a different issue. Then again, those have been going on since forever and there's a big grey area, e.g. the Tandy CoCo versions of arcade games.)
Yeah you're right, also I think intent plays a role too. Far as I know none of the rom hackers out there do it for profit, they do it for fun and make the hacks available to download for free. Pirates on the other hand only make their stuff to sell, and do not make their games available for free. In fact most of them seem to go to great lengths to install protection measures on their cartridges so that it's difficult to dump the roms (at least it used to be), and like you said, they don't credit the source material.Quote:
Originally Posted by goldenband
It's not that one (it's great artwork though), the guy who did the repo supplied his own cover artwork; sorta a remix of Sonic 1 PALs, with all the 3 main characters in Classic style art; fantastic job, really happy with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by djshok
Most of the character and item sprites are slightly altered redraws of stuff from Knights of the Round, King of the Dragons, and Streets of Rage II, and Street Fighter II. Lots of elements in the magic attacks are ripped straight from other games like Forgotten Worlds and Golden Axe. Plus, it uses music recycled music tracks from other MD unlicensed fighters and platformers.Quote:
Originally Posted by djshok
Gameplay-wise my only real complaint on this game is the lack of a grappling feature.
I didn't go further in, but the first stage of Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan was a massive ripoff of Knights of the Round. The control didn't seem all that great to me, either, to be honest. :P
EDIT: Also, that ship stage... would that possibly be King of Dragons, another excellent CPS brawler?
EDIT 2: I should probably read the post above me, as opposed to just reading the first page...
Controls seem to vary greatly between the three available characters. If I remember correctly the amazon controls perfectly while the barbarians both move a bit stiff, although one more so than the other.
Virtually all of these games seem to come out of nowhere; nobody knows the publisher or the development team or when they were actually released.
I think it's only fair to point out that several of these games would not have been dumped for all of us to enjoy if it weren't for certain generous members of this very forum that have spent a relatively large amount of time and income in order to release them to the public. It's not always easy to send your expensive. one of a kind cartridge to someone you don't even know just for the sole purpose of charity work. We also can't forget the efforts put forth by people that either cracked the copy protection or updated the emulators they program so that they support the protection methods natively without having to patch or alter an original "good" dump.
I've seen the elite snobbishness found in other collecting circles (AES, I'm looking at you) but I've yet to run into anybody with the dozen or more games I've helped with that had nothing but kindness in sharing their one of a kind items.
tl;dr: Somebody paid a premium and went through a bunch of hoops for us to play this obscure shit and I think it's only polite to extend a thank you if a specific person is involved.
You said it. I'm not entirely sure who all the guys are that dumped these things but you can bet I'm thankful for all their efforts. And for all the work you've done with getting some of these things working. It's fantastic to have people with this sort of passion in the community.Quote:
Originally Posted by Azathoth
Absolutely, and seconded. My huge thanks to everyone who's been involved with every part of the process, yourself included.Quote:
Originally Posted by Azathoth
It seems like Sega consoles are pretty lucky in this regard -- the Master System, SG-1000, and Genesis all have great advocates who work hard (and generously share from their own collection) to bring Asian obscurities to light.
First,I should apologize for the above post. It wasn't intended to be an e-penis rant and nobody deserves their ass kissed; except for maybe that those that drop $500-$1k for protos then dump them like it's nothing.
I'm personally fascinated by unlicensed trash put out in the late 90's-00's on the MD/Gen and to a lesser extent the SNES. It completely blows my mind that with the information overload we have today there are still titles discovered virtually every month that have existed for 15-20 years and nobody's even so much as see on a screenshot of them.
Anyone who's played unlicensed stuff has I'm sure run through the usual fair; the Super Maro Squirrel King hack, KoF '98, etc. If you look back it wasn't too long ago Top Fighter 2000 was some insane news that broke and copies went for well over $150-200 USD many years after it was initially released. It just didn't become popular to the English-speaking part of the net until that time.
All this crap that's been dumped for years nobody really knows the story behind them. Then when you run into shit that has just been made available within the very recent past (Tiny Toons 3, Lord of the Rings, Soul Blade VS Samurai Spirits etc) this stuff was manufactured years and years ago and even the most rabid fans didn't know much anything about it. Half of this shit doesn't even have a screenshot in existence prior to it being dumped.
Just to use TT3 as an example, Bramsworth made it his personal crusade to track this title down and it took him a hell of a long time to find it, and when he did it cost him quite a bit. Not a DreamTR/Beaglepuss/Mr.Mark level proto buy, but still a hell of a lot more than most of us would spend on an arguably shitty platforming title. I'd say it's safe to say he has probably the only copy in any English speaking collector's hands, and possibly one of the few remaining copies in the world. I find that interesting as hell. He could have done anything with it, or nothing, or posted pictures and screenshots and rubbed his e-penis in your face about it.
Instead he sent it to me to dump and then Andlabs cracked the protection. Now everyone can play his investment for free and I'd say he'd be lucky if he can even sell it for more than $30, much less what he paid for it. To me, stuff like that is just as interesting as the story behind Adol selling Burning Fists/Force Striker to Michael and having Fonzie finish it up. And what's even better is Bramsworth is a hell of a guy, I'm sure he'd tell you anything you wanted to know about the situation. The whole thing isn't just some cloudy enigma that we'll never be able to track down; we had a rather spectacular thing happen. You can also thank him for Digimon Adventure, Pokemon Gold Silver, and MMPR: The Fighting Edition. He's got my respect in spades. And all this isn't just about some guy you don't even know, he's an active participant on this forum and has been for years.
When you've wasted hours of your life making overseas contacts with people and businesses that have only a slight grasp of English, then you front hundreds of dollars for an obscure game with zero financial support, only to release it and a select group of users basically give you the middle finger, it kinda makes you understand why the guy that owns the Resident Evil 1.5 beta acts like he does.
Sorry for the rant. It just pisses me off when someone goes out of their way, loses money, does something out of the goodness of their heart for the Sega of the fan community and the only thing people have to say is that it isn't good enough.
Whoa, hold on, clearly you're not happy about something here, but I think there are a lot of factors at play and I'm not sure what's pissing you off.
I don't think there's a person on here that isn't grateful for the work of the guys that dump the roms of these obscure games and the lengths that they go to in order to do it. However, until your last post I don't think anyone on here, myself included knew who the guys responsible for all this hard work were. (for the most part I always assumed it was Chinese guys dumping other Chinese guys games) I knew that Bramsworth was one of the guys behind the translation of Magic Warrior, but I didn't know he was involved in so many other projects, I had no idea that Fonzie worked on anything other than Pier Solar and I don't even know who Adol, Michael or Andlabs are. That doesn't mean I'm not grateful for their work. Hell yeah I am! I love discovering new Sega games, and I'm as interested in obscure pirate stuff as I could be. But please do understand that the guys who dump this stuff aren't exactly open about doing it, and with good reason I imagine, since talking about rom dumping tends to get you into trouble. So if you're angry with me for not inlcuding a thank you section in the article, then I could understand, but please consider that: A: I didn't know who dumped all the roms, and B: even if I had known, I don't think it would've been the smartest thing to post that info all over the net in case some legal jock at Nintendo or some uppity federal agent wants to get on the news and make an example of someone. I figure if those guys wanted to people to know who they are then they'd tell us, ie: how MrMark and Beaglepuss announce when they're dumping a new proto. If not, then I'd rather err on the side of caution and respect people's privacy and not get anyone into trouble with forum admins or worse yet any legal entity.
Now if people are discussing the dumped games and are saying that they like some more than others, and even if they say some of them are crap, then please don't take that as a criticism of the guys who dumped the roms. I really hope that's not the issue here. I still appreciate all the hard work that goes into acquiring these games, even if they are crap, it's still good to know what they are, and that they exist. But I think we're still allowed to have an opinion of the game itself that has nothing to do with the guys who dumped it. I tried to keep the article to the positive side of pirate games with focus on the really good ones, adn other than the occasional dry humour I think I praised all the games I talked about. It was never my intent to disrespect the people who dumped the roms or any of their work.
Now if someone is actually saying that all the work these guys did isn't good enough, than yeah they're being dicks and deserve a slap upside the head. I haven't seen anyone do that on here, but maybe you've talked to more/other people than I have.
Anyway, I wrote the article to bring attention to the fact that there are good pirate games for the Genesis. Most people aren't aware of how many pirate games there are, or that some of them could actually be good, I just wanted to expand the knowledge base of the community. If this came across as offensive or if I failed to give credit where it was due, than I apologize.
Who's giving anyone the middle finger or showing disrespect? I'm not sure who your last post is directed at, Azathoth. We strive to show nothing BUT respect for these kind of efforts by putting together and publishing these types of articles. The entire "Hacks & Homebrews" feature series is made specifically for these efforts, and I'm sure that Greg and everyone else here aren't trying to offend anyone. Just the opposite, I'm sure.
My apologies again guys, that wasn't directed at any specific member on this board. I think the article was a very informative, professionally written piece and I'm tickled to death that it was posted here. I'm sure it spread a lot of information to readers that wouldn't have know about these games otherwise.
I guess my point was this; this forum is a polite collector's community that doesn't have most of the shortcomings that other forums similar to it have. I've seen it a million times in other places; somebody owns a rare or high price item and spreads info about it, but not to help the community but rather using it as bragging rights basically saying "nyaa nyaa, look what I have and you don't". Then you get the parasites that follow it, "ROM plz" "pleze dump da rom for us" etc. Then, if the ROM is dumped, you often get "oh well this sucks it's broken now back to calladoodey".
Sega-16 is a straightforward no-nonsense forum and those who oversee it probably don't want it to become a dumping ground for ROM releases or ROM news for various reasons (all of which I agree with). I enjoy the discussion, I enjoy the articles, and I also think it's great that we have people who are more than willing to share their own stuff just for the sake of gaming. Which is rather opposite of most other gaming platform communities.
Edit...
Again, I didn't mean to offend or make anyone feel threatened by previous comments. I'm just glad that this particular forum not only encourages users to create and contribute, but truly appreciates it when they do. DJ's piece is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.