Difference between Genesis games with multiple revisions (REV 00, REV 01, etc)

[Kaze Okami]

I remember reading in an old book (Genesis & Game Gear strategies '94 edition) that the level select code in Golden Axe was removed in the 2nd revision. Is this true? (cbf trying it myself atm).

[Furnessly]

I've been checking a couple of games and from what I know:

Sonic 2 (people knows these, just putting it here)
Revision 00 - Lowed Casino Night sign, one of the staff members at the credits is misspelt
Revision 01 - Casino Night sign corrected, credits typo corrected

Rockman Mega World (the Japanese version of Mega Man: The Wily Wars) I think has two versions, both have a different saving mechanism one that is SRAM and the other is EPPROM. Sadly no-intro just says Alt for one of them but the easiest way is to test via an older emulator to see if it can get to Wily Tower.

Galaxy Force II found 18,305 differences between the original version and Revision B (Revision A isn't dumped yet), so far this is what I spot in the ROM apart from some data shuffling so most of it is hard to tell however I did find some in game differences between the two;
Rev 00 - Build date 1991.JUN GM code T - 68013- 001cUJA
At the ending; The evil forces of the Forth Empire has now been completely destroyed
In the credits; Program, Color Coordinate

Rev B - Build date 1991 OCT. GM code T - 68013 - 01LyJA
At the ending; The evil forces of the Forth Empire have now been completely destroyed
In the credits; Programmer, Color Coordinator

Road Rash II by comparing the ROMs has found 70,250 differences between the two versions, the only difference that I can spot is the copyright notice
REV 00 - Copyright 1992 Electronic Arts
REV 01 (v1.2) - Copyright 1991,92,93 Electronic Arts

PGA Tour Golf II has 39,910 differences between the two but it seems to be a case of data shuffling. From what I can gather is that REV 00 has an incorrect checksum while REV01 has one at least according to GoodGen.

Sadly though without really checking through, some of these revisions might just be bug fixes. I'm certain that StarMist went through the revisions of Bart vs. the Space Mutants in his review though.

[The Jackal]

Sonic 2 (people knows these, just putting it here)
Revision 00 - Lowed Casino Night sign, one of the staff members at the credits is misspelt
Revision 01 - Casino Night sign corrected, credits typo corrected

Wasn't there a Rev 02 with the Super Sonic bug fixed? Or was that never proven?

[chessage]

Road Rash II by comparing the ROMs has found 70,250 differences between the two versions, the only difference that I can spot is the copyright notice
REV 00 - Copyright 1992 Electronic Arts
REV 01 (v1.2) - Copyright 1991,92,93 Electronic Arts

I've heard that it's mostly track layout changes.

PGA Tour Golf II has 39,910 differences between the two but it seems to be a case of data shuffling. From what I can gather is that REV 00 has an incorrect checksum while REV01 has one at least according to GoodGen.

You didn't notice that the fantasy course is no longer accessible in the second revision?

[David J.]

I really want to know more about these titles:

Altered Beast (think it may be title screen)
Columns
Forgotten Worlds
Ghostbusters
Ghouls 'N Ghosts
Granada
Phantasy Star II
Quackshot
Rambo III
Super ThunderBlade
Toe Jam and Earl

Just curious... anyone know since some were early games?

[David J.]

Sorry to double post but I have a Japanese SHO on the way... But since I am in the USA, I went to a store locally because I was bored, they had three carts of SHO and the first one I tried since they had a way to play genesis games (clone SNES system with this odd adaptor that lets you play Genesis games, wtf?) was Rev 01, the second was Rev 00. Needless to say I bought the latter. As for the third cart, I really didn't care since I wanted Rev 00 and I got it.

So it's not Japanese only. Maybe US and Japanese only.

[Aspirin18]

Quackshot
Rambo III

I don't have idea what is the difference

[NeoVamp]

Mortal Kombat (W) (REV00) [!] - When the Fatality is being done no music plays.

Mortal Kombat (UE) (REV01) [c][!] - When the Fatality is being done you hear a short little music track.

[Phantar]

I know it's a late reply, but...

I own the first run US release that contains all of the look alike characters. Not sure if "First international release" means that you think Rev00 didn't come out here.

As far as I can tell PAL-regions didn't get the rev00-version, so that's what is meant by "international release".

Quackshot
Rambo III

I don't have idea what is the difference

No idea regarding Rambo III either. The Quackshot revision01-rom has a bigger file size than rev00, but there is no apparent reason why. I found this forum-post on that matter, though:

"Technically they're the same size, except for some insane reason REV01 has $C0000 bytes of padding in the middle. Basically, REV01 is structured like:

CODE
$0-$3FFFF: First half of ROM
$40000-$FFFFF: Padding
$100000-$13FFFF: Second half of ROM

I have no idea why this is so, but it was certainly intentional, since even the checksum routine for example adds up everything from $200 to $3FFFF, skips the middle padding and picks up again at $100000. In fact if you look at the sound test ROM I posted you'll notice that it's only 512 KB despite being based on REV01 since it gets rid of this padding. "

So that's that, for what it's worth...

[VtheRex]

Does anybody know how to tell the difference by opening the game for Michael Jackson whether it's Rev 1 or 00? Also I heard after NBA Jam TE Rev 2 the Mortal Kombat characters are no longer playable. Can anybody confirm this?

[Deo]

And of course the Sega CD Arcade collections' version of Golden Axe has code to use the CD for audio (the arcade music is copied onto the disc as CDA tracks, in fact, as odd as that is), and lacks a 2-player mode. Not sure how relevant that is to the discussion exactly, but felt it was worth reminding people of.

The voices are also different from both the arcade and cart with the exception of the crowd running by in Turtle Village.

[NeoVamp]

Also I heard after NBA Jam TE Rev 2 the Mortal Kombat characters are no longer playable. Can anybody confirm this?

The MK characters were never in the Genesis (or any other) homeports, only the early arcade romsets had them. (and a bunch more that were removed)

[Saturn Fan]

Most games you have to play... like mystic defender and ROS.

Eh. Didn't like Mystic defender. Kinda lame.

[David J.]

I'm not saying it's a good game but to know the difference you have to play it...

[Saturn Fan]

I'm not saying it's a good game but to know the difference you have to play it...

I wanted to like Mystic Defender but it was just.....eh. Kept getting stuck at certain parts of stages that made me wonder if it was trying to be challenging or just crappy level design.

And wasn't the difference in revisions just a naked final boss?