Collector says he has Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker with a chiptune Thriller

[Barone]

A collector says he found a cartridge of Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker for the Sega Genesis in which the King of Pop’s “Thriller” — apparently left out of the game because of licensing issues or similar reasons — accompanies the second board of the game’s third stage.

The video was uploaded yesterday. It shows Jackson in his Smooth Criminal getup, getting down to a “Thriller” chiptune as he karate kicks the zombies. The original music for stage 3-2 was “Another Part of Me.”

https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp...nesis-thriller

[Silanda]

Interesting. It could be fake, but given the snippets present in the Rev 0 ROM it would make sense for Thriller to be in a pre-production cart.

[Lync]

https://tcrf.net/Michael_Jackson%27s...lker_(Genesis)

Bits of Thriller are apparently on early revisions, but even still - Thriller had another composer to have been credited so it was probably never going to be heard as a full song. Suspicious?

[Benjamin]

Whether licensing or not, I'm glad it was left out. I know at the time it felt weird seeing an obvious Thriller-inspired level without the song, but the song just isn't PCM friendly. Thriller relies too much on the vocals and atmospheric effects to dress up the plodding bass rhythm. The arrangement isn't very interesting once you strip it down, and Another Part of Me has a better melody to serve as video game BGM.

This is still neat to see. I wish he had went on to state if this is the only difference. I'd like to know if the ending battle was always designed to be so different than the game before it.

[wolf]

He posted photos of the epROM. The cart definitly looks like it came from development and had a code on it too. Plus when he opened up the cart there are a total of 4 epROM embeded on to the cart. I personally think this is legit with the one minor exception and that is the MJ stickers labled 1,2,3 and 4. I only hope that those stickers are not a re-writable mask roms. Because for all we know it could be one and that this chip tune music was programed on to the game. The only logical reasoning I am saying this is that I think of is that someone sampled the original Thriller from Rev 00 during the magic dance and was able to go ahead and create the full song.

[wolf]

Looks legitimate.

That boss music sound is sex! I love it! Yea! I think it is legit too. A good friend of mine runs his own YouTube channel is working on making a story about this guy and his finding. He's asking if there is any way that he could get a clean footage with that Thriller music playing while in game. We both sent out message to the guy on Reddit but has not replied back yet. I only hope whoever this guy is does the right thing and gets the game ROM dump and post it on the internet so that it can be part of the rom library for everyone to check out.

[Zebbe]

Nice find, seems legit! I notice the cursor hand on the beta is white unlike in the final game where it is red.

[LinkueiBR]

Amazing find!
For me is 100% real. Just look at the details. The hand cursor looks diferent from the final vErsion. The final boss is totally diferent than the final too. Looks like the final boss from the Master system version but with first person view.
The percussion samples are from Revenge of Shinobi

[Barone]

The percussion samples are from Revenge of Shinobi

This is kinda interesting too.

I believe Mystic Defender and Revenge of Shinobi share the same game engine. Moonwalker was clearly built upon Mystic Defender's but they improved the sprite engine in order to achieve the level of animation Moonwalker has.

[wolf]

This is kinda interesting too.

I believe Mystic Defender and Revenge of Shinobi share the same game engine. Moonwalker was clearly built upon Mystic Defender's but they improved the sprite engine in order to achieve the level of animation Moonwalker has.

Oh man! I had that exact same thought too!!

[LinkueiBR]

Oh man! I had that exact same thought too!!

Same here LOL

[wolf]

Ok so I just did some wiki search on all of the music within the Sega Genesis Moonwalker. All the songs Bad, Beat it, Smooth Criminal, Billie Jean and Another Part of Me were all written by MJ himself with the exception of Mr. Big Final Boss Theme written by Takayuki Nakamura. Hence why the true reasoning as to why Thriller didn't make the cut was because the music was not written by MJ but by Rod Temperton.

Because of that, royalties would have had added cost to the game development process. Business wise, it makes sense for SEGA not to include and ditch Thriller because of that legality issue. But of course small little accidents happen during game development XD. Alas hence we have the oppertunity back then to obtain Moonwalker Rev 00 <3 which is limited in stock and a rare item.

But man... Having Thriller would have made so much sense for the Zombie stage. But Another Part of Me isn't a bad choice either because it does have that nice spooky feel within the music beat. But dammit! LOL! I'm sure we all wanted Thriller to be on there!!! XD

*Chuckle* I wish when MJ was talking with Rod Temperton he be like "I want to use Thriller under 'Fair Use'. " LMAO!! XD

[Prince Talmit]

(...) I wish he had went on to state if this is the only difference. I'd like to know if the ending battle was always designed to be so different than the game before it.

from a thread on Digital Press:

Here is a list of differences:


A screen with copyright info plays when the game is started. I found a reference to this in https://tcrf.net/Michael_Jackson%27s...lker_(Genesis) described as 'Unused Text'

When you start a game, there's a level select screen allowing you to choose the round and scene.

On the options screen the list of music samples is different, with generic names like 'Round 1', 'Enemy' etc. instead of song title.

There is no score & time screen after you beat a level.

The transition animation between 1-3 and 2-1 is different.

Bombs are always stationary and always explode after 3 seconds.

In 2-2 the two elevators at each end of the level are not synced. If you use one you have to go all the way back to it to change floors.

The 2-3 boss battle is different, there's no magic white dog, just a bunch of the regular dog enemies.

The Round 3 music is Thriller, the full song.

In the 3-2 and 3-3 boss battles you just fight regular zombies, they don't fly or detach their torsos or anything.

[LinkueiBR]

This Final Boss looks exactly like the 3rd person SMS Final Boss

[Lync]

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post210949

^Had to post and run this morning but wanted to include this - I don't think that it's hard to believe there were some very preliminary revisions of Moonwalker with Thriller entirely composed; just find it surprising they would get that far along before Sega realized/decided that they didn't want to pay up Rod Temperton.

https://tcrf.net/images/0/0d/Mjmoonw...riller_3_1.ogg
https://tcrf.net/images/2/2e/Mjmoonw...hriller3_2.ogg
https://tcrf.net/images/b/be/Mjmoonw...hriller3_3.ogg

The first and second pieces that remain in Rev.00 sound identical to what I hear in the clip; but the third seems to feature that Moog/synth which to me sounds missing in the clip @ 2:46 (dance special) unless it just wasn't featured in this particular part of the clip...

Cartridge is definitely interesting - but now I have to wonder even more: what is this doing at a flea market, and why is this the only "pre-production" copy there?