A talented group of ROM hackers have released a patch for what is (depending on your point of view) the last untranslated (to English) Master System game, Tensai Bakabon. This is also an outstanding effort, including translation of all in-game art containing text, text "hidden" in level layouts, a full manual translation, a variable-width font renderer, and some very careful translation of puns and double meanings in the original text.



RomHacking page: https://www.romhacking.net/translations/6544/

Our page: https://www.smspower.org/Translations/TensaiBakabon-SMS-EN

Thank you FCandChill, TheMajinZenki, cccmar!

Today is SMS Power! 25th Anniversary!!
Perhaps at this point that we are the oldest independent internet website being still alive and kicking? Who knows!

Prototype releases

Let's get thing rolling!

(1)
"AIMO" Prototype of Psycho Fox for the Master System.
First spotted in early magazine previews and reviews, the infamous "AIMO Logo" version of Psycho Fox was finally found after 33 years!
Partly developed by Vic Tokai (see thread) much of the development story for this game is still unknown.

Amusingly, the cult credit roll of this version feature a different face for "The Rich Man". Perhaps this was the top person of AIMO (or Vic Tokai) later replaced by Sega's one?





(2)
An even earlier prototype of Basketball Nightmare for the Master System. Exactly last year we released a Basketball Nightmare prototype. Then in October we obtained a rare development board from Japan which hosted 3/4 of a final retail build of Basketball Nightmare. Then in December we found yet another prototype of the game, this time much earlier.

Something quite special about this version is how it gives an insight into the programmers experimental and having fun. The credits sequence of this version display names in 3d wireframe! Kudos to NKOICHI for this surprising feat!





Watch a recording of the ending sequence here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdpzmMhyfhw

(3)
Next we have a surprising "Rolling demo" cartridge of Golden Axe which was exhibited at CES. In the vein of the earlier demos we've uncovered (such as Super Basketball) this is a non-interactive looping demo designed to attract bypassers. Except this one goes *BAM*:




Watch a recording of the rolling demo here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daB6lk3weCc

(4)
Unreleased Poker Face Paul's Cribbage for Game Gear. This was actually posted by programmer Matt Taylor earlier this year (along with sources) but we're putting it in the news to attract visibility. The game was seemingly fully developed but unlike the 4 other card games from the Poker Face Paul's series, this one was cancelled. Presumably because the rules of Cribbage appears to be insufferably complicated? :) Who knows.




(5)
Not done yet! For the first time ever we are releasing a bootleg multi-cart: [Game Mo-eumjip 188 Hap (게임모음집188합) for the Master System / Samsung Gam*Boy. Back around August Benjamin Sittler and I sat together to start identifying, reverse engineering and emulating several of the multi-carts that have been released in Korea. We are not done with the work yet but decided to release a first one today. This cartridge hold a whooping (PROBABLY NOT) 188 titles mostly based on MSX1 titles, with some Korean hacks and possible exclusives. Please help us build a listing and complete the huge Screenshots page (added screenshots for 40 games so far).

As of today this requires the latest WIP version of MEKA available here: https://github.com/ocornut/meka/releases/tag/meka-20220327. Other emulators will probably add support for this soon.












(6) (7)
Finally we have two long-awaited Brazilian releases which unforgivably got stuck in a blind spot of our release queue for a long while. The Brazilian 3-in-1 Game Box Série Esportes containing Great Volleyball, Super Futebol II and Wimbledon actually carries 2 unique dumps that are different from the known existing one.

Super Futebol II for the Master System, translated version from Game Box Série Esportes cartridge. This is actually a DIFFERENT ROM than the one released standalone as "Super Futebol II" in Brazil. The standalone release of "Super Futebol II" actually carries a vanilla unmodified version of World Cup Italia '90, whereas the version in "Game Box Série Esportes" carries a localized version:




Wimbledon for the Master System, earlier version from Game Box Série Esportes cartridge. This is actually a DIFFERENT ROM than the one released as "Wimbledon" in Europe. This appears to be an EARLIER build of the game, so we dubbed it [v0].

Left side [v0] from Brazil, Right side [v1] from Europe:




Coding, Music and Hacking Competitions!

The 2022 Competitions Deadline is and the end of the day. Watch this space tomorrow for entries!

Happy holidays to all our friends in the SMS Power community :)

We've been digging and sorting materials and we have four prototypes today. And more coming soon!

An early print of Astro Warrior / Pit Pit for the Master System. Similar to the infamous "Red Hang On" card this seems to be an early print. This one is marked in German, has the small ship artwork in red, an offseted label, a lack of picture on the back (see attachments for more photos). Thanks to Ddevilfingers for their help obtaining this one!

The actual ROM data is unfortunately a mere change in the SMS Header zone, with only 2 different bytes, so this will play exactly the same as the final game.







Next we have everyone's favorite blue duckling. A prototype of Dynamite Dux for the Master System.



This is a relatively easy game to get through - comfort food - quite charming in its overall design, catchy tunes, sometimes feels like a happy-go-lucky version of Double Dragon. According to my favorite new metrics for evaluating meaningful contents of a dump, the zipped version of this is 122 KB vs 132 KB for the final version, which suggest a fair amount of missing contents.



A prototype of Rampage for the Master System.



I remember my parents one time leaving for the night when I was 10 years old, leaving us with two older caretakers who brought SMS cartridges and we played this with them that evening. The game lets you get through by brute-forcing a bit but it makes sense to pay attention and maneuver your creature to optimize its path and get rid of danger early. It's a nice game but lack of graphics variety makes it feel repetitive.

The legal screen from the final release is missing from this one which instead has extra copyright information visible on the title screen.



Finally, we have a very early prototype of Summer Games for the Master System. We already released a prototype of Summer Games in 2007, but this one comes much earlier. Different title screen logo, and most Events are broken at this point of development and there's no audio. This was a cartridge to playtest the game early on. (zipped 52 KB vs 70 KB final game.)



If you get to play those prototypes and find other differences please post them in the thread! Youtube playthrough or other analysis welcome :)

Enjoy !!!

It is 20th December and that means it is the Phantasy Star anniversary!

To commemorate we are today officially releasing another (small) update to the retranslation project. New since last year:

• New languages: French and Brazilian Portuguese versions were added in January 2021, and today we officially release the Catalan version
• Script and narrative text boxes now use the full (safe, readable) width of the screen
• Some script fixes in English
• Some cosmetic bug fixes



Downloads in the form of IPS and BPS patches, to apply to your copy of the Japanese game, are available here:

https://www.smspower.org/Translations/PhantasyStar-SMS-CA (Catalan)
https://www.smspower.org/Translations/PhantasyStar-SMS-PT-BR
https://www.smspower.org/Translations/PhantasyStar-SMS-FR
https://www.smspower.org/Translations/PhantasyStar-SMS-EN

Enjoy while we wait to see what Bock has wrapped up under the Christmas tree...

Hello,

Happy to announce we have uncovered another unreleased game: BreakThru! prototype for the Game Gear !

(Those prototypes are part of a collection of loose EPROMs recovered by the Video Game History Foundation on behalf of an anonymous collector. This lot contained prototypes from various systems. The prototypes for Sega 8-bit systems will be released on SMS Power!, the prototypes other systems will be released on other sites, such as Hidden Palace and SNES Central)



In development in 1994 at Realtime Associates, the Game Gear port of BreakThru! went unreleased.
According to the BreakThru! Wikipedia page:
"The game is commonly attributed to being designed by Alexey Pajitnov, who also originally designed Tetris, and published by Spectrum HoloByte, the company who first published Tetris outside of Soviet Union, Pajitnov's home country. However, despite Pajitnov's name and face being on the game's title screen and box art, the PC version of the game clearly states that he only "endorses" and his only actual credits for the game is a "Special Thanks"."

The build we obtain appears final or near-final, tho admittedly the game is not particularly polished nor great, and was probably pulled out from release from that reason.

Note the dual control scheme, you'll have to hold a button and press a direction to move the top row of blocks.




The version we obtained has a bug preventing is to run on more systems, so we are also provided a patched version (thanks to Calindro for reverse engineering the timing bug and making that patch).

Graphics Assets



Additionally, we obtained through another person a Package of Graphics Source Assets. This is essentially a backup of some folders that some of the team used. We provided a unmodified folder and one with some of data converted to modern file formats. The package seemingly contains assets for both Game Gear and Game Boy version.

Enjoy!

(Those prototypes are part of a collection of loose EPROMs recovered by the Video Game History Foundation on behalf of an anonymous collector. This lot contained prototypes from various systems. The prototypes for other systems will be released on other sites, such as Hidden Palace and SNES Central)

We have a first batch today with three new prototypes:

Heroes of the Lance prototype for the Master System





Heroes of the Lance is a pretty unique title for the Master System (aside from Ultima IV, it is the only Western role playing game on the system). It borrows the AD&D universe and personal computer games, coming up with an unusually elaborate sets of rules and features for what you'd usually find on a 8-bit console at the time. Not a game you can breeze through very easily.

We don't exactly know what is different in this prototype but it appears to contains less data than the final version so may have missing environments or artwork, and possibly multiple gameplay differences.

Dynamite Headdy Prototype for the Game Gear




Treasure were always known for their inventive and polished action games, and this port of Dynamite Headdy (originating on the Megadrive and ported to the Game Gear by Minato Giken) is one of three Treasure title that graced the Game Gear, just before Gunstar Heroes landed (that later game also marks the birth of M2, for which porting Gunstar Heroes to the Game Gear the founding job, before they came back to the Game Gear in 2020 with the surprising release of GG Aleste 3).

This prototype version is based on the Japanese version of the game (which appears to lack some story cut-scene compared the western release) and include a level selector in the title screen, as well as an option (むてき) to make the player invincible, making it easy to explore the contents available in this prototype.

Our third prototype today is a Prototype of Mortal Kombat for the Game Gear.




A cursory check didn't reveal obviously visible differences so this may be a late prototype but the code is sufficiently different there are definitively things to investigate there.

Enjoy!
And thank you Video game History Foundation for helping recover those.

Today is SMS Power! 24th Anniversary!
(Unfamiliar with this site? Check our previous releases in the News Forums and of course the many sections linked above. Last year for our 23rd anniversary we released Not-for-sale "Game de Check! Koutsuu Anzen" from 1987 complete with a full English translation.)

Today we have 5 prototypes to share!
Today is also the day all entries for the Coding, Hacks and Music competitions are made available in the Competitions Forums (read below)

Prototype releases

Release wise, we first have a Zillion II: Tri Formation prototype for the Master System!
The sequel to Zillion (赤い光弾 ジリオン) may have left players surprised, perhaps underwhelmed at first, as Zillion was a long and labyrinthic adventure, while Zillion II turned to be more classic action game combining fast-scrolling shooting/racing and platforming sequences. If we forgive the comparison to its predecessor, Zillion II is actually quite a fine game which lends itself to quick replays. The fast-paced shooting sequences sometimes may almost feel like a rhythm game, and the on-foot sequence have their share of exploration.

The most visible difference in this version is the earlier title screen:


(Left: prototype, Right: retail version)



Actual game appears to be mostly the same, can you find any difference?

Our second release is A prototype of Basketball Nightmare for the Master System. This basketball game developed by Aicom is best known for its highly detailed shots of performing a dunk:




This prototype version appears nearly complete. Among other things, we noticed that the Credits Sequences bears a different title for the programming role:


(Left: prototype, Right: retail)

Our third release is A prototype of Rastan for the Master System.
This appears to be a much earlier build than we typically find prototypes of. Among other things, this build of Rastan
- is missing title screens
- has different enemies and palette (e.g medusa on stage 1)
- trap sprites are visible above the wall (incorrect sprite vs bg priority)
- water is black white and its palette not animated
- lava are not animated
- life automatically refill, and there's no game over screen
- bosses are differently
- level 2 has no enemies
- level 4 missing sky color
- there's no pause/inventory screen
etc.




See more screenshots for Rastan.

Our fourth release is A prototype of Taito Chase H.Q. for the Master System.
Some of the differences spotted (courtesy of Maxim):
- High score is 2972900 at startup - much higher than 50000 in final version
- Different pitch music on title screen
- Steering "quick" option, no BGM option
- Options screen select with 2, start with 1 reversed in final version
- Radio screen shows "TAITO MONITALING SYSTEM SP-OIA" - Engrish mistake
- Road seems to glitch out a lot

In the code:
- Proto hard-codes the port $3E controls to the cartridge slot, retail version correctly reads from $c000
- Retail version adds a delay in the VBlank, for an unknown reason (immediately before reading player controls)
- Prototype has some code removed (replaced with return) relating to clearing state when you reset




Our fifth and final release for today is A prototype of Tengen World Cup Soccer for the Game Gear.




Competitions

Entries are being posted in the Competitions Forum, with a few more expected later today. We will start voting on entries from tomorrow.

A peak at some of the entries... Check the forums for more!




　



Photos

Some photos of the sample/prototypes cartridges:

(Reminder: we are holding the yearly coding, music, hacking competition to celebrate SMS Power! 24th Anniversary on March 27!)

About ten years ago we released an odd Alex Kidd in Miracle World dump extracted from a Game Gear Taiwanese cartridge. After more years of research and collecting of bootleg titles I was able to uncover a lots more.

A company called "Hung Tao Hsin", also referred to as "HTH", released a quantity of Master System games in Taiwan in the form of Game Gear cartridges. For those not acquainted with the hardware, the Game Gear is hardware compatible with the Master System and therefore those games are "regular" Master System roms.



Plenty of bootlegs were released in Asia in the nineties, often in the form of compilation X-in-1 cartridges. The Hung Tao Hsin releases from Taiwan are notable as they were single title, with box and manual, frequently borrowing quality art from Japanese releases.

Unlike some other boxes series (such as the "nameless" ones with GGxxxx product numbers), the HTH releases (with HG xxx-xx product numbers) were generally scrubbed of references to Sega, sometimes replacing them with their own name:







As with Taiwanese Aaronix release, I'm not 100% ruling out the possibility that those games were actually legit licensed from Japan, but in tradition with Asian releases they sometimes use dubious naming and the name inside the program do not always match the one on the box. The worst offender in term of inconsistency is "Action Boy" which uses artwork from "Maze Hunter", has a manual mixing up info for "Maze Hunter" and "Bubble Bobble" and the game is actually "Seishun Scandal (My Hero)".
Below we will be listing games by including the english name on the box, the chinese or japanese name on the box, and the name of the actual title contained within.

Another thing HTH did with their release is that they commonly made the games easier by patching the number of lives initially available. The following games (may not be an exhaustive list) have been patched in this way: Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Aerial Assault, Black Belt, Doki Doki Penguin Land, Double Dragon, Final Bubble Bobble, Hokuto No Ken, Paperboy, Quartet, R-Type, Scramble Spirits, Shadow Dancer, Strider, Submarine Attack. See:



So those dumps are essentially Taiwanese hacks from the nineties.

So far we've gathered 25 dumps and releasing 24 new ones today:

HG 201-11: Aerial Assault / Kōng zhòng chūjí (空中出擊) = Aerial Assault
HG 101-10: Alex Kido / Tiānkōng mó chéng (天空魔城) = Alex Kidd in Miracle World (already released)
HG 101-02: Alocos / Shízì jiàn (十字剣) = Argos no Juujiken ("Rygar" in the west)
HG 101-07: Shàngwèi mìnglìng (上尉命令) = Secret Command (English name yet unconfirmed)
HG 101-19: Black Belt / Sa! Rèxuè gāoshǒu (サ！熱血高手) = Black Belt
HG 201-01: Bubble Dragon / Chāojí pào pào lóng (超級泡泡龍) = Final Bubble Bobble (Bubble Bobble)
HG 201-33: The Cyber Shinobi / Space no Ninja (スーペースの忍者) = The Cyber Shinobi
HG 201-02: Double Dragon / ???? = Double Dragon (missing chinese reading)
HG 201-46: Forgotten Worlds / Shìjièno mòrì (世界の末日) = Forgotten Worlds
HG 101-17: Great Basketball / 94-Nen Super Basketball (’９４年スパーバスケットボール) = Great Basketball
HG 201-04: Northen Ken / Běidǒuno quán (北斗の拳) = Hokuto No Ken
HG 401-21: Kung Fu Kid / Mójiè lièzhuàn (魔界列傳) = Makai Retsuden (Kung Fu Kid)
HG 201-05: Lord of Sword / Yuè fēngmó chuán (月風魔傳) = Lord of Sword (Lord of The Sword)
HG 256-06: Action Boy / Kuài dǎ xiǎozi (快打小子) = Seishun Scandal (My Hero)
HG 101-23: Paper Boy / Yínsè xiānfēng (銀色先鋒) = Paperboy
HG 101-03: Astro Adventure / Yǔzhòu dà màoxiǎn (宇宙大冒險) = Doki Doki Penguin Land
HG 201-15: Prince of Persia / Alipapa Densetsu (アリパパ伝説) = Prince of Persia
HG 101-28: Quartet / Cí xióng shuāng xiá (䧳雄雙俠) = Quartet
HG 401-01: R-Type / Yìxíng (異形) = R-Type
HG 201-09: Scramble Spirits / Hǔ dǎn miào suàn (虎胆妙算) = Scramble Spirits
HG 401-06: Shadow Dancer / Yǐng wǔ zhě (影舞者) = Shadow Dancer - The Secret of Shinobi
HG 201-47: Shadow of the Beast / Guǐ yǐng shòuno wáng (鬼影獸の王) = Shadow of the Beast
HG 401-02: The Strider / Tūjī fēilóng (突撃飛龍) = Strider
HG 201-31: Submarine Attack / Hóngsè shí yuè dà fǎnjí (紅色十月大反擊) = Submarine Attack
HG 201-03: Thunder Blade / ???? = Thunder Blade (missing Chinese reading)

If you have access to more Taiwanese bootlegs please get in touch!

(Thanks to Billy Lin for proofreading the Chinese inputs)

As with every year, we are running a fun Sega 8-bit Coding, Music and Hacking competition. Deadline is March 27th, 2021.

Please read details:
https://www.smspower.org/forums/18310

Homebrew has been striving recently:

1997

First recorded homebrew SMS software of the emulation era.

2021

Bara Burū - winning SMS Power 2016 competition entry, designed and programmed by Kagesan, turned into a physical product by Ichigobankai (2minds), photo courtesy of @segacomics.

We look forward to your entries :)
Details: https://www.smspower.org/forums/18310