Mahou Daisakusen aka Sorcer Striker: ROM differences

[_rm_]

Hi,
Can someone please help on the several available ROM differences?

I first tried this game on groovy mame an tried both Japanese and USA roms. The USA is obviously much easier.

Recently i got the PCB and it came with both Japanese and Korean roms. I thought Korean was similar to the USA but apparently I was wrong. So i burned the roms i was using in mame for the pcb, but the bullet patterns aren't the same.

For example, in mame the stg2 boss starts by firing 2 green bullets and one blue skull. With the same rom in the pcb boss always fires 4 green bullets and 2 blue skulls. Nothing to do with ranking i guess, since i do similar runs and the results are always the same.

Pcb with all dips on standard.

Any thoughts?

[Square_Air]

I don't really have any experience with the Korean rom, but it seems like either your mame set or your PCB are incorrect.

[_rm_]

I don't really have any experience with the Korean rom, but it seems like either your mame set or your PCB are incorrect.

Let's forget about the "korean rom". What i want to understand is:

Why a rom set behaves in a specific way on MAME and a different way on a PCB.

Maybe the answer is simple, but i know very little about MAME.

[PerishedFraud ឵឵]

check the dipswitches on mame. check if lowering difficulty or something similar will produce the same effect.

[Xyga]

Indeed maybe the default dip switches and 'machine configuration' are set differently by default in MAME (press tab and check the dedicated menus)
Some games require to access the service/test mode ingame (F2) when some of the game's built-in settings are not available via MAME's UI.
In short, depending on the hardware the rom name is not the sole defining factor.

For instance, iirc:
battlega Battle Garegga (Europe / USA / Japan / Asia) (Sat Feb 3 1996)
is the rom everyone plays, but you have to set it to 'japan' in the machine configuration menu, then reset.

[_rm_]

It must be something related to the MAME dipswitches...
I will check those and report back.

Thank you all

[donluca]

Also, bear in mind that MAME could be at fault here.

Maybe it has a lower difficulty set as standard, whereas on the original PCB is higher.

[_rm_]

I think it is related to the region dipswitches and not the actual ROMs.

Will try to test this during this week.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

On a real Korean version variant Sorcer Striker pcb setup, there are some eproms that are soldered to the pcb directly (and thus requires de-soldering to get to them to converted into a JPN version). I was under the impression that some of them were socketed (so they may be replaced/reburned) but that's not the case with a real Korean variant Sorcer Striker pcb. Of course, your mileage will vary depending on what country version of said pcb you have whether it be JPN/USA/Korean.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[_rm_]

It was the region jumpers, already tested.

It is curious to note that there are 2 different Korean PCB's.

One is the "usual" Korean look, with light green PCB and different IC's soldered. This is the version that has 4 eproms instead of 2 mask roms near the jamma edge.

The other is a "regular" color PCB and has the same mask roms soldered. If you burn japanese roms (for title screen and text) and change the jumpers, you get the same version as Mahou Daisakusen.

[TropicalBits]

Hi, sorry to bring this back to live but I’ve seen a korean version with the 4 roms, I’m not sure if it’s legit or not but is the one on the first pic above.

I’m wondering if there’s a difference on the gameplay. Normally the Korean versions change from the international and Japanese games.

Do you know if it’s different? Is there a way to convert that to the Japanese one?

Regards

[_rm_]

As i stated before, the roms present in the PCB have nothing to do with gameplay. To change difficulty (and consequent bullet patterns and boss patterns) you must change the correspondent jumpers.

The jumper configuration is present in the three different hardware revisions.

Check this info:
http://www.world-of-arcades.net/R8zing/ ... isions.htm

[mikejmoffitt]

For the curious, that nasty light-green Korean-region board is like that because of cost-saving measures. The inner VCC and GND planes have been eliminated, and the board has been made larger to accommodate the snaking traces that must make up for the removal. A 2-layer board is a lot cheaper than a 4-layer board. Then, the 16-bit mask ROMs have been replaced with multiple 8-bit ROMs, likely repurposed from old titles or simply used because many were on hand. Finally, the lack of sockets is again a very tiny cost saving.

Whether or not it's a bootleg using the GP9001 ripped from an older Toaplan game, or a genuine revision of the Raizing board, is hard to say. The latter one that uses the original mask ROMs is most certainly a legitimate Raizing product.

The red sticker is a governmental seal of approval of this title being sold and operated in the region, which is a real thing.