Saturn Space Harrier Glitch

llabnip · Post by **llabnip** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:43 pm

I ran into something strange last night. I just picked up the japanese Sega Ages - Space Harrier for the Saturn. When I loaded it into my Saturn, it booted fine and started fine, but it seems to go through a slow-motion start/stop sequence while the game is being played. Very sporatic but fairly consistant. It's like those old MatCatz controllers for the Genesis which allowed you to play "slow motion" by hitting a button and the controller would alternate quickly between pause/unpause to simulate some slowdown. I tried another controller (and one of Sega's 3D controllers which is supported) but no difference. Checked the disc and it was clean. Tried rebooting the disc several times and no success.

I tried the same disc in another Saturn in my collection and that one worked fine. I noticed when the disc booted in this "working" machine, the rotating SEGA logo that you see on loading the game had some sound effects that were missing when I tried the same game in my original Saturn (though the music seemed to play fine on that unit). I tried a third Saturn in my collection and Space Harrier worked fine there as well. I did a quick scan/read of the CD in my PC and there were no problems reading the disc. It never seems to labor to load in any of the machines. My original Saturn has been playing hundreds of original games faithfully for many years - and I tried many other games last night on that unit and they all played fine - but Space Hairrier never ran properly. This original unit is a Japanese unit so there are no converter cart issues at play here.

I've never seen anything like it - anyone else have any information on what might cause this to happen on one game but not any others?

nem · Post by **nem** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:02 pm

Is your original Saturn a white one? And your spare one a different colour?

Out Run doesn't work on the white Saturn for some reason. Maybe it's a Sega Ages thing.

llabnip · Post by **llabnip** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:10 pm

nem wrote:Is your original Saturn a white one? And your spare one a different colour?

Out Run doesn't work on the white Saturn for some reason. Maybe it's a Sega Ages thing.

Interesting. No, the three Saturns that I tried are all US 2nd edition black Saturns.

However (and this may be important), the one that fails is the one I've modified the mainboard to make it look like a Japanese Saturn (simple cut and jumper) to avoid the glitches in Sokyu and since 90% of my collection is Japanese. With the cut-and-jumper on a US 2nd edition unit I've heard that this is supposedly equivilent to a standard Japanese white unit. I use this unit without a converter cart because it doesn't need one. My "working" units use a converter cart. For laughs, I did try the converter cart in my "Japanese" Saturn and that still had the same glitch (start/stop motion throughout gameplay). I've never seen anything like it before.

I have other Sega Ages games that run fine on all my Saturn units - Galaxy Force II, After Burner II, etc. I don't have OutRun to try. I'd be amazed that a Japanese OutRun (or Space Harrier) wouldn't run properly on a stock white Japanese Saturn.

Thanks for the first clue!

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:47 pm

Would you happen to have any diagrams of this "simple cut and jumper" modification?

I would like to mod my EURO PAL Saturn by adding a region switch as well as a 50/60HZ switch to play imports without the need of the region cart.

I also have mod chip installed in my Saturn.

Thanks

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:00 pm

Check it against the light for holes in the reflective layer. I had a Virtual On and Panzer Zwei do that due to the holes in the aluminium.

llabnip · Post by **llabnip** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:11 pm

ST Dragon wrote:Would you happen to have any diagrams of this "simple cut and jumper" modification?

It's been years since I did it, but I think this was the page:

http://www.gamesx.com/importmod/saturncon2.htm

I didn't bother with the switch - just cut the US connection and jumpered the Japanese region. It took all of 5 minutes.

ST Dragon · Post by **ST Dragon** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:55 pm

Thanks a lot!
I'll try it out.

~Kid Icarus~ · Post by **~Kid Icarus~** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:22 pm

nem wrote:Is your original Saturn a white one? And your spare one a different colour?

Out Run doesn't work on the white Saturn for some reason. Maybe it's a Sega Ages thing.

I have Space Harrier running on a white Saturn with no problems.

JBC · Post by **JBC** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 8:27 pm

What a coincidence... i just got through playing Space Harrier 32x for the first time in years...

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 8:51 am

llabnip wrote:
nem wrote:Is your original Saturn a white one? And your spare one a different colour?

Out Run doesn't work on the white Saturn for some reason. Maybe it's a Sega Ages thing.
Interesting. No, the three Saturns that I tried are all US 2nd edition black Saturns.

However (and this may be important), the one that fails is the one I've modified the mainboard to make it look like a Japanese Saturn (simple cut and jumper) to avoid the glitches in Sokyu and since 90% of my collection is Japanese. With the cut-and-jumper on a US 2nd edition unit I've heard that this is supposedly equivilent to a standard Japanese white unit. I use this unit without a converter cart because it doesn't need one. My "working" units use a converter cart. For laughs, I did try the converter cart in my "Japanese" Saturn and that still had the same glitch (start/stop motion throughout gameplay). I've never seen anything like it before.

I have other Sega Ages games that run fine on all my Saturn units - Galaxy Force II, After Burner II, etc. I don't have OutRun to try. I'd be amazed that a Japanese OutRun (or Space Harrier) wouldn't run properly on a stock white Japanese Saturn.

Thanks for the first clue!

I was amazed as well, but it really doesn't. Strange but true.