Pier Solar dumped and made playable

[BPzeBanshee]

http://emuconsoleexploitnews.blogspot.c ... umped.html

Didn't take me long to find the MESS build going around with ROM included. Also noticed some stuff in the GIT repo as well.

Not sure what to think of this. On one hand it's a shame those involved decided to go against the little guys but then again, it had to happen eventually.

[ZacharyB]

That's a shame... my condolensces to those involved.

[ryu]

are they even selling it anymore anyways?

[Op Intensify]

They sold out of the first printing, but there's a second on the way.

[Fudoh]

they actually sold out of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd printing already and a 4th (or 5th?) is upcoming....

[ryu]

alright, that sucks if they're making losses on the next printing

[Friendly]

It's not that black and white. The emulated game may inspire people who wouldn't have bought it otherwise to seek out the real thing.

[Drachenherz]

It's not that black and white. The emulated game may inspire people who wouldn't have bought it otherwise to seek out the real thing.

This.

I never thought I'd agree with friendly one day.

Well, okay, I conceptually agreed with him on the Ouya-thing... I backed the project and looking forward to my cube in march 13

[lilmanjs]

well, I'd grab this just to be able to play it again, but I don't want to spend the amount of hours it would take to get back to where I got stuck before I semi-broke my genesis. plus, is this just the fm music, or is the enhanced CD useable?

[BPzeBanshee]

If the enhanced CD is usable via MESS I haven't figured out how yet. Best luck is probably with using that QMC2 or whatever it's called for a frontend.

I was thinking of actually compiling a build of MESS from the SVN to see what Metallic's changes to the Megadrive driver do for Pier Solar. The article and some other places imply a special build ala Slowpoke MAME but I suspect going from the GIT repo page that I saw that it'll end up in official builds at some point soon.

[Ed Oscuro]

If I had a game out as long as Pier Solar I'd be pretty happy it was left untouched for this long. Hope it doesn't hurt their sales.

[Ganelon]

Not sure what to think of this. On one hand it's a shame those involved decided to go against the little guys but then again, it had to happen eventually.

Watermelon took the risk of opting to go with staggered sales in order to keep demand (and therefore prices) high. Even so, they should have earned most of the potential sales from this 2-year old game already. That said, I wish the folks who cracked this game would've put that time into cracking the 3DS's region protection instead. I think that would be of much more benefit to gaming consumers.

[Ex-Cyber]

Watermelon took the risk of opting to go with staggered sales in order to keep demand (and therefore prices) high. Even so, they should have earned most of the potential sales from this 2-year old game already.

Also, they were pretty specifically marketing this at people who still have the original console in a playable state. While this development might eventually lead to a bootleg release or a ROM hacked to run on a regular flash cart or copier, in the short term I doubt there's going to be a big overlap in the user base.

That said, I wish the folks who cracked this game would've put that time into cracking the 3DS's region protection instead. I think that would be of much more benefit to gaming consumers.

I'm not a 3DS expert, but as a rule of thumb you can't really narrowly target the region protection on modern game systems. You either own the whole thing or you go home empty-handed (notwithstanding the possibility of doing warez by cloning the media/hacking the reader, but that doesn't get around signature checks on the contents). Looking at the commit I think this protection is not even in the same universe of difficulty as cracking the 3DS firmware. It looks like the protection is pretty rudimentary (though obviously that's only judging from what's emulated so far; has anyone actually finished the game on an emulator yet?).

[Ganelon]

Also, they were pretty specifically marketing this at people who still have the original console in a playable state.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if up to 20% of the copies sold were intended for collecting or reselling. And given that I don't support pirates or profiteers, I certainly wouldn't mind at all if that market plummets. One other aspect I'm wondering is how this development will affect Project Y. Watermelon's next MD game probably won't be able to use the same encryption but I hope it succeeds.

As for the 3DS, I'm all for breaking the 3DS kernel down completely. Nintendo has to be blasted with a clear message that region locking is not OK. It's also really lame that it's easier to play bootleg WiiWare and DSiWare games from other regions than it is to legitimately buy them. Unfortunately, folks seem to be too busy going after Sony's systems again (PS3 exploiting led to Linux being canned, resulting in more angry hackers). If we lose region free support during the next generation because Sony found that it didn't result in anything beneficial, then I'll be upset.

[BPzeBanshee]

Looking at the commit I think this protection is not even in the same universe of difficulty as cracking the 3DS firmware. It looks like the protection is pretty rudimentary (though obviously that's only judging from what's emulated so far; has anyone actually finished the game on an emulator yet?).

I had one go and didn't even get into the damn cave - I got flogged really quickly. Doesn't play anything like the old Beta (which had no protection at all, had IMHO better MD music and was actually provided by Watermelon themselves). So I'm not sure if it actually goes to beatable but I do suspect something a little odd about the water stream texture I saw when I played (I'll find a vid of it on YouTube to compare), so who knows.

[BPzeBanshee]

Bump.

Had a go at Genesis Plus GX 1.7.3 on my Wii today. Turns out it supports the 'enhanced audio' of Pier Solar's music disc, at least via ISO on an SD card.

Guess the only standout feature left now is whether the main ROM was dumped properly and the game is playable from start to finish, and if those with the special CD that actually had Special Feature stuff on it can get that to work.

[null1024]

Found it pretty quickly. Too quickly. Haven't sat down and played it [it starts up at least], and I'll probably just buy and play the DC version when that comes out anyway [haven't had my Genesis in years, my mom tossed it out ]. The game does look pretty though.

MESS's Genesis emulation [this is in general] isn't particularly great, I'd expect a few graphical issues.

As for the protection, at a glance it doesn't look like much, but that doesn't say much.
And what the hell MESS/MAME, isn't the criteria 5 years after release before you put it in? It's only been 2 years.

Genesis Plus supports this out of the box? Interesting.

[burgerkingdiamond]

It's not that black and white. The emulated game may inspire people who wouldn't have bought it otherwise to seek out the real thing.

Yeah. There is zero chance of me actually playing through the game as I'm only a lukewarm RPG fan, plus I don't have the time for them. I only want to see what all the fuss is about.

[ED-057]

IMO any sort of copy-protection should be considered temporary at best. That`s just the reality of it. Besides, I imagine that most of the people in the extremely niche market to buy a new game on a cartridge for an old system are not going to abandon it to play an emulator.

wrt the thread title "Pier Solar dumped and made playable"... savestates would indeed make the game "playable" :p

[BPzeBanshee]

wrt the thread title "Pier Solar dumped and made playable"... savestates would indeed make the game "playable" :p

Genesis Plus GX seemed to handle savestates for it fine, MESS on the other hand is a bit iffy.

And what the hell MESS/MAME, isn't the criteria 5 years after release before you put it in? It's only been 2 years.

3 years, officially Pier Solar came out in 2010, and it's not on MESS's software lists so technically it's not "officially" supported, rather some emulation core fixes have been made so that it actually starts up because that's what an accurate Megadrive emulator should do.

Clearly Eke-Eke seemed to think along those lines too because I read from his Google Code page that he got the enhanced music to work with it simultaneously in the process of getting Sega CD emulation to work .

[Shelcoof]

It's not that black and white. The emulated game may inspire people who wouldn't have bought it otherwise to seek out the real thing.

I actually agree with this as well. I've made tons and tons of purchases based playing the game on emulation first or a bootleg copy of the original. Even if its an RPG or something and I'm left feeling wow that was a good game I go ahead and purchase it for my library of games

[stryc9]

Don't ruin the game by using save states, that's my advice. And stay away from the FAQ as well, at least as much as you can, so far I've worked out the majority of the game myself, and the feeling of reward is worth it. It's one of the few RPGs these days with no hand holding - not only that, there is hidden shit everywhere, secret passages, the lot.

There is also a segment of the game with no inns or item shops for ages, it tested me but I got thru with the right planning. PROTIP: Don't ever sell elemental accessories like Dragon's Teeth, Towels etc. You may live to regret it

Me, I'll stick to the cart version