bytestorm wrote:PC Engine Fan X! wrote:Ah yes, the venerable classic that is Seibu Kaihatsu's Viper Phase 1...it was the American arcade distributor known as Fabtek whom handled such VP1 kits for sale stateside and released under the proper name as: Viper Phase 1 U.S.A. back in the bronze age of the arcades in 1995. At my local arcade hangout, The Electric Underground, a single session of VP1 was priced at a mere four nickels per credit. And not to mention since it was housed inside a Dynamo upright cab setup, it saved both high scores and high score initials via backup battery onboard the SP1 mobo itself.
If you can get a USA region VP1 SP1 cartridge in the neighborhood of $50 USD, that's a mighty fine & respectable price to pay for one, indeed.
For some arcade STG purists, they'd prefer playing/owning the original JPN region VP1 cart over the later second revision release of VP1 (but that's them folks). Yep, VP1 USA was quite a popular arcade STG game to see/play at the local arcades back in the mid to late 1990s.
PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
Wow, is it possible to find it around 50usd? then i would buy it definitely
need a mobo thou, as jeneki said, the update isnt that fun to get every time.. hmm
i have seen ppl talking about the NEW and old version of viper 1.. is that what you mean by u.s.a version? is that the new one?
i need to check whats the differences
and start looking for a spi mobo!
If you place an WTB SP1 Viper Phase 1 U.S.A. cart in the Trading section, it's doable to snag one at that possible price.
Actually, you only need to update the SP1 mobo just once if booting up a VP1 cart for the first time. Once it's done, there's no need to update if you don't remove the VP1 cart, of course.
Fabtek released the VP1-U.S.A. cart which is known as the JPN region "Viper Phase 1 New Version" at the various Japanese based game centers back in the mid-1990s. Both SP1 carts have the same gameplay and game mechanics but just different main title screens + regional country statements.
Either a JPN or USA region SP1 mobo & the appropriate region SP1 carts of:
Raiden Fighters
Raiden Fighters 2: Operation Hell Dive
Raiden Fighters Jet (there is a single layer SP1 mobo + cart combo released under the proper name of "Raiden Fighters Jet 2000" PCB and is the China region variant release -- is regarded as an official Seibu Kaihatsu SP1 release despite it being released in two different single layer PCB configurations: one with the good Yamaha sound chip in place and a 2nd version with the lower-grade Oki audio chip installed on-board such a single layer SP1 mobo + cart combo setup. But in going with either single layer SP1 version of RFJ-2K, the audio will still be presented in mono format. It's recommended to get the older 1st-gen SP1 mobo + the separate dedicated SP1 cart of RFJ for stereo sound output via a 4-pinout audio interface, assuming that if you have a stereo capable candy cab to play it on for better audio fidelity hands down. Pick your poison.)
Viper Phase 1 (Old Version) - for the JPN region SP1 mobo
Viper Phase 1 New Version - for the JPN region SP1 mobo
Viper Phase 1 U.S.A. (is the same version as that of the JPN region VP1-NV cart indeed) - for the USA region SP1 mobo
In my case, it helps to have both JPN & USA region SP1 mobos on hand so I don't run into the dreaded issue of booting up the wrong JPN or USA SP1 cart on the wrong country region SP1 mobo. Otherwise, a code error message will appear if you try to boot up, for example, a JPN region SP1 cart on a USA region SP1 mobo and vice versa with a JPN SP1 mobo with a USA SP1 cart setup. You can't mix 'n' match such different regional SP1 carts with different regional SP1 mobos anyways -- they both have to be the same region together in order to boot up properly. And finally, the golden rule is to never turn off the SP1 mobo during an update session, (otherwise your favorite SP1 cart will become bricked). A bricked SP1 cart can be revived but at considerable cost to get it back to 100% working condition.
Hope all this related SP1 info helps you out in acquiring them for your own private arcade STG collection/stash, bytestorm.
PC Engine Fan X! ^_~
