Rolling Thunder 3 region locked?

[Strider77]

I was just wondering if the USA Rolling Thunder 3 was region locked..... won't work in a japanese megadrive?

[Domino]

Easy:

Get the rom and emulator and tell the emulator to run the region in JAP mode. Run the rom and see if it works. If not you will get an error message.

[lgb]

this game does not seem to bug me about region locking with Domino's suggestion, but that isn't always proof of anything

[gameoverDude]

Rolling Thunder 2 (JPN) on USA mode: "APPLICABLE IN JAPAN ONLY!" appears on the NAMCOT for Sega Mega Drive screen.
Rolling Thunder 3 (USA) on JPN mode: No problem.

Lightening Force will give a "This game will only operate on the NTSC System" message when you try it in JPN mode. TF4 does likewise with USA mode ("This game is only for the Sega Megadrive distributed in Japan").

I got the same result as lgb on RT3. Looks like RT3 could work OK on an actual Mega Drive, based on Kega Fusion's behavior.

[BrianC]

Region Locking can be pretty odd. I know the JP Dynamite Headdy has it, but the US one works fine in JP mode.

[Ex-Cyber]

Region Locking can be pretty odd. I know the JP Dynamite Headdy has it, but the US one works fine in JP mode.

Yeah; it's not so much "region locking" as "region variation". The system itself doesn't actually have any region locking, it just has bits that can be read to tell which region the MD/Genesis is, and the game can use that for region locking if that's what the developer/publisher wants to do. It can also be used to display a different title screen, set up the screen differently for NTSC/PAL, compensate for NTSC/PAL timing differences, change difficulty, censor "questionable" bits, and so on.

[xris]

Was there a home port of the arcade version of the first game? The one I has as a kid (snes, I think) kinda sucked. The jump was too low, and it wasdifferent. Loved the arcade ver.

[BrianC]

Was there a home port of the arcade version of the first game? The one I has as a kid (snes, I think) kinda sucked. The jump was too low, and it wasdifferent. Loved the arcade ver.

There wasn't a SNES, port, but there was a NES/FC version. I heard the JP FC one has better music and an ending not in the US version. I think Rolling Thunder is in the JP only Namco Museum Encore for PS1. It's in Namco Museum 50th for PS2, Xbox, and GCN.

[lgb]

try Code Name: Viper for the NES, both of you

Was there a home port of the arcade version of the first game? The one I has as a kid (snes, I think) kinda sucked. The jump was too low, and it wasdifferent. Loved the arcade ver.

the jumps seem the same (port just has odd proportions or something), but the enemy patterns in the NES/FC port are more... predictable, I guess

I heard the JP FC one has better music

"better" is subjective here, but the FC version uses the namco106; dunno about the ending

[xris]

Thanks. It was around 20 years ago that I had this. I think it was the proportions, the arcade has this cool lanky gunslinger look. I wanna play this again.