Thunder Force III region diffs + Tecno Soft miscs

[BIL]

Been playing the hell out of TFIII on my MD + JP cart this week. Noticed while watching someone's YT run that, besides "Tecno Soft" becoming "Techno Soft" on the US version's title screen, enemies seem slightly less resilient (comparing both versions on Mania difficulty). Recorded some quick videos of Hydra to illustrate:

US ver
Japan ver

It's most apparent around 1:40, the vine-covered section where pairs of hornets enter from the right. In the JP version it's seemingly impossible to kill both from above using Fire. In the US version both will die every time, no sweat. Similar applies to the three that enter immediately before reaching Gargoyle. The opening area of Ellis is also noticeably easier to clear of enemies with a default ship in US.

This variation becomes almost unnoticeable once you get the better weapons - it's really only relevant when starting out or immediately after dying. Still, it's a neat bit of near-invisible tinkering from TS. Since TFIII is one of those cartridges that'll match the region of its host system, if you've got a multi-region setup you can switch between the two.

[BrianC]

Thanks for the info. I have the JP cart and a region switched Genesis, but I never did a real comparison between versions.

[louisg]

Very interesting! I wonder why it's switchable on the same cart since it sounds kind of like a positive balance tweak.

[Ghegs]

Sounds like your basic case of "Those silly gaijin cannot handle this! We must make it easier, so that the gaijin will not be ashamed and stop buying our superior Nippon games."

[louisg]

Sounds like your basic case of "Those silly gaijin cannot handle this! We must make it easier, so that the gaijin will not be ashamed and stop buying our superior Nippon games."

'cept that reversed later on. Supposedly the change was due to people renting games, beating them, and not buying them. Does the jp mode make TF3 harder the whole way through on normal diff.?

[BIL]

I was thinking it was either your typical overseas difficulty tweak... or the overseas version code was being worked on later than the domestic, and it's technically the definitive version (the US ver was released a day or so after the JP, according to GameFAQs).

It's really a very tiny tweak, I only noticed because I was specifically trying to maximise my shootdown rate on Hydra.

Would be interesting to know how Thunder Force Gold Pack 1's version of TFIII behaves! I'm guessing it's based on the JP version, since in that pack TFII is "Thunder Force II MD."

[louisg]

I was thinking it was either your typical overseas difficulty tweak... or the overseas version code was being worked on later than the domestic, and it's technically the definitive version.

It sounded like just a later revision to me, but then I can't figure out why they'd include the old one if the region is set to jp.

[BIL]

Yeah, it is weird. Assuming it's not a deliberate regional change, maybe for whatever reason it was more economical to leave the JP code alone. Or maybe the devs forgot to update enemy HP values while they were busy altering the Tecno Soft logo and any other text changes for the overseas version (no idea if there are any).

[ryu]

maybe it's just that the bytes moved by the region switch somehow have an unwanted effect on that part of the game

edit:

besides "Tecno Soft" becoming "Techno Soft" on the US version's title screen, enemies seem slightly less resilient (comparing both versions on Mania difficulty)

ok, forget what is said.

[BrianC]

I was thinking it was either your typical overseas difficulty tweak... or the overseas version code was being worked on later than the domestic, and it's technically the definitive version (the US ver was released a day or so after the JP, according to GameFAQs).

The US version appears to be on the JP cart as well.

[BIL]

Yep, it is. It seems the only difference between a Mega Drive and Genesis Thunder Force III cartridge is the cart shell and label. I assume that, since domestic and overseas machines would default to their intended version of the game anyway, there was no incentive to spend time/money on separate ROM revisions. Just do a single multi-region run and let distribution take care of the rest.

Neo Geo AES cartridges operate the same way (all cartridges contain the same data, with region determined by the host system). I wish this had been standard policy across all MD games... I'd like to play the US versions of Hard Cops and Vampire Killer occasionally, but I'll need to get the physical cartridges for that.

[BrianC]

Neo Geo AES cartridges operate the same way (all cartridges contain the same data, with region determined by the host system). I wish this had been standard policy across all MD games... I'd like to play the US versions of Hard Cops and Vampire Killer occasionally, but I'll need to get the physical cartridges for that.

At least the US carts are much cheaper than their JP counterparts (though both seem to have gone up in price. ugh). I do wish that all MD games had both US and JP versions, though.

[Captain]

Now I'm gonna hafta hunt down the JP version or at least get a rom.

I always thought things died too quickly in TF3.

[BrianC]

Now I'm gonna hafta hunt down the JP version or at least get a rom.

If you don't mind some soldering, a region switch is probably a better solution, since both US and JP carts have the exact same rom. A Game Genie or other cheat device is another solution to changing the region of a multi region game. If you play the JP version on a US Genesis, it will still boot up as the US version.

[moonwhistle]

It's an irelevant difference but the Jap versions of the Megadrive Thunder Forces require holding abc + start to access the option screen. I think this is the case for all three games. iirc the thunder force gold packs on saturn require the same thing.

Thunder Force III is king. That music!

[BIL]

Are you sure? Just holding "A" when hitting Start works fine for me in all three MD Thunder Forces (Japan carts + JP console). Same with Devil Crash MD and Elemental Master... Tecno Soft's weird little trademark, that. I wonder how many players never read the manual or experimented with the buttons and never knew these games had option menus.

I actually only just clicked with TFIII this last couple weeks. At a glance it just seemed like an overly strict memoriser with killer presentation and music. What a great shooter once you get the basic stage layouts down, though. Even knowing the game inside-out, the dense level design and fast pace make every Maniac no-miss attempt feel on the edge. Superbly entertaining game.

[Kollision]

Yeah, and it's A + START also in the Gold Pack compilations for the Sega Saturn.
Because, you know, ABC + START will send you back to the previous menu....

I love ABC + START on the Saturn by the way

[BIL]

I love ABC + START on the Saturn by the way

Me too, the Saturn is an arcade port machine and soft reset is invaluable for games where I'm liable to screw up several early credits in rapid succession.

[moonwhistle]

Yeah A + Start it is, it's been while since I played them.

[BrianC]

Yeah, I played Thunder Force II and III in JP mode again and I can confirm the differences in III (especially with those wasp like enemies) and A+Start for the options in both. I didn't notice any differences in II in JP mode aside from "Tecnosoft" and the extra "MD" on the title screen, but the differences in III have me curious. I wonder if Herzog Zwei has differences as well. It also has the "Tecnosoft" and "Technosoft" difference, but the JP cart curiously plays in English, no matter what the setting.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

On a side note with regards to multi-region endowed single Sega MD/Genesis carts & 32X based carts:

What's fascinating is the JPN region Mega Drive cart of Virtua Racing has both the JPN region and PAL/SECAM versions all on one cart. However, if this same JPN region VR cart is booted up on a USA region Genesis console, it'll bring up the message that this particular game can only be played in a JPN MD or PAL/French Secam MD consoles. And get this, if you play the Free Run mode of any track selected without any A.I. drivers, the framerate is super silky-smooth faster if played in PAL mode than in JPN region NTSC mode.

On the USA region 32X cart of Cosmic Carnage, a 2D one-on-one brawler, it becomes the JPN region Super 32X game of "Cyber Brawl" (with a completely different opening intro/storyline/main title screen) if played on/booted up a JPN region MD console with a USA region 32X unit add-on installed. SOJ was wise to have all the various regions all contained in a single 32X cart rather than burning various regional versions for each territory to save on overall production costs. Strange but true.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[BIL]

Turns out there are similar nerfs in the overseas versions of Thunder Force IV, according to this thread. Not as surprised about TFIII's alterations now.

[Captain]

Other than the nerfs to some bosses/enemies that differentiate the US/JP versions of Thunder Force 4, does Lightening Force have any other differences?

[louisg]

So there's no version of TF3 that's *only* the japan version on the cart, is there?

[BIL]

Other than the nerfs to some bosses/enemies that differentiate the US/JP versions of Thunder Force 4, does Lightening Force have any other differences?

Not that I'm aware of. Icarus knows TFIV very well, and he didn't list anything else in that thread.

It's worth reiterating that unlike TFIII, TFIV got different ROM revisions for US, EU and JP regions. So you can't just put a US cart in a Japanese MD and get JP difficulty. It's chip-locked too, so you'll need a way of bypassing that to play a JP cart on a US console.

My TFIV 2c: once you go Gold Pack you never go back. Or rarely go back, anyway. I really dislike how the music often bogs down in the MD version of TFIV. For this reason I consider the Saturn version's weaker sound effects a lesser evil. Besides the inherently cooler cartridge+snapcase format, it is still pretty nice having MD TFIV around for the authentic experience of Tecno Soft lashing the machine within an inch of its life.

TFIII actually has a tiny touch of audio lag too, but it's relatively unnoticeable (blasting Sever+CRAW during Gorgon's flame pillars can make the music lag just a bit - luckily there's almost never anything to shoot at those points).

So there's no version of TF3 that's *only* the japan version on the cart, is there?

From my limited research, it seems not. I've not heard of any revised carts (a la The Super Shinobi), and every TFIII ROM I can find is classified as "JU." Seems there was just the one bi-region cart.

Although there was no official PAL release, it seems TFIII will run fine in a PAL Mega Drive, albeit slowed down to 50hz.

[louisg]

From my limited research, it seems not. I've not heard of any revised carts (a la The Super Shinobi), and every TFIII ROM I can find is classified as "JU." Seems there was just the one bi-region cart.

That's too bad. I was looking for a way of playing it on my Everdrive in J mode even though I have a legit US cart. Hmm I bet it can't be too hard to hack Set a watch where it queries the region and then load the Japan region value instead..? Assuming I guess I can pad it so that the size remains the same. Any ROM hackers here wanna weigh in on how do-able this is?

[trap15]

Very easily doable, probably
Just find the check for the region, and NOP it out and hard-code it to think it's Japanese

[TransatlanticFoe]

Although there was no official PAL release, it seems TFIII will run fine in a PAL Mega Drive, albeit slowed down to 50hz.

I've wondered about this. I have the Genesis Twin Cobra and it's noticeably slower as a result of running on a PAL system, most obviously in the music (vs. emulated and, for music, the arcade version). However TFIII doesn't behave like that, it seems to be running at the same speed. I have a Genesis Sonic 2 cart that's the same. I assume that, although there was no PAL TFIII release, there is a PAL optimised version on the cart?

[BIL]

Quite possibly! Tecno Soft did go to the trouble of optimising TFIV for 50hz, so that sounds plausible.

[Spyke]

Great to see TFIII being discussed. I own the Jp version and play on a multi-region console. It only displays correctly for me when set to the correct Japanese "mode". I can complete it fairly easily but TFIII AC on the Saturn Thunderforce Gold Pack 2 is much harder! I'm still a way off from completing that one. But there are quite a few extra enemies in the Saturn AC version and they seem slightly more resilient perhaps...

Ant