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Newbie. Trying to find pirate GBA "Rockman & Crysta
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Rockmaniac



Joined: 13 Oct 2008
Posts: 5
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 10:22 am    Post subject: Newbie. Trying to find pirate GBA "Rockman & Crysta Reply with quote

Hey peeps.

I'm New here - and am a Mega Man / Rockman fan & collector...

now I'm wondering - does anyone have any info of a rom of - or prefferably - a seller of the pirate cart "Rockman & Crystal" for GBA, been trying to find it forever - loving its box art... And am an obsessed collector...

Can anyone help out? PM Me - or write here...

Thanks

/Pete
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TheRedEye
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi


Joined: 26 Aug 2003
Posts: 4192
Location: Oakland, CA

PostPosted: Mon Oct 13, 2008 6:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This website is about unreleased games, meaning games that never came out. While some people here might be able to help you, please don't post things that are not about unreleased games in a subforum called "unreleased games."
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mrdomino



Joined: 16 Aug 2005
Posts: 167

PostPosted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

i'm quite interested in this game as well, although from an entirely different angle - try as i might i can't bring myself to give a shit about mega man, but i am endlessly fascinated by weird pirate originals and unlicensed taiwanese/chinese games, and this seems to be one of the last of its kind.

i've been looking for it for a while with no particular luck - all i can suggest is keep an eye on ebay, or visit the sorts of countries where you'd find bootleg gba games for sale openly (anywhere outside of north america, western europe and japan, pretty much). if i do ever find it, though, i will most certainly dump it
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Boco



Joined: 24 Dec 2007
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 7:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have this game and am attempting to dump it (using a DS with an M3 Simply) but am not having much success. The dump clearly has part of the game data since if I open it in a tile viewer some data from the opening sequence is visible. But it won't play in any emulator and I doubt the whole game is present.

Here is what I got when I tried to dump it.

Some images of the game's intro:
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t133/Boco_XLVII/crystal/Nov17_004.jpg
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t133/Boco_XLVII/crystal/Nov17_007.jpg
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t133/Boco_XLVII/crystal/Nov17_010.jpg

And of course some gameplay images:
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t133/Boco_XLVII/crystal/Nov17_012.jpg
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t133/Boco_XLVII/crystal/Nov17_014.jpg
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t133/Boco_XLVII/crystal/Nov17_016.jpg

There's text in the game too. Searching for it might reveal whether the dump is missing data (as I suspect) or not.
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t133/Boco_XLVII/crystal/Nov17_017.jpg

Any help or advice would be appreciated.
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Carnivol
gay dickhead


Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 576
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 6:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That thing looks fantastic. (The English in the last shot is perfect)

Trying to start it on my flash cart gives me the same result as in VBA, just a blank white screen.


I'm no wizard, but quickly opening the rom in a hex editor shows that the first segment of the rom is like repeated 32 times in a row (up until half-way-ish)

Something might not click right when you're trying to dump/backup this one. You should probably try some alternative methods, if possible/available.
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Boco



Joined: 24 Dec 2007
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 9:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any suggestions?

I have access to an M3 Simply, like I said above. It's basically an R4 (same hardware, different firmware). I used GBA Backup Tool v0.21 to get that misdump, which, yeah, seems to be the same 256k or so repeated over and over.

Is there any other tool I should use?

I don't have a flash linker or other copier available, but I'll be glad to send my cart to someone who does (provided some assurance of trustworthiness) if there's no way to dump it with what I've got.
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Carnivol
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Joined: 21 Jun 2004
Posts: 576
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 12:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't have much experience with the reliability of backing up Slot-2 cartridges through a Slot-1 device on an NDS, unfortunately.

Anyway, check your PM box in a few, by the way.
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billscat-socks



Joined: 17 Oct 2008
Posts: 50

PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 8:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey, I know this background! http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t133/Boco_XLVII/crystal/Nov17_016.jpg

It's from Pulseman. Crazy pirates Very Happy I hope a dump shows up soon. Somehow pirates do a better job than shitty fan games even if it still is shitty in itself.
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Boco



Joined: 24 Dec 2007
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's not actually a terrible game - I've certainly played worse commercially-released games in my time. With some polish it'd be pretty good. I'd probably call it 70% or 80% complete.

It has an intro stage, 8 bosses stages (with 2 of them being action stages like in 8 and the later X games), and a final stage with boss refights. You get a new weapon from each boss, there's hidden armor capsules with powerups like in the X games, each new weapon is chargeable, etc..

But the walljump physics are wonky, ladders don't work very well, it's hard to gauge the damage on weapons because each "pixel" of life is really 6 HP, spikes only do 1 damage, and normal enemies drop E-tanks about as often as anything else. Oh and most of the enemies (including bosses) are recolors of enemies from other games (though always with new AI). And there's no final boss - after the boss refights you get the ending.

It's by the same makers of Rockman Z (aka Zook Z) and Rockman X3 for GBC by the way.

I'd really like to dump it and share it but, eh. I'll try a few things tonight but I don't think GBA Backup Tool even works on all commercial titles (though it dumped Sword of Mana fine when I tested it) much less on this obscure pirate cart which probably has a different memory layout or whatever. (Still taking suggestions for other tools to use!)
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KingMike



Joined: 04 Nov 2003
Posts: 898

PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 9:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It wouldn't surprise me.
Pirates are known for putting more effort into copy-protection than commercial games (since they don't to spend effort on the actual content. :P ), however hypocritical it is.
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Dais



Joined: 26 May 2004
Posts: 142

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

What's the music like? It is crappy MIDI-sounding stuff? Or maybe it's one of those games that uses the Z80 co-processor to turn out original Game Boy sounding stuff*?

Did you recognize any of it? If you can't dump the game, it's still be nice if you could use line-in to your computer to record a few tunes.

I've always been (passively) interested in GBA pirate games, and I wish there were more....a large part of that is that a lot of pirate games have frankly terrible music, but the GBA certainly has the capacity to outshine all but the most classic of 8-bit stuff.



*note that this is a knowingly vague description of a technique which, due to my memory, may not actually exist
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mrdomino



Joined: 16 Aug 2005
Posts: 167

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

are there any more gba pirate originals that you know of? i saw something called "star wars 3" in turkey which i passed over thinking it to be a copy of one of the legit star wars games with a crappy pirate cover, but apparently its original and a space invaders clone or something.

other than that i've come across a bunch of weird pokemon games which turned out to be fan-made romhacks slapped in a cartridge, and something called "kirby red diamond" which may or may not be an original, but if it is then its probably a game boy game running in an emulator (as far as i can work out from some unreliable looking kirby fansites), and thats about it.
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Boco



Joined: 24 Dec 2007
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 7:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dais wrote:
What's the music like? It is crappy MIDI-sounding stuff? Or maybe it's one of those games that uses the Z80 co-processor to turn out original Game Boy sounding stuff*?

Did you recognize any of it? If you can't dump the game, it's still be nice if you could use line-in to your computer to record a few tunes.

I recorded a few songs from it at work, but then the batteries on my DS ran out so I couldn't get all of them. Here's the 9 I managed to grab.

I named them based on whose portrait the boss's was edited from. For reference, here's the stage select screen:

That's Burstman, Explose Horneck, some guy, and Coldman on the top, and Burnerman, Turboman, Boomer Kuwanger, and Screw Masaider on the bottom. Of course none of them are unedited, but Burnerman is barely changed for one. A few of them use original sprites for their in-game appearances, but most are copies of something - Boomer guy is a copy of Asura Mazda from Rockman Zero for example, and Burnerman guy is a copy of (who guessed it?) Burnerman.

So I got the music from the game's intro, the intro stage, the boss music, the stage select, and the level music from the four guys on the left plus the guy made of rocks whose portrait I can't identify the original of.

EDIT: Of all the music I think the Explose Horneck guy's level is best.
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Dais



Joined: 26 May 2004
Posts: 142

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the music! Definitely 8-bit sounding, and some of the songs sound familiar, but I don't know any of them. Then again, I haven't really experienced the music of Mega Man 3-6 or the corresponding Game Boy games. It'd be pretty crazy if they actually composed some original stuff, though. Maybe I'll pass these songs by some Mega Man fans...

The rock guy looks like he wasn't originally a normal robot master or based off one of the X/Zero/EXE designs. Perhaps he's cribbed from the arcade games or some other source rarely thought about.
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Boco



Joined: 24 Dec 2007
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well none of those portraits weren't edited. They're all at least a bit different, some significantly so. I just couldn't find one that matches the rock guy very well. I think his sprites in the actual game though are from the boulder-guy enemies in Sting Chameleo's level in X1.

None of the music is from any Rockman game, I just don't know if it's from other games (commercial or pirate) or not. Some of the enemies look like Sonic enemies so I wouldn't put it past them.
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Carnivol
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Joined: 21 Jun 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Boco wrote:
Explose Horneck and Screw Masaider


Those guys sound like the best tag team, ever. Someday I have to see this thing in action.
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Boco



Joined: 24 Dec 2007
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 4:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Carnivol wrote:
Boco wrote:
Explose Horneck and Screw Masaider


Those guys sound like the best tag team, ever. Someday I have to see this thing in action.

Well you'll need to blame Capcom for those, since they're in Rockman X3. Explose Horneck and Screw Masaider.

Boco wrote:

That's Burstman, Explose Horneck, some guy, and Coldman on the top, and Burnerman, Turboman, Boomer Kuwanger, and Screw Masaider on the bottom.

And there's the original portraits for comparison.
??????
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TheRedEye
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi


Joined: 26 Aug 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Boco wrote:

That's Burstman, Explose Horneck, some guy, and Coldman on the top, and Burnerman, Turboman, Boomer Kuwanger, and Screw Masaider on the bottom.


I like how Boomer Kuwanger's portrait looks entirely non-threatening. It doesn't look like the usual Dr. Wily publicity photo, it looks like his girlfriend surprised him with a camera while he was reading the morning paper.
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Carnivol
gay dickhead


Joined: 21 Jun 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Boco wrote:
Carnivol wrote:
Boco wrote:
Explose Horneck and Screw Masaider


Those guys sound like the best tag team, ever. Someday I have to see this thing in action.

Well you'll need to blame Capcom for those, since they're in Rockman X3. Explose Horneck and Screw Masaider.



Oh my! I can't believe I didn't know those names. I guess in the case of X3... I must've been too focused on Bilzzard Buffalo.
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billscat-socks



Joined: 17 Oct 2008
Posts: 50

PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 5:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any news with this? Is there any chance of that cart getting properly dumped? This game seems interesting Smile
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