SMS Just got these Sega Mark III / Master System games, they seem to be prototypes

[HoverEel]

Looking to see if I can find more info on these games and hopefully preserve the data if these haven't been done already. So all I really know so far is:

• Both labels are the same - they just say to contact the Sega sales office for "inquiries or consultation about machines".
• One game has "53" written in what was probably once white marker. This one loads on the Mark 3 and appears to be Thunder Blade
• The other game has "54" written on the back and appears to be Golvellius. Interestingly, it says "REPROGRAMMED GAME" on the main menu.
• I haven't tried to disassemble them yet. The labels and cases feel fairly brittle so I'm trying to avoid that at the moment, but I have a feeling it'll come to that eventually.

I haven't been able to play through them yet to see if there are any odd messages or bugs that would help identify them. Any info about things I can try or general info would be appreciated.

 

[HoverEel]

Not sure if it means much, but if I put the "53" game in my SC-3000, it just makes a clicking noise on the TV and never loads the game. The "54" game never loads the picture on the SC-3000, but the music starts playing.

 

[ItsMeMario]

1st of all, dump these for your own safety

 

[HoverEel]

1st of all, dump these for your own safety

Ha, yeah. A guy on reddit gave me the schematics to build a ROM dump device for these, but I haven't started building it yet. I may just buy the one from raphnet since building one would take a lot more time and maybe not save much cash. Sounds cool to build my own, but have plenty of projects to keep me busy already lol

 

[Yakumo]

The reprogrammed game on Golvellius is normal. Loads of Master System and Mega Drive games have "Reprogrammed game by Sega" on them. Just take a look at Capcom games on the Mega Drive such as Mercs, Ghouls'n Ghost or Strider for example.

 

[HoverEel]

The reprogrammed game on Golvellius is normal. Loads of Master System and Mega Drive games have "Reprogrammed game by Sega" on them. Just take a look at Capcom games on the Mega Drive such as Mercs, Ghouls'n Ghost or Strider for example.

Interesting. I haven't collected much for MS or Mega Drive yet (like 15 games between the two). Have around 90 Genesis games but don't recall seeing that on them. Do you know anything about this type of cartridge? I'm guessing it's a prototype of some sort, like maybe they were sent to reviewers or something before the official release. Or sent to Sega for final approval before the "gold" copies were sold. But I haven't found anything like them online so I'm just guessing at this point.

 

[PrOfUnD Darkness]

You should try http://smspower.org, they can answer your questions for sure!

 

[HoverEel]

You should try http://smspower.org, they can answer your questions for sure!

Good idea! I use that site sometimes to look up info on games and didn't even think of the fact that they have a forum.

 

[Yakumo]

T

Interesting. I haven't collected much for MS or Mega Drive yet (like 15 games between the two). Have around 90 Genesis games but don't recall seeing that on them. Do you know anything about this type of cartridge? I'm guessing it's a prototype of some sort, like maybe they were sent to reviewers or something before the official release. Or sent to Sega for final approval before the "gold" copies were sold. But I haven't found anything like them online so I'm just guessing at this point.

To me they just look like sample carts for stores. As PrOfUnD Darkness said, best to ask omar at SMS Power.

 

[HoverEel]

T

To me they just look like sample carts for stores. As PrOfUnD Darkness said, best to ask omar at SMS Power.

That may be the case. Bock over there says they have a similar one, but not the exact same. Didn't say what they thought it was, though. Here's a link to the thread if you want to check that one out, too. I tried to link this thread over there, but my account is still too new to post links.

 

[HoverEel]

I got the ROM dumper in from Raphnet today. Dumped the ROMs, and they do seem to be different from the ROMs I had already. For one, they're 512KB vs 256KB, and of course, the hashes are different. I'll post these below. Not sure which versions these are, but I imagine someone on here can reverse-engineer them to find out.

The files have been uploaded to Google Drive here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iHtyBw6MGHWKd8xc7G2JWSRHw4uIzKeN?usp=sha...

Thunder Blade ROM (256kb):
MD5: 70DCEE3C77E95D83FCF6DF0DAE30A4A8
SHA1: C38F3EEA4E7224BC6042723E88B26C85B1A56DDC

My Thunder Blade ROM (512kb):
MD5: 24092FCAE5A66C9AF48D2412EE4E156F
SHA1: 270A52E73681363F7D9F04B054566DA8ACCAAD61

Golvellius ROM:
MD5: 2101295C258CB6B845BDB72BE617691D
SHA1: CB8C2DE9A8E91C0E4E60E5D4D9958E671D84DA4C


My Golvellius ROM (512kb):
MD5: F0F415EAA4757C93070AB5F563E7F1D9
SHA1: 8DF055FAAE691DF7F255B85DA6C3220C06FF6166

 

[ehw]

The Golvellius ROM matches the previously dumped beta ROM from a little while a go (the other half of the ROM is just padded with null bytes). The Thunder Blade ROM is a unique ROM, but only a few changes. I'm unsure what the changes are though.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[HoverEel]

The Golvellius ROM matches the previously dumped beta ROM from a little while a go (the other half of the ROM is just padded with null bytes). The Thunder Blade ROM is a unique ROM, but only a few changes. I'm unsure what the changes are though.

Thanks for sharing.

Forgot to update: Bock over at smspower said:
Comparing It seems closer to the final version released in the west: only 218 bytes difference. 99 of the bytes are FF in the proto and varying data in the final version.
Someone would need to investigate the difference.

 

[PrOfUnD Darkness]

Thanks for sharing!