Radical Dreamers -Mandarake-

[Kamigami]

This is old i suppose:
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2008/10/own-the-long-lo/
I knew Radical was expensive .. rare.. ect..

what make me curious is the fact that a guy in the comment point out that is pretty simple write a blank mempack.
Never thought about that.

But if it's that simple to made a copy of this game even in the actual form .. how it's possible the price is so high in any case?

just cause it's mandarake?

How you can tell the game is downloaded in the 90' and noty just popped in by writer...

f*** is a loooot of money. :mad:

[Jorpho]

what make me curious is the fact that a guy in the comment point out that is pretty simple write a blank mempack.Writing a game to a satellaview mempack is probably not all that trivial. You can see a pic at the bottom of http://bof2.blogspot.com/ that shows someone using a BS-X cart as a dev unit, though, so maybe it's not impossible.

Certainly, I've never heard of anyone doing something like this before, and the fact that the price is so high suggests that if it is possible, it's not something that a lot of people can do.

[izarate]

Not everyone has access to the know-how to accomplish that, not to mention the tools and expertise. And the people that do certaintly don't have an unlimited supply of both BS-X units and mempacks either.

I guess that the best one can hope is that someone takes upon himself to hack the ROM to make it playable on a real SNES without the need of a BS-X (RD can be player on emulators but the emus emulate the BS-X to do so) like the F-Zero 2 hack that is floating around.

[Jorpho]

I guess that the best one can hope is that someone takes upon himself to hack the ROM to make it playable on a real SNES without the need of a BS-X (RD can be player on emulators but the emus emulate the BS-X to do so) like the F-Zero 2 hack that is floating around.BS-X emulation is a relatively recent phenomenon - Radical Dreamers actually behaves very nicely in emulators that know nothing about the BS-X. (The only catch is that sometimes you get a weird menu before you can start the game, but it doesn't cause any problems whatsoever.) That is certainly not the case for all BS-X games, but the same can be said for many of them.

Also, http://www.gamereproductions.com/products/Radical-Dreamers.html.

[izarate]

Also, http://www.gamereproductions.com/products/Radical-Dreamers.html.

Well, in that case there's nothing to fuss about then. :D

[Kamigami]

the problem is not playing the game.
As you said is not that simple to write a mempack (you need the hardware, a blank mempack ... software , witer and stuffs)
but obv .. it's possible.
This make me fuss about the possibility that someone can do that.

Who knows if that mempack wasn't flashed this way?

[Jorpho]

but obv .. it's possible.It might be possible. You can't say for certain that the mempack in question was not actually written to all those years ago when the Satellaview service was actually in operation.


This make me fuss about the possibility that someone can do that.I suppose we'll know if someone can do that if many more carts of this nature start turning up.

[TonyTheTiger]

Not everyone has access to the know-how to accomplish that, not to mention the tools and expertise. And the people that do certaintly don't have an unlimited supply of both BS-X units and mempacks either.

How many games can a mempack hold? There aren't that many Satellaview games. Any idea how many mempacks would be needed for the full set? Unless it's one per game or something I figure quantity of mempacks wouldn't be an insurmountable problem.

[Kiddo]

How many games can a mempack hold? There aren't that many Satellaview games. Any idea how many mempacks would be needed for the full set? Unless it's one per game or something I figure quantity of mempacks wouldn't be an insurmountable problem.

There is a LOT of Undumped Satellaview game data that is unaccounted for. We do not even have all the games that could be "downloaded" like Radical Dreamers, never mind the Soundlink programs (Off the top of my head, the Kirby no Omachahako line is not complete, we're missing the "Bakusho Mondai" version of Wario's Woods, There's probably a LOT of "Tamori no Picross" segments, and other celebrity game lines include "Yuki no Jigsaws" and "WAIWAI Kids". There's also Satellaview variations of commerical releases that aren't dumped. Soundlink data? There's so much Soundlink data not accounted for it'd make this post a really long one.). These could take hundreds upon hundreds more Memory Packs being obtained to be properly archived - and most of the time a pack such as that is identified before a purchase, it ends up in the hands of a hoarding collector rather than a true archiver.

And quite a few of the collectors probably don't even know what they're buying.

To the best of my knowledge there is no "current" Method to re-write data into a Memory Pack - and that is likely for the best, since I'm still in the pursuit of data preservation, and being able to re-write data into the Packs could be a real hazard for that.
I've asked other collectors high and low and they know of nothing that would resemble that, as well. Most likely, one was never developed because interest in the Satellaview is a recent phenomenon (Which I probably blame myself partly for).
Therefore, the most likely scenario is that that Radical Dreamers Memory Pack has been going around for many years. I have heard from some buddies that Squaresoft's Satellaview game library does not "expire" like some other titles, which adds to their collectibility.

Memory Packs can hold up to 8M (1024kb) of data. To the best of my knowledge, data tended to come in chunks ranging from 1M to taking up the whole Memory Pack, and file size was more or less your major concern when dealing with the downloads.

http://bsx.superfamicom.org/

[TonyTheTiger]

Interesting. I didn't know the downloads were that diverse.

Though this does answer one question unrelated to this thread but that's been brought up in others.

Digital data can be "collectible." At least to some people. Makes you wonder what will happen in the future once the online servers for the current consoles go down and people start hunting for 360s with certain games installed.

[Jorpho]

Digital data can be "collectible." At least to some people. Makes you wonder what will happen in the future once the online servers for the current consoles go down and people start hunting for 360s with certain games installed.Is backing up a 360's hard drive not a trivial matter?

For that matter, has DSiware been cracked already?

[TonyTheTiger]

I don't know. Maybe it's not a perfect comparison.

[Kiddo]

Not quite a perfect comparison - digital download material of this era (Dreamcast onwards, I'd say) is generally a lot easier to obtain - and thus will probably be less collectible - than Satellaview, Sega Channel, XBand or Megamodem/Meganet stuff (or even Famicom Modem stuff, which was not even used for any actual gaming), because in the current era these services are the norm, rather than unique, quirky ideas.

Also, part of what makes Satellaview material collectible is that very little of it has ever been rereleased - or even acknowledged - by Nintendo since the service died out. I will assume that the Xbox 360's successor would be spat upon by the fanbase if all the Xbox Live Arcade downloads were rendered useless, and thus Microsoft would be certain to bring back it's old content - same goes for PSN.

I think the real test to see whether a modern-era "Digital" download would be collectible years from now is to see what happens to, say, Doc Louis's Punch-Out!! when the Wii gets a "collecting" scene.

[Kamigami]

It might be possible. You can't say for certain that the mempack in question was not actually written to all those years ago when the Satellaview service was actually in operation.

I suppose we'll know if someone can do that if many more carts of this nature start turning up.

I don't know if there's a lot of mempacks around
(in any case is not that diffucult to find em... :embarrassed: )
and ebay is full of BSx carts or satella systems

But i read on the net that might be possible even without the satella.. just with a flash programmer like the tototek one. (you need to program the things to work with the cart of course)

I pointed this out as you all said.. collecting satella games is recent phenomenon but nowdays doing repro is not a voodoo stuffs anymore (or a chinese).
Tomorrow this can be a problem.
Especially for what said by Kiddo. (preservetion of original contents)

the discussion splitted in a very interesting way btw.

[Kiddo]

The theoretical possibility is there, but, once again, if there was any suspicion that anyone was doing this -currently-, then there'd be an outcry among the people who want to preserve cart contents (Because overwriting Memory Pack data is a damage to this goal, even if the data is locked from memory), and also, the value of a Radical Dreamers 8M Pack would go down drastically due to such a reproduction method being known.

As for eBay, I tend to check there on a regular basis, but I haven't noticed any case of a knwon "Rare Satellaview game" being put up for sale there in the past year.

[TonyTheTiger]

I think the real test to see whether a modern-era "Digital" download would be collectible years from now is to see what happens to, say, Doc Louis's Punch-Out!! when the Wii gets a "collecting" scene.

I think the Wii is the one current console where there won't be much of a problem at all considering how easy it is to manipulate the digital content. I'm pretty sure every piece of data has already been backed up and catalogued. Once the Wii dies it shouldn't be hard at all to obtain all the content from the net.

[Snapple]

This feels like a scam to me. You can get Satellaviews for cheaper. The price increase is just for the digital data. That is not worth $550, given a number of factors. One, it's just a short visual novel. Two, the game was translated and made workable by emulators years ago, and it is freely distributed around the internet.

Maybe it's hard to put the game onto a flash pak, but does that work, that service, increase the resale value of this worth $550? I can't dictate what fans pay for what, but I wouldn't pay it. But if they can actually convince Chrono fans that this is an essential collectible, they'll gouge them for all they're worth.

I know some purists want to be able to play everything on their tv in the real system with the real controller, but this isn't even a game really. It's a short story. You don't get anything special out of playing it on your tv with a controller, even if you could read Japanese.

Data is identical to all other copies of the same data. It's not unique, not valuable. Tangible things that were made in a factory and come in limited authentic numbers, like real game paks, those we can put a value on. You cannot make an identical, authentic copy of a cart.

[Jorpho]

You don't get anything special out of playing it on your tv with a controller, even if you could read Japanese.Well, you get to hear Mitsuda's fantastic score on the original hardware. (You will find no end of grousing regarding the inaccuracy of sound emulation in current SNES emulators. Whether or not such grousing is justified is a different matter.)

Have you played this game yourself? Going through all the scenarios, it's not actually that short.


Data is identical to all other copies of the same data. It's not unique, not valuable. Tangible things that were made in a factory and come in limited authentic numbers, like real game paks, those we can put a value on. You cannot make an identical, authentic copy of a cart.You lost me entirely there.

[TonyTheTiger]

I think what he's saying, and I think it's a reasonable argument, is that unlike paying $550 for a copy of a game that is otherwise hard to find a legitimate copy of, here it's $550 for digital data that happens to be stored on a Satellaview memory card.

In other words, they're not charging $550 for a copy of Radical Dreamers. They're charging $550 because it's Radical Dreamers stored on a Satellaview memory card. Or, on the flip side, $550 for a Satellaview memory card that happens to have a copy of Radical Dreamers on it.

It's like the cost is attributed to the state the data is in, not because the item itself is rare or valuable or anything like that. It's more like the data is just in a rare state by being on that particular memory card. Or that particular memory card is in a rare state by containing a copy of Radical Dreamers.

It'd be like valuing a PSOne save file more because it's on an official Sony memory card rather than on a Dex Drive floppy or something. There's just something arbitrary about it.

[Jorpho]

On the other hand, it is at present difficult (if not impossible) to transfer Radical Dreamers onto a Satellaview memory card.

A better analogy might be to say that a photocopied photograph of the Mona Lisa is less valuable than an abstract copy of the Mona Lisa painstakingly recreated by hand using, oh, bits of smashed NES carts.

[Kiddo]

I don't really know the collector mindset, but I assume they just treat a 8M Pack with Radical Dreamers as though it were a cartridge (In other words, they may judge it based on physical condition and whatnot, although that might be difficult since a "Sealed" 8M Memory Pack is most certainly empty, while one with Radical Dreamers is certainly not sealed.).
Thus, having a "Real" Radical Dreamers 8M Pack is, in their minds, very much like having a "Real" Sealed Chrono Trigger.

Again, though, this is what makes the scenario of the packs being writable again potentially hazardous. It would wreck the value of the Radical Dreamers data, while at the same time have carts be overwritten (Possibly carts which may have unidentified rare data themselves) with "copy" data.

[Kamigami]

if you ask to me that cart have that value and can have that value since there's a 99% of possibility that the data on it were in from 90'.
Collector side is the original form of that data.

is not like in 2034 you can put your hands on a backup for wii or similar..
but i guess and sure it is.. tha value only take strenght by the fact they can't get reproducted or cloned yet.
So at moment is like you're buying an official release of the game.. sort of. Yes.
is digital delivery but it's not at same time. (for me)
especially when you often have correspondence between mempack and single game.
In a way is having something like Famicom Tantei Club flashed at home direct on you system. They ARE physical (mempack and Sf mem Carts) even the content don't come from a factory

this from a collector point of view go to hell when someone sneak up on a way to reflash a mempack.
loosing unidentified contents would be another shame of this operation

[Kamigami]

There is a LOT of Undumped Satellaview game data that is unaccounted for. We do not even have all the games that could be "downloaded" like Radical Dreamers

is there a complete list of Satella games?
any info about sutte hakkuns game and the selfdestruction thing?

[Kiddo]

I do not think there is any complete list of all the Satellaview content - there are, however, complete lists of certain bits and chunks, and some signs of what's "missing". I tend to highlight these in Satellablog.

For example. This Japanese site (http://www.f3.dion.ne.jp/~kameb/satella/satella.htm) has a list of every "Soundlink" Broadcast and it's premiere air date (http://www.f3.dion.ne.jp/~kameb/satella/st_slg.htm) as well as an (incomplete) archive of schedules of Satellaview programming (http://www.f3.dion.ne.jp/~kameb/satella/st_prg/st_prg.htm).

Anyway, since you asked about the Sutte Hakkun line, here's what I know about them off the top of my head, the original "Sutte Hakkun BS Event Version" (If I got the title right) was the first of any Sutte Hakkun release. It's a download game which seemed to have degree of a "competition" element to it (You high scores were saved and were able to generate a St.GIGA password - usually the signs of a contest that was held.). This was followed up by the "Event Version 2" and "98 Winter Event Version". Released in the midst of these editions was the "Retail" version, first as a Nintendo Power service release, and then as a standard ROM cartridge These are all archived as ROM dumps, btw, so you don't need to worry about undumped ROM Data there. I have not found any evidence that anything here is "missing".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutte_Hakkun - The Wikipedia article on Sutte Hakkun seems to have most of the relevant info regarding it now.

As for the "selfdestruction" as you've put it (since I don't really know the proper-term, I refer to it as an "Auto-lock", which is the most accurate description of what it does.)... that function kind of works different ways depending on what the software is.

To start with, not every game is designed to auto-lock - although ones that don't auto-lock tend to be the exception rather than the rule. I've heard that the Squaresoft game line (which include Radical Dreamers, Treasure Conflix, Dynamitracer, Koi Ha Balance and the Chrono Trigger Omake series) and the Kirby no Omachahako line are examples of content that does not auto-lock. Also, content which is not gaming, such as Sateillaview-format magazines, don't auto-lock.

On the other hand, Soundlink titles are ALWAYS auto-locked, because a player is not even supposed to know Soundlink data is in an 8M Memory Pack to begin with. This is why a Soundlink game will never boot directly from the BS-X, and why many of these can go undetected and not ROM dumped.

Now, the rest of the content... downloadable games tend to have a limited number of boot-ups before they're set to "Lock". The exact number, I do not know whether it's dependent on the game or not... but the "lock" is done by a single byte in the ROM's header, which also detects the number of times a game has booted up. (I do not know if any other factors can increase this value)
When the game is set to "lock", the BS-X itself will no longer detect it. The only way to salvage data out of a Memory Pack like this is to dump it's ROM contents and try booting it up in an emulator (Note, though, that BSNES will emulate the lock itself, meaning you won't be able to use that unless you can hack the lock out of the ROM - actually a fairly easy thing to do, but not something I'd recommend.)
As an example, I know that the Satellaview download version of "Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce" has a limited number of boot-ups before it "locks". When the game locks, it'll almost look like a "here today, gone tomorrow" situation - like the game just vanished. If you dump the Memory Pack's ROM, though, you should be able to play it on an emulator that can emulate the Satellaview's SRAM functions properly. Unfortunately, there is no way to reverse a "lock" in the 8M Pack itself, and trying to develop a method is potentially just a step away from full-on ROM copying.

[Kamigami]

Anyway, since you asked about the Sutte Hakkun ............ These are all archived as ROM dumps, btw, so you don't need to worry about undumped ROM Data there. I have not found any evidence that anything here is "missing".
Actually i asked for it since i own BS Sutte Hakkun 2 (remake of the event version without ranking system)
i was wondering if the Auto-lock affect it too.
Already played it, so the retail version..
i don't think to return on em soon.. and i could use the emu of course..
just to know.. in case, i avoid to replay it on the original hardware..



As for the "selfdestruction" as you've put it (since I don't really know the proper-term, I refer to it as an "Auto-lock", which is the most accurate description of what it does.)... that function kind of works different ways depending on what the software is.

To start with, not every game is designed to auto-lock - although ones that don't auto-lock tend to be the exception rather than the rule. I've heard that the Squaresoft game line (which include Radical Dreamers, Treasure Conflix, Dynamitracer, Koi Ha Balance and the Chrono Trigger Omake series) and the Kirby no Omachahako line are examples of content that does not auto-lock. Also, content which is not gaming, such as Sateillaview-format magazines, don't auto-lock.

On the other hand, Soundlink titles are ALWAYS auto-locked, because a player is not even supposed to know Soundlink data is in an 8M Memory Pack to begin with. This is why a Soundlink game will never boot directly from the BS-X, and why many of these can go undetected and not ROM dumped.

Now, the rest of the content... downloadable games tend to have a limited number of boot-ups before they're set to "Lock". The exact number, I do not know whether it's dependent on the game or not... but the "lock" is done by a single byte in the ROM's header, which also detects the number of times a game has booted up. (I do not know if any other factors can increase this value)
When the game is set to "lock", the BS-X itself will no longer detect it. The only way to salvage data out of a Memory Pack like this is to dump it's ROM contents and try booting it up in an emulator (Note, though, that BSNES will emulate the lock itself, meaning you won't be able to use that unless you can hack the lock out of the ROM - actually a fairly easy thing to do, but not something I'd recommend.)
As an example, I know that the Satellaview download version of "Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce" has a limited number of boot-ups before it "locks". When the game locks, it'll almost look like a "here today, gone tomorrow" situation - like the game just vanished. If you dump the Memory Pack's ROM, though, you should be able to play it on an emulator that can emulate the Satellaview's SRAM functions properly. Unfortunately, there is no way to reverse a "lock" in the 8M Pack itself, and trying to develop a method is potentially just a step away from full-on ROM copying.

Hack the header is not a problem..
but reading what you said there's a big possibility that Sutte could go in lock :mad:

thanks for the info anyway

[Kiddo]

Unfortunately I don't have a good guide on game-by-game "lock" details, and since most carts are owned second-hand now, the exact amount of boots to lock might not be know.

That being said, one way to tell if it -can- lock is by checking the current ROM releases - some verified dumps are "locked" due to how their status was when dumped. These wouldn't be detected to boot and won't load on BSNES without a header modification. If one of the Sutte Hakkun releases are ROM dumped in a "locked" state, it might be a good idea to preserve your legit-owned copy's state, as it's possible the very next boot-up could be it's last. (Very scary, huh, folks?)

EDIT: I decided to do this check myself.

In a hilROM download, the location of the byte which does the "lock" would b FFD5 in a hex editor. the value for a "Lock" is 80. Sutte Hakkun Event Version 2's value is set at "00", which matches the BS Kirby byte in it's header. This leads me to think that Sutte Hakkun Event Version 2 shouldn't expire.

[Kamigami]

ok i checked too and at offset ffd5 the value is 00.
i'm safe fiuuu.

oh i can proof that booting sutte hakkun hundreds of time
what do you think>? XD

[Kiddo]

Um, That sounds a bit dangerous for factors besides the possibility of lockout.
But in the end, it's your cart. And besides, I can't complain about free research ginuea pigs. :P

[Kamigami]

Um, That sounds a bit dangerous for factors besides the possibility of lockout.
But in the end, it's your cart. And besides, I can't complain about free research ginuea pigs. :P

yes it is.
in fact i was joking.. considering what that small cart cost @_@

[vrikkgwj]

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/trigunforever/001.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/trigunforever/002.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/trigunforever/003.jpg

This is what I did. Cost a whole lot less, and runs like a dream.

[Jorpho]

This is what I did. Cost a whole lot less, and runs like a dream.Do you own your own EEPROM burner? And what cart did you cannibalize?

(Not that I'm saying that even the most fanciful calculations could possibly produce a figure anywhere near $500.)

[vrikkgwj]

It didn't cost a whole lot, this was a joint effort and was actually my very first repro cart I made since I could never find a ROM that would work on a computer. Funny enough on my SNES runs it without a problem like I said. I wish I did a better job on the cart label, but for my first job ever I am not upset by it. My Front Mission one is the best I have done.

[Kamigami]

Do you own your own EEPROM burner? And what cart did you cannibalize?

(Not that I'm saying that even the most fanciful calculations could possibly produce a figure anywhere near $500.)

you cand o that with secret of mana USA or japanese equivalent.
Or any other games which have that pcb.

something about 30 or 40 $

it's not like having the real 500$ mempack but hey..
btw it only make sense for the translation

[Kiddo]

Can you make a repro 8M Memory Pack? :P

[vrikkgwj]

Can you make a repro 8M Memory Pack? :P

Don't know, never looked into it.

[Kiddo]

Well, the 1st page of discussion was more or less exploring the subject/possible ramifications.

However, one additional thing I will add is that there IS Known to be the existence of some 8M Packs that had ROM instead of Flash RAM - I believe the Same Game Koma Data and Tengai Makyo Koma data are such. Perhaps it is possible to work with those? Just beware, working with the Satellaview in it's current state is quite a bit more limiting than working with standard SFC.

[Jorpho]

You did see the pic at the bottom of http://bof2.blogspot.com/ , right? It's definitely been done.

[Kiddo]

The description of that picture does not imply any mod to have been done to the 8M Memory Pack itself, which would hold the actual software data for BS-X to boot. It just seems to be a SFC internal hardware mod - as far as I know, the Satellaview set in that picture could be just for show.

(In short: That doesn't seem to be what I'm talking about at all.)

[Jorpho]

Well, like it says:
the stuff connected below and on top of the snes happens to be my satellaview testing rig with a special homebrewn flashcart.

[Kiddo]

Hm. Ok, that line I missed sounds like the interesting/relevant part. It seems to imply he has a flashcart that's customized for this thing (Perhaps able to have it's data written into via USB or somesuch?)

[Kamigami]

At Kiddo
Would you look into Shubibinman to know if it autolocks?
I forgto the process.:grrr:

[Kiddo]

It does - in fact, the one known ROM dump of Shubibinman Zero was actually dumped when there was precisely one play left before it was locked.
I've also helped Matthew Callis work on this article;

http://wiki.superfamicom.org/snes/show/BS-X+Satellaview+Header

It helped me quite a bit on learning how the "Lock" works.

Expect Shubibinman to lock somewhere between 1 to 5 boot-ups.

[Kamigami]

nice page! ^^

many thanks again for the info.

i'm very disappointed but hey.. well to know

[Pancake Bunny]

Good thing I collect for the Mega Drive where every Meganet game has been verified and dumped :D

[Kiddo]

Mind telling me when the same can be said for Sega Channel exclusive content? :P

... Actually, I've sorta been working on that too, so I'd probably know around the same time anyhow.