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Thread: Sega Mega Drive Golden Axe II Proto Cart

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    Exclamation Sega Mega Drive Golden Axe II Proto Cart

    Hi there all. I bought a used Sega Mega Drive System some years ago form ebay the seller was a Salvation Army seller. The acution was for the system and one inculded cart Golden Axe II When I got the Mega Drive and checked everything I've noticed the cart had a made at home label. At first I though well another copy of Golden Axe II to my collection by some kid that scratched the label of the cart and created a new made at home one. But I checked the form of the cart an it was like a PAL Mega Drive Cart and it was a lot heavier. So ok I poped the cart to the Mega Drive for testing and the first thing I noticed is that the SEGA Logo that appears in almost all of the Mega Drive / Genesis games flashed up quickly the only thing you can see is the TM (trade mark) at the end but really fast and then the game begins. So ok lets play I checked up the options and everything is exactly the same as the home version of the game. Finished setting up and got to play the normal game. When I selected my character and pressed start I noticed another strange thing, it has a level select after pressing start a number 1 appears so you can change with button A from 1 to 9 so ok Golden Axe II has only 6 levels max and 7 is last boss so I selected 8 and pressed start and it starts the music of the last level and it hangs so ok I powered off and cleaned up the cart and retry and the same, so then tested with num. 7 and the last stage starts perfectly so I checked with 9 and to my surprise it's a level that is not on the home version and I moved the character arround and it stucks no bosses no enemies no thing only a piece of the level. So ok I started the game to check from level 1 and it plays fine but when I finished up the game I noticed another strange thing. No ending credits only the words AABBCCDDFF where it has to say the names of the programmers, testers and so on. and no "Presented By: SEGA" as the home version. So I opened the cart and noticed 4 EEPROMS labeled from 1 to 4. One other thing the game has no region lock so I can play it on my NOMAD too. I will upload pictures from the cart, board, and gameplay I'm planning on selling this cart. If anyone has more info on Golden Axe II Prototypes that can help please share :-)

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    Looks like a cheap Chinese bootleg to me. Cheesy poor quality label, non-standard PCB. No SEGA logo means the bootleggers hacked it out of the code which they do all the time in attempt to avoid any legal hangups. The level select + etc. that you mentioned could mean they also hacked it to add additional "features".
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    I dunno, I've seen that same setup on an official sega proto I once saw. Lemme dig up a pic.....


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    The copyright info being missing sounds odd, but the chips make it look like a proto. Do pirates typically bother putting labels on the IC Chips(I think that's what you call them?) to designate their order? Those labels are covering up the windows, in other words these are EPROMs. I'm not an expert at that stuff but that's my understanding of it. And NO pirates would ever use EPROMs.

    I wouldn't dismiss it being a proto because of the label either. Some protos have had labels before, the Nick Arcade Sonic 2 that drx found for one. Plus tons of NES games And as far as the level select thing goes, that's not uncommon at all in protos. I doubt it was hacked in by pirates.

    I think the EPROMs speak for themselves. This isn't any pirate, it's a prototype.
    Last edited by Guy Bramsworth; 09-01-2009 at 05:27 AM.

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    Not denying if it is a proto or not but, the fact that there's no copyright info on the title screen and the obvious bootleg cart casing makes it look and sound like a bootleg to me. Then again who knows somebody may have thrown the PCB into an old bootleg casing.

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    No, that's a bootleg. No copyright info is the key, and pirates almost always used EPROMS until they went to EPOXY blobs for multicarts. THat cart is as pirate as it gets.

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    I've yet to ever see a pirate that uses EPROMs. I still think it could be the real deal. Are there any examples of pirates that use EPROMs?

    I look forward to seeing a price :P

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    Quote Originally Posted by DreamTR View Post
    That cart is as pirate as it gets.
    Agree 100%, this thing is pure bootleg. Sorry dude, still a pretty cool little pirate cart though, especially with the added features.

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    Quote Originally Posted by DreamTR View Post
    That cart is as pirate as it gets.
    Edited for correction, see later post.
    Last edited by Az; 09-02-2009 at 06:57 PM.

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    So this is another prototype that got on pirate carts? Going the the OPs description it has stuff the original doesn't, like a cut level.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Guy Bramsworth View Post
    So this is another prototype that got on pirate carts? Going the the OPs description it has stuff the original doesn't, like a cut level.

    It could be the pirates added the level select, but left the number you could choose too high, hence choosing a 'glitchy' level. It's not uncommon for games to have an extra level after the main bulk that was either deleted (eg Sonic 2), working but not included as a main level (eg zero tolerance), or 'glitchy' where the layout is referencing something it shouldnt be eg graphic data etc (Road Rash 2).

    **edit: RR2 does this, it sends you to Level 6 after you beat Level 5, but Level 6's track length data appears to reference something else as you get track lengths that are wildly different eg 3 miles to 25 miles (!), enemies that are all cops (Undertandable as each level loads a set of enemies that are higher up in the list of enemies in the cart, with duplications for enemies who reappear each level eg Natasha etc and at the very end of the section where enemies are, you get the cops in level order). When the level ends and it tries to load the end screen it crashes. Never gets as far as the after race screen.**
    Last edited by man_traic; 09-02-2009 at 04:32 AM.

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    Exclamation Thanks to all of you :-)

    Thanks for all your info and for sharing. Well if it is a bootleg or not it still is a cool addon for any retro collector maybe I will keep it since its not worth selling for a good price. Or if anyone is really interested you can PM me and offer. I also have a really big collection of retro games and video game consoles and have some SMS 8-Bit extra carts even sealed ones and imports to exchange I will make a list and post it on another forum when I have some spare time for people that are interested in exchange to expand their collection so that we all can share games and keep the pieces of history that made us gamers for ever :-)

    People interested can PM me :-)

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    Guy Bramsworth: I have definitely seen bootlegs with EPROMS before. Remember that at one time EPROMS where WAY cheaper than ROM chips....how do you think they were producing stuff?

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    Quote Originally Posted by man_traic View Post
    It could be the pirates added the level select, but left the number you could choose too high, hence choosing a 'glitchy' level.
    Correction to my previous post.

    I have a similar version on a pirate multicart. Same exact thing only the stage select goes to 7 and not 9.

    The version you have is actually a beta but is altered by pirates to have the copyright logos removed. I do not know if the original beta has the altered garbage credits at the end.

    The stage select on your version goes to 9, the stage select on mine only goes to 7. This is the same stage select you can activate in the released cart.

    Stage 8 crashes and stage 9 is actually the "duel" background. Unfortunately, nothing interesting.....

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