I got my proto cart today, and love to share the first investigations i did. Looks like a real prototype, with many differents to the Final Version! When i remember back, i was 10 when Mystical Quest comes out. I like the game because it has really nice graphics and the controlling was good. Most people say it was to easy, ok. Lets start with a picture of the Prototype: Mystical Quest was developed by Capcom USA, released in November 1992. The Date on the cart is 21.05.1992 (also nice because my birthday is 21.05 too ^^). When i first start the game i see the startup screen is different. Final: Prototype: In the Proto there is no Option Menu. When you press start it goes directly into the game. Than wow! There is one more point (lv) on the proto as on retail! Maybe a canceled stage??? Final: Prototype: under the castle, another stage. Well this are first shots i did, sorry for the quality! Into the game there also differents. You start with more live, you can choose all the suits on startup. Also the sprites are different like the angel wings you can see: Final: Prototype: So this are the first minutes comparing it with the final game. At this point the biggest different i see is that extra stage! I have to play it, and happy awaiting a unreleased map. Hope you enjoy the first steps. Will be update soon...
Here the First video of the prototype. If you compare it with a longplay video on youtube like this one (FINAL): Differents i found in that stage: - no bees - some clouds not there - different or missing enemeys - mickey has no bubble into the tree - different tree limbs (Prototype): Part2: Part3: Part4: After Part 4, the Game restart. Not sure thats all to find on the cart. Any suggestion how to find a debug menu ?
Adding a second controller is always a good start for finding a debug. A dump of the cart then looking through the hex could also help.
Proto 1.049.088 bytes Reatil 1.048.576 bytes a compare found 970.013 differences.. Ok When i look over the File opend with winhex, i dont see anything pointing on a debug menu. I also try some combinations with the second controller.
Making a cheat to access different levels isn't difficult, actually. Try finding that if you know how. If the ROM is ever shared it's the first thing I'll be doing
We also enjoyed this game as kids. Wonderfull graphics, very good controls. Thanks for sharing the infos !
The 512 byte difference between the two is just the copier header added by Game Doctor/Super Wildcard etc. when it was dumped. You can just delete that header to make them both the same 1,048,576 size for easier side-by-side comparison. As for a built-in stage select cheat, the TCRF wiki reports that there's leftover text for a menu like that in the final game, but the programming was removed leaving no clue what the button combination might be. It could exist in your proto but would require some digging around in the programming. Looking around the web, it looks like nobody ever searched this game for a stage modifier cheat code to use with a Game Genie/Pro Action Replay, which is kinda surprising after all these years. I fired up the debugger and the Current Stage value in the final game is stored to memory address 7E02AB. Usually with protos the RAM locations for stats and such are the same, so try it out and see if it works. When starting the game and it shows the cutscene in the park with the story text, activate Pro Action Replay code 7E02ABxx where xx is the desired stage value (00 = Stage 1 Treetops, 01 = Stage 2 Dark Forest, 02 = Stage 3, etc. etc.) Note that when you finish a stage it will loop as a PAR code freezes the current value (stage, in this case). Just reboot and start the process over with a different hex value for another stage. An alternate method, use the hex editor's search bar to search for A9028D7203 hex pattern (search as hex, not ASCII) It should report 1 Result Found and scroll the screen to the proper offset (in the final game, that would be offset 01815E). Replace the A9028D7203 pattern with A9xx8DAB02 where again xx is a stage value. Just click on the numbers in the hex editor and type in the new values right over the old ones. Then save the file as a new filename (to avoid overwriting your original copy) and then load the new file in an emulator to test. Bonus text: This solution isn't perfect as it's replacing the number of lives Mickey has with the new stage value. The game is programmed such that the memory address for the stage value is initialized to zero along with a bunch of others, in bulk, using a loop. In order to set a non-zero value while keeping things simple (ie, patch only a couple bytes) requires getting creative, in this case substituting the Lives programming instead. You'll only start with 1 life, but just pair it with an infinite energy cheat if that's an issue. Hopefully that allows you to explore more. Have fun, looking forward to new screenshots and videos.
Thanks JLukas for your explanations! With the help from bramsworth, i can show you guys now a unreleased lv of the Game!!! It looks not finished, no monsters, some graphic bugs... More nice stuff follow soon. Enjoy! Also some alpha stages:
Seems like they unfortunately dummied out data after the second level. Some other level slots seem to have remnants of layout data, but all the graphics as you can see are missing. The data on the cart seems late enough that they definitely would have had more than the first two levels done by now. I just don't get why they'd go out of their way to delete the other levels when they had the game reset after clearing the second one anyway. And how many magazines or whoever this went lent to back then were hackers that would know how to get to the rest anyway? Ah well... If anything, it makes you wonder even more about that lost area. Perhaps in another proto someday.
I wonder if they changed the name of the game because it was too close to Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest.
This shit is so cool, thanks for posting! It's nice to see that your differences are so apparent, because going through protos and actually finding differences can be such a pain, even if you hex compare and know they exist lol.
