Possible SS Blazing Dragons prototype?

Hey I was wondering about this disc of mine:


I got an old Japanese model 1 Saturn from a friend a few years ago. He got that Saturn from his work at Pan Vision who was the distributor of Saturn in Denmark back then.
The Saturn didn't work (blown fuse, someone must have plugged it in a Danish 240V outlet...) but inside the system was this disc.
At first it made us wonder if the system itself was capable of playing back-ups but once I got the fuse replaced it turned out it wasn't. It was just a normal VA 0.5 gray Saturn.

This disc did play fine once I installed a modchip (Shining Force III translations).

I've forgotten that I even had this disc and I just stumbled upon it. I can't seem to find the release date of Blazing Dragons for the Saturn. Satekore says 1994 but I don't think that's right. Wiki says Oct. 31 1996 and if that's the case this copy predates the release with more than 5 months.

I don't have the original retail version so I can't tell if there is any differences. I also haven't played it more than a few minutes so hard to tell if it's complete or not.

What do you think?

 

I thought the game was developed in Europe since it's based on an English cartoon. Perhaps not?

 

I have an ISO of a so called beta version of this game. Not really played it much but I could make a video of it and upload it to YouTube. then you can see if there is any differences. I've never played the retail game due to it never getting a release in Japan so I have no idea if the so called beta I have is any different than the final game.

Yakumo

 

Sure, that would be great

 

Marked as PAL, strange it's running OK on the Jap console... suggesting it's either patched regionfree or regionfree by default.
Someone also needs to compare this with the original. You can check this with Saturn Region Patcher.

EDIT:
Also, I find it quite strange it's on a BMG Interactive disc.
Crystal Dynamics is both developer and publisher in Europe, but in the US, Mindscape is stated as publisher.
According to the following link, BMG is the publisher (although I can't seem to find any data on that one).
http://www.lowbrowculture.com/edge/?querytype=publisher&query=BMG%20Interactive

Check if there's something on the disc referring to "Monty Python meets Medieval Magic" or "Dragons of the Square Table", but I doubt that.
Maybe they were working on a Japanese localisation and the disc is indeed NTSC-J 60 Hz?

EDIT 2:
Because: http://gamesdbase.com/list.aspx?publisher=bmg_interactive_entertainment&system=sega_saturn !

 

Whoops! My bad. I forgot to mention that my Saturn is modified to play all regions. It's a PAL disc alright, but as far as I could tell it plays fine in 60Hz.

But if BMG was the publisher in the US then that does add to the theory that this is just a localization copy, made in US and sent to the EU. But that only makes sense if the US version came first, which would be strange with the cartoon being British, but you never know

 

Both the PAL and USA versions were released in July 1996. If you're willing to sell the disc PM me.

 

Thanks for the info. I'll give it some thought

 

For the US version, Satakore says 18/06/1996, so it could be that this was just a PAL test disc right before they released in the States?
AFAIK Crystal Dynamics doesn't have Europe-based development (but I thought they had). Your version is ONLY in English?

 

Heh just booted it up and guess what. It turns out it is US region after all. Must not have paid much attention when trying it last time Strange though that it says PAL on the disc, but it only boots when set to US.

English only and no indication in the menus or start of the game that this is an incomplete beta :/

 

Does it come with the funny schoolyard advert?

 

Yes.

 

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This, right?

 

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Sure

 

Oh wait...

Indeed.

Is it bootable in NTSC-J settings too? The full header says U J...

Think I should have auto-quotes set to on in my profile :gravedigging:

 

Nope US only.

 

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