I bought Super Mario RPG Japanese Version a few weeks ago. I have an import adaptor for my PAL Super NES, but the game does not run with this adaptor. A friend of mine told me that it's impossible to run Super Mario RPG on a PAL SNES. He said that I need a japanese Super Famicom. However for some reasons I don't want to buy a SFC. I found a diagram for the 50/60hz switch and lockout switch: http://img129.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sneslockoutjv9.gif Is it possible to run Super Mario RPG with this modification? Thanks for your help
Hm. Based on my knowledge it should, but Ive never tried it.. Have a look around on the net, there's surely someone else who did that. *Summons Calpis*.
With that modification you are adding an NTSC lockout chip that will render your machine == NTSC machine. Another option is to mod the SMRPG cart: http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=1382.0 Edit: Sorry I'm wrong, I've been fooled by the NTSC cic in that picture... That modification alone WILL NOT WORK unless the cartridge is also modded. Basically the 2 switches do 2 things: 1) 50/60 Hz switch 2) CIC disable, but these protected carts need the CIC to work
From what I can remember the chip on the mario rpg cart communicates with the CIC on the SNES. So the easiest option is to buy a cheap NTSC SNES. Other than that maybe you could modify the cart in some way as barakka said.
This mod is not for the cack handed and requires a soldering iron, a gamebit to open the cartridge screws and a steady hand. If you open the Super Mario RPG cartridge and life up pin 127 and connect it to pin 58 on the edge connector then plug the cartridge straight into the PAL SNES (no convertor needed) then it should work, I tried it with 2 carts and they both worked fine. If the board is a later revision (SNSP-1L5B) then it won't work but I have not come across any Japanese ones that have this code. Whilst you are here you might as well replace the CR-2032 battery too. SFC carts are great as you can open them without damaging the labels.
Don't remember if this worked or not, but I seem to recall the adapter "Fire Pro" (or something like that) took care of most issues I had with games that didn't want to work on my old Datel Universal Adapter. Seem to recall even getting Oshaberi Parodius (another SA-1 title) to work with it. Don't quote me on that, though. Been years since I last touched my old PAL SNES for anything but dumping of stuff and quick testing various small romhacks and stuff on my backup unit. Damn, when did these get put up for grabs? (Hope there'll be a second chance to grab one or something similar in the future)
my japanese cart is a SHVC-1L5B-10, so it won't work isn't it? very nice mod. A friend of mine ordered an Ultra 16 system.
I highly doubt this is true. "5" refers to the size of the sram, not the version number. there is absolutely no reason it should not work on carts that have more sram. The version number of the pcb is indicated by the last two digits of the pcb code. shvc-1l5b-02 would stand for pcb version 2. Iirc, I was the one who discovered that the Sa1 region can be toggled with pin 127(simply by comparing ntsc and pal pcbs) in the first place and as a matter of fact, the first game i tested this modification with was super mario rpg, which is a shvc-1l5b game. That one worked perfectly.
Fair enough, I tried converting a US one that was 1L5B and it failed to work on a PAL system and a Japanese one that was 1L3B and it worked perfectly.
great, the cart works fine after the mod. However I left Pin 127 floating because it was less work and also recommended in this thread: http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?PHPSESSID=eek5tv53bt8bjtv0gm6cpb4k97&topic=1382.0
