Unlocking features of Geist Force, for people who have tested it (potential spoilers)

No, you're supposed to refrain from shooting. ;P

 

I've also found that refraining from using the boost or the slow down button will help it avoid crashing as well.
I tried several times to press the slow down button in an effort to not hit the invisible wall before the stage 2 boss, and this crashed my DC a few times, whereas leaving the ship alone and just doing basic steering allowed me to avoid the crashing.

 

I did a bit of playing around today and found what ASSEMbler said to work. I got to the end of stage 1 using a stock 1st release JPN Dreamcast.



The 2nd stage will also load if you leave the DC running a few minutes however there's no graphics at all, only audio. You can hear the music, talking and weapon fire but can only see a black screen.

I did manage to fly outside of the sky box on stage 5 though which was sort of cool.

 

THIS is significant. It's not a matter of shooting too much at the worm boss that crashes things, the crash on the worm boss is the infamous syscall crash when a cut scene is supposed to load after the worm boss dies, which reset all my DCs (rev1 and rev0 US), and some other people's.

 

So if you don't shoot a lot your Dreamcast still crash after killing the worm boss? I have to say that my Rev'0 JPN Dreamcast did the same thing but when I played again and only used a few "smart bombs" to kill the worm everything worked perfectly. It was as if the game had no crash issue. Now if only we could get the 2nd stage boss to load and stage 3.

By the way, I have a keyboard on the way now so fingers crossed it won't take to long to arrive.

 

Hmm, I've definitely had it crash on me everytime, and I tend to just use 2 or 3 volleys of the B button missiles on it.

 

What I did was fly through the entire first stage not shooting anything unless I needed to get a shield boost item. The for the worm boss I used 3 or 4 homing bomb attack things to kill it. I'm using a day one release Japanese Dreamcast so that may have something to do with it.

 

I have two DCs and have tried Geist on both. Although I'd experienced more general crashes throughout level 1 with my late model DC, I was finally able to complete level 1 last night on my US launch console which has an 8/99 date on it. (I couldnt defeat the worm boss before but also hadn't realized there was a smart bomb attack; once I did, I defeated him with ease and the game progressed just fine).

What Yakumo described as far as another level loading after level 1 is the same as what I experienced as well. So it sounds like my US DC isn't having the syscall crash problem.

The only part of level 1 I need to refrain from much shooting, to prevent a crash, is when the boulders are falling in the canyon area. Other than that I can play pretty normally throughout the rest of the level.

 

Interesting, because I was getting the syscall crash on the level 1 boss on my July 99 launch DC. But I only tested that situation about 3 times, so maybe it would work if I just played it more or killed the boss faster than I am.

 

On my second attempt I was able to complete level 1 again for the second time. Very strange!

 

I actually happen to have an Aug 99 launch DC, but hadn't tested Geist Force with it yet because it says on the bottom it is a Rev 1, and it has the black plastic fan, so i figured it would be the same bios and components as my other year 2000 Rev 1 which I already tested (sega sports system). Maybe I'll hook it up and check it out, and also test out the July '99 one again too.

 

I just recently got a rev1 with metal fan and Yamaha drive (dated 2/2000 if memory serves me right). Has anyone tried running this disc on a rev2 model? I can only imagine...

 

How can one tell which rev number a DC console is? Is it marked on the bottom of the consoles or do you need to know the manufacturing dates?

 

It's marked on the bottom, at least on US DC's. Notice on the bottom here where it says (1)NTSC U. That means revision 1. Rev0 has a 0 there instead of a 1. I've never seen a rev 2, but I imagine it's the same.

 

Ah, thanks Dark.

 

The earliest Rev 0 dons't say any number next to NTSC at all. It is something they must have added later when VA1 were in the pipeline.

 

Are you talking about the Blockbuster rental models and early kiosk units? I don't know of any official retail units that had manufacturing dates earlier than July.

My rev 0, just for fun.

 

All I know ow that is if you don't shoot too much you can complete the 1st stage all the time on my JPN November 1998 console.

 

Anyone tried using it on a 240Mhz OC'd Dreamcast yet?...

 

Let the fun begin !!!





I got stage 6 to load more than 3 ships plus I could actually crash in to them!! The level still ends in the same place though.



Look, ENGLISH!!! sadly this seems to be the only line of text used. This line pops up no matter what the character is saying. Speech is still in Japanese.



I need to buy a DC mouse now. A mouse can be used but it needs to be switched on from the debug menu from what I can tell. Also a lot of the debug windows are off screen so a mouse is needed to pull them in to view including that debug window we can all see. By the way, that can be switched off.

Now I need to find these areas but I will need a mouse first.



Seems to be part of the ice stage that we can't get access too due to that hill.


Should this be stage 5 I wonder?



This is a puzzling one. It could be stage 2 however the sky box used in this stage is the same as that found on stage 6.

Yakumo