Super Street Fighter II Genesis-Region Protection or Defect?

[retroborg]

Hello.
I recently bought Super Street Fighter II JAPAN region, brand new for the SEGA Mega Drive (Genesis).



I have a EURO-PAL SEGA Mega Drive & a Universal Adaptor to play import games.
The game starts up fine but when you get into a match, the character & level graphics are really messed up making it unplayable.
This is surprising as the game was brand new-boxed & doesn’t look defective in any way.
Is this some kind of region-lockout protection CAPCOM has installed into this cart to eliminate the universal adaptor, or is this simply a defective cart?
I’m aware that some protected Mega Drive games did exist in the past, but I’m not sure if this was one of them?
All my other imports work fine…

So do you guys think this cart is defective & should send it back to the shop & get a different game?

Thanks in advance.

[retroborg]

Also From this list:
http://www.videogame-classics.de/genesis.txt
Apparently the SSF2 Japan cart does have a territory lock out judging from that list.
I tried SSF2 (J) on Gens emu that was set to PAL territory & a red error screen comes up saying that this is meant to be played only on NTSC Mega Drive consoles...

But when I use the Universal Adaptor on the real Euro PAL Mega Drive model 1 & insert the Japan SSF2 Cart, no error message comes up. The title & character select screen load up fine, but when the match starts, all the characters & level graphics are messed up!

Is it natural that the Japanese version of SSF2 boots up fine on the EURO PAL Mega Drive Model 1 (Using a Nitro 2 Universal Adaptor) but when the match begins, all the level & character graphics get completely messed up.

Is this because of the region lock or is it because the game is bigger than the maximum size allowed by the hardware & the universal adapter isn't allowing it to get accessed using the bank switching technique?

How come it only gets messed up in the levels & not in the title & character select screen?
If I install a region language switch & 50/60HZ switch in the Mega Drive, will it fix this problem?

I just want to make sure that this isn’t a messed up cart, because if it is I’ll give it back to the shop tomorrow & get something else.

Thanks in advance.

[directhex]

i don't think many universal adapters can cope with some of the later hardware hacks of the 16 bit era - bank switching especially

[retroborg]

Yeah that was the case I guess, as I ended up installing a region language switch & 50/60HZ switch in the Mega Drive my self and it fixed the problem all together.

Surprisingly I ran into a similar problem with the Altered Beast Japanese cart which was one of the 1st games to be released on the Mega Drive back in 1988, not sure exactly what went wrong with that one, but it too worked when I turned the switch to JPN & 60HZ. I think this was a case of incompatibility with my specific Mega Drive (As there were various versions released for each console of the same region) rather than a region lock of the cart.

By the way, that was one of the sturdiest console moddings I've ever done as I used big & thick multiline wires and big-ass industry standard switches similar to the ones you'd find in electro logical installations, as the connections on the Mega Drive M/B are quite large so I could actually do this, in relation to the thin hair-like wires which I’m forced to use for the PS-1, PS-2 & Xbox’s tiny M/B connections.

Here are a few photos from 2005, of my 2 modded Mega Drives (I & II) before I closed the lid.










They still work flawlessly after 6 years!!

Notice Sonic 2 JPN, the 2 irritating horizontal borders on the top & bottom parts on the screen are eliminated in 60HZ mode and the game can be enjoyed in full screen & full speed as it should be on a EURO PAL system.
So all I've got to say about all this is... console modding = happy gamer, hell yeah!

What's bank switching by the way?