Is there a list of NTSC NES games where the PAL version was adjusted in any way? I'd really be curious which games did changes to the code to accomodate for the 50 Hz since most PAL games simply run slower than their NTSC part.
Games where just the music was corrected don't need to be listed since this feature is relatively common, uninteresting and doesn't influence the gameplay.
Of course, games where the PAL version was changed in a purely stylistic way that had nothing to do with the technical side ("Contra"/"Probotector"), those don't count either. I'm only interested in technical NTSC/PAL adjustments, not in content-wise changes between the American and European version.
No. Last time I wanted to know what I can do for my game to adjust it to PAL.
Now I'm asking which actual games (not homebrew, but the commercial games) changed anything for their PAL conversion and what exactly they changed.
This time, I don't want to apply it to my own game. It's just general curiosity what different things were done in real games.
All 5 Mega Man games had the music pitch and speed adapter to PAL, and this even caused some "bug" in Mega Man 3 where you can hear the proto man whistle song continue too far before he attacks. I think that means most Capcom games released in PAL have their music speed and pitch adjusted - this would have to be verified.
Konami also have most of their games with music speed and pitch adjusted, except the early ones. For instance, I'm pretty sure Castlevania 1 does not have any adjustement made, but Castlevania II and III have their music speed and pitch adjusted.
Same for Nintendo, early games have music speed and pitch untouched (so wrong in PAL), but later games have it fixed. SMB1 has 2 releases, one is 1:1 identical to NTSC, and the second has music speed, pitch but also game play speed adjusted, which is probably the only officially released NES game with gameplay speed adjusted.
Batman has the music speed adjusted, but not pitch, so the soundtrack is lower, but plays at normal rate.
Zelda 2 has link's vertical movement sped up, but not his horizontal movement.
DRW wrote:
Now I'm asking which actual games (not homebrew, but the commercial games) changed anything for their PAL conversion and what exactly they changed.
Now I'm confused. Which did you mean? From least to most strict:
- "Commercial" literally means an item in commerce, which in the case of NES games means sold on cartridge.
- "Not homebrew" means first published before 1997.
- "Official" means licensed by Nintendo.
Games included on the
Action 53 compilations meet "commercial" but not "not homebrew" or "official". Games by Codemasters meet "commercial" and "not homebrew" but not "official".
Bregalad wrote:
SMB1 has 2 releases, one is 1:1 identical to NTSC, and the second has music speed, pitch but also game play speed adjusted, which is probably the only officially released NES game with gameplay speed adjusted.
Are you sure about the NTSC SMB being released for PAL consoles? First time I hear about that.
No. I'm pretty sure that this was in Bootgod database but it's down at the moment. Check the database in wayback archive and you should find early PAL version with the NTSC ROM on them.
Rainbow Islands got a completely different port for the PAL and NTSC versions on NES.
Battletoads' PAL version fixes the 2 player bug with the Clinger Winger level, but I don't think there are any other changes (i.e. game just runs slower). The Japanese version of Battletoads actually makes a whole bunch of changes for difficulty (always start with 5 lives, the hardest section of each level made easier, etc.).
Dragon's Lair actually plays slower in the NTSC version, which is unusual. There's some other cosmetic changes too, I think.
Blaster Master's PAL version reportedly has a bunch of bugs the NTSC one doesn't. There's TASes that exploit this. This might be the result of trying to adjust speeds for the PAL version; might be one to take a further look at?
rainwarrior wrote:
Dragon's Lair actually plays slower in the NTSC version, which is unusual. There's some other cosmetic changes too, I think.
Yeah, I think they were trying to save money. The NTSC version uses UxROM (=> CHR-RAM), whereas the PAL and Japanese versions use MMC3 (with CHR-ROM). PAL version has got a bigger ROM and extra transitional screens between levels also.
DRW wrote:
No. Last time I wanted to know what I can do for my game to adjust it to PAL.
It's just general curiosity what different things were done in real games.
That's what the other topic had drifted to, though.
tepples wrote:
Now I'm confused. Which did you mean?
In general, I mean games that were sold by actual companies back when the NES was current. No homebrew/"doing it for the love and passion" stuff because I'm interested in the way things were done
apart from the knowledge of this community here.
Yes, I know that today's games on cartridges are commercial as well and that companies might be behind it. But they're still created by people like us with access to countless documentation on the internet in a time when the NES doesn't get sold anymore.
I was talking about the PAL solutions in companies that developed for the NES back in the day, under "real world conditions".
Myask wrote:
DRW wrote:
No. Last time I wanted to know what I can do for my game to adjust it to PAL.
It's just general curiosity what different things were done in real games.
That's what the other topic had drifted to, though.
Not really. Some names like "Super Mario Bros." or "Turrican" were thrown around, but you cannot really find a list of the PAL-adjusted NES games in that thread.
DRW wrote:
In general, I mean games that were sold by actual companies back when the NES was current.
So
1. commercial NES games
2. published before 1997 with or without a license from Nintendo, with
3. separate versions for NTSC and PAL regions where
4. the PAL version has faster movement.
I'm not aware of such a list. You could try asking
the collectors what they know about the topic. Or if you want to build your own list, I'd recommend first investigating games developed by Codemasters and published by Camerica.
tepples wrote:
So 1. commercial NES games 2. published before 1997 with or without a license from Nintendo, with 3. separate versions for NTSC and PAL regions where 4. the PAL version has faster movement.
Or, to tell it in an easier way: What did the developers back in the day do to adjust their games to PAL, apart from the music?
And no, this time it's not a question to find a game that I like for my collection, like with the female protagonist. This one is really just a question about programming techniques, so no need to enumerate a list of requirements.
Cosmic Spacehead has region detection.
In NTSC mode, the game runs at normal speed.
In PAL mode, it alternates between running 1 frame of game logic and running 2 frames of game logic, for an effective game speed of 75FPS.
In Dendy mode, the game is unplayable with servere graphics glitches since the game thinks it's a PAL console.
Bump! I think the OP's questions were not answered properly.
Little Samson has horizontal and vertical movement adjusted. There's a huge difference when playing PAL Little Samson on a PAL console and NTSC Little Samson on a PAL console.
PAL Kirby's Adventure Has a modified Demo screen to accomodate for the Speed Adjustment (Something the later version of SMB didn't do, check it out it's quite a great demo!). Kirby, Bosses and Minigames run the same as NTSC.
PAL Top Gun 2 is rumoured to be PAL fixed, but Konami wasn't known for doing that until the PS1 era so i don't know about that one.
PAL Air Fortress was PAL optimised (both Shooter and platforming sections.)
PAL DuckTales also has player speed optimisation
PAL BattleToads and Double Dragon is another game that was sped up as well.
PAL Guardian Legend's Player speed and Exploration section's scrolling is sped up. The game was published by Nintendo of Europe (One of the best localisers on the NES next to HAL and Rare) so this was to be expected.
PAL Rygar is one of two Tecmo games to have certain enemies (mostly the beginning ones) sped up, Player's running speed was adjusted but jumping speed was not. The game's difficulty was adjusted big time so i don't recommend digging into that one with a Hex Editor.
PAL Solomon's Key 2 (Fire N' Ice in the US) also has Solomon's Climbing speed, Victory Animation and walk speed adjusted. Fall speed was not adjusted.
PAL StarTropics is another game where walking speed was adjusted. (Both Overhead and Dungeon)
PAL Zelda is the same story. The intro has increased scrolling speed to synchronise with music. But overhead scrolling is slow though.
Wario's Woods, Mario & Yoshi (Yoshi in US), Yoshi's Cookie, Dr. Mario, Tetris and Tetris 2 all have full optimisation. (Mostly the problem with these PAL versions stems from being TOO fast.)
PAL Zen: Intergalactic Ninja feels similar to NTSC Zen: Intergalactic Ninja but that's just anecdotal i assume.
All of these games have adjusted gameplay code so try comparing these and see what Developers/Localisers did with them. Good Luck on your game!
Perhaps its time to put this information on the wiki. The question seems to come up periodically.
Please contribute to this page if you can:
http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/List_of_games_with_significant_regional_differences
Sure! I assume this wiki page also means general regional differences as well?
Probotector vs contra and that kind of stuff?
There's another major wiki for documenting significant regional differences, that would be
www.tcrf.net . That wiki isn't focused on technical stuff so much as visible differences.
Thanks for the list with the PAL changes. I'll have a look at it later.
TR3KT wrote:
Sure! I assume this wiki page also means general regional differences as well?
Probotector vs contra and that kind of stuff?
I agree with Dwedit here: The NESDev wiki is focused on things that are interesting from a technical and development point of view. Things that might be helpful for fellow developers.
Cosmetic changes like robots instead of humans or visual censorship are not really relevant on a development wiki.
Unless the visual changes are based on technical stuff, of course.
For example, as far as I remember, the Japanese version of "Contra" uses a different mapper which allowed the more dynamic backgrounds that became static in the US and PAL version.
I'm a member on the TCRF but i don't think i should add timing differences between PAL and NTSC because it's a lot more about source code, hidden strings and unused tiles, that sorta thing. The
DuckTales page is the only one that really mentions any thing about the topic at all. And that's only to tie it with an unintended glitch.