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After a successful fundraising campaign in September, our resident engineer, Tofu, set off on a mission to France to extract and preserve Rockman EXE: Battle Chip Stadium from a collector. I am pleased to report that not only was Battle Chip Stadium successfully ripped, but we've managed to secure the data from Rockman EXE: The Medal Operation!
Once Tofu is back in the States, reverse-engineering will take place to get these once-elusive Japan-only arcade games in a playable state. In other words, after 18-or-so years, you'll finally have the chance to emulate and play them from the comfort of your home.
Read on for some important key points!
The Medal Operation running in MAME
- Both Battle Chip Stadium and The Medal Operation rely on their specific hardware for gameplay. Battle Chip Stadium uses real-world Battle Chips, while Medal Operation uses tokens or medals. Further, Medal Operation is heavily reliant on physical switches and levers to function. As a result, entirely new add-ons/plugins are required to emulate both games in MAME.
- Once Tofu returns from France, development on these add-ons will kick off. Additionally, the ROMs will require some fixes as they currently do not support sound when booted in MAME. This limitation stems from their use of "Medallusion" hardware, which MAME currently does not support.
- It's crucial to note that although the games have been successfully dumped AND boot in MAME, they are not playable in their current state. Rest assured, the dumps WILL be publicly distributed once the add-ons are ready. This will take some time.
Dumps successfully booting-up in MAME
- The Battle Chip Stadium dump is based on Version 3, the final iteration before the game was discontinued and phased out of Japanese arcades in 2009. This version includes all Net Navis from V1 and V2, and new additions like Beast Out Forte and Dark Blues. Additionally, an advertisement for the then-upcoming Ryuusei no Rockman 1, exclusive to V3, is included.
- Demi joined Tofu in France, filming the trip and extraction process. Once he's back home, Demi will edit and share the video to his YouTube channel.
On behalf of Tofu and the BCS preservation team, your patience is immensely valued and appreciated.
We have more exciting updates to share on the mobile front soon, too. Hang tight!
I am incredibly impressed with the efforts taken to acquire these rare games. Major kudos and congrats to Tofu for taking on this mountain of a task and succeeding on a once-in-a-lifetime gamble.
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing! I will definitely check these out. I love to see stuff like this live on.
ReplyDeleteThis is fantastic news! A real victory for preservation!
ReplyDeleteHOLY FUCKING SHIT LETS GOOOOOOOO
ReplyDeleteI have very little interest in playing these, but I appreciate the preservation efforts nonetheless. It's always nice to see rare titles being spared the fate of becoming lost media.
ReplyDeleteThis is your last time. In the future, don't ever announce anything unless you provide download links.
ReplyDeleteDid you read the post why there isn't? At the very least, you should appreciate that the games are secured, extracted from their aging hardware. Hang in there.
Delete"this is your last time" 🤡
DeleteLeast entitled Anonymous user
DeleteI know protodude doesnt like crap happening on here. But you are coming off like an ass or no reason at all. It was clearly stated this is still work in progress so why would there be a download link to this.
Delete"It's crucial to note that although the games have been successfully dumped AND boot in MAME, they are not playable in their current state. Rest assured, the dumps WILL be publicly distributed once the add-ons are ready. This will take some time."
its literally the final thing said in the small article. We all should be thankful this has even happened since till now most people thought that these games would be lost to time.
What are you going to do about it OP? Are you going to get angry about the lack of download links and leave? Sorry to break it to you but nobody cares.
DeleteI dunno what's worse the people who thought that anon meant that, or the fact that jokes can't even be said online anymore. I doubt any sane person meant that what are they gonna do choke them through the ethernet cable? But alas text has no tone and people lack wit these days.
DeleteWelcome to the internet 2023. No one is sane.
Delete@Anon 4, If you doubt any person would say that seriously online, well, here is the thing... People do get angry over stuff like that online ALL THE TIME. They aren't going to do anything or choke them through the internet or anything (which is why they dare says that kind of things in the first place), but yes you have people saying theses kind of thing whithout meaning it as a Joke. Welcome to the internet in 2023 indeed.
DeleteHence why we use signals when saying something like that as a joke. It's not a matter of lacking wits.
Like you said yourself, text doesn't have tone. that's why people use emoticons or expression that signify when they mean something as a joke.
I'm not gonna assume that anon1 was serious until proven they were, but that's a understandable mistake.
“This is your last time” 🗿
DeleteTouch grass
DeleteBendiciones Tofu y Demi son lo mejor👌🏾😍😍
ReplyDeleteLet’s go!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🤩
ReplyDeletei cant wait to hear the entire ost of both of the games! keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteYEAAHHHHHHHH LET'S FUCKING GOOOO
ReplyDeleteI hope people will have fun with the stuff! It was cool to have them here to check for my machines, nice moments!
ReplyDeleteThe game are more for the spectacular stuff via an arcade machine but there will be good stuff to do with it =)
If we can emulate the medal système, it could be cool! They will see ^^
There's a video up with all the newly ripped cutscenes!
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/pah5xH5h1No?si=1Fi8j53kGteIFd7r
i hope it will be build and make back to arcades. I'll be spending all my money on a machine
ReplyDeleteProbably not.
DeleteIncredible! Tofu is _so_ cool
ReplyDeleteThis "the ROMs will require some fixes" line has me very worried. Please do not alter dumps ever.
ReplyDeleteThey probably mean tweaking the emulator to work with the roms, not altering the roms themselves.
DeleteAltering might be necessary in order to play some prototypes. As long as the original version gets archived along with it, all's fine.
DeleteSorry if this is out of topic, but there is any news from the Rockman.EXE mobile game rip project?
ReplyDeleteWe have need to share soon.
DeleteOk, thank you man!
DeleteHey, I know that ancient emulator! That ain't MAME, that's Demul(used for Dreamcast, Naomi , Naomi 2, Atomiswave, Hikaru, Cave CV1000 and Gaelco). Unless, it's a heavily modified MAME that looks exactly like Demul which I really doubt. It's extremely picky with BIOS files.
ReplyDeleteHere's what you need to set up this emulator:
DeleteFor Atomiswave: awbios.zip or awbios.7z with the contents: bios0.ic23, bios1.ic23. The zip version has a size of 34KB. If your version has the comment TORRENTZIPPED-8E4A5776 then you are all set with this one.
For Naomi: naomi.7z 1,250 KB - Has 33 files inside.
For Naomi 2: naomi2.7z 433 KB - Has 11 files inside.
For Hikaru: It needs both hikaru.7z and mie.7z. hikaru.7z - Has 3 files inside. mie.7z - Has the 315-6146.bin file inside.
Cave CV1000 and Gaelco do not need bios files. The roms will work by themselves.
Zip or 7z(short for 7zip) are different compression formats. 7z files are slightly more compressed so don't worry about file size differences. What matters are the contents which are the files the emulator uses.
Some games, like Smashing Drive, need to have their volumes manually increased using the digital buttons. It's zero by default.
Good luck and happy playing!