Recent SMS Power releases

**cabbage** · 08-04-2011

Great stuff, and dual SMS/MSX games really pique my interest!
I run across some Korean SMS game paks from time to time but I'm never sure if they've been dumped or are worth picking up... any chance there's a master list of dumped (or even known) Korean releases? How about Korean-developed exclusives? I would love to pick up some games and share new dumps, just no idea where to start.

**ElBarto** · 08-05-2011

We are working on it on http://www.guardiana.net for the MegaDrive/SMS and Pico.

**Herman** · 08-05-2011

Originally Posted by NonShinyGoose

The Dr Franken for Game Gear demo is such a great find. Brilliant work!

Is this the same Dr. Franken that appeared on Nintendo's GameBoy ?

**Segafreak_NL** · 08-06-2011

^Yes.

**Omar** · 09-20-2011

Released 52 new dumps since my august update, including the full set of rare educational SC-3000 cartridges, lots of Korean games, bootlegs, Taiwanese games and a copy of NBA JAM for the Master System which is unreleased (see discussion thread).

etc..
very rare softs here.

PS: if you know anyone with Sega 8-bit prototypes please contact me :)

**Yakumo** · 09-20-2011

as always Omar, you are a saint to the Master System. I'll be sure to check these out when I get home.

Yakumo

**RaZiel** · 09-20-2011

Super awesome as I just got an everdrive and these are working great!!

**The Perfect K** · 09-21-2011

On the subject of SMS prototypes, there is a shot in the Wonderboy in Monster Land manual of Tom-Tom standing in front of a wall with a ?-mark door symbol behind him. I've searched high and low through the game for the past 22 years and I have never, ever seen that spot in the game, leading me to believe it's from a proto, which doesn't make sense since the SMS game's design is very faithful to the arcade original.

I played the proto Wonderboy from when you first dumped these years ago and never noticed that spot. Has anybody ever found out where that picture comes from?

**kiff** · 09-22-2011

Originally Posted by The Perfect K

On the subject of SMS prototypes, there is a shot in the Wonderboy in Monster Land manual of Tom-Tom standing in front of a wall with a ?-mark door symbol behind him. I've searched high and low through the game for the past 22 years and I have never, ever seen that spot in the game, leading me to believe it's from a proto, which doesn't make sense since the SMS game's design is very faithful to the arcade original.

I played the proto Wonderboy from when you first dumped these years ago and never noticed that spot. Has anybody ever found out where that picture comes from?

I am fairly sure that that door is in the game. I seem to recall there being a boss behind that door who asked you a random question (I think there were 4/5 different questions) and if you answered the question correctly you defeated him without having to fight.

I think one of the questions was - What is my favourite past-time? and I think the answer was golf! :shrug:

**The Perfect K** · 09-25-2011

Originally Posted by kiff

I am fairly sure that that door is in the game. I seem to recall there being a boss behind that door who asked you a random question (I think there were 4/5 different questions) and if you answered the question correctly you defeated him without having to fight.

I think one of the questions was - What is my favourite past-time? and I think the answer was golf! :shrug:

No, that's the Sphynx, who lives in the pyramid and is located behind a normal boss door. The only hidden bosses, like the baby dragon, appear in caves. The door in the manual appears behind a brick background as though it's in a castle, like in round 3. And, in round 3, there IS a hidden door which is marked by a ? symbol, like in the manual, but it's location doesn't match what is shown in the manual. In round 3, it's up near the top of the stage, to the left of the conveyor belt, while in the manual it shows it hidden between two spikes (which only appear on the bottom of the stage).

I'm a big wonderboy fan :-)

EDIT: As for the riddle of the sphynx, the answers weren't always the same. To figure out which answer you're supposed to give, you need to visit the bar outside of the pyramid and buy the most expensive drink twice, and the lizard dude will give you a letter to "catherine" who runs the bar inside the pyramid. Buy the most expensive drink twice in her bar, and she'll give you a cryptic clue which cooresponds to the answer you're supposed to give.

Off the top of my head, one such clue she'll give is "The sphynx has cool sunglasses" which is supposed to be your clue to choose "afterburner" if he asks "what is my favorite game?"

**kiff** · 09-28-2011

Originally Posted by The Perfect K

No, that's the Sphynx, who lives in the pyramid and is located behind a normal boss door. The only hidden bosses, like the baby dragon, appear in caves. The door in the manual appears behind a brick background as though it's in a castle, like in round 3. And, in round 3, there IS a hidden door which is marked by a ? symbol, like in the manual, but it's location doesn't match what is shown in the manual. In round 3, it's up near the top of the stage, to the left of the conveyor belt, while in the manual it shows it hidden between two spikes (which only appear on the bottom of the stage).

I'm a big wonderboy fan :-)

EDIT: As for the riddle of the sphynx, the answers weren't always the same. To figure out which answer you're supposed to give, you need to visit the bar outside of the pyramid and buy the most expensive drink twice, and the lizard dude will give you a letter to "catherine" who runs the bar inside the pyramid. Buy the most expensive drink twice in her bar, and she'll give you a cryptic clue which cooresponds to the answer you're supposed to give.

Off the top of my head, one such clue she'll give is "The sphynx has cool sunglasses" which is supposed to be your clue to choose "afterburner" if he asks "what is my favorite game?"

In all the years I have played that game I never knew that :pray:

You just made me want to dig an sms out and play some Wonderboy!

**The Perfect K** · 09-28-2011

Originally Posted by kiff

In all the years I have played that game I never knew that :pray:

You just made me want to dig an sms out and play some Wonderboy!

Pretty much every bar in the game will give you info if you buy the most expensive drink twice, but the ones in the pyramid are really the only important ones.

I assume you know about the hidden side quest? Beginning in the cave in round 2, you'll find a hidden door on the floating platforms (the game actually gives you a message to let you know when you jump over it) and you'll get a scroll. the quest lasts the duration of the entire game, but it makes the final boss so much easier.

After you get the scroll, in round 4, in the town, climb up the ladder and go to the window next to the shield shop and knock, and you'll find a hidden door where a lizard will give you a flute.

If you have the flute, then in round 6, you can climb the tall hill to the right of the boss door past the water and you'll automatically play a song, which will make a castle appear to your right. Go into the castle and you'll find a monster-looking dude in the only door in the place who will tell you to find the catfish.

In round 11, after you traverse the islands, when you fall into the ocean, immediately hold left and you'll land on a ledge with an item shop. Go inside, and DON'T BUY ANYTHING. If you buy something, when you return to the game, they'll have boarded up the store. Instead, enter the shop and immediately exit. Then enter the shop again, and instead of the store keeper, you'll meet the great catfish, who will give you the heroes emblem.

Finally, outside the dragon's castle, knock on every single door you see, and you'll meet a wizard who will let you trade the heroes emblem for one of two items - a bell, which will ring to tell you that you're going the right way in the castle maze (which is helpful if you don't know the way, but is the worse of the two items), or a ruby, which will half the dragon's health. This is, by far, the better of the two items.

Wonderboy in Monster Land actually has a bunch of secrets, but they're from that era of gaming where everything was cryptic and didn't make much sense. I only figured all this shit out after years, and years, and years of playing it. An example - there are two points in the game where you can basically guarantee yourself a perfect round bonus by fighting the same boss twice - in round 4 and again in round 6. In round 4, if you jump over the pool of water which leads to the underwater portion, you can fight the boss early, and he'll give up a key. After you leave his area, go right and fall into the pool of water and do the underwater portion; when you return to the above-water area, the boss door will be unlocked again and you can fight him a second time, only this time, when you beat him, he'll drop a big heart to refill all your health, in addition to dropping double the money.

Round 6 is sorta the same - fight the knight before you play the flute and enter the hidden castle. When you finish the castle, his door will be open again and it'll be the same deal.

Also, you can beat the sphynx without answering his riddle if you're good enough. It's tricky, probably the second hardest boss besides the meka dragon, but it can be done. The trick is to ignore what he does, and get this pattern down where you're running full speed from one end of the screen to the other, jumping over the middle portion of the screen. You'll wind up running a bit faster than he can teleport, and before you know it, he'll start teleporting towards the side of the screen you'll be running to, which will let you get one hit in before he throws his stones or fireballs or whatever those things are supposed to be.

He has a ton of health - only the meka dragon has more, so you'll probably lose a bunch of hearts due to the time limit, but you can beat him this way. In the following round, the 3rd or 4th door is a hospital, so you can refill all your health there.

Again, I'm a big wonderboy fan :-)

EDIT: actually, typing all this out, I just realized there is probably another place you can fight a boss for a second time but I don't know what it'd do. In round 2, you should be able to fight the boss which gives you the upgraded sword before you visit the fortune teller hidden in the wall, then go back to the wall, visit the fortune teller, and the boss door should reopen. I've never done this before, but I think it might work. I'll try it out later today.

I don't know what good it'd do, though, since that boss drops no money, and, like all the optional bosses in the game, he drops sword upgrades instead of money and a key.

Do you know about the quest to get the Legendary Sword?

EDIT AGAIN: Also, if you find the game too difficult, pressing pause 73 times will give you 43 gold, or vice versa, can't remember which. You can use this to basically max out Tom-Tom early in the game, save for the legendary sword, which makes the game a piece of cake.

**Omar** · 09-28-2011

I freaking love Wonder Boy in Monster Land. I played the heck of the arcade version and in my best days i could 1-coin clear it in Hard mode. Such a brilliant game.

**The Perfect K** · 09-28-2011

Originally Posted by Omar

I freaking love Wonder Boy in Monster Land. I played the heck of the arcade version and in my best days i could 1-coin clear it in Hard mode. Such a brilliant game.

Damn straight. I never played the arcade version until I bought a bootleg wonderboy cab ages later, but I played the hell out of the SMS version. Easily one of my favorite games of all time. I have so many childhood memories of that game. I remember, when I was a kid, I'd always skip the first boot upgrade in Round 2 and I'd get some magic in the item shop, until once my sister played and picked them up, and was able to jump into the cloud in the 3rd part of round 2 and grab some coins. Prior to that, it hadn't clicked with me that the boots made you jump further in addition to running faster. It blew my goddamn mind as a child.

I love that Wonderboy in Monster World is simultaneously a sequel and a remake, much in the same way that Super Metroid was billed as a sequel and remake of the original metroid.

If there was one single Sega franchise I'd love to see get a big budget revival, it'd be Wonderboy hands goddamn down. I'd give a testicle for it to happen.

**negora** · 09-29-2011

Shame on me. I didn't know this thread (I've been away from these forums to avoid temptations of spending lots of money on retro stuff XD ). The work which you do on SMS Power is really amazing. I've been reading that thread about the development stuff which was "given" to developers and it's very interesting.

Just to calm my curiosity: Do you buy all that stuff by yourself? Or do you use some kind of "donations" mechanism like the ones seen over here, on Assembler Games?

Thanks.

**Omar** · 09-29-2011

Thanks :)
I buy most of it by myself and been travelling to visit collectors in asia. I've been receiving quite a lot of donations in the 1999-2001 period when MEKA development was in its heydays but 95% of it since then comes from my own pocket. I would appreciate donation anytime but I'm trying to steer clear away from trolling and other non-constructive controversy generally associated to online communities so I'm not particularly chasing donations. My only interest is to get the cataloguing and releasing job done and then build an exhaustive publicly accessible collection of Sega 8-bit items.

Best help i can get is to get anyone owning prototype to get in contact with me for either dumping either parting/selling.

Pictures from my collection here >> http://smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13151 but the best bits (prototypes, etc.) are not pictured yet

**negora** · 09-30-2011

Omar: Then you could be considered like a modern Indiana Jones, he he he. I'm even more impressed after reading that you moved all your collection from Japan to England! I guess that you're used to travel a lot and know how to move stuff in the "proper way". Because shipping so many packages and surviving to that is a miracle, in my opinion. Either a miracle or it means a lot of money spent in insurances, he he.

I'm happy to see that someone keeps such important stuff in good hands.

My SEGA collection is small and is halt by now. And it's more directed to get stuff kept in brand-new or like new state (although this will change soon, because it's really complicated and very expensive), so I doubt that I can be of any help to you. Specially because your "action area" looks much wider than mine! Ha ha. Anyway, if I ever know about anything which may be of your interest, I'll report.

By now, I'm taking a deep look to your website. Congratulations for such a good collection ;) .

**Omar** · 01-19-2012

Released 28 new dumps since my september update.

4 PAK All Action

Four Korean clones of Bubble Bobble

Micro Xevious

Prototype BIOS, SG-1000 test cartridge

Original Korean games

MSX ports

Taiwanese SG-1000 games

etc.etc. and more. Available at SMS Power, now ongoing to celebrate our 15th Anniversary in March 2012. Please watch out for new Music & Coding competition.

Please keep helping us to locate any rare or prototype games.!
Regards.
Omar