Megaman the Wily Wars Sram+

[JustJeff88]

I just discovered this recently. I played it in Regen to get rid of the slowdown and was having a ball using the "Flow" patch, but when I finished MM1 it never marked the game as "complete" at the load screen. I'm not sure how I am supposed to complete all three games and fight Wily. I'm proper gutted; while I never felt that the game needed more pills on screen, having no slowdown plus slide in every game was fantastic.

Am I missing something?

[talos91]

BTW the Retroarch genesis plus gx core can eliminate the slowdown completely of this game with its overclock option, it is even playable on Android phones using Retroarch. All we need now is a hack to switch between special weapons with the trigger buttons without having to open the menu.

[JustJeff88]

I wanted to elaborate upon my recent comment. After some testing, I have been able to get the "Flow" version of Ar8temis' ROM to work on GENS; I beat Cutman and Elecman in MM1 and it retained my progress after several hard restarts of the emulator. I had originally tried on both Fusion and Regen with no success; the ROM worked perfectly well, but it would not save properly (states only). I really think that this is a great ROM, but I would have loved to have it work on Regen as I tested the overclocking on it and it got rid of all of the slowdown without a hint of video or audio sync glitches. Regen even has an option for "Use SRAM and EEPROM", and saving did not work for me regardless of whether that option was ticked or not.

BTW the Retroarch genesis plus gx core can eliminate the slowdown completely of this game with its overclock option, it is even playable on Android phones using Retroarch. All we need now is a hack to switch between special weapons with the trigger buttons without having to open the menu.

I agree. Get the ROM to run with proper save support on Regen, with its overclocking to eliminate the slowdown, and add weapon switching without pause and that would be the ultimate version of Wily Wars. I actually have a repro version of the Genesis cartridge that works perfectly, but that hypothetical ROM would be the most playable version of the game for sure.

[pianohombre]

BTW the Retroarch genesis plus gx core can eliminate the slowdown completely of this game with its overclock option, it is even playable on Android phones using Retroarch. All we need now is a hack to switch between special weapons with the trigger buttons without having to open the menu.

I'm not sure if y'all are familiar, but since the game was originally released in Europe/Japan it's set for 50hz televisions. Patching the game region to US changes the frequency to 60hz and speeds up the game. There's also a cheat code you can use to get more bullets on screen, and to walk without pausing. The patch hosted on this site also allows SRAM saving, rather than EEPROM which causes errors, allowing you to play the final Wily Tower after beating all 3 games. If any of you have downloaded the multirom set for ps2 soft-hack that lets you play snes, nes, and sega games on the PS2 the Pgen emulator doesn't shade the bosses you have defeated in the Boss Select screen so it's harder to keep track of your progress.

As for switching through the weapons one problem with this is that on the original Sega Genesis controller there is no select button, L or R triggers, and only 3 buttons (A,B,C) on the controller. Also, I was briefly working on this and it looks like the Pause menu is necessary for loading some important function in the background. I was able to hack the RAM to change Megaman's suit (that corresponded to the weapon upgrade) and this immediately changed the suit on-screen, but when doing the same for his weapon it would not upgrade his weapon on-screen. Even after hacking the RAM to give him appropriate weapons you still need to pause the game for it to change the graphics, store all the crap in VRAM, and apply the new specs for the weapon.

[tc]

Japanese consoles are 60hz.

[JustJeff88]

I'm not sure if y'all are familiar, but since the game was originally released in Europe/Japan it's set for 50hz televisions. Patching the game region to US changes the frequency to 60hz and speeds up the game. There's also a cheat code you can use to get more bullets on screen, and to walk without pausing. The patch hosted on this site also allows SRAM saving, rather than EEPROM which causes errors, allowing you to play the final Wily Tower after beating all 3 games. If any of you have downloaded the multirom set for ps2 soft-hack that lets you play snes, nes, and sega games on the PS2 the Pgen emulator doesn't shade the bosses you have defeated in the Boss Select screen so it's harder to keep track of your progress.

As for switching through the weapons one problem with this is that on the original Sega Genesis controller there is no select button, L or R triggers, and only 3 buttons (A,B,C) on the controller. Also, I was briefly working on this and it looks like the Pause menu is necessary for loading some important function in the background. I was able to hack the RAM to change Megaman's suit (that corresponded to the weapon upgrade) and this immediately changed the suit on-screen, but when doing the same for his weapon it would not upgrade his weapon on-screen. Even after hacking the RAM to give him appropriate weapons you still need to pause the game for it to change the graphics, store all the crap in VRAM, and apply the new specs for the weapon.

Well, thank you for doing the leg work. While disappointed, I wonder how they made it work for the collections that appeared on GameCube/PS2/Xbox, because those had shoulder-button weapon switching.

I do wish that more Genesis emulators had overclocking abilities, as being able to get rid of slowdown is a big QoL improvement.

Japanese consoles are 60hz.

Looks like Japan has both. Gens supports NTSC USA/Canada (60), NTSC Japan (60), PAL Europe (50) and PAL Japan (50)

[tc]

Well, thank you for doing the leg work. While disappointed, I wonder how they made it work for the collections that appeared on GameCube/PS2/Xbox, because those had shoulder-button weapon switching.

I do wish that more Genesis emulators had overclocking abilities, as being able to get rid of slowdown is a big QoL improvement.

Looks like Japan has both. Gens supports NTSC USA/Canada (60), NTSC Japan (60), PAL Europe (50) and PAL Japan (50)

Anniversary Collection was based on the PS1 Complete Works versions.

Television in Japan uses NTSC at 60hz.
Very easy to test on Wily Wars. The Japanese version is region locked, it will not play on a 50hz system.

Those emulator settings are the four Genesis region jumper configurations. (inside a model 1 Genesis, look for jumpers labeled JP1 through JP4)
In practice though, this PAL Japan mode is rarely used, and some emulators don't support it.

[JustJeff88]

I wanted to mention that the Regen emulator, like Gens, does create a .srm file for Wily Wars when the game would normally save. However, for whatever reason, it doesn't load the save on Regen when I restart or do a hard reset on the emulator. I don't know if this is a bug or an incomplete feature as Regen has effectively been abandoned, but one works and the other doesn't.

Anniversary Collection was based on the PS1 Complete Works versions.

Television in Japan uses NTSC at 60hz.
Very easy to test on Wily Wars. The Japanese version is region locked, it will not play on a 50hz system.

Those emulator settings are the four Genesis region jumper configurations. (inside a model 1 Genesis, look for jumpers labeled JP1 through JP4)
In practice though, this PAL Japan mode is rarely used, and some emulators don't support it.

I had forgotten about that, having never played the CW versions. Thank you for the information.

[pianohombre]

JustJeff88,
Ps1 controllers have L and R triggers and also select buttons so there is more options on which buttons to assign certain functions.

I'm sure there is probably some subroutine that is executed when pressing the pause button that helps load the graphics into VRAM, or whatever needs to be done to change all the values for a new weapon. I'll try capturing the assembly in a trace-log or something and see if I can find a JMP or JSR (or the Sega Gen equivalent) in the code. I'm not really the best decoder, but I'll take a look at it, and I've never mapped buttons before so I'll try finding a guide online or bug someone on this site. I'm pretty sure one of the buttons on the controller just duplicates another button by jumping or shooting the buster shot (kind of like how Sonic has only one command, but you can jump with all three buttons). So I could re-assign that button to switch weapons in one direction, then maybe down + button will switch weapons in the opposite direction.

[talos91]

If you are still using regen try downloading RetroArch (it is multiplatform) and use the genesis plus gx core, it is still gradually updated and has an overlock function too and an option to remove per line sprite limit too, the srm loading and saving works for this patch too. Here is a link to srm for wily tower if you don't want to finish all games first:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/x1hd05cskq5phul/WilyTowersrm.zip

And yeah quick switching weapons would be completely awesome, hopefully you can manage to do it man.

[tc]

I wanted to mention that the Regen emulator, like Gens, does create a .srm file for Wily Wars when the game would normally save. However, for whatever reason, it doesn't load the save on Regen when I restart or do a hard reset on the emulator. I don't know if this is a bug or an incomplete feature as Regen has effectively been abandoned, but one works and the other doesn't.

I had forgotten about that, having never played the CW versions. Thank you for the information.

The English version of Wily Wars uses a type of EEPROM that many emulators don't support.
SRAM patching helps fix it. (if you're already using the patch, then I don't know what's up)

I believe the Japanese version was officially released with SRAM.

[JustJeff88]

Thank you all for your input. I actually got the game saving and loading properly in Kega Fusion, which I prefer over Gens. While I would have liked to play it on Regen Dev build with the overclocking, which I tested and it worked flawlessly, the slowdown isn't that big of a deal and, to be honest, sometimes it helps old relics like me with less than stellar reflexes.

I saw on a forum somewhere that SRAM support for games was being handled on a case-by-case basis by the developer, and my conclusion is that Wily Wars was never take into account. While the game definitely creates the .srm file in the player-specified directory, it's either fault or isn't loaded when the game is started. Regen has been abandoned for years, so I'm going to have to give up on this one.

I would look into the Japanese version, but I wouldn't be able to use the Flow patch with it, which I really enjoy, so I don't think that I will. I have actually looked at RetroArch, but I've found that the menus and interface are very difficult to work with. I suppose that I'm not patient enough right now to untangle everything.

[gadesx]

There's a way to put the music with the tempo from pal version at 60hz? I prefer the music slower, after play the pal original game since the release. But hz-speed seems to be related as usually.

[tc]

There's a way to put the music with the tempo from pal version at 60hz? I prefer the music slower, after play the pal original game since the release. But hz-speed seems to be related as usually.

I don't know how to change that.

But yeah it's just laziness. They definitely produced everything at 60hz.
The entire game, music included, plays uniformly slower in pal.