Post by Riko on Aug 27, 2021 20:12:54 GMT
charliecat who runs the Neo Geo thread at Atari Age asked me to share this post (from TheGameCollector at AtariAge) here. It is very interesting as it shows there are different revisions of some AES games. This also solves the mystery of why none of my Neo Games seem to have infinite credits but I always hear other people saying their games have them!
Follow-up post :
Source : Neo Geo Thread At Atari Age
TheGameCollector wrote :
Today I learned some things about Neo Geo AES mode vs different bios settings.
The game's behavior in AES mode depends more on your actual cartridge's rom revision than your bios' settings.
If you have a game like Blue's Journey that has two versions, (one with 4 different difficulties to select from (Easy mode lets you start with 3 hearts) and only 4 credits/aka 3 continues after you start playing; the other with no difficulty options (starting with 2 hearts only) but unlimited continues, your bios default dip settings won't make much difference in AES mode.
I confirmed this by using a burned USA AES bios first, then tried the 4.0 Unibios.
For Blue's Journey, the Unibios 4.0 defaults its dip settings to Unlimited continues, but this does not matter. When you try to play the version of the game with the options menu, you still only get 4 credits/3 continues. You can change the dip settings for the amount of lives you get with each continue and that will work, like I was able to increase it from 3 to 4 and it worked, but I tried changing the continues to 99 and it still did not work. The only thing that will bypass the limited continues is the Unibios' cheat menu. There is a cheat code for infinite credits AES.
I have not messed around with the infinite continues version yet. I don't know if the Unibios dip settings can force limited credits or not.
On the Neo SD Pro, dip settings are also built into that cartridge, but if you have a regular AES bios, those dip settings will only work if you tell the Neo SD Pro to run the games in MVS mode instead. With a regular AES bios, the option is grayed out.
This makes me wonder if maybe some of the other dip settings are as ineffective in AES mode as the continues. Maybe in AES mode, the difficulty dip settings don't actually change the game difficulty. In the past, I tried to play World Heroes for MVS in AES mode using the Unibios and change the difficulty to 1 because I was having a hard time beating a character, but it didn't seem any easier at all. AES mode might be stuck at difficulty 4 in some games unless you use the cheat menu.
At least when you turn the system off and back on, all the dip settings go back to their defaults. This makes me realize that my quest for a USA bios wasn't that important from a gaming standpoint. All it will do is make my very good condition boxed Gold system appear unmodified from the outside and functionally.
My collection of AES cartridges checked with the USA bios is as follows:
Blue's Journey (options menu, 4 credits) cartridge only
Blue's Journey (no options, unlimited credits) CIB
Magician Lord (no options menu, continue from checkpoint only, unlimited credits) cartridge only
Magician Lord (no options menu, continue from where you stood when you died, unlimited credits) CIB
Fatal Fury (options menu, 4 credits) CIB
Fatal Fury 2 (options menu, 4 credits) CIB Japanese copy
I wonder if it's more common for the AES games to have the limited credits or the unlimited credits? Another good question would be which revision is older than the other in each instance.
Today I learned some things about Neo Geo AES mode vs different bios settings.
The game's behavior in AES mode depends more on your actual cartridge's rom revision than your bios' settings.
If you have a game like Blue's Journey that has two versions, (one with 4 different difficulties to select from (Easy mode lets you start with 3 hearts) and only 4 credits/aka 3 continues after you start playing; the other with no difficulty options (starting with 2 hearts only) but unlimited continues, your bios default dip settings won't make much difference in AES mode.
I confirmed this by using a burned USA AES bios first, then tried the 4.0 Unibios.
For Blue's Journey, the Unibios 4.0 defaults its dip settings to Unlimited continues, but this does not matter. When you try to play the version of the game with the options menu, you still only get 4 credits/3 continues. You can change the dip settings for the amount of lives you get with each continue and that will work, like I was able to increase it from 3 to 4 and it worked, but I tried changing the continues to 99 and it still did not work. The only thing that will bypass the limited continues is the Unibios' cheat menu. There is a cheat code for infinite credits AES.
I have not messed around with the infinite continues version yet. I don't know if the Unibios dip settings can force limited credits or not.
On the Neo SD Pro, dip settings are also built into that cartridge, but if you have a regular AES bios, those dip settings will only work if you tell the Neo SD Pro to run the games in MVS mode instead. With a regular AES bios, the option is grayed out.
This makes me wonder if maybe some of the other dip settings are as ineffective in AES mode as the continues. Maybe in AES mode, the difficulty dip settings don't actually change the game difficulty. In the past, I tried to play World Heroes for MVS in AES mode using the Unibios and change the difficulty to 1 because I was having a hard time beating a character, but it didn't seem any easier at all. AES mode might be stuck at difficulty 4 in some games unless you use the cheat menu.
At least when you turn the system off and back on, all the dip settings go back to their defaults. This makes me realize that my quest for a USA bios wasn't that important from a gaming standpoint. All it will do is make my very good condition boxed Gold system appear unmodified from the outside and functionally.
My collection of AES cartridges checked with the USA bios is as follows:
Blue's Journey (options menu, 4 credits) cartridge only
Blue's Journey (no options, unlimited credits) CIB
Magician Lord (no options menu, continue from checkpoint only, unlimited credits) cartridge only
Magician Lord (no options menu, continue from where you stood when you died, unlimited credits) CIB
Fatal Fury (options menu, 4 credits) CIB
Fatal Fury 2 (options menu, 4 credits) CIB Japanese copy
I wonder if it's more common for the AES games to have the limited credits or the unlimited credits? Another good question would be which revision is older than the other in each instance.
Follow-up post :
TheGameCollector wrote :
Actually it looks like the difficulty settings in the bios do work in AES mode. In Blue's Journey non difficulty menu version with unlimited continues, you can both affect the difficulty and amount of continues to a point. Difficulty 4 has 2 hearts. Difficulty 1 still only has 2 hearts but gives you 300 seconds to clear a level. Difficulty 2 gives you 280 seconds to clear a level. Difficulty 8 only gives you 1 heart and even less than 200 seconds to clear a level.
In the other version with the difficulty menu, selecting hard mode is the only one that gives you just 1 heart to start with. That means you can't get hit and survive!
In the unlimited continues version, I was also able to decrease the amount of continues you have. While the counter that shows remaining amount of continues never appears, setting it to 3 continues made it so I got a game over after my 3rd attempt of using a continue.
Actually it looks like the difficulty settings in the bios do work in AES mode. In Blue's Journey non difficulty menu version with unlimited continues, you can both affect the difficulty and amount of continues to a point. Difficulty 4 has 2 hearts. Difficulty 1 still only has 2 hearts but gives you 300 seconds to clear a level. Difficulty 2 gives you 280 seconds to clear a level. Difficulty 8 only gives you 1 heart and even less than 200 seconds to clear a level.
In the other version with the difficulty menu, selecting hard mode is the only one that gives you just 1 heart to start with. That means you can't get hit and survive!
In the unlimited continues version, I was also able to decrease the amount of continues you have. While the counter that shows remaining amount of continues never appears, setting it to 3 continues made it so I got a game over after my 3rd attempt of using a continue.
Source : Neo Geo Thread At Atari Age
hope you are ok dude
