strangeness with a Super Turbo X grand master board

so I picked this up off of yahoo JP a little while back and noticed a few things that struck me as odd. First off all the boot screen reads as JAPAN AM, not sure if this means Japan/America but that might make sense given that the test menu is all in english. Which is also strange, the rest of the game however is in japanese. I seem to recall there being chips that could be added to this game so perhaps I should open it up and take some pics and maybe someone can tell me if there has been additional Roms placed in.

The next strange thing is that in the test menu there is a choice called "characters" which has all the individual frame animations and colors for all the characters, BGs, endings and text/dialog. Each of these can be scrolled through to see the different color palettes. I would imagine this is something that would be accesible on a phoenixed version however running a memory check (which is also strange for CPS2) tests all the roms as fine after running through the diagnostics so I think that excludes the liklihood that this is a phoenixed (or similar) board.

As well while scrolling through the characters menu, there is 3 scrolls options and in there there is some proof that a tournament mode is available for this game though for the life of me I cannot figure out how to access it. There are clearly some brackets and headings for winner, leader, 2nd place and so on. Anyone have any information on this it would be greatly appreciated as I am really curious now and would like to know what else is possible with this board and its origin.

Thanks fellas, heres some pics as well as a few videos hosted on youtube that I put up.







also heres some more wierdness, dont recall ever seeing this character unless he is on someones ending, hes got a skull tatoo and a mohawk but it does not look like birdie...

and blanka holding a head?! Been so long since I actually saw the ending from this game but I dont recall that being in his ending so I dunno...


and lastly here are the vids of the character menu..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rAMqfQoQAU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DaEww5WZJM

any words much appreciated.

setharnott said:

also heres some more wierdness, dont recall ever seeing this character unless he is on someones ending, hes got a skull tatoo and a mohawk but it does not look like birdie...

and blanka holding a head?! Been so long since I actually saw the ending from this game but I dont recall that being in his ending so I dunno...

Click to expand...

The first pic is Birdie. That pose is from Ryu's ending.

The Second is from Blanka's ending. I think he's holding a coconut. But I'm not sure.
That, and vgmuseum doesn't seem to have the images in their catalog of junk for comparison to show you how the poses fit in.

bummer not holding a head. I think im going to have to try and beat it with him real quick and find out. Thanks man.

Everything is normal for the Japanese version. The tournament seems to be leftover from SSF2TB. With CPS2 being decrypted maybe someone with be able to modify the roms so it can be accessed.

thanks fellas, yeah it definitely is a head blanka is holding at the end which is pretty awesome. I didnt realize that capcom went through and added extra drawing for the character endings. Only really ever play this game competitively and not 1 player mode.

Would be interested to see if the tournament mode could somehow be unlocked though. I have never seen any of the tournamenet edition boards for sale.

thanks!

My JP board does the same thing. Has all of those character tests and such that yours has, and the same tournament stuff. The only thing that is different on this board is that it has a counter on it. The US one that ive seen doesnt have a counter on it...does this mean anything?

The other thing that I noticed on mine is that in demo mode when it switches from to characters fighting to the high schore table, the fighters always low punch eachother at the same time and start to shake and slide across the screen. It does this every time without fail.


Its weird...

-DZ

I have 2 USA boards and they both have counters on them. Maybe the one you saw had it's removed?

yups mine has the counter as well. I gotta say if it werent for having to send the board to finland(?) I would be really interested in getting that tournament mode accesible somehow.

Can anyone verify if there was chips that could be added to this? I recall seeing an auction on yahoo JP a couple of months ago that mentioned it had x2 upgrade chips. The translation service is always rough and vague though so it could have meant something completely different.