Heya folks, I haven't been very active on this forum lately but I just saw this thread so obviously I have to chime in :P
First off...
Version 1 (Version A)is the shared life bar by all hero group members.I've gathered that all copies with the serial # below 007 is version 1 (Version A) .Any copy 007 and above is version 2 (Version B),the seperate life bar version.
Version 1 comes out of Europe.
BB
Hmmm, well I'm glad to hear somebody finally did some research in regards to serial numbers. If it's true that all carts under the general range of 007xxx are Version A, then I'm glad this is in line with my original theory that this version was the "earlier" revision.
As to the cartridges being of European origin too, that's what I've always assumed too since the cartridge that was originally dumped and put on the internet in 1998 came from a couple guys in Sweden called ROMLIST. I distinctly remember reading another thread in which a member from here saw a Version A of the game on a trip to Italy. All the times I have come across the game "in the wild" at US arcades, it has always been Version B. Always.
Although I'd still like to know if Version A was ever prevalent in Japanese arcades. You'd think it would have? But from all accounts I have heard/seen of when the game was at Japanese game centers, it's always seemed to be Version B as well.
What I find interesting is that when the game was previewed in Neo-Geo Freak magazine, the screenshots are of Version A. Note the inactive grayed-out character portraits at the top, since those only appear in Version A.
http://bbh.marpirc.net/shock/ngf1.jpg
http://bbh.marpirc.net/shock/ngf2.jpg
And then there's this promotional flyer for the game...
http://bbh.marpirc.net/shock/flyer2.jpg
where the "Mountain route" and "Jungle route" are screenshots of Version B, but the "Valley route" screenshot is Version A. What?
Aaanyway, here's another copy-pasted summary of the differences between Version A and Version B if anyone is still unclear:
Version A
-The player's lifebar consists of 128 "points". (whenever you pickup a life-restoring item, the number of points that it adds is shown. The first-aid kits are worth +64 points)
-When a new credit is started, the lifebar does not start fully filled up at 128 points. In Lonly Wolf the lifebar starts at 112 points, and in Team Battle it starts at only 88 points.
-At the start of each level, it will show you each character's "rating" for the level. They will be given anywhere from 0-3 stars for the level. The higher the star amount, the faster that character will be able to move ON THAT STAGE ONLY. In addition to this, if a character is rated 2 stars a +8 life bonus will be added, and if they are rated 3 stars they will get a +16.
-You are given only one life. If you are playing in Team Battle, all three characters share that lifebar, so once it runs out it's game over.
Version B
-The player's lifebar consists of 64 points, which means you can only take half as much damage before dying.
-Lifebar starts at 100% in both Lonly Wolf and Team Battle modes.
-There is no display of the star rating inbetween stages, and no life-ups are given for characters that are rated 2 or 3 stars on the stage. However, THE STAR RATINGS ARE STILL THERE EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOT DISPLAYED TO THE PLAYER, so characters will still move at different speeds depending on the level.
-By default the game is setup to give you 3 lives in Lonly Wolf, and a 3-character team in Team Battle. This setting is changeable in the soft dips under "HERO" to be a number from 1-8 (Yes, this means that if you change it to 8 and select Team Battle, you will all have 8 characters on your team). The "HERO" setting is absent entirely on Version A.
-Also worth noting that in Team Battle if the game is finished after 1 or 2 of the characters die, those characters will not be present in the ending. In Version A all 3 characters will always be there (since they all share one lifebar, naturally).
Finally, to answer the other question, NO you can't change the game from Version A to Version B through dipswitches. It is an actual hardcoded change in the program roms themselves.