Fatal Fury 3 question

I was playing Fatal Fury 3 (AES) today and when I got to Jin Chonshu his background was different. Instead of the usual flame background there was a waterfall and dragon statues in the background. When I beat Jin Chonshu I got this screen:



What does LNLaLuL7L’ J mean? The game just froze at this screen so I didn't even get to fight Jin Chonrei. I have owned this game for years and have beaten it tons of times and I have never seen the waterfall background before. How did I get this background and why did the game freeze at that screen?

Thanks

I have gotten that screen before, but, really, you supposed to see Jin Chonshu beaten and you'll go on to fight Chonrei. But, what kind of bios do you have in your system?

My system is Japanese and is not modded.

This also happens on my unmodded jpn system, at first I thought it was my cart that was bad but then I got other copies of the game and the same thing happened.

Anyway to fight Chonrei you should win most of your matches straight, more than 3 (or 4) 3 rounders and you will only fight Chonshu and get the game freezed at that screen.

The game just froze at this screen so I didn't even get to fight Jin Chonrei. I have owned this game for years and have beaten it tons of times and I have never seen the waterfall background before.

Click to expand...

Sounds like he knows full well what to do to fight Chonrei and has probably creamed him more times than he could care to count.

While I really don't know what to suggest I can say that playing Magical Drop III several times one of a few particular letters would simply appear in the upper-left portion of the screen and would not go away. The game continued anyhow but quite what those letters were I never did understand.

The waterfall BG since I can think of nothing else is perhaps something still on the ROM but not normally accessible, ie. a BG SNK had plans for at some point which they never erased from the game's file banks. So the game could simply have crashed a la Windows and shown something you do not normally see. Who knows.

Weird, but kind of neat.

BY the sounds of things, backgroundwise at least, its a clear case of:
You normally play quite well, get the flame background & fight both Jins, usualy. However, on this occaision, you were playing quite shit, so you got the 'normal' bg and only one jin battle, it all depends on how well you played throughout the game. Sometimes, after facing Yamazaki for the second time, the game ends, why? Not been playin' good enough.

Cant help you on the frozen screen though. and i cant remember about the funny 'letters', it been a while since i played it.

hey fellas, dunno if this'll help but here's what little I know...

1) To confirm what other folks have said, if you don't have a flaming background when fighting in Chonshu's stage, it should mean that you won't have earned the chance to meet Chonrei...

2) In FF3 carts(MVS or AES), there seems to be a programming bug that if those conditions have been met and you wind up on that waterfall background, the game will freeze up on ya...
(I know there was a thread a good while back about this bug in either the General or Tech forums, see if you can find it)

The reason I know that waterfall stage w/no flames = no Chonrei is because I had the NEOCD version which does not have the bug and after much playing I learned that:
No flames = no Chonrei fight, and only an incomplete ending...

hope this helped to clarify and if you can find that old thread about the bug I'm sure all will be explained...

later

Fatal Fury 3 -- not intended for cartridge format?


This may sound a little wierd...but I have always felt that Fatal Fury 3 played like shit. Out of all 8 Fatal Fury games, I find it to be the worst when it comes to play control. I have also always found the sound to be...odd. The game in general is simply not like most neogeo cartridge games. About the only thing I do like from the game is a few of the backgrounds, and of course the introduction sequence which, visually, is very impressive.

I also have encountered this "bug" that was discussed.
I feel that it may have been due to programming mistakes and errors made at the time of the games creation. Keep in mind that Fatal Fury 3 was the "launch title" for the NEO-GEO CD game system in 1995. Fatal Fury 3 was also the FIRST "lock box" cartridge release. At the time of this games release, the CD system was taking center stage at SNK over the cartridge system. It may very well have been ORIGINALLY programmed for the CD system and perhaps even possibly intended to be a CD exclusive. Overall, the game has always felt and played very strange to me. Even the sounds of the "hits" seem "weak" and "connecting" on a command such as a punch, kick, or even special move is "poorly detected". Not quite like any other fighting game for the home console.

This bug may very well have been the product of game data "code" that was poorly written or poorly converted from CD to CART format at SNK. Especially if what they say about the CD version is true. (Someone posted that the CD version is glitch-free and does not have the bug.)

Also those comments about strange magical drop "phenomenon", I too have experienced. Sometimes a wierd line appears just around the area of your character? Anyone else seen this?

Well, just my two cents...
Billy