MOTB Beta/Early Build Disc- as well as MMX5 and Legends 2

[jindough]

Hi all, I recently obtained some beta / early build discs of Misadventures of Tron Bonne, Megaman Legends 2, and MMX5. I got them from someone who reviewed games during the Ps1 era. I'm still in the process of making some recordings of the contents of the disc. I just wanted to start by showing the pictures of the discs- I also have other beta discs for unrelated games like FFVII, Spyro, and more. Not just these 3.
If interested , PM. Will update the post throughout the week with some start menu vids and such.

[Chiz]

jindough - I'd definitely say we - as a community - are interested in them. MMX5 might be a harder sell 'cause it's not the focus of MMLS, but we have a lot of affiliates who wouldn't mind the opportunity of going through it. Hopefully those discs were not affected by the chemicals used to remove the identifying info from the labels.

Me, personally, I'm especially interested in the DASH 2 build.

One thing I find curious is that the discs are using the final localized titles; MMX5 instead of Rockman X5, Megaman Legends 2 instead of Rockman DASH 2, and Misadventures of Tron Bonne instead of Tron ni Kobun. The date on the MML2 disc is also 3 months after it was released in Japan, so I suspect the only beta elements would be an incomplete translation.

[jindough]

Yes, alot of them still seem to have Japanese remnants still yet to be translated/ dubbed over. MMX5 title screen is in Japanese like you said " Rockman X5". Misadventures boots up to the english MOTB logo.

[ZEROrevive]

Just to point you in the right direction, some people over at the Megaman X9 Forums might be interested in seeing the Beta X5. Give it a shot.

As for the other two betas in mind...i'm particularly interested in the MML2 beta. Mainly curious how much was left over from MML1 that possibly was left in until updating it more towards the newer game. Considering how it runs on the same engine and all at least, thats what i'd figure to be in there.

[jindough]

Here is a link to the few videos I made today of MOTB and MMX5. I noticed my MMX5 is very different as far as starting the game out goes it seems like my version just shoves you right into the game- the others show storyline beforehand? Anyways, the MOTB I played through I noticed a few major differences so far- there is this code running on the bottom and top of the screen- and the numbers change depending on what button you hold down or hit on controller... probably used for debugging? And also, at certain points where you get "stopped" at the beginning to get prompted by the older guy- he won't prompt you- which left me guessing on what to do for the holes in the wall at first. kind of neat.

ksutube.kent.edu/playback.php?playthis=1bd098hd0 Tron Bonne Footage


ksutube.kent.edu/playback.php?playthis=5w6ej7m09 (Watch the end to see title screen )

Also, I will be posting the Legends 2 Video Tomorrow.

[Kyle]

Y-you promised us MML2, jindough. W-where's the MML2, jindough...? 

*Shakes fist*

[jindough]

I'm having some issues with it, it won't run on my mac side emulator, so I have to run it on my PC. and record with my phone. Will post within next couple hours guaranteed!

---

Here is a couple videos I took today of Megaman Legends 2 . Please note that the "Demo Mode" that is displayed in the 2nd video is caused from my video capturing software, not the game. I did notice the graphics were slightly different in mine than from the release version. They are more poly-gony?

ksutube.kent.edu/playback.php?playthis=x3z7tm6nx

Tomorrow I will post the longer video that goes past the first encounter.

---

Okay, here is video 2 which is much longer. Check it out! ksutube.kent.edu/playback.php?playthis=9xvc21rhx

[Dashe]

So to recap, those videos cover all of the content on this disc? If not, then how much content is there compared to the actual games and where does the demo end? If I were to wager a guess, would they end after saving Joe and beating the Giwan in the mines for MML2 and after Glyde captures Teisel and Bon in MoTB?

[jindough]

The videos are just a fraction of the size of the disc.. to get a better idea of the size of the disc ( I'm sure you guys know the release build size) here are the sizes of the files on mine:

Megaman Legends 2:610MB
Megeman X5: 260MB
Misadventures of Tron Bonne: 353MB

[Dashe]

I'm not looking at megabytes here, I'm looking at actual content. Like what happens in the story, you know? How far does the plot get before the demo ends?

[Chiz]

Feb 21, 2014 0:30:03 GMT -5 Dashe said:

I'm not looking at megabytes here, I'm looking at actual content.

We can infer from the MB sizes how much data is on them by comparing to MB sizes of the full games.

Megaman Legends 2 retail clocks in around 630, so it's safe to assume the Trial disc is literally the whole game, but with Japanese audio swapped in instead of English audio (presumably recording hadn't started/completed yet). Since it's tantamount to an "undub", which are pretty easy to put together, its value isn't terribly different from a standard copy (it's an interesting copy, but it looks like it was put on a cheap Office Depot CDR; does it even run on real unmodded hardware?)

Misadventures retail clocks in around 320 + 40MB of padding audio, so again it's safe to assume that this Trial disc is the whole game, but with debug information turned on. Like MML2, there's some evidence of incomplete localization, but it's much further along than MML2. Unfortunately, showing footage of an emulated copy is no good, because MoTB has never worked "right" in emulators without extensive settings tweaks and hacky fixes (the missing text bubbles is a very common bug, which tends to result in the game crashing before meeting up with Bon at the end of the prologue).

I can't really comment on MMX5 as I'm not that familiar with the game, but I imagine that it's the same. After all, these games are supposedly reviewers' copies, meaning they need to be reasonably complete for the reviewer to get sufficient sense of the game's length, quality, and raisons-d'être.

Naturally, this could all be wrong, since I haven't actually looked at the games; content could be locked out, and the minute differences might be interesting to investigate.

[protodude]

Been lurking for a little while... thought I'd point out the X5 here is very, very insignificant. It's the version 1 beta; the earliest known format the game was shown in. This is detailed on the Mechanical Maniacs. There's numerous visual and audio differences. It will certainly be interesting to peek inside the code for other oddities. If we can get it, that is.

[OKeijiDragon]

Hi.



And here are some fun screenshots of the proto I took while recording the video. These are all manipulated by the debug's Event Camera function, by the way.

[Chiz]

That's some beautiful footage, OKeijiDragon. I laughed, I cried, I hungered.

Seeing all the debug information on screen should make my life a little bit easier with my research. I'm glad protodude was able to negotiate this ISO's release. I've already started comparing files, and should be able to do a lot more once I've polished off the container format and decompression documentation for the game's resources.

[Blues]

I saw this on twitter a few days ago- pretty cool!  Those debug menus you guys uncovered seem like they'll be useful for anyone making Legends fanvideos- like, say, Tau?   Anyway, can't wait to see if there's more stuff hidden in this beta! Thanks OKeijiDragon and protodude!

...Although I'm curious about something: in the fourth screenshot you posted, the Gatz model is red (and I noticed this happened during the video too). What's the story behind that? Does it have something to do with modifying textures?