Patching Japanese games

[midoryoku]

First post of many, my apologies in advance for bothering you all.

I want to get a game called Melty Blood:Actress Again, but I haven't the slightest idea of where to start. I know it's on the NAOMI system and it's two players and needs five buttons per player.

First question is, where's the best place to import Japanese arcade games and consoles? Second, how does patching work?

I'm guessing that the two are pretty closely connected, as it would be bad to buy from a place that doesn't have good customer service to handle patching.

Thank you very much for your help!

[grantspain]

what exactly are you asking for?
if you want legit software then use excellentcom or fujita communications,moving this to private ads

[penrhos]

I assume you mean the game for Naomi arcade system

GDL-0028 Melty blood Act cadenza

To run it you would need a naomi-1 GDrom system with a Japanese BIOS fitted to the Naomi-1 motherboard (its socketed).

Your probably looking at £50 for the game disk & dongle for version A and £100-150 for version B (the newer revision with blue artwork) plus the cost of some hardware to play it on.

[cless]

I think hes looking for Actress Again, the new one that came out this year. As far as I know its still in test locations only in Japan??? (Someone correct me if im wrong). I havent noticed it being sold online by any of the major Japanese websites at least. When it does become available, youll probably have to pay a lot for it since its new, $500+ at least for the software/dongle alone

Update: Looks like it got released in Japan on Sept 19th, so its REALLY new
http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/09/mel ... d-seq.html"

Fujita has it for 230000 yen. (Pretty much $2300)

[Jan]

if your located in the US , ask NCS , they might have a spare soft kit for you.

http://www.shopncsx.com/meltybloodactressagain.aspx"

[Bigsasquatch]

Do you think by "patching" he means he can somehow Patch Act Cadenza to the new game with some kind of download ( hack ) ? thinking you can burn new Eproms or something ? without realising its on GD-ROM ?

BIG S

[Lordstar]

I know someone who is about to sell this I could put you in touch with them if you like. There from the USA

[midoryoku]

No, by patching I mean the little fixes that balance characters and such. I believe I will order from ShopNCSX, but thank you, LordStar.

My next question is, if I'm wiring my own joysticks ((I prefer Sanwa stick+Seimitsu buttons while my friend likes Seimitsu/Seimitsu)), where should I go to learn about connecting them to my Naomi?

Also, does ShopNCSX sell Naomi consoles, or should I order one from elsewhere, such as Fujita Communications? And would you recommend a Naomi 1 or 2? Actress Again also requires 5 buttons per player, and I heard something about a Capcom "kick harness" that adds support for up to six buttons for two players, whereas Naomi 1 only has capabilities for three buttons for two players, but I am not sure about my information. Could someone clarify?

Again, thanks so much.

[Maho]

Naomi 1 is not limited at 3 buttons, the capcom kick harness for buttons 4-5-6 is only needed if you use a capcom converter which has only 3 buttons on the jamma. Just get a sega converter and you'll have the 5 buttons on the jamma, if i understand correctly you'll play on a supergun so i would recommend a sega V1 converter (does the job and is cheaper), for the power needed for the naomi you can take it from the supergun power supply (you'll just need a JST connector type A 8pins male, and a few pins).

For the patching issue, i don't think anyone can answer for MBAA yet, the previous versions were on GD rom, so when what you call a patch came out, they just send the GD which work with the same security chip as the original game (so ver A use MBAC chip, ver B2 use ver B chip).
MBAA is on naomi cartridge, it seems unlikely to me that they just give a new cartdridge, maybe they will ask to send back the cart to get the update (like cave does, or examu did with AH2.1), for now we will have to wait if there's a revision first (but with what has been found after just so little time from the release, it will probably need one).

[midoryoku]

Thanks so much! I'm hoping this will be my last set of questions, but the Supergun is going way over my head, so I'm not so sure about that statement.... I'm also looking on the Sega-naomi.com website, where there is an image of the pinouts of the Naomi. I'm hoping that all of this information is correct, because that's what I'm basing my questions on.

What are the "a few pins" that you refer to, Maho? Where can I buy those?

There's a "Mini D-Sub 15P" connection to the Naomi, as well as two RCA sound outputs. Is the 15P the same as the HD-15 that I use for my monitor ((Read as: can I connect my Naomi to my monitor)), or does the arcade output at a different frequency that isn't supported by normal monitors?

Do I need an amp to hear music, or can I listen to the sound "un-amplified," even if it's just really soft?

Who sells good Superguns? Also, I've seen many superguns with a DA-15 port for controllers. Is there some standard for how these pins match up to the JAMMA board? Or would it be better to buy the controller that matches the Supergun and rewire it to my preferred parts ((Not really a preferred solution, though... >.<))?

[Maho]

What are the "a few pins" that you refer to, Maho? Where can I buy those?

You can see the pins i'm talking about in that tutorial to use a pc power supply with naomi (it's in french but i think the images are enough to get how to do it), i guess you can buy it where you would get your Melty AA.

There's a "Mini D-Sub 15P" connection to the Naomi, as well as two RCA sound outputs. Is the 15P the same as the HD-15 that I use for my monitor ((Read as: can I connect my Naomi to my monitor)), or does the arcade output at a different frequency that isn't supported by normal monitors?

Do I need an amp to hear music, or can I listen to the sound "un-amplified," even if it's just really soft?

Yes you can connect the naomi on a pc monitor as long as you set it on 31khz, also you'll need an amplifier for the sound, but a pair of pc speakers do it just fine if you want to play on a monitor.

Who sells good Superguns? Also, I've seen many superguns with a DA-15 port for controllers. Is there some standard for how these pins match up to the JAMMA board? Or would it be better to buy the controller that matches the Supergun and rewire it to my preferred parts ((Not really a preferred solution, though... >.<))?

I don't bought my supergun so i don't know for that, but you can find some tutorials for making you one yourself on the net, it's not really hard.