Strider. According to M.A.M.E. you get a bonus life at: 1) 20k, 60k 2) 30k, 60k 3) 20k, 40k, 60k 4) 30k, 50k, 70k. As a matter of fact, if you choose settings 1 or 3 you never win a life at 20k. My knowledge of the game is not such as to allow me to check at which points you actually win the bonus lives. However, I consulted the arcade manual and found out the settings are the same as Ghouls’n Ghosts, i.e. 1) 30k, 60k, every 70k 2) 10k, 30k, every 30k 3) 20k, 50k, every 70k 4) 40k, 70k, every 80k. M.A.M.E. emulation of the Dip Sw department appears to be inaccurate. Ghouls’n Ghosts. According to Mark Longridge’s web page, the TG settings of this game require that all (the six) “unknowns” are set on position “on”. But after thorough examination (I think I can have my say on this) I can safely claim that turning those switches “on” does not affect the gameplay in any way. It makes absolutely no difference whether they’re “on” or “off”, which means that, as far as difficulty goes, TG settings = default settings. Why should they change anything, after all? The CPS1 motherboard (which is the same for all CPS1 games) has three Dip Sw banks containing each 8 switches. As can be expected, the settings are basically the same for all CPS1 games, but some of these games may have some features others don’t have. Let’s compare Strider and Ghouls Dip Sw (I refer to the respective arcade manuals): the first bank, Dip Sw (A), which concerns the coin settings, is identical in every respect: sw 1, 2, 3 (coin 1), sw 4, 5, 6 (coin 2) and sw 7, 8 unused. The second bank, Dip Sw (B), concerns difficulty levels (sw 1, 2, 3) and bonus extend (sw 5, 6). Sw 7, 8 are not used. The only difference is that Strider has an option Ghouls does not have, i.e. “2 coins/play 1 coin continue”, which is set by sw 4. Since Ghouls does not have this option, sw 4 is not used in this game and will therefore be one of the “unknowns” reported in the M.A.M.E. version. The essential point is that it does not set “something else”, it is simply not used. In the case of Strider, the third bank, Dip Sw (C), has the following options: number of player (sw 1, 2), screen stop (called “freeze” in M.A.M.E.) (sw 3), free play (sw 4), screen normal /flip (sw 5), sound during demo (sw 6), continue (sw 7), game/test mode (sw 8). Strider therefore makes use of all eight switches on bank C. In the case of Ghouls, the Dip Sw are exactly the same except for sw 3 and 4, as Ghouls does not have the “screen stop” (but see the note at the end, below) and “free play” options. And in fact, if you see the arcade manual, these switches are blank. And they are blank because they’re not used, not because they set some other mysterious parameters. Summing up, we have two unused switches (7, 8) on bank A for both Ghouls and Strider; three unused switches (4, 7, 8) on bank (B) for Ghouls and only two (7, 8) for Strider; two unused switches (3, 4) on bank (C) for Ghouls. Thus, Ghouls have a total of seven unused switches and Strider four, whereas according to M.A.M.E. the former has six and the latter two. These inconsistencies (as well as that mentioned in the note at the end) show once again that the emulation of the Dip Sw department is not accurate. Back to the main issue: the upshot is that the rule of setting “all unknowns on” in Ghouls has no reason to exist and should be eliminated. It may be worth noting that, as far as difficulty goes, the factory setting recommended by the arcade manuals of both Strider and Ghouls is “B”, which corresponds to “very easy” on M.A.M.E. Also worth noting in this connection is the fact that Ghouls and Strider have a “computer aided difficulty adjustment” (Ghouls was the first Capcom game to display this innovative feature). It would be too complicated to go into details (for which I refer to the arcade manuals), suffice it to to say that difficulty level is automatically raised if player is still playing after a certain amount of time (from 45” to 1’30”, depending on setting) and then it increases every 10” or 15” (again, depending on setting). When player dies difficulty is dropped to the immediately preceding level. If you manage to stay alive enough time it starts to increase again and so on. There are sixteen internal difficulty levels set by eight external levels. Therefore, if you start at external difficulty level 4 (“normal”) and go through the whole game with the first life (as I did in my 266,300 pts game) you’ll actually be playing 3/4 or so of the game at the hardest difficulty level, which does not mean external difficulty level 8 (called “hardest” on M.A.M.E.), since that starts at internal difficulty level 9 (out of 16), but at internal 16 (after which it does not increase anymore). I also started playing at external level 8 (“hardest” on M.A.M.E.) and finished the game with the first life (final score 264,600 pts) and can safely confirm the above is true: after a while the difficulty level is exactly the same.(posted 8491 days ago)Note. It must be added that it’s impossible to play the U.S. and the Japanese (Dai Makaimura) versions of Ghouls with the alleged TG settings, as when you turn the fourth “unknown” on, the screen... stops! It would seem, then, that that switch sets the “screen stop” (or “freeze”) option. But we have seen above that according to the arcade manual (and I refer to the U.S. manual), which is certainly more reliable than the M.A.M.E. team on this matter (keep in mind the mess they did with the Strider bonus settings), Ghouls does not have this option.
PS. Strider arcade manual can be found here: www.arcadeflyers.com/strider/ Ghouls’n Ghosts arcade manual can be found here: www.appolo.com