There are some very serious retro video game researchers and preservationists out there. Thankfully our favourite machine is high on the priority list for preservation as it has the best games (come on it’s true, we all know it!) and so us fans can rest assured we will receive access to more games as time passes. Just how serious are these historians you ask? Serious enough to offer $2,500 US for a clean dump of a standard 8MB ROM of BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2. The game is split into 4 week broadcasts which as was common with BS games, like BS Zelda Map 1, BS Zelda Map 2, BS Zelda Ancient Stone Tablets, BS Super Mario USA Power Challenge and of course BS F-Zero Grand Prix.
There’s a good reason why such a high price was offered to rescue a good dump of the game. For one thing F-Zero is a very popular and important SNES franchise so the BS F-Zero games are highly sought after. Secondly in order to find BS-X Satellaview ROMs us westerners need to purchase and import BS-X flash cartridges for Japan auction websites. To make things worse the game name would not actually appear in the menu’s if you go try and go through the contents of the cartridge. So even if the seller would otherwise list the contents of the cartridge even they wouldn’t know what was on it unless they loaded it up and played it. Therefore buying BS-X memory cartridges (flash cartridges) is very much a gamble, you have no idea what you are getting until you receive the item. Not only does that make it a gamble but it makes it an expensive gamble, with the memory cartridges only storing 1 or 2 game files at the most.
The owner of Satellablog, a blog website dedicated to research of Satellaview, known as Luigiblod was the man responsible for offering the $2,500 reward for the ROM of each week of BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2. He unselfishly then has released the ROM to the wider SNES gaming community for us to enjoy! Additionally the ROM has been patched as a standalone ROM so you can play it on FXPAKPRO or emulator without having to go through the BS-X Satellaview menus. You can download the ROM from the Satellaview Blog (see the link at the bottom of the page).
Week 1 data of F-Zero Grand Prix 2 contains two racing tracks – Forest I and Forest II. This version of F-Zero was not just a straight port of F-Zero with changed tracks or some other minor difference. It actually originally was broadcast simultaneously with Soundlink so the game was made more exciting by adding voice narration to the futuristic racing experience. It focused on the “time attack” mode and gave precise instructions on how to race more efficiently to aid the player in driving more competitively. Although it is know that the original F-Zero didn’t reward good driving technique as you could never really gain a significant lead if you are out in front however this allowed less skilled players to be able to catch up easily if they fell behind. This version of F-Zero has the new cars from the first Grand Prix game with their updated specifications from the original Super NES F-Zero.
Another feature from this version of F-Zero was that ghosts data (like in Super Mario Kart) from staff runs was available to be able to race against. The commentators included Barbie Suzuki, rumored to be the game’s director (Toshiaki Suzuki) would give you tips on how to beat him. Lesser skilled players would find it easy to beat one the easier commentators Bucky Koba. Additionally the Forest I and Forest II tracks where easy to race in, not containing any difficult corners or hairpins. This would be a great game to be replicated by the Satellaview+ team due to it’s pairing with Soundlink, let’s hope they come up with something in the near future.
For more information on BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 please visit the Satellaview Blog
