Ocarina of Time Japanese Version Discoveries

[UchihaSasuke]

well, the SDA people will accept the run with better gameplay no matter which version is used.
i think there was a rule somewhere that even if a run was faster than an older one, if it was thanks to something that saved lots of time and the actual  gameplay is worse, it wouldn't replace the older run.

i'd say you should finish the run since you already have several segments up.

also, someone could time every cutscene seen in the run and substract the difference to get what you could have gotten if you played in the jp version. to me that would be similar to the NTSC-PAL time conversion that is done to see how much a PAL run would take in NTSC systems.

[Maxx]

I think staying with the USA version is fine, but I understand how awful it would be to not break sub-1.  When I was considering a run, I definitely was going to use the JP version (mostly because it's my only 1.0 cart, but I also realized the text was faster).  It's kind of like using v1.0 rather than v1.1 (or more accurately, it's like VC MM vs. GCN MM).  They're pretty much the same, one is just a little faster.

I can still ship it to you if you need it, but just let us know what you decide.

[ING-X]

Well, I just tested the japanese collector's edition on oot, and yes, it is indeed 1.2

i highly doubt jp vc will be 1.0 but someone should test it anyway just to be sure.

[mzxrules]

In at least one Japanese version, when scaling Ganon's Tower the "Enemies are Near" song will play over Ganon's organ theme. This version could perhaps be the earliest version of OoT. I don't know which version however, because I was watching a TAS on Nicovideo.

Not really a Japanese specific version issue, but is it me or did they fix this animation issue in 1.2

[darkeye14]

I'm reviving this thread because of a new breakthrough by petrie911 that allows us to view the debug data straight from the game's memory. With this technique, you can figure out when the ROMs were created without ever having to own and crash the game yourself. I looked into all six Japanese versions, and came up with these dates:
J1.0: 98-10-21 04:56:31
J1.1: 98-10-26 10:58:45
J1.2: 98-11-12 18:17:03
JGC (version that came with MQ): 02-10-29 23:49:53
JMQ: 02-10-30 00:15:15
JGC (version that came with CE): 03-10-08 21:53:00

As you can see, the version that came with CE actually has a different build date than the one that came with MQ. There's no evidence of anything aesthetic or play-related being changed, but it still means it's a different version. I could also supply the build date of the Japanese VC if the ROM could be played on an emulator. I know the newer romc compression mangles ROMs and prevents them from being playable, which is why you can't extract an MM ROM from a WAD, but I don't know if OoT has the same problem. If someone knowledgable about Wii hacking can answer whether you can extract the ROM from an OoT ROM, then that would be great.

[UchihaSasuke]

hm, something i'm wondering is if using the AR code to play the US version with japanese text is legal for speedrunning.

here's what you'd need to do each time you boot up/reset the game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85kyQBfS-r0
(only the part where the AR comes in is necessary. the first part was just to show it is an US version and the savefiles)

for streaming purposes, the runner could stream the entire bootup sequence to make sure no additional codes are on.

i guess this could be useful for anyone who wants to have the JP version's advantages without actually buying an imported copy or a Wii.

[darkeye14]

I timed the Japanese text for MST. Here it is: http://www.mediafire.com/?j95s4t62wp02hlf
Some of my start and end points are weird, but I tried to explain it as best as I could. Just PM me if you have any questions.

[ING-X]

So how much does japanese version save over US version then?

[darkeye14]

Just under 12 minutes; I finished timing the US version, and here are my results: http://www.mediafire.com/?oomg5g912gwc7m2

That means Cosmo's recent run is 3:01:40-ish on US

[ING-X]

So it's 2860 seconds vs 3573 seconds = 713 seconds saved  = 11:53 saved in the japanese version in MST.

[Exo]

EDIT: Apparently there are 3 versions of Japanese OoT just like North American's version. They call the last 2 versions "Revision A" and "Revision B" which are the same as 1.1 and 1.2.

I was curious as to which version OoT NTSC-J is (there's 3 Japanese versions, just like ours), so i played the "non-revised" version and it turns out that it is exactly the same as NTSC v1.0 aside from the N64 startup logo being the "non-shiny" version.

"The rod steal off of the rock", Islamic Fire Temple music, crescent moon symbols, and Red Blood all are there.

The text is also considerably faster than the North American versions, the text characters are very large and very few.

How do you distinguish which japanese cartridge is a revision and which isnt ? The imprint on the backlabel ?
Or does the serial number actually change from the normal NUS-CZLJ-JPN ?

[ING-X]

There's no way to tell which japanese version you have until you actually play the cartridge.