Japan Set(s) DK

[marinomitch13]

I was wondering two things about this/these game/s:

1) How is Japan set 1 different than Japan set 2? I saw that Jeff Harrist and others were talking about this in the shoutbox the other day. Does it have to do with the cab it came in originally or something more hardware related than programming related?

2) How does the Japan set high score compare to the level of maxed-out-ness of normal DK? Isn't the game like 80ish screens instead of 117? I have a feeling that this version could be a really interesting version to have competitions on, since it makes for a significantly shorter game, and it would be interesting to see some further point-pressing tactics being employed because of the fact that people like Dean, Jeff, and Ross could get away with being even riskier -knowing that they are way more likely to make it to the end of the game. Also, the ladder glitch could affect much of the dynamics of the game when it is employed with higher-level point-pressing -giving it a distinctly different feel to the entire point-pressing methodology.

[ChrisP]

DK Japan has 85 boards.

Nobody seems to know how Japan Set 1 is different than Set 2, though it's definitely not the same ROM code, because the checksum is different.

Japan Set 3 is the very first version of DK ever released to the public. It has the barrel board skip cheat and "How High Can You Try?"

I have been saying for years (mostly to myself...) that DK Japan is underrated and underplayed.

I love DK Japan! For no-hammer runs especially, it's unequivocally superior, since no-hammer is all about the conveyors and rivets, and all the barrel boards in the US version do is get in the way and add needless, dumb deaths.

I truly believe that THIS is the version that Allen should play to get his first kill screen. Seriously. He's way more likely to do it. And I can say, from personal experience, that kill screening the Japanese one increases your confidence to do it on the US version.

It's special to me because I got the no-hammer world record from Jeff Wolfe a month after he got it (though he beat it back a month later, and then CRUSHED it a few months after that, one rivet away from what would have been the first ever no-hammer kill screen on any Kong game).

Scoreboard for "Points":
http://www.twingalaxies.com/scoreboard/7090/46/33137/

Scoreboard for no-hammer:
http://www.twingalaxies.com/scoreboard/7090/46/33138/

600K is kinda like 930K on U.S. version. I was able to do it because I abused the hell out of the ladder cheat. 

650K = 1 million U.S. That's what Hank got.

Phi Tudose got over 700K though on MARP, semi-recently, which is pretty much the equivalent of 1.1 or so on the US version. I don't think anyone will beat it. Dean could of course, but I don't think he has the slightest interest.

[JCHarrist]

Yeah, it's kinda grown on me recently. It just feels so much more balanced with one barrel board per level. My 628K game was playing all bottom hammers fairly conservatively with no real grouping. Phil Tudose has a 700K game on set 1 on MARP that must be pushing the limits of what is possible.

And I should add that I didn't use the ladder cheat at all.

[tudose]

little things ive noticed about japan set 1 compared to us set 1 are that the japanese boards are "slimmer" from the left side of the screen to the right side. you hit the wall earlier when wall-jumping in japan set. im not sure why they made the width a little bigger for us set 1. secondly, jump-steering doesnt really seem to work in japan set 1. again, im not sure why but it just doesnt seem to work. even in later levels. its been a while since ive played japan set 1 but ill give it a shot tmrw during my stream and see what else i can come up with. as for japan sets 2 and 3 i havent played those

[ChrisP]

I haven't watched your Japan game yet, but you must have been getting 12-13K barrel boards, or maybe some huge deaths!

[JCHarrist]

Oh yeah, I can confirm that jump steering doesn't work in Set 2 either.

[ChrisP]

Oh good. I thought that was my imagination.

I jump-steered far less often back when I was playing Japan though.

[tudose]

i just fired up a quick game. another tiny thing i noticed is that the springs seem to come out slightly slower than normal in the first elevator level. of course us set 1 doesnt have a level one spring board but i thought id throw it out there

[marinomitch13]

Are there known differences from sets 1 and 2 with Japan set 3, or all they all pretty much the same thing, as far as we know?

Man, I really need to upgrade my ram... I am missing out on racking up some easy KSs on these other DK versions!

I've said this a bunch of times before, but can't wait till Dean gets 1.2m on normal DK, 'cause I bet he is gonna go after and absolutely cream all these other versions! I can't wait to watch him play more Big Kong! 

[tudose]

haha i totally forgot about big kong. ive yet to play it but it was always a lot of fun to watch when dean would fire it up

[up2ng]

Oh wow, is there really a version where jump steering "doesn't work"?  That's amazing since that's probably the biggest way that beginning players die -- broad jumping a barrel near a ladder and accidentally steering another barrel down that ladder and landing on it.  On such a version, brand new players would automatically survive much longer.  Weird!

[cheetah33p]

Where can you get the Downloads for the Japan Sets?  Or can someone post the links on here? 

[tudose]

Oh wow, is there really a version where jump steering "doesn't work"?  That's amazing since that's probably the biggest way that beginning players die -- broad jumping a barrel near a ladder and accidentally steering another barrel down that ladder and landing on it.  On such a version, brand new players would automatically survive much longer.  Weird!

yup lol. fire up some japan set 1 when you have a minute and give it a shot. grouping at the top using jump-steering just doesnt seem to work. of course the occasional barrel will come down the ladder on its own but thats about it

[tudose]

Where can you get the Downloads for the Japan Sets?  Or can someone post the links on here?

PM'd

[ChrisP]

Oh wow, is there really a version where jump steering "doesn't work"?  That's amazing since that's probably the biggest way that beginning players die -- broad jumping a barrel near a ladder and accidentally steering another barrel down that ladder and landing on it.  On such a version, brand new players would automatically survive much longer.  Weird!

I'm sure the modification for the U.S. market was intentional, and for exactly the reason you mentioned: it's more likely to kill a beginner. The point of adding "steering" to the program in the first place was to draw barrels toward Jumpman, and I guess somebody figured out that it wasn't happening on jumps so they "fixed" it.

Kind of funny how the Jumpman-seeking barrels, which were supposed to make the game harder, backfired and became "steering", which made it easier.

I'm really glad they didn't mess with the fireballs to make them actually hunt Jumpman because then they'd be equally exploitable. Totally unpredictable randomness was such a stroke of accidental genius. It's the only reason we're still playing.

And Phil, I just checked out the "narrower walls" thing. You're right! I'd never noticed that before! (Shows how often I actually use wall jumps) It's actually downright *hard* to die by wall-jumping incorrectly, which is, obviously, not the case on the U.S. version.

The weird thing is that Set 3 (which, again, is DK "version 1.0") has the less-forgiving U.S.-type walls.

My theory is that the bouncier walls were put into the later Japan revisions (Set 1 and 2) as a patch to prevent the barrel board skip cheat, once that was discovered, but they didn't like that on the U.S. side because then it became too hard to die from jumping off the end of girders, so they put the less-bouncy walls back in and patched the skip cheat some other way.