Burning Firsts: Force Striker doesn't work on my model 1 Sega CD

[Jedi Master Thrash]

I got Burning Fists: Force Striker from Good Deal Games, but the game crashes when the fight starts every time.

It always happens in the same general way, right when the fights are starting. However, it's not always the same specific crash. It crashes at different points during the startup sequence each time you try it. The common thread seems to be that the character sprite turns into garbage at the crash, so that might be a clue as to the problem.

I got a replacement disk from GDB, hoping it was a media issue, but the replacement has the same problem.

I ran the disc in the Gens emulator, and it works fine in there. So it must be something linked to hardware timing or something. I also tried making a copy on a different brand of media, but the copy played the same. I tried swapping my model 1 genesis for a model 2 genesis, but that didn't change anything, and I tried with and without the 32x attached. I don't have any other sega CDs to try out at the moment. The serial number on mine is G20030800.

GDB says nobody yet has had a problem besides me, and they've been selling them for 2 years, and assumes many model 1's have been used. I know there are dozens of different revisions of the model 1 Sega CD. All of them that I used to have I think had different insides (but I sold them all at the Midwest Gaming Classic). Does anyone have an idea what type of code bug might be linked to a particular model 1 sega CD failure?

Here's three pictures showing crashes:

http://www.jedimasterthrash.com/sega/burningfists1.jpg

http://www.jedimasterthrash.com/sega/burningfists2.jpg

http://www.jedimasterthrash.com/sega/burningfists3.jpg

Thanks,

Ash.

 

[Kuta]

That's an interesting problem. I have a simular thing happening on my 32X when I try and play Kolibri. If you come up with any answers then please post them.

 

[Malakai]

They said no one has complained about a problem with their burning fists game crashing on a system 1 before? They are full of shit. My copy did the same thing, and I reported it to them. I believe their reply was something about a possibly bad laser in my system, although it plays everything I've thrown at it.

This is what you get when you buy buggy software, don't debug the software (or only debug it through emulation,) and then release it on cd-r media.

I asked them why they don't release on pressed discs, which would be cheaper to make at high quantities too, and they said they tried but couldn't get pressed discs to work at all on a real sega cd system.

But back to the "no one had problems besides me" thing. Is that what they tell everyone who e-mails them with a problem about their cd-rs?

 

[Jedi Master Thrash]

But since it plays in Gens, and it still crashed on the model 1 when re-burned onto a higher quality media, would that say that it has to be a code bug (unique to hardware) rather than a media issue?

GDG offered to let me return it and give me a refund. However, I haven't taken up the offer yet, because I wanted to see if it would play on my friend's model 1 (who I don't see too often). And one of these days I hoped to get a Mega LD which also plays Sega CD games, and it might work on there...

And I don't want to anger them, since I want to get a copy of Icebreaker 2 for 3DO when it comes out. But I'm kind of upset that they didn't admit to hearing of other troubles. But if they really did know about other troubles with model 1s, I'm surprised they would have eaten the cost of shipping me out a replacement disk (which ended up not working either).

 

[Jedi Master Thrash]

I finally got a chance to play it on my friends model 1 sega CD. The first time we played, the game actually made it through where it freezes on mine, but it did end up freezing 10 seconds later into the fight. But we were actually able to get through several fights with the game crashing/freezeing.

Also, the VGCritic mentions that the game won't play on his front-loading sega CD to. So now there's three reliable sources that say the game freezes on their model 1, but I do know that it doesn't freeze on all model 1s, so it must be some sega cd revision-level incompatibility or bug.

As for the gameplay itself, I thought it was good at first, until I discovered a huge gameplay mechanics flaw. If you tap the punch button repeatedly, you will do a special flury of punches move. It's really easy to pull off, and it happens to also be almost invincible (unless you can figure out a projectible special move, of which I was only able to figure out one for one character so far). The flury of puches will even still damage an attempted flying kick or low attack. And the reach is farther than normal attacks.

So what we discovered is that you can basically win an entire match perfect over and over again by just mashing the punch button.