Battle Blaze

Battle Blaze is a poorly executed fighting game by Sammy. This prototype of the game is almost complete, but has some interesting things within the binary. Thanks to Martin at NES World for the ROM Image! Also thanks to the denizens of the #romhacking.net IRC channel for some technical help. By: Evan G Last updated: December 6, 2015

Battle Blaze is a pretty unremarkable fighting game with poor graphics and gameplay. I won't go into detail on the game (I wrote a short review on the regular page), and I have to say that looking into the prototype in depth gave me more joy than playing it.

Martin sent me this ROM image along with several others (which I will release at a later date). I looked at my ROM image archives, and found out another Battle Blaze prototype exists in the GOODSNES archive (titled "Battle Blaze (USA) (Beta)"), though I could not find an original source for it. The two prototypes are pretty close to being identical, except that the bytes between 0xCE016 and 0xCE0FF are different. I identified these as graphics tiles, and since the game is so limited in scope, I was quickly able to find out where they were:

"GOODSNES" prototype	"NES World" prototype

In the "NES World" version, the graphics of the king are glitched up, while the "GOODSNES" version are complete. I can't really answer why this is the case, except that it is possibly bitrot, a glitch from the dumping process, or simply that they burned the ROM incorrectly. For archival purposes, I am including both with this article, but will be analyzing the "GOODSNES" version. It is entirely possible that the source of the "GOODSNES" ROM image is from the same cart as Martin's, but I doubt there will be any way to ever prove this.

Differences in text

All versions of Battle Blaze, including the Japanese version, have English text. The text is stored in the ROM images as plain ASCII, making it easy to extract. I have shown a small example with the female master below to highlight some noticeable differences. In the Japanese version, some grammar mistakes show up that were fixed in the US version (see below, "Realms"). The name of the master in the screens below are the same in the prototype and the North American version. The name of the realm is different in all three versions. Some of the differences in names are shown below:

NA Version JPN Version Prototype 
Gromoor    Growmore    Gromoor 
Fynn       Latfunda    Jokalam 
Artec      Lugossian   Artec 
Naxus      Nastes      Naxus 
Phantom    Phantom     Phantom 
Colosseum  Colosseum   Colosseum 
Kerrel     Faud        Kerrel

Prototype version "Realms / Jokalam" with "Tesya" master	Japanese version "Realms / Latfunda" with "Filea" master

Prototype version "Realms / Jokalam" with "Tesya" master	North American version "Realm / Fynn" with "Tesya" master

The text in the prototype is intermediate between the North American and Japanese version, though it is clear they were planning a US version from the start ("licensed by. nintendo of america inc" is the first part of the text in all versions). There is also the text "Battle Blade", perhaps indicating that they were originally planning to call it that instead of Battle Blaze. The in game text is closer to the North American version, using a more medieval English tone, for instance:

Japanese version:

YOU'D BETTER GO AND PRAY 
AT THE GRANDEAU SHRINE 
BEFORE YOUR FINAL BATTLE 

NOW, IT'S THE END OF YOUR 
DAYS OF BATTLE. CRUSH THE 
INTRIGUE OF GLIFORMOTH!

Prototype/US version:

GO AND STAND AT THE BASE 
OF GRANDEAU SHRINE BEFORE 
THY FINAL BATTLE 

NOW,FOR THE FINAL AND 
DARKEST BATTLE. GO! RID US 
OF THE DARK LORD

Obviously, there is a bit of Engrish in the Japanese version. The Japanese introductory story is nearly twice as long as as the prototype and North American release. The prototype intro is pretty much the same as the North American version, but there is a classic case of censorship to remove a reference to suicide:

Prototype intro text with suicide reference	North American version, with edited text

Tiles

As far as I could tell, the graphics are identical between the prototype and its released counterparts. However, I looked at the ROM image with a tile editor, and found some bizarre things (at an offset of 0x66000 in all cases):

Tiles from the prototype version of Battle Blaze	Tiles from the Japanese version of Battle Blaze

tiles from F-Zero

The Fire Stingray makes an appearance in Battle Blaze

As you can see from above, the prototype version of Battle Blaze has graphics tiles that are from F-Zero. In the production versions of the game, all these graphics are blanked out with a checkerboard pattern. The developers may have been testing out F-Zero prior to burning the prototype of Battle Blaze on it.

Summary

This prototype of Battle Blaze shows a pretty much final version of the game, with text that is more similar to the US version than the Japanese version, while still sporting the original Japanese splash screens. The prototype shows that the text that the US version used probably went through a stage of censorship.

Battle Blaze prototype board (courtesy of Martin)

Download ROM Images Here