I didn't know that they were based on the arcade files. I thought it was coded from scratch. Thanks for telling.
>The Amiga and C-64 versions are based on the tnzsjo.zip romset at least. To me that is the canonical one, I also own the PCB. :-)
What he means is that the tnzsjo romset in MAME came from the type of board that the conversion was based on (*).
So if you want to play the actual arcade version then that is the romset to go for. The c64/cpc/spectrum/pcengine/nes/x68000 versions also appear to be based on this one.
The megadrive (genesis) version appears based on tnzsop, which Wikipedia states:
"The
Sega Mega Drive version (again, only released in Japan) has entirely remixed levels (though still containing the same graphics, music and bosses). The remixed levels were later ported back to arcades as
The NewZealand Story Plus. Remixing levels to arcade ports was commonplace in Mega Drive titles and also happened in titles such as
Toki."
The problem being that tnzsop has the date 1988 on it's title screen, while the megadrive version came out in 1990. It's more likely that when creating the mega drive version the developers were given this board (which is supposedly a prototype world version).
Taito have a habit of changing their games considerably during development, recently a bubble bobble 2 prototype has turned up, which was built 9 before the final version months came out & while you can tell it's the same game, the levels, graphics and music are all different (you don't get to select a course until you have completed a world, while in the release version you select a course after the first level). The bubble bobble 2 prototype has the music from bubble bobble & also has rainbow bubbles, which when popped turn into rainbows and fall like the ones from rainbow islands and kill enemies. I've not seen that in the release version.
(*) The Amiga version might have had the graphics converted from the arcade roms, that was done on a few of the arcade conversions back then.
