Konami's Salamander Pimped Up

Software house Konami has released many gems for the MSX system, including some wonderful vertical shooters. One of them is Salamander; maybe the hardest of them all. This MSX1 game has been upgraded recently, but only for MSX2 systems. One of the upgrades is soft-scrolling.

MRC user Victor has released the Salamander IPS Patch which upgrades your existing Salamander .ROM with the following changes:

- smooth scrolling and bug-fixes;
- turbo FIX, Dynamic Vsync, Ripple Laser FIX, new colors;
- voice SET (with second SCC inserted);
- Gradius 2 included to get the "Crystal Breeze" for a happy end;
- invincible mode;
- and in-game keys for extra options.

Display help screen by pressing [H] on boot. Access these extra options by pressing the following keys on boot:

[F] Toggle VDP frequency
[C] Cool Colors disabled
[E] English texts in game forced
[J] Japanese texts in game forced
[V] Voice Set disabled
Invincible (for cowards)
[B] Bad ending forced, Gradius 2 disabled (no Venom Stage, no Crystal Breeze)
[CTRL] Female Voice Set (from G-Gaiden)
[CTRL+SHIFT] Male Voice Set(from G-Gaiden)

In gameplay paused (with F1 key):

[S] Change gameplay SPEED (3 levels)
1: Faster (only with Turbo CPU), 2: Default, 3: Slower
[P] Change colors PALETTE (3 levels)
1: Flavour Colour (one per stage)
2: Original MSX1 colors
3: Cool Colors by FRS

Player 1 Voice Set:

[F2] Default voice
[F3] Zowie Scoot
[F4] Iggy Rock

* For IPS Patch use this original ROM: [i]Salamander (1987) (Konami) (J).rom with SHA-1 0d459788b6c464b50cbc2436e67a2cef248e0c4a

* Known issues:
- Some enemies don't move correctly with scroll... Sorry...

Play this new version of Salamander on a MSX2 or higher (recommended Turbo CPU).

This upgrade is a collaboration of Victor, WYZ, ARTRAG, FRS and Toni Galvez

Download the Salamander IPS Patch File.
The modded game can be played online on File-Hunter.
Or, watch Vampier's longplay of it on YouTube.

Relevant link: Salamander Smooth-scroll IPS Patch forum topic

Comments (29)

By Metalion

Paragon (1675)

09-11-2016, 09:57

Fantastic work indeed ... Kudos !!

Does the smooth horizontal scroll works also on an MSX2 ?
Or does it require the MSX2+ ?

By tiziano.s.marcozzi

Rookie (25)

09-11-2016, 11:17

NICE!!

By Victor

Champion (510)

09-11-2016, 12:27

Metalion wrote:

Fantastic work indeed ... Kudos !!

Does the smooth horizontal scroll works also on an MSX2 ?
Or does it require the MSX2+ ?

MSX 2 or MSX2+

By djh1697

Paragon (1784)

09-11-2016, 13:42

Can this be downloaded in .ROM format? Ready to go?

By tfh

Prophet (3579)

09-11-2016, 13:45

djh1697 wrote:

Can this be downloaded in .ROM format? Ready to go?

I doubt MRC will put a direct link to such a .ROM file, but... If you go to the site where you can play the game online, it shouldn't be to hard to find a way to download the .ROM they use.

By syn

Prophet (2157)

09-11-2016, 16:59

Direct links are allowed, admin said so here https://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/software/pdi-files-pack?p...

By Latok

msx guru (3996)

09-11-2016, 19:01

Thanks, tfh, I was searching for this ROM. Finally am going to play it myself!

By tfh

Prophet (3579)

09-11-2016, 19:47

Latok wrote:

Thanks, tfh, I was searching for this ROM. Finally am going to play it myself!

You're welcome Have fun: The patch made the game even more amazing!
BTW, using Lunar IPS, applying the IPS file is really a piece of cake. But if even that is to hard for someone, just look at the source of the Salamander page @ www.file-hunter.com ;-)

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (10191)

10-11-2016, 22:18

Say, over the years, I wondered why it's called 'Salamander'.

Doesn't look very scary to me. In fact, Konami has drawn a bit of a mutant snake, I think. Even more solid than Solid Snake, I think. Can't they do anything right there? :hannibal:

By ricbit

Champion (438)

11-11-2016, 02:14

Giant fire salamanders are part of the japanese folklore.

By frederic.markus

Expert (97)

11-11-2016, 10:09

Incredible work. Could you explain how you did the smooth scroll on msx2?

By frederic.markus

Expert (97)

11-11-2016, 10:14

Oh sorry, I didn't see the machine was setup to msx2+, the shaking border are there on msx2. Was wondering how you could solve that one without multiplexing sprites at the edge that were already taken by the game.
Fantastic work again. Love playing this version!

By J-War

Champion (416)

13-11-2016, 19:07

Congrats !

By giangiacomo.zaffini

Champion (267)

14-11-2016, 09:01

I tried on Panasonic FS-A1ST turbo-R with MegaFLASHRom, and it is great and working! (well for voices addition, I guess a second SCC/SCC+ cartridge is needed, so I couldn't enjoy this.)

By WORP3

Paladin (864)

14-11-2016, 18:36

This is actually quite nicely done, congrats

But how did they manage to handle those tyle based objects from shifting ?

By Victor

Champion (510)

14-11-2016, 20:11

WORP3 wrote:

This is actually quite nicely done, congrats

But how did they manage to handle those tyle based objects from shifting ?

Thanks!!

Most of tyle based objects in this game, change its position each 8 frames, so It's just question of adjust the scroll each 8 pixels each 8 frames... and others like shots, change its positon each frame... so that's no problem.

By WORP3

Paladin (864)

14-11-2016, 21:14

Victor wrote:

WORP3 wrote:

This is actually quite nicely done, congrats

But how did they manage to handle those tyle based objects from shifting ?

Thanks!!

But that is exactly what I mean, if the game was shifting those tyles based object each each irq's or with one background karakter shift this will work perfectly. But if you shift all of those background tyles including those tyles based objects on each irq one pixel at once, why aren't those tyles based objects (when they move in a different direction then the background) also shifting back and forward with those single pixel shift ?

Just wondering

Update:
Ohh, looking a bit closer it seems that those tyles based objects are indeed shifting back and forwards together with the background, you can see in the youtube movie at: 9:30 min (Enemy) and 19:43 min (Rocks).

But still great job improving an already very good game

By tfh

Prophet (3579)

14-11-2016, 21:26

BTW, positively suprised about the number of visitors that have visited the "play online" page. Wouldn't have expected that number (close to 450 unique IP's).

By Victor

Champion (510)

14-11-2016, 21:35

WORP3 wrote:

Ohh, looking a bit closer it seems that those tyles based objects are indeed shifting back and forwards together with the background, you can see in the youtube movie at: 9:30 min (Enemy) and 19:43 min (Rocks).

Yes... I know... those objects move each seven or six pixels for example... I've tried to correct that... but I'm not able... for that reason I've wrotten in the info TXT:

* Known issues:
- Some enemies don't move correctly with scroll... Sorry...

By WORP3

Paladin (864)

15-11-2016, 13:31

Victor wrote:

WORP3 wrote:

Yes... I know... those objects move each seven or six pixels for example... I've tried to correct that... but I'm not able... for that reason I've wrotten in the info TXT:

* Known issues:
- Some enemies don't move correctly with scroll... Sorry...

Don't say sorry, it's a wonderful job that you did ! Besides that, you won't even notice it while playing the game
I was just wondering how it was fixed but it seems that almost every tyles based object are moving in sync with the background.

By Victor

Champion (510)

15-11-2016, 14:00

WORP3 wrote:

Thanks...

Yes, the final result is fine... But it is not perfect.... I was able to correct the movement of those objects... But then they didn't collide with the player and bullets... Now I'm working with Gradius 1...maybe I can find a solution meanwhile...

By cesar guerra

Rookie (18)

16-11-2016, 13:34

It would be possible to make the same in Nemesis 1, 2 and 3?

By Victor

Champion (510)

16-11-2016, 13:52

cesar guerra wrote:

It would be possible to make the same in Nemesis 1, 2 and 3?

Take a look at the previous answer... Now I'm doing the same with Gradius 1

For Gradius 2, years ago, FRS did an amazing version with smooth scroll.

By ro

Scribe (5200)

16-11-2016, 14:13

What I am interested in, is the methods used to inject your code to coexist with the original. How did you do the reverse engineering, just plain-ol' debugging? As an MSX-asm-coder I'm trully amazed at this level of skills. Changing sourcecode of others is hell, let alone assembled data! respect all.

By tfh

Prophet (3579)

16-11-2016, 15:07

cesar guerra wrote:

It would be possible to make the same in Nemesis 1, 2 and 3?

Nemesis 2: http://www.file-hunter.com/MSX/Nemesis2.html

By meckert

Rookie (18)

23-11-2016, 09:29

Hi, I tried to make it run via SofaRun using Philipc VG-8325 with 8bit4ever's SD512 cartridge. After mapping the rom all I get is a blue screen. Any tips on how to get it running ? The file is patched correctly, because it runs fine under emulation.

By Kosher-X

Supporter (6)

19-08-2019, 18:01

Hi. I just discovered this today while browsing on Youtube. I tried to patch the Salamander game and it works fine with the smooth scroll, but no voices whatsoever being played. I'm using the BlueMSX emulator, but I don't think it's the emulators fault because videos from this game on Youtube were made with it.

Someone tried this with BlueMSX and everything working fine?

Update: ok, I discovered that I need a second SCC cart in the emulator. No worries. Please, ignore my question.

By Manuel

Ascended (20048)

02-01-2021, 13:24

I'm also trying to run it with SofaRun on the Carnivore 2, and i also get a blueish screen after starting the ROM. Is there a solution for this?

By Manuel

Ascended (20048)

07-01-2021, 23:10

Now that I use the Carnivore 2 RAM, the game causes my MSX to reset after loading. It's about the only MegaROM that's not working... anyone got an idea?

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Comments (29)