I seem to have all the luck with these newer PGM games:
I just got a Martial Masters cart from Sheep Nova. It's a Chinese version, seems authentic, with holographic label.
When playing, the controls are very strange, and moves seem to come out without even pressing any buttons. Super meter often gets activated automatically at the beginning of the match, and specials come out by just pressing directions. The buttons don't seem to do the normal punch and kick functions.
I played the game in MAME and verified that the game definitely isn't supposed to be have like this. Buttons and directions test normal in the PGM hardware test menu -- same...
I just bought this Dragon World EX cart. I cleaned it with Deoxit D5 before testing. It seemed to play fine until I cleared the second stage in Beginner mode. That's when it crashed with an error message. I then rebooted, and it no longer displayed a region at the boot screen (it was Taiwan before; now that space is blank). When I started the game, it seemed to suddenly begin from the end of stage 1, where it's counting up the points. It then proceeded to stage 2, and it was suddenly playing the Japanese voices for the game. I lost and quit the game. I then started again, and it once again...
Could this be another security check failure? If so, the failures they programmed in seem so random.
I'm starting to wonder if these newer PGM carts are even worth collecting. The boards and chips are too custom, and the parts seem to fail on their own.
