Nintendo Satellaview
English-friendly titles in this collection: 98
Tested with the BSNES (115) core in RetroArch
File size (uncompressed): 10.48 GB
Format: .bs, .sfc, .smc, and supporting files
The Nintendo Satellaview allowed you to connect to a satellite broadcast to download games or play along while live, in-studio voice acting and high-quality music was streamed to you in real time! In the mid-nineties! This crazy stuff was wayyyyyyyyy ahead of its time.
Sadly, since most of the original material was live in this fashion back in the day (and only in Japan, of course), we have lost a ton of this content to time and obsolete storage media.
However, thanks to super otaku in the '90s recording broadcasts on their VCRs and the nonstop effort of preservationists, VHS tapes have been discovered and rare Satellaview memory packs are being found in the wild with games and other data stored on them are being dumped. We are now seeing new items pop up almost every year. The hunt continues!
Special items included: English-patched translations and titles not in English that are easy enough to play without being fluent in another language. You may notice that some games seem identical to their regular Super Famicom versions, and for the most part, they are. I have included them anyway because there have been differences found in some titles (sometimes significant ones), and every game that is included was originally downloaded from the service and dumped from an actual Satellaview memory pack.
Items removed: Non-working dumps, duplicates, prototypes or demos of games that eventually saw a full release, and titles that require proficiency in another language to play.
Release notes:
Loading Games Through the BS-X Menu:
When you start a game, you will be transported to an Earthbound-like town / lobby after the BS-X title and connection screens. This is the super awesome BIOS file, which emulates the physical BSX cartridge. To actually start the game, walk into your house (the pink one you start standing in front of) by holding up and pressing A. Then select "Load Stored Data." Pick the data slot listed. If there are multiple choices available, then there is usually more than one title on the dumped memory pack (as indicated by the ROM's filename).
Due to the broadcasted nature of these games, there is sometimes a 7-8 minute buffer time (in which the assets would be downloaded) still present on a small amount of the titles. If you find that the game loads but will not run past its title screen, you've just got to wait it out or use your emulator's fast forward function to skip ahead.
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Special Games With English Dubs and MSU-1 Music:
To make the experience as authentic as possible, there are patched games included that have some faithful recreations of voiceover work, videos, and CD-quality audio via an emulated MSU-1 audio enhancement chip!
"BS Zelda no Densetsu: Inishie no Sekiban (English Translated and Dubbed With MSU-1 Patch, Rev 09-21-20):" Do not import the content in this folder with the other titles! Instead, move the entire folder to where your other Satellaview ROMs have already been imported or stored and then import only the four .smc ROMs (one in each weekly broadcast folder) into your emulator. All of the other files will be called on by the emulator without having to import them. Play the first week as normal, but saving and proceeding from that point on takes a bit of special care - As soon you have finished a week and have saved, rename the .srm save file to the name of the next week's .smc ROM name to carry on all your progress. For example, the week 1 .srm name will be "BS Zelda - Ancient Stone Tablets 1.srm." As soon you have finished this part and want to start week 2, rename this file to "BS Zelda - Ancient Stone Tablets 2.srm" then copy that newly named file to the "Week 2" folder before starting the week 2 ROM. Complicated, but worth it!
"BS Zelda no Densetsu (English Translated and Dubbed With MSU-1 Patch, Rev 09-01-20):" Do not import the content in this folder with the other titles! Instead, move the entire folder to where your other Satellaview ROMs have already been imported or stored and then import only the two .smc files exactly like in the instructions for the other Zelda game above. Since these two maps are separate experiences, there is no need to worry about complex save game swapping - No data needs to be transferred between them.
"Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hoseki (English Translated, Rev 1.4 With MSU-1 Patch):" As with the other two games above, move the folder to the location your other Satellaview ROMs are and import only the .sfc ROM inside.
"F-Zero Deluxe (With MSU-1 Patch, Rev 11):" Move the folder and import only the .sfc ROM just like the other games noted in this section. This ridiculously well-done hack recreates and places all available content from the official F-Zero release and all the Satellaview broadcasts at the time into this single title.
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BSNES Emulation:
I can't stress this enough - Only use BSNES emulation. The fine folks at the BS-X Project (that made a lot of this whole experience possible, from getting the BIOS working and translated to finding and fixing dumps) worked directly with the team behind BSNES to make the absolute best environment possible for the Satellaview. There is a chance that most of these titles will work in other emulators, but certainly not all of them. I can confirm that RetroArch's BSNES core worked perfectly for this entire set, with one exception below.
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Same Game:
"Same Game:" This official Super Famicom puzzle game cart had a slot inside it with the ability to take Satellaview data as DLC to add character packs. The official release, "Same Game (Base Cartridge - JP).sfc," is included, as are the three character packs as separate ROMs: "Same Game: Character Cassette (JP).bs," "Same Game: Character Data - Tengai Makyo (JP).bs," and "Same Game: Custom User Data (JP).bs." In order to get these to work, I recommend downloading and using BSNES+, which has extra features that the regular BSNES core itself does not have. Once inside BSNES+, select "Load BS-X Slotted Cartridge" under File > Load Special. Within the "Load BS-X Slotted Cartridge" menu, browse for the "Same Game (Base Cartridge - JP).sfc" file for your "Base cartridge setting." Then browse for your target Same Game character pack file for your "Slot cartridge" setting. Once both are set, press the "Load" button and enjoy!