Shutokou Battle 2 was released in Japan in June of 2000. The NTSC-U version came out (as Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2) that September and the PAL version (Tokyo Highway Challenge 2) followed in December.
A demo version, Shutokou Battle 2 Taikenban, preceded the Japanese release. It was built in April of 2000. It limits the courses and cars you can choose, but the disc has data for more.
I’ve made a patch to remove the demo restrictions, allowing this prerelease build to be explored. It’s pretty cool!
There’s evidence of a Versus mode that didn’t show up in the final game.
The menus, race modes, and courses are noticeably unfinished.
The available cars are different from the ones in the final game.
The details are below – get the patch from SegaXtreme.
Build differences
The Mode Select screen is normally hidden in this build, but switching to it reveals a Versus mode that doesn’t exist in the final game:
Alas, it crashes when you try to play it.
The Web Site item isn’t implemented – it activates the opening logo display instead of launching Dream Passport. The landing page is on the disc, however, and it’s identical to the one in the first Shutokou Battle game:
Similarly, the Options item doesn’t work – it goes to the demo’s limited car selection screen.
The demo’s various menus don’t match the ones in the final build. The text placement, icons, and layout are all different. For example, here’s the Quest Start screen:
Unlike the final version, the demo has the Keep garage option enabled by default (its name is misspelled - ha).
Quest mode is rough in this build: you’re always on day 9999, you have nearly maximum money, and the graphics aren’t finished:
The final version’s Car Select shows the cars driving on a closed course, but in this version they are just floating in empty space.
Speaking of empty space, many of the courses are incomplete - you can drive, but you’re in a featureless black void:
Here are the cars that are available by default in this build and in the final NTSC-U build. The ones that are present only in this build are in bold:
There are lots more differences. Tell me in the comments if you notice something cool!
Technical details
Some RetroAchievements hackers have done some valuable investigations into Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2’s memory layout. In particular, somebody identified 8c1d2914 as the “Screen ID.” 0x07 is the title screen, 0x00 is the Mode Select screen, 0x09 is the name entry screen, etc.
I located the corresponding address in the demo disc, 8c17ca0c. When you press start at the title screen, it takes you to a limited car selection screen with ID 0x1B instead of the mode select screen.
By searching for writes to that address, I found the relevant change to make:
8c03f2f0 00e4 # Go to 00 instead of 1BNow the Mode Select screen comes up!
Normally when you try to choose a course that’s unavailable in the demo, the screen fades to black and you get the “Coming soon” screen:
This is because the game sets the 0x20 flag in the field at 8c164e78, which signals the end of the demo. We can prevent that with this patch:
8c02e9de 01e5 # Don't disable unused coursesOutro
For more prototype demo disc patches, see my archive. I’ll have more soon!
For more articles about games developed by Genki, see:
Hang-On GP (Saturn)
Highway 2000 (Saturn)
Tokyo Highway Battle (Saturn)
Tokyo Xtreme Racer (Dreamcast)
Shutokou Battle R (PlayStation)
Many thanks for reading.
