Totally Rad/Regional Differences

This is a sub-page of Totally Rad.

Booting

The Japanese version is one of a few games that do not include a mandatory one-frame delay for the PPU (graphics chip) to warm up. It just so happens that the Famicom system is wired in such a way that the PPU will start up approximately one frame earlier than the CPU and thus not need as much of a delay.

If you play the Japanese version on a US NES system, the game will only boot if the system has been powered off for at least 30 seconds. Waiting less time or resetting the game will prevent the game from booting.

Title Screen

Magic John	Totally Rad (US)

The title screen was completely overhauled. The name is only the first of the game's many attempts to appeal to teenage gamers.

Intro

Magic John	Totally Rad

Probably the most noticeable change is to the main characters, who went from anime-style kids in the Japanese version to 1980s-style teenagers in the English version. The text was also changed to use hip, cool slang terms.

Magic John	Totally Rad

The characters' headgear was also removed: a bow in this case...

Magic John	Totally Rad

...and a winged cap in this one.

Act 1

Magic John	Totally Rad

Magic John	Totally Rad

Magic John	Totally Rad

More radical art changes. Notice the ZAP! is farther away in Totally Rad.

European Omissions

The European version increases Jake's horizontal speed by 1/8th, covering 9 pixels every 8 frames versus the other versions' simple 1 pixel/frame pace. While this was likely just a minor compensation for the slower speed of the PAL television standard, the way Jake consistently skips over every 8th pixel causes the game to fail to produce several enemies, as it turns out that enemy spawning in horizontal areas relies on the camera hitting exact X coordinates. (It also seems to have the harmless side effect of the split background layers in 1-1 and 5-2 ending up in different places over the same amount of player progress.)

The first missing enemy is a tiny flying head just behind the soldier on the first hilltop of 1-1:

US	Europe

Just past that, there's a running soldier missing behind the next crawling sensor.

US	Europe

The propeller-head that starts on top of the first harmful balloon of 1-2 is gone...

US	Europe

And so is the first rolling shell after that, then the next propeller-head.

US	Europe

And another little flier starting above the second missile silo.

US	Europe

Both a stationary soldier and a little flying head guarding the start of the vertical section are missing, as they would normally appear during the horizontal scrolling.

US	Europe

The final missing tiny head would appear over the second balloon platform above the fire, matching Jake's height.

US	Europe

Player Character

Magic John	Totally Rad

Aside from the totally different outfit, only a few changes were made to the actual character poses:

Jake's forward fist is redrawn a pixel closer to his face in one frame of his running animation.
During the death animation, Jake's elbow is a pixel lower to the ground.
The screaming faces are redrawn so that Jake still has eyes.

Menu icons representing the player character were redrawn accordingly.

Magic John	Totally Rad

As Jake doesn't wear a cap, the spell for undoing a transformation depicts his shoe instead.

Damage Output

The following enemies deal only 1 unit of damage to the player in Magic John but deal 2 units of damage in Totally Rad:

The foot soldiers that debut in 1-1 and their bullets.
The hover-pod riders that debut in 1-1 and the beams they fire.
The "totally crazed pizza vendor" that debuts as a mini-boss in 1-1, along with its barrels/pizzas.
The bouncing/rolling ball creatures that debut in 1-2 and their bouncing bullets.
The clowns from 1-2, whether on or off their balloons, and the bombs they drop.
The drill pogo riders that debut in 2-1.
The bouncing beams fired by the big-jawed clawing kidnapper when it appears as a mini-boss in 2-1 (but not its body).
The goggled robot mini-boss of 2-2, its bouncing missiles, and its fish-tailed variants and their missiles from 3-2.
The projectiles thrown by the scorpion-like creature that debuts as a mini-boss in 3-1. (Its body already dealt 2 units in Magic John.)
All three types of projectiles emitted by Nautikill, the boss of Act 3. (Its body already dealt 2 units in Magic John.)
The drill bits fired by the one-eyed drill-handed robot mini-boss of 5-1. (Its body and eye already dealt 2 units in Magic John.)

Picture Display

The Japanese version masks the bottom 18 scanlines of the picture to black in all stages except 1-1 and 5-2, possibly because the bottom edge shares background tiles with the top edge of the screen during vertical scrolling sections. It appears the localization for Totally Rad was unconcerned about this and let the full picture appear in all stages of the US and European versions.

Continue System

If the player loses to an end-Act boss in the Japanese version with lives to spare, they only have to replay that boss fight. Totally Rad changes it so that players must repeat the last stage before the boss.

When the player runs out of lives, Zebediah continues moving his lips while the player decides whether to continue the game in the US and European versions. If the player chooses No, Zebediah also keeps moving his lips after "Game Over" has already been printed in the US and European versions only. The Japanese version stops his lips and only has him twitch his eyelids at these two points.

Magic John allows the player to continue after losing their last life any number of times, but in another difficulty tweak, Totally Rad only offers 3 continues per game. The 4th time the player loses their last life, it goes directly to "Game Over"—and this time, Zebediah doesn't keep moving his lips after that text has been printed.

Act 2

Magic John	Totally Rad

Magic John	Totally Rad

More art changes. Notice how the artist never bothered to extend the boss's shoulder for Allison's hip new haircut.

European Omissions

The first missile silo fails to appear...

US	Europe

Much more important, the entire mini-boss of 2-1 is a no-show, which means the scrolling never locks and the arrow pointing to the next area never appears, and so players of the European version first encounter this character as a regular enemy in another palette in 4-2 and never witness its projectile or lunge attacks. The mini-boss can still be made to appear with all its functions intact if any sort of hack is done to make Jake land on the correct pixel, where the coordinate byte at memory address $0053 must end up at a value of $E1.

US	Europe

The final missing enemy of this act is just another little flying head in the middle of the second horizontal section of 2-3.

US	Europe

Act 3

Magic John	Totally Rad

Magic John	Totally Rad

Magic John	Totally Rad

Magic John	Totally Rad

Yet more art changes.

European Omissions

The very first falling rock doesn't fall in the European version.

US	Europe

And the mini-boss of 3-1 doesn't appear! Playing the European version normally, you won't see this enemy until it's palette-swapped for 4-1.

US	Europe

Next to disappear is the second blinking crawler pod of 3-2.

US	Europe

Then goes the fourth upward-blowing pod at the bottom of 3-2.

US	Europe

Act 4

Magic John	Totally Rad

More art changes.

European Omissions

The falling rock after the first breakable wall isn't there anymore.

US	Europe

What's interesting about 4-1 is that its mini-boss fight starts 7 pixels ahead of where it does in the Japanese and North American versions—and European Jake does indeed skip over the X coordinate $0680 that originally triggered the fight to begin, which may indicate the coders were aware of the skipped enemies bug here (since horizontal exits will not work without the post-fight blinking arrow) but failed to catch other instances of it.

US	Europe

...Like the first of those spinning, crawling pod things in 4-2.

US	Europe

The second jumping alligator is missing...

US	Europe

...And so are the last eyeball-fish and the last alligator, which actually has a significant impact on the platforming: Jake can't jump out of this pool toward the right on his own in either his normal form or the fish suit, but there is a moment in the alligator's cycle where its mouth can be stood upon safely and jumped from to reach the ledge. The alligator's disappearance from the European version therefore makes it mandatory to transform into the cat or bird suit, and if you don't have any magic left to do that, the only way to refill it is to lose a life, so you'd better make sure you have an extra life to spare first.