US Championship V'Ball (Arcade)

US Championship V'Ball
Also known as: US Championship Beach Volley V'Ball (JP) Developer: Technos Japan Publishers: Technos Japan (JP), Taito (US) Platform: Arcade (Custom) Released in JP: August 1988 Released in US: October 1988 This game has hidden developer credits. This game has unused graphics. This game has regional differences.

US Championship V'Ball (pronounced "Vuhball") is the inspiring tale of two guys in the States who made $2,500,000 playing beach volleyball.

Hidden Copyright

Present in the audio CPU at 0x0F80:

Technos B.V.Ball
OPM/MSM6295(Oki)
  Sound System  
Date Jun/07/1988
 (c) Copyright  
   1987,1988    
 Studio Loaple  
TEL 0423-23-3092

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Graphics

Early	Later

Graphics from an abandoned high score feature. The early graphics misromanize "rank" as "lank"; the corrected graphics appear later on in the ROM.

Found in the Daytona tileset, this is either the name of the artist or the name of that weird fuzzy mascot on the scoreboard.

Full
Used

It's Cookie Monster and Big Bird! Their faces are hidden behind sign sprites in the final game - Technos might have got cold feet about this particular piece of copyright infringement. Tweety was apparently fair game, though.

Full	Used

Two more copyright/trademark-infringing graphics that were self-censored by Technos. Max Headroom grew a little facial hair, so he's completely different now, while the Atari logo joke ("Atari" means success, "Hazure" means failure) was removed entirely, leaving a blank spot.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Regional Differences

Title

Japan	US

The lengthy Japanese title was shortened in the US version.

Gameplay Changes

• The Japanese version only supports 2-player cabinets, with the option to play against each other or together against the CPU. The US version adds a couple of DIP settings that enables support for 4-player cabinets as well, allowing for the possibilities of 2-on-1 and 2-on-2 matches as well.
• In the Japanese version, single player game times are 1:30, 1:45, 2:00, or 2:15, depending on dip switch settings. These values are all 15 seconds shorter in the US version.
• In the Japanese version, games go to 7 points. In the US version, games go to 10 points, making it harder to finish a match on a single credit.

• The player earns money after each match in the Japanese version. Since there's no high score screen and this is the only place the player's score is displayed, it's a bit pointless, so it's absent from the US version.

Opening

The comic book-like opening story was removed in the US version. That's not criminal, but it should be.

Cutscenes

To do: Rip images of the other vehicles.

The Japanese version plays a short cutscene after the first match that shows our heroes, George and Michael, heading out to a used car dealership to buy a truck. Looks like the good English from the intro is gone.

After successful negotiations, the two guys leave with their vehicle and the dealer waves them off.

The cutscene is played again after each subsequent match for the rest of the Minor Circuit (the game's first loop), but with a different vehicle each time.

During the Major Circuit (the game's second loop), the used car dealership becomes a new car dealership and the vehicle they purchase is always a shiny blue car.

(Source: Original TCRF research)