Nightmare Circus

Yet another sterling example of a game with
awesome music crippled by poor play factor -
see Devilish/Bad Omen for another fine example.

This game was made to be Sega's answer to
Donkey Kong Country, and was completely
finished, but SOA canned it at the last moment,
and, looking back, good call there. The game
WAS sold in Brazil, and did finally make it to
US Shores some years later - albeit on Sega
Channel. The game is INCREDIBLY rare, especially
with box and manual. I've heard a few people
somehow have English manuals... if anyone's got
one, please scan it and get us the scan!

The game, while maybe not being the best play,
did feature a revolutionary feature: The
"Tweaker." You could access the Tweaker at any
time by holding down MODE and TAPPING Start.
(Press it too hard and it'll kick you back out -
it's touchy.) Inside the Tweaker you could do
pretty much anything: Dumb down enemies, give
yourself more health, you name it. Think of it
as an in-game trainer.

This game, as far as I know, has been 100%
unbeaten. Nobody I know has beaten it. No guides
for it exist. As such, I haven't even been able
to identify more than half the tracks - I don't
know how to defeat the two enemies in The Ticket
Office and I've never found my way out of the
Funhouse. If you have or can identify these
songs at all, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET A HOLD
OF ME. IMMEDIATELY. I mean it. I really didn't
want to release this game without a full
listing, but seeing as I've got no fucking idea
and I'm bored as hell, I might as well use what
I've got.

This goes for the odd musician/staffer who
worked on this game, especially. Cause if anyone
knows how to get through that damn crap... it's
you. :p

Track 11 won't sound "perfect" - while it's rip
is technically perfect, during the game, as the
"Wall of Death" spins faster and faster, the
music also speeds up - VGM currently has no way
to speed songs up dynamically. It's entirely
possible to speed it up via the VGM Config in
Winamp, but of course, that's not dynamic. I've
"hacked" the file (since Maxim tends to grouse
when I bring this up to him) - Setting your VGM
options to "Other" or "60 Hz" should play the
file at "full-speed" - setting it to Recorded
Rate will be how fast it was going when I ripped
it, which isn't very fast at all. Maybe if he
implements dynamic speed changes or allows
on-the-fly speed changing I can fix this
hack. :p


...I talked way too much about this game. When
the comments outweigh the TOC... it's time to
shut up.
-DP

— Dark Pulse

Source: VGMRips