So I own a Mega Drive Arcade Ultimate Portable, one of these:



For the first game: Spider-Man and Venom Separation Anxiety:

I am trying to get the game Spider-Man and Venom Separation Anxiety working on this handheld but there is a problem.

The rom itself boots fine and loads up to the main menu.

However when you select 1 player or 2 player, the game just freezes forcing me to restart my handheld.

This is the screen I cannot get past since it crashes when selecting either option:



I have attempted to fix the issue myself to no avail.

What I've tried:

- Making sure the rom is a .bin file (which this handheld prefers).
- trying out different versions of the game rom.
- fixing the checksums and adjusting the rom headers and switching regions to test every option.

The game roms run completely fine on my Fusion/PicoDrive/Gens emulators on my PC, and doesn't freeze up after selecting 1 player.

I have a feeling this might require something more drastic like modifying the rom or patching it somehow so that the emulator built into my handheld can run it smoothly. I am not skilled with any of that though, or have the faintest idea how to do that.

Maybe someone can try to patch this game so I can get this game working on this handheld?

I cannot seem to find a patched Separation Anxiety rom anywhere, nor would there need to be one made normally since the game runs fine in most instances. Just not this time.



For the second game Ms Pac-Man:

The ROM for Ms Pac-Man works fine on PC emulators. For handheld devices however, the rom doesn't load at all. It stays stuck on a black screen (it doesn't load the red "TENGEN" logo at all or even get to the menu).

I did some research on this and I found out that Ms Pac-Man is notorious for having issues IF you use a 6 button controller, causing the controls in game to be buggy. I figured this wasn't the problem as that wouldn't cause the game to remain on a black screen.

I decided to turn on my brain, and realised that another game was released by TENGEN within a VERY short time of Ms Pac-Man, called Pac-Mania.

Pac-Mania runs and loads and plays fine on the handheld device, but Ms Pac-Man doesn't load at all!

Look how similar they are on the ROM headers:

Ms Pac-Man:

Firm: (C)T-48
Build Date: 1991.MAR
Program Type: GM
S/N: T-48036
V/N: -00

Pac-Mania:

Firm: (C)T-48
Build Date: 1991.JUN
Program Type: GM
S/N: T-48056
V/N: -00

Maybe something could be used from the Pac-Mania rom that could be applied to the Ms Pac-Man rom which fixes Ms Pac-Man to load properly on the handheld device? After all both games seem very similar to each other, only one works and one doesn't.



For the third game Waterworld Prototype:

The Waterworld Prototype ROM has the same issue as the Ms Pac-Man ROM. It loads to a plain black screen, and doesn't load to the menu at all.

I think these roms require debugging and patching, preferably with an IPS patch. If anyone can help I am more than willing to test any patches on my handheld and provide feedback. The help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading!