Shamisen Brothers

Shamisen Brothers is an obscure arcade rhythm game developed by Kato's, a company which otherwise mainly developed prize and medal games.

The gameplay consists of strumming a shamisen to the rhythm of various popular songs, from enka to J-pop.

Sub-Page#

Prototype Info

Early Program/Chart Data#

Files containing an early version of the game's program (pgx.bin) and chart data (data.pac) can be found in the game's CD, inside the folder PGX. While the game loads some contents from the disc, namely graphics and audio, the program and charts are loaded from the ROM. More documentation can be found in the prototype page linked above.

Terminal Debugger#

NOTE: To access the debugger on MAME, launch the emulator with the command -rs232 terminal.

Shamisen Brothers features a terminal debugger which is always running in the background. To properly enable its functions, however, the command 4g63 must be sent. Below is a text representation of the debugger upon starting the machine:

----
SB01 Version 1.01K
Main Memory Check OK
OBJ Memory Check OK
Palette Memory Check OK
System Character Data OK
PCM Register Check OK

ATA/ATAPI: HARDWARE RESET
PIO MODE: 4
DEVICE RESET: OK
IDENTIFY PACKET DEVICE: OK
DRIVE: MAME    Virtual CDROM
TEST UNIT READY: 41
REQUEST SENSE: 48 (SenseKey=6 ASC=28 ASCQ=0)
CD-ROM PVD READ
VOLUME: SB01-100
Config: OK
Ranking: OK
PCM Data OK
Character Data OK
PLT MANAGEMENT DATA
Ver.100, Size 3de2, Check Sum 3b65
Palette Data OK
Log: OK

##########################################
#     Terminal Debugger Version 1.00     #
##########################################
>

Below, is a list of commands, which can be seen by entering the command H. The way the text is presented is akin to how it appears in the debugger:

[Help menu]
d[b/w/l] [StartAdrs] [EndAdrs]          Memory Dump
e[b/w/l] EditAdrs [Data]                Memory Edit
f[b/w/l] StartAdrs EndAdrs Data         Memory Fill
sd [Sector(LBA)]                        CD-Rom Sector Dump
bank 0/1/2/3/4                          PCM Memory Bank
h/?                                     Help Menu
r                                       System Reset
task                                    Task List
free mem/sys/plt/pcm                    Memory Free List
.                                       Previous Command

In addition, there are several more commands not listed in the above help screen:

• LOG - Presents bookkeeping data, such as how many times a song was played and in what difficulty, how many times a certain difficulty or player option was selected, and even the average judgement for the notes.
• OBJ - Gives a list of objects on screen.
• TASK - Gives a list of tasks currently being performed.
• STOP - Resets the game. Both this and R cause a crash on MAME.

Unused Graphic#

Found within the title screen assets (CG\TITLE) is chartest.cgx, which is a drawing of a girl that doesn't seem to be displayed at all.
While its palette cannot be found in this folder, asobiq.plx, found in CG\ASOBIQ, might have been intended for it.

Unused Charts#

The game's charts can be found as compressed data in the second .pac package in the ROMs, which starts at offset 0x28000 in the ROM. Upon extraction, one may notice some charts have duplicates with an underscore after the ID; these are reserved for the Hard difficulty, as well as Exam mode, while the underscoreless charts are reserved for other difficulties (Very Easy, Easy and Normal). With this in mind, three songs have chart data for these other difficulties despite only appearing in Hard/Exam; these songs are Soreyuke Shamisen Brothers, Shamisen Rock Brothers, and William Tell jokyoku. Of these three, the former two are identical to the used charts, while William Tell jokyoku is not.

In addition, there is an earlier version of Tsugaru jongara bushi (Rock ban)‍ '​s Normal chart which takes in consideration the audio track used in the Hard/Exam chart instead.

Downloads of the chart data, as well as of conversions to be played in DTXMania, are also provided.

Tsugaru jongara bushi (Rock ban)#

File: tsugaru.mux

Differences:

• There is no proper Couple chart data; the 1P and 2P sides are the same as the Single chart.
• All of the notes from measures 14 to 16 are on the highest row in the unused chart, rather than the middle row for measures 14 and 16, and the lowest row for measure 15.
• The sixth note in measure 20, which is placed at beat 2 in the used chart, is placed a 16th beat later.
• In measure 21, all notes starting from the fourth note, which is placed at beat 1.25 in the used chart, are placed a 16th beat later; this also means that the note placed at beat 3.75, the last possible placement for a note within a measure, is not there.
• The last 8 notes of measure 22, as well as the first 8 notes of measure 23, are placed on the highest row rather than the middle one.
• The first 4 notes of measure 38 are placed on the middle row rather than the lowest one.
• The last note of measure 45, which is located at beat 3.75 and is placed on the lowest row, is missing from the unused chart.
• The second and fourth notes of measure 46, which are located, respetively, at beats 1.25 and 2.75, and are placed on the middle row, are missing from the unused chart.
• There is an extra note at measure 50 beat 3 of the unused chart; it is placed on the middle row and plays the G5 keysound. Measure 50 beat 3.5's note is also placed on the middle row rather than the lowest one.
• The notes in measures 56 and 57, which are placed on the middle row in the used chart, are instead placed on the highest row.

Download Tsugaru jongara bushi (Rock ban) (unused chart data) File: shamisenbrothers-tsugaruU.zip (2.59 MB) (info)

William Tell jokyoku#

File: william.mux

Differences:

• There is no proper Couple chart data; the 1P and 2P sides are the same as the Single chart.
• The first four notes of measure 47 are placed on the middle row rather than the lowest one. There are also two additional notes in this measure in the unused chart, located at beats 1.5 and 1.75. They are both placed at the middle row and play the B4 keysound.
• The first four notes of measure 48 are placed on the highest row rather than the middle one. There are also two additional notes in this measure in the unused chart, located at beats 1.5 and 1.75. They are both placed at the highest row and play the E4 keysound. Also, the last six notes in this measure are placed on the highest row rather than the lowest one.
• The first four notes of measure 49 are placed on the lowest row rather than the middle one. There are also two additional notes in this measure in the unused chart, located at beats 1.5 and 1.75. They are both placed at the middle row and play the B4 keysound.
• All of the notes at measure 50 are placed on the highest row rather than the middle one. There is also one additional note in this measure in the unused chart, located at beat 1.75; it is placed at the highest row and plays the E4 keysound.

Download William Tell jokyoku (unused chart data) File: shamisenbrothers-williamU.zip (2.45 MB) (info)

Unused Song#

The song Michinoku hitori tabi seems to have been slated to appear in the game's original release, rather than its sequel, Shamisen Brothers Additional Kit, as its music and charts can be found unused. The chart data is merely a placeholder; while there is a set BPM and keysounds, all notes are placed in the middle row. Barring the different encoding, the music contents are the same as in Additional Kit.

Chart Data: mitinoku.mux
Music: SOUND\MUSICEXT\mitinoku.sdx

Below is a download of the chart data, as well as a conversion to be played in DTXMania.

Download Converted Chart Data File: shamisenbrothers-mitinokuC.zip (2.59 MB) (info)

Developer Credit#

Found at offset 0x1DC5A of the program code is the following credit:

SB01 V1.01K Programed by Keiichi Nakanishi 2003 08/06 10:00

References#