Mall Brawl NES - Limited Run Support

[Deadeye | 1,596]

There have been some cases of NES carts of Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl not working fully on third party aftermarket consoles such as the AVS and Analogue NT Mini.  It is not an across the board issue, but rather isolated issue.  Many work fine and others not.  In all cases, the carts work on the front loader.  Discussion of this has popped up on several threads, past post have been moved here.

If you are having issues, contact Limited Run support, as they were the Publisher with Retobit manufacturing the boards.  If you want to discuss this more you can do so here.

If you want to discuss the game, go here: https://www.videogamesage.com/topic/3555-jay-and-silent-bob-mall-brawl/#comments. If you want to discuss other games or issues with Limited Run, go here: https://www.videogamesage.com/topic/1038-limited-run-games/#comments.

[WaverBoy | 20]

I just received my Mall Brawl cartridge. Unfortunately there’s a huge problem. I load the cart into my trusty RetroUSB AVS, the game boots up fine, looks and sounds great all through the intro and opening cut scene with security chasing the boys, but as soon as the gameplay starts and you throw your first punch, the game graphics and sound get all glitchy and the game freezes. I’ve tried powering the system on and off and reinserting the cartridge several times, with the same result (although once in a while I can get past the glitch and continue to play). I have no problems with playing other cartridges in my AVS, including my PowerPak  Is anyone else having this problem with their Mall Brawl cart? I’m thinking of asking for a replacement but if they’re all like this then it might be a while...

EDIT: I’ve placed a ticket with LRG’s customer support; I’ll post about what happens with that.

Edited August 1, 2020 by WaverBoy

[Skorp | 383]

1 hour ago, WaverBoy said:

I just received my Mall Brawl cartridge. Unfortunately there’s a huge problem. I load the cart into my trusty RetroUSB AVS, the game boots up fine, looks and sounds great all through the intro and opening cut scene with security chasing the boys, but as soon as the gameplay starts and you throw your first punch, the game graphics and sound get all glitchy and the game freezes. I’ve tried powering the system on and off and reinserting the cartridge several times, with the same result (although once in a while I can get past the glitch and continue to play). I have no problems with playing other cartridges in my AVS, including my PowerPak  Is anyone else having this problem with their Mall Brawl cart? I’m thinking of asking for a replacement but if they’re all like this then it might be a while...

EDIT: I’ve placed a ticket with LRG’s customer support; I’ll post about what happens with that.

Oh you too? I saw someone else had the same issue in the Limited thread with their AVS. Guess I really have to test mine out now, but in my NES since I don't have an AVS.

On 7/29/2020 at 6:22 AM, a3quit4s said:

Just a heads up to anyone who got jay and silent bob - my cartridge was glitching out on AVS, LRG is replacing it. Make sure to test yours! I couldn’t get more than 2 minutes in

Edited August 1, 2020 by Skorp

[toma | 71]

1 hour ago, WaverBoy said:

I just received my Mall Brawl cartridge. Unfortunately there’s a huge problem. I load the cart into my trusty RetroUSB AVS, the game boots up fine, looks and sounds great all through the intro and opening cut scene with security chasing the boys, but as soon as the gameplay starts and you throw your first punch, the game graphics and sound get all glitchy and the game freezes. I’ve tried powering the system on and off and reinserting the cartridge several times, with the same result (although once in a while I can get past the glitch and continue to play). I have no problems with playing other cartridges in my AVS, including my PowerPak  Is anyone else having this problem with their Mall Brawl cart? I’m thinking of asking for a replacement but if they’re all like this then it might be a while...

EDIT: I’ve placed a ticket with LRG’s customer support; I’ll post about what happens with that.

This is the second instance I've heard of the game acting weird with the AVS. I definitely encourage anyone else having issues to contact Limited Run about it. I know that they had tested production samples on the AVS without any issues and they're looking into things to see what's going on. I have an AVS myself but don't have my production carts yet to test. During development I used an INL SKROM board for testing and never ran into this. I tested on an AVS, a top loader, two front loaders (one with BLW), as well as a Retrobit system.

In the meantime, if anyone is able to try different firmware versions to see if that affects anything, that would be really useful as well. As soon as I'm able to test out a production cart for myself I'll post about it.

[Raftronaut | 100]

I just tested my cart on both my Toaster and my AVS and both worked perfectly.

When I threw it in my toaster initially I got some garbled CHR data on screen. Looks like it disappeared with better contact on the pins.

 

[WaverBoy | 20]

8 minutes ago, Raftronaut said:

I just tested my cart on both my Toaster and my AVS and both worked perfectly.

When I threw it in my toaster initially I got some garbled CHR data on screen. Looks like it disappeared with better contact on the pins.

 

Looks like there are some defective carts, and I got one

[Deadeye | 1,596]

Anyone else test on NT mini?

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

They are replacing mine free of cost but they said it will take like two weeks to ship out. What’s another couple weeks on top of the 10-11 months I already waited. 
 

@WaverBoy

Edited August 1, 2020 by a3quit4s

[WaverBoy | 20]

1 hour ago, a3quit4s said:

They are replacing mine free of cost but they said it will take like two weeks to ship out. What’s another couple weeks on top of the 10-11 months I already waited. 
 

@WaverBoy

Here’s what I just got back from Sarah of their CS dept:

“Good afternoon!

My apologies for the confusion, but I'm not showing we stated 3rd party consoles would be guaranteed to work with this cartridge. Please try this on original hardware,then if you still experience issues if you can upload a video we'll look into our options for exchange.“

My response:

“Hi Sarah,

Other people on the Video Game Sage forums are having the same issue with their AVS, one of whom said you guys were sending him a replacement cartridge but that it would take a couple of weeks. The game is also reported to have been playtested on the AVS before release to make sure that it would work. All other homebrew carts work fine with the AVS; there would have been no reason for any prospective customer to think this one wouldn’t work too. I no longer use original NES hardware. Please please PLEASE send me a replacement cartridge that will work properly with the AVS like all other homebrew carts do; you’ve already done it for one customer, so please do it for me too and I’ll make sure to extol the awesomeness of your customer service dept across cyberspace.“

Wish me luck!

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

@WaverBoy maybe you can have her reference this ticket (138855):

 

On Jul 28, 2020, at 10:37 PM, Michelle Belcher <orders@limitedrungames.com> wrote:
 

Howdy A3quit4s! 
 

Hope you're doing well.

Shouldn't be an issue. As we generally use AVS systems too! And this was tested on just about every variation of NES you can.  

It may just be your cart, if that's the case, we can do a replacement.

Ticket: https://limitedrungames.freshdesk.com/helpdesk/tickets/138855

[KHAN Games | 147]

My AVS is confirmed to work perfectly with it. Firmware v1.30

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

38 minutes ago, KHAN Games said:

My AVS is confirmed to work perfectly with it. Firmware v1.30

The rep told me that I had been added to a list so I'm guessing there are some good and some bad.

 

edit: I was on the beta 1.4 version 4 and rolled back to 1.30 but still the same issue. It was actually worse I didn't even make it into playing the game before it froze.

Edited August 2, 2020 by a3quit4s

[WaverBoy | 20]

Well now we know it’s not the AVS firmware that’s the culprit.

[WaverBoy | 20]

Thank you so much, I have added a note to my ticket referencing your ticket number and that you were told by Michelle Belcher that they use AVS systems too and that the cart was tested on it and all other NES variants they could get their hands on, and that she would put you on the list for replacement carts. Fingers crossed.

Edited August 2, 2020 by WaverBoy

[KHAN Games | 147]

So are they confirmed to only glitch out on the AVS? It doesn't really make sense to me if that's the case.

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

54 minutes ago, KHAN Games said:

So are they confirmed to only glitch out on the AVS? It doesn't really make sense to me if that's the case.

My rep didn’t say if it was limited to just the AVS and I am far to lazy to break out a toaster. 

[a3quit4s | 4,096]

Sorry for the double post. So I did hook up my top loader and the game played much better no freezing or anything for about 20 minutes. I’ll still wait for a replacement because the rep said it should play fine on the AVS. As for what’s wrong I’m not really sure, maybe different batches flashed the game differently? Someone else can probably speak to that better than me. 

[WaverBoy | 20]

I wouldn’t think they’d be wanting to release homebrew carts that haven’t been tested and/or guaranteed to work on the AVS (or Nt Mini) because I wouldn’t think they’d want to miss out on sales from those of us that have moved on to HD — and it was never specified that it wouldn’t work on the AVS.

[Scrobins | 1,725]

Hang on, toma himself said in a post just yesterday they did test on an AVS, and so did he. See his quote below:

“I know that they had tested production samples on the AVS without any issues and they're looking into things to see what's going on. I have an AVS myself but don't have my production carts yet to test. During development I used an INL SKROM board for testing and never ran into this. I tested on an AVS, a top loader, two front loaders (one with BLW), as well as a Retrobit system.”

[DorkOverlord | 684]

I've noticed the audio drops off randomly in my front loader. Haven't tested in my top loader yet. 

[toma | 71]

13 hours ago, Scrobins said:

Hang on, toma himself said in a post just yesterday they did test on an AVS, and so did he. See his quote below:

“I know that they had tested production samples on the AVS without any issues and they're looking into things to see what's going on. I have an AVS myself but don't have my production carts yet to test. During development I used an INL SKROM board for testing and never ran into this. I tested on an AVS, a top loader, two front loaders (one with BLW), as well as a Retrobit system.”

Just to be clear, even though I tested on the AVS during development, I'd really prefer if people don't go to Limited Run with a "toma said it should work" type of message when reporting the issue. I'm not a Limited Run customer service rep, I just personally want everyone to be able to enjoy this game. The only reason I know they used the AVS themselves is because they used it to demo Mall Brawl and Galf on Twitch.

We've got people who are confirmed to be playing on AVS with no problems, so that indicates that there are most likely isolated issues with some cartridges which hopefully should be enough. Referring to other customers who have working carts on the same hardware probably carries more weight than anything I've said about the dev process.

[Scrobins | 1,725]

Absolutely, I wanted to push back on the notion that the carts hadn’t been tested.

[toma | 71]

1 hour ago, Scrobins said:

Absolutely, I wanted to push back on the notion that the carts hadn’t been tested.

Makes sense, I gotcha :)

[WaverBoy | 20]

So, Sarah at LRG is sticking to her guns:

“Hi Jeffrey Nelson,

 

Good morning!

I'll be happy to address this with Michelle. As I outlined you need to try it on original hardware and if you continue to have this issue please send me an update with proof of the issue you are describing. Only at that point in time can we proceed.”

 

Yeah, no. That’s not happening. My response:

 

”Sarah, I don’t have original hardware. The carts were tested on the AVS. There was no mention whatsoever from LRG that this game wouldn’t work. A lot of people are having no problems with their carts on an AVS, but some of us are, and I am one of those unlucky ones. Please send me a replacement cart. Thank you.”

 

If I’m SOL on this, I’ll never purchase another game that LRG has anything to do with.

Edited August 3, 2020 by WaverBoy

[WaverBoy | 20]

19 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

Sorry for the double post. So I did hook up my top loader and the game played much better no freezing or anything for about 20 minutes. I’ll still wait for a replacement because the rep said it should play fine on the AVS. As for what’s wrong I’m not really sure, maybe different batches flashed the game differently? Someone else can probably speak to that better than me. 

I really hope your CS rep Michelle can make my CS rep Sarah see reason, as opposed to Sarah telling Michelle sorry, there’s no replacements for AVS users.