It’s been a long wait, but two Japan-exclusive Mega Man Battle Network arcade games are finally on the cusp of being playable by international fans. Hardware preservationist and friend of the site GoodTofuFriday has managed to obtain what many considered lost media: ROM dumps of Rockman EXE Battle Chip Stadium and Rockman EXE: The Medal Operation.
In order to dump the ROMs, Tofu and DemiDyourMC flew all the way out to France to meet with a private collector who had acquired the two arcade cabinets, and was willing to let the team dump them. The whole process has also been documented by Demi, who plans to release the video on his YouTube channel later.
As for playability, there’s good news and bad news. The games do appear to boot on the arcade emulator MAME, but since both games rely on various unique physical hardware features, they’re currently not in a playable state. The preservation team plans to release the ROM dumps once new plugins for MAME have been developed emulating these hardware features. While playing the games in MAME won’t fully replicate the experience of playing on the real arcade cabinet, it should at least give fans the opportunity to see the games’ contents.
For more pictures and details, check out the full breakdown over on Rockman Corner!
Source: Rockman Corner