MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Version of Rastan arcade game that uses a different palette.

Back in the 80s, I was a big fan of the Rastan arcade game.

I've played it on many different arcade cabinets over the years. But there was one particular cabinet I came across that ran a version of the game that had a different palette to the standard version. The colours were significantly darker, and there was more contrast between the foreground and background layers of the screen.

I've always preferred the alternative palette to the standard one. Unfortunately however, I've never come across an emulator that runs that version of the game.

I've brought this issue up on emulator sites several times over the years. It's been suggested to me that perhaps the alternate palette was simply caused by a hardware fault, or the monitor being badly calibrated. I obviously can't rule that out. However, that explanation has never really rung true to me, because the alternate colours felt like they were coherent and properly designed by an artist, whereas a hardware fault would probably have produced a garish mess.

As the years passed, I began to wonder whether my memories had been playing tricks with me, and that perhaps the alternate palette version of Rastan had never existed. However, I recently came across a YouTube video that appears to show a cabinet running that version of Rastan.

The link to the video is as follows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GInAHEUfzWw

By way of contrast, here's a video showing the standard version of Rastan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Binxdx_Qzb4

The difference between the two versions is most apparent on the second screen which takes place inside a castle. On the alternate palette version, the background bricks of the castle are a purple colour. But on the standard version the bricks are more of a grey colour.

I'm wondering whether any of the MAME developers are aware that this alternative palette version of Rastan exists? I've tried every version of the Rastan ROMs that I've been able to get hold of, and they all seem to use the standard palette. It would be a shame if the alternate palette version was lost forever because no one had dumped the ROMs.