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I first saw this game when I designed a magazine layout which featured it (among others). I didn't think much about it at the time, since I was so busy trying not to fall asleep from the crazy hours I was working designing magazine layouts. I forgot all about it for several years. Then one day, I was shooting at some food... uh no, wrong story. Then one day I was talking to a friend about my crazy arcade game collecting hobby and he asked if I had ever seen a Sonic the Hedgehog arcade game. Hmmmm. Hey, yes, I did see pictures of the game play, but I never saw a game in real life. He said he had seen it at a CES in Las Vegas, but never in the wild. I decided I needed one. A while later, whilst browsing eBay, a PCB showed up by a seller in France. Hey, wait a minute... the screen shots he used in his eBay listing were the ones from the magazine layout I designed, years ago. I recognized the borders and backgrounds I had made. Neat.
It came with a control panel and trackballs which I recognized as being for a Japanese sit-at, Sega "AeroCity" cabinet. I knew that because I had just finished making a MAME cabinet out of one. So, I bid a crazy amount of money for a PCB and won the auction. Then I bought another AeroCity cabinet to put it in. There was also crazy shipping charges from France and trucking charges to get the cabinet from Southern CA, so all told, I spent way, way too much for it. I did a lot of eBay selling myself for a while afterwards to pay for it all. Now I just need to figure out what kind of marquee will work right on this wacky little cabinet and figure out which cracked solder joint is making the monitor go out when I bump the cabinet.