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My SEGA CD will not play Robo Aleste for some reason. It is a model 2 paired with a model 2 Genesis.

It will play any other game I throw at it, and I've tried burning images of Robo Aleste and that doesn't work either. I cleaned my laser, even though I doubt that is it since other games work. Any one else have an issue where one game won't play and any suggestions on how to fix?

Hmm... only two things that come to mind is a bad ISO (check it in an emulator), or perhaps it's the wrong region. Not sure beyond that. I might need to try burning a copy myself and just see what happens. I'm using a Model 1 Genesis with Model 2 Sega CD (US).

A region mismatch is easy to check. Grab the emulator Kega Fusion, if you don't already have it. You'll need the Sega CD BIOS in the correct folder. In the emulator options, the region defaults to auto. Boot the game from the disc to confirm that it works (that you have the emulator configured correctly). If it does, manually set the region of the emulator to whatever region your console is and see if you can boot the game. If it doesn't work, change the region until it does. Then you'll know for sure what region the disc is.

Thanks for the advice guys! I'll let you know if it works.

The game does work in an emulator. I used Genesis Plus in Retroarch.

I'm still unable to solve. It is the correct region and works fine in the emulator. I wonder if there's something about it that makes it harder to read and my laser is starting to go or something.

I've had this problem with a couple of systems (won't play one game but plays others just fine).

My guess is that it has to be the laser. Maybe it's just barely weak enough where it has trouble reading the certain data for that one game.

My old PS2 did that with my pristine Gran Turismo 4. When that finally broke and I got a PS2 Slim, it worked fine.

My Dreamcast wouldn't read Street Fighter Alpha 3 backup by Revive-DC. I had to get a regular rom backup from one of those rom download websites (it was 100-200 MB smaller), and my DC played it just fine.

So maybe you can try getting a different ISO for Robo Aleste? I know you said you tried, but lot of sites have the same backups uploaded. Try to get one of those more professional looking uploads by a certain group, and then try one of those regular rom websites that usually upload roms that are lower size. Basically, try to get different backups (to make sure they are actually different, I usually make sure they aren't the exact same size).

Mad_Hatter wrote:(to make sure they are actually different, I usually make sure they aren't the exact same size)

"They" is referring to two different disc images, but I realized after I quoted the parenthesis how funny it sounds out of context.

Anyway, one could also compare the checksum of both images as a better way to check if they're the same or not (RHDN gives you ROM checksum values for all their patches, example) and there's places like redump.org that have full sets of checksums you can download.