[chane2k1]

Since my JAP rip doesnt boot yet i went ahead and tried the USA echelon version, and also ran into the freezing problem at about 35 seconds into the City Escape level. I tried playing through with dynarec 4 times and it froze everytime, but once i switched over to interpreter mode the game played through the level fine. I tested the level a few more times with interpreter enabled and it never froze once. So... maybe instead of this being a copy protection problem, it could just be a dynarec problem. I'll try playing through the rest of the game using dynarec now that ive passed the first level using the interpreter and post an update.

UPDATE:
Dynarec seems to be working fine except for the known Metal Harbor infinite loop problem (some skilled jumping gets the job done :>).
King Boom Boo's shadow doesn't appear (using the default config for both video plugins aswell as there various adjustments)

Well i haven't been able to get passed that boss fight due to the lack of shadows, but i'm sure that'll be fixed soon. In the mean time i'll just play another game.