Handheld Underground

MERRY SINTAXMAS EVERYONE!

posted by taizou @ 2012-12-25 00:43:20 Dumps

the twelfth day is finally upon us... and today I'm bringing you something I think quite a lot of people have been waiting for. a game I actually played through to the end because I legitimately enjoyed it that much. It's a strategy game, more or less based on Super Robot Wars gameplay-wise (also the music is stolen directly from the second GB entry in the series), but featuring characters from everyone's favourite monster franchise(s). And I have like four variations on it, so let's take them in order:

Pokemon Sapphire / Pocket Monster Sapphire

This is the first version I played, and probably the original. There's lots more info, along with pics of the box and stuff, here. This version actually seems to have been published by a company called "New Game Color Advance", using art straight from the official GBA Sapphire, as opposed to Sintax's usual ... idiosyncratic approach. (but don't worry, the next version has plenty of that)

raw: Pokemon Sapphire Version (Pocket Monster Saphire) (Unlicensed, English) [Raw Dump].zip
fixed: Pokemon Sapphire Version (Pocket Monster Saphire) (Unlicensed, English) [Fixed].zip

2003 Pocket Monster Carbuncle / Pocket Monster Ruby

Well we have Sapphire, so obviously there has to be Ruby too... Or Carbuncle, as Sintax prefer to call it. The title screen and some of the stage graphics are different, but I think everything else is the same as Sapphire. I suspect this one was made after Sapphire, though, if only because its title screen is fairly shoddy-looking compared to Sapphire's nice one. Qiezei has a bunch of scans here.

Dumped by RobGBA!

raw: 2003 Pocket Monster Carbuncle (Pocket Monster Ruby) (Unlicensed, English) [Raw Dump].zip
fixed: 2003 Pocket Monster Carbuncle (Pocket Monster Ruby) (Unlicensed, English) [Fixed].zip

2003 Kou Dai Guai Shou - Lan Bao Shi (2003口袋怪獸-藍寶石)

The Chinese version of Sapphire - seems about the same, aside from being in Chinese.

I should note that I wasn't able to get a consistent dump of this one; my first dump worked, but all the subsequent ones didn't, so I can't verify whether it's a good dump or not.

Cart supplied by Qiezei!

raw: 2003 Kou Dai Guai Shou - Lan Bao Shi (Unlicensed, Chinese) [Raw Dump-Unconfirmed].zip
fixed: 2003 Kou Dai Guai Shou - Lan Bao Shi (Unlicensed, Chinese) [Fixed-Unconfirmed].zip

Shu Ma Bao Long - Shui Jing Ban II (數碼暴龍-水晶版II)

and finally.. the Digimon version! Basically the same thing but with different graphics. Strangely they bothered to redo the stage graphics again, but still left a few Pokemon and Pokeballs and other Pokestuff in the game. In one of the screenshots you can even see a Pokemon centre that they added into this version.

Cart supplied by Qiezei!

raw: Shu Ma Bao Long - Shui Jing Ban II (Unlicensed, Chinese) [Raw Dump].zip
fixed: Shu Ma Bao Long - Shui Jing Ban II (Unlicensed, Chinese) [Fixed].zip

and so it comes to an end! this isn't the end of Sintax though. not by a long shot.

19 Comments

Comments

1posted by KAGE-008 @ 2012-12-25 01:47:49

I'm going to bow this down NAO! :D

2posted by codeman38 @ 2012-12-25 02:08:28

Both the Pokemon Ruby and Digimon ROMs contain the Pokemon Sapphire title screen, but Sapphire doesn't contain any of the others. So your theory about the release timeline seems to have some evidence backing it up.

3posted by locolol @ 2012-12-25 04:51:37

Amazing! Will play the s*it out of them n_n!,Thank you so much!

4posted by --- @ 2012-12-25 05:09:34

2003 Kou Dai Guai Shou - Lan Bao Shi [Fixed rom]不知出于何故,在若叶镇道馆,当战斗发生于花坛之上(比如波波与海鸥)时,画面出现花屏。

5posted by taizou @ 2012-12-25 12:42:44

@4 - I can't reproduce that, it works fine for me. Which emulator are you using?

6posted by KAGE-008 @ 2012-12-25 16:04:22

Replying to the 4th post - it worked fine on VBA 1.7.2 and GBC.emu, which is based on Gambatte.

7posted by --- @ 2012-12-26 04:17:00

VBA1.8.0Beta出现的毛病,貌似就这个模拟器出这样的问题。

8posted by KAGE-008 @ 2012-12-26 16:49:13

Replying to 7th post - I'd recommend GEST or Gambatte QT for that one. Same with a V.Fame game (Soul Falchion), it crashed on VBA so I had to use GEST in order to beat that game.

9posted by taizou @ 2012-12-26 17:04:21

Yeah, GEST seems to be better for unlicensed games in general.

10posted by Arshes91 @ 2012-12-26 21:40:02

Thanks very much Taizou for working so Hard To dump this stuff. This one of my favorite sintax game ever developed

11posted by Smedis2 @ 2013-01-01 15:01:41

CAN THEY MAKE IT OUT IN A WHOLE SKIN?

12posted by xAngerx @ 2013-04-19 23:32:40

TT_TT finaly I found this game again xD

13posted by Miguel @ 2013-04-29 01:46:47

Muchas gracias amigo, estan muy bien estos roms, se agrede tu aporte :)

14posted by lelman @ 2014-07-10 04:06:58

wow dude, thanks for posting the dumped ROMs! I bought this on a holiday in Florianopolis, at the public market... the game got broken somehow and the gameboy couldn't run it anymore... it was so fun to play!

15posted by Agumonfan1 @ 2015-03-01 06:18:31

Taizou i am interested if there is a english translation of the pokemon ruby game please.

16posted by Snugglefox @ 2015-03-13 09:57:28

"Boss, just finished "designing" the label to put on our new Pokémon Sapphire Bootleg"
"Great job, though something seems off."
"Oh yeah, I forgot to put an ESRB rating, don't want the American authorities busting us for selling an unrated game. Besides people will suspect it's fake without a rating."
"We don't have time to get it rated properly, so just put Rating Pending on it."
"Great idea boss, your genius is shining as always."

17posted by guyzis @ 2020-05-31 14:53:50

But there's no rating at all in the Carbuncle bootleg!

18posted by koch @ 2021-01-25 07:33:13

I bought this one (Carbuncle) in 2005 at booth in Turkey while on vacation. Crazy to replay it now as I didn't knew English back then

19posted by segmentObscured @ 2022-09-22 02:22:12

just found this site i love it lol