posted by RobGBA @ 2012-11-23 00:33:00
Dumps
Why hello, I'm RobGBA! Just an introduction for myself, in case you're wondering who I am and why I'm here. I'm a member of the Pirated Game Central, and have interests in obscure games for the Game Boy. So with my small and progressing collection, I'll be posting my working dumps over here!
Hey look, it's an Engrish Jreasure from the lovely pirates at Sintax! Donkey Kong 5! You know, the one where Mr. Kong has a journey around time and space?
This one's on the same engine as Digimom, but this is actually an earlier release. Not really much difference, apart from sprites and such.
Thanks to taizou for fixing the ROM! Enjoy:
raw: Donkey Kong 5 - The Journey of Over Time and Space (Unlicensed, English) [Raw Dump].zip
fixed: Donkey Kong 5 - The Journey of Over Time and Space (Unlicensed, English) [Fixed].zip
posted by taizou @ 2012-11-17 03:42:56
Other Stuff
Came across something interesting in an issue of the UK's (excellent) N64 Magazine recently - all the way back in August 1999 they dedicated a two-page feature to bootleg Game Boy stuff, pretty unprecedented for the time. they even gave it a...slightly familiar name, almost like a knockoff version of this very site (...except theirs was 13 years earlier):
(the quality isn't the best, sorry - I didn't have access to a scanner when I found this, so I just had to photograph it, but it's readable at least)
With it being 1999, unlicensed development hadn't really got into full swing, so all they had to cover were hacks and multicarts and the like; they seemingly didn't realise Mario 4 was a hack at all (which is fair enough, given the obscurity of the source game, Crayon Shin-Chan 4) and although they hint at Sonic 6 being based on some unnamed "poor game", they don't recognise it as Speedy Gonzales, and they really lay into it. Poor Speedy :(
They also cover Monster Go! Go! Go!, which they do identify as a Smurfs hack (the colour version of Smurfs being a fairly recent release at that point), but they don't provide any screenshots - my hunch is that they played Mario 4 and Sonic 6 through ROMs they downloaded from the internet, but Monster Go Go Go probably wasn't dumped at that point, so I'd guess they either actually obtained a copy (possible) or just nicked the boxart from a website and wrote up something based on the site's description (likely).
Amusingly, given their likely ROM-based Mario and Sonic shenanigans, they then proceed to get on their soapbox about the GB X-Changer (because playing pirated roms on your computer is just fine, but if you put them on a cartridge you have CROSSED A LINE SIR), and then there's a bit about some crap old multicart that someone on staff no doubt picked up on holiday, and that's your lot!
posted by taizou @ 2012-11-16 03:00:11
Dumps
hey it's that guy! the one who's a spider! in a game by Sintax, called 蜘蛛侠3-电影版 (Zhi Zhu Xia 3 - Dian Ying Ban), or "Spiderman 3: Movie Version". the actual movie called Spiderman 3 would not be released for a good 3-4 years, so once again Sintax were way ahead of their time on this one.
It also has some of the most inappropriate music ever committed to game, so surely it's worth checking out on that basis if nothing else.
the same caveats re: fixage apply as with the Digimom Sapphhhiii dump, namely that the fixed version is 4mb instead of 2mb, and no I don't know how to get it working at its proper size. also thanks once again to Qiezei for the cart!
raw: Zhi Zhu Xia III - Dian Ying Ban (Unlicensed, Chinese) [Raw Dump].zip
fixed: Zhi Zhu Xia III - Dian Ying Ban (Unlicensed, Chinese) [Fixed].zip
posted by taizou @ 2012-10-22 02:55:54
Dumps
well! THIS was unexpected. But sometimes things happen and then suddenly you have a new Vast Fame game to play with. it's called Xin Feng Shen Bang (新封神榜), it's sort of a modern retelling of the 16th century Chinese novel Feng Shen Bang in RPG form, and it seems pretty excellent. but it's also in Chinese so I can't really tell what's going on.
this dump was taken from this 12 in 1, so if you want to see cart pictures or anything they're all on the aforelinked wiki page.
as per usual with these dumps i'm posting an untouched and a fixed version, but the only difference is in the header, allowing the game to save in emulators. The header actually doesn't matter to a real Game Boy - it was (apparently) originally intended for internal use in Nintendo's factories, so unlicensed developers didn't have to bother with such things. but emulators always assume a correctly set header too, so here we are. Maybe there's an unfulfilled need for a new Game Boy ROM format that actually contains this info outside of the game data.. maybe. anyway, roms!
raw: Xin Feng Shen Bang (Unlicensed, Chinese) (Multicart Rip) [Raw Dump].zip
fixed: Xin Feng Shen Bang (Unlicensed, Chinese) (Multicart Rip) [Header Fix].zip
ugh my filenames are getting pretty long and unwieldy now arent they D:
Also, on the subject of Vast Fame games and headers and such - my dump of Shi Kong Xing Shou from the same 12 in 1 from ages ago has a few problems with saving (which seem to vary depending on the emu you're using), and I *think* this is because the save size in the header was set incorrectly; I mean I don't actually know these things for sure but it seems to be the case (hey, I'm learning). so I'm also posting a fixed version of that for your enjoyment here. And the original, even though it's unchanged, because, hey, consistency.
raw: Shi Kong Xing Shou (Unlicensed, Chinese) (Multicart Rip) [Raw Dump].zip
fixed: Shi Kong Xing Shou (Unlicensed, Chinese) (Multicart Rip) [Header Fix].zip
posted by taizou @ 2012-10-06 22:16:16
Dumps
completing this little trilogy of Digimon dumps, we have... 2003 Digimom Sapphii! Or 2003 Digitmon Sapphire! Or something! By Sintax.
It's a clone of Super Mario Bros (specifically Super Mario Bros DX, but it seems to have been coded from scratch), and... it really doesn't have all that much to do with Digimon at all, aside from the "big Mario" replacement being the Agumon sprite from Digimon 9. But the small sprite is Bub from Bubble Bobble, so it's just about as much a Bubble Bobble game as it is a Digimon one. The intro doesn't mention Agumon by name, the picture on the title screen is a... something and even the label just seems to have some random dinosaurs on it.
anyway it's not a bad game - there are a few omissions from the real Super Mario Bros, notably the last two worlds, but it's mostly a fairly complete clone and it even has warp zones and stuff. Each level also has different graphics and music (the latter being stolen from Pokemon Pinball) which is a nice touch over the original. Sintax being Sintax they released at least two other basically identical games with different graphics, namely Harry Boy and Donkey Kong 5, Harry Boy being (I think) the first.
this is also the first Sintax game I've managed to get working, so yay for that! Unfortunately I had to make it 4mb for it to run, when the game is actually only 2mb, seemingly because of the way it addresses data, but I have no idea what can be done about it. (if anyone out there knows, please leave a comment!) I guess it uses some kind of slightly-unusual mapper or something, but I still have basically 0 technical knowledge of the Game Boy and I'm already punching way above my weight trying to crack these things in the first place, so I'm pretty happy that it's playable at any size.
also, thanks to RobGBA for lending me the cart! enjoy:
2003 Digimom Sapphii (2003 Digitmon Sapphire) (Unlicensed, English) [Raw Dump].zip
2003 Digimom Sapphii (2003 Digitmon Sapphire) (Unlicensed, English) [Fixed].zip
