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:
got a quicky release today - this one is an alternate version of a game that has been dumped for a long time, Digimon 3: Crystal Version (Shu Ma Bao Long 3 - Shui Jing Ban, or 數碼暴龍3-水晶版) by Vast Fame. The existing dump uses music from another Vast Fame game, Shui Hu Shen Shou, which also for some reason leaves it with an oddly silent intro and title screen, but this new version has an entirely different soundtrack and comes with characteristically excellent music for both. Other than that, I can't see any differences between them (not that I've looked or anything). Aside from the subtitle, this version also seems to be the same as the currently not-successfully-dumpable Taiwanese release (presumably the original version of this game) called 數碼暴龍3-超夢版, which could be translated as, uh, Digimon 3: Mewtwo Version.
As with Digimon 9 the original dump is too big but works fine, the fixed version is trimmed down to its correct size and the header updated to match everything is fine so just download it. It comes from a generic modernish-looking cart made by I don't know who, but presumably they had access to this alternate version from somewhere. Many thanks to Qiezei for sending it, anyway!
got another dump for you all today - a game by the name of Digimon 9, or, you know, other things. Its full Chinese name as per the title screen is Shu Ma Bao Long 9: Bao Long Pian 2002 (数码暴龙9-暴龙篇2002) but I'm 99% sure this is a title hack anyway, judging from the crude title logo.
It was developed by Sintax or BBD or whoever was behind their earlier games; being an earlier one, it actually seems to have had a decent amount of care and effort put into it - the cutscenes are really well-done, the sprites are cute, there are some nice little touches like the falling leaves in the first level and idle animations, and it all plays quite well as far as generic GBC platformers go. The music is still from Lemmings though. As usual.
Anyway this cart is another nicely protection-free generic release courtesy of the same company that brought you the Pokemon cart earlier - I suppose a hacked title logo is a small price to pay for a working dump. The raw version works but it's 4mb - the fixed version is only 1mb it just works, okay. And that's that. enjoy!
I've just uploaded some new stuff to the Handheld Underground youtube channel which hadn't been updated since a few months before this site was launched - I guess some of you might not be aware that it actually exists at this point. So, have some videos! These games are pretty obscure even by my standards.
Also, judging from my stats I have quite a lot of visitors from China and Taiwan, which is cool, since that's where these games were actually made and all. 你好 to all of you! I know people in China may have trouble accessing Youtube, but I'm planning to do something about that in the near-ish future...
Hey it's another dump! Well I never. Presenting the long-lost (not really) mono Game Boy game: STORY OF LASAMA (拉薩瑪傳奇). It's a fairly generic little platform game, developed, I think, by some people connected to Vast Fame (although they seemingly hadn't gained a decent musician at this point) and published by Gowin, a Taiwanese company who released about 17 games total across both mono and color Game Boys. (If you want to read some more about this game, and you know Chinese, this here archived page on Gowin's old website might be a good place to start)
Five of Gowin's other mono games - Rainbow Prince (which is excellent), Fire Dragon (which has excellent music), Prince YehRude (which is weird), Magic Ball (which is a thing) and Lost Trip/Losing Trip/Puzzle Path/Mi Tu De Lu/Top Secret (which has too many names) - were dumped and cracked by one "GYY Game Unlock Team", who also saw fit to hack their own name into the games - I've done no such thing here, so you can enjoy the game in its unmolested glory. The raw dump is 4mb 128kb and contains a good chunk of Magic Ball, for some reason, but the fixed version is a mere 64k and actually works and stuff.
Incidentally, this is numbered GS-04, and while GS-02 and up are accounted for, I've never seen a GS-01 and neither was one ever listed on Gowin's website. the fact that this one's PCB has "No3" written on it in black marker makes me think there never actually was one (or if there was, it was cancelled) ... But you never know.
