MERRY SINTAXMAS EVERYONE!

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.