- Barver
- Sep 15 2010, 08:04:36 PM
Was away for a bit, kinda late response.. :)
I gotta play it again, but from what I remember the music is pretty much standard GBC stuff yeah. But it has PCM sounding percussion playing, which also keeps cutting off if you go into a menu and then [/quote]Oh, hm. Interesting. The mysterious Crash Bandicoot pirate original is the same: PSG for all the melody, with PCM for percussion. So perhaps it is Vast Fame's work...- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on September 16, 2010, 08:00:06 PM- I wonder if that same music is in the Digimon platform game - it might have been the case that Vast Fame only collaborated with Sintax to port the SNES Digimon game to the GBA, with the music being 100% Vast Fame (because Sintax obviously didn't have the capacity to make their own music, if their GBC efforts are anything to go by). then maybe they parted ways after that, and Sintax just recycled the engine and music for Crash Bandicoot.
hell the Pokemon title screen on Sky League's version of the Digimon platformer could even be Sintax getting up to their old tricks - maybe they released the Digimon version first, and the Pokemon version as a "new" "Pokemon" game later.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 23, 2010, 01:51:41 PM- Well i got Digimon "Rury" today, and.. its the same game! In Engrish.
ill take some screenshots & video soonish, and try to dump it (though i suspect that won't work, as usual).- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Awesome Panda on October 23, 2010, 02:00:45 PM- Is there anything of interest in the text?
- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 23, 2010, 03:14:39 PM- well i've only played it for about two minutes so far. the battery seems to be dead. ):
edit: and its soldered in. grr.
theres lots of dialogue like "What select inside of child I regardless!!". but at least they figured out line breaks.
a lot of the music does seem to be recycled from other V.Fame games though, with added PCM percussion.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Barver on October 24, 2010, 12:12:18 AM- Nice. Did you get it from that eBay seller?
I recently sold my copy to Nusutto actually, I didn't realize before he told me that the town music is the same as in Shi Kong Xing Shou. I guess Vast Fame don't only reuse engines, but music too.
Edit: Hah, that's funny, didn't notice you said the battery's dead. Just like my copy. I guess it's a common thing with all of them? Does the cart have no screw in the back like the Chinese one also? I guessed it was probably going to be soldered in, but never could check since it seemed like there's no way to open it unless I break the molding.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 24, 2010, 12:24:58 AM
- Barver
- Oct 24 2010, 12:12:18 AM
I recently sold my copy to Nusutto actually, I didn't realize before he told me that the town music is the same as in Shi Kong Xing Shou. I guess Vast Fame don't only reuse engines, but music too.[/quote]Heh, they were even doing that on GBC! They reused one of the tunes from Queen of Fighters as the battle theme in Shui Hu Shen Shou.
Also, I can't wait to see the video of this. The music and the Engrish interest me. :)- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Barver on October 24, 2010, 12:29:12 AM- Speaking of video, I've still been waiting for something of Devil Land from that 12-in-1 ;) And let us know how dumping goes!
- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 24, 2010, 07:04:48 AM
- Barver
- Oct 24 2010, 12:12:18 AM
Nice. Did you get it from that eBay seller?[/quote]different seller.. this one wasnt boxed unfortunately ):
- Barver
nah, it has a nintendo-style tri-wing screw - i guess they were going for some degree of "authenticity" with this one. speaking of which, the fake seal of quality is the same as the one on all those New Game Color Advance games.
- Barver
ah yeah, Devil Land is still coming (incidentally the intro music from that game is reused in Digimon). i probably won't get anything done today or tomorrow though, im pretty busy.
& i tried to dump it last night using my DS, no luck there. ill try it with a proper dumper later, just in case..- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 24, 2010, 12:11:56 PM- Heh, in the meantime, I found this thread (http://thedigiport.com/forum/index.php?topic=8722.0) from a Digimon forum about Rury, with the complete text of the game's intro. (Is the poster of that anyone here, or did someone else manage to get a Digimon Rury cartridge with a broken battery?)
That's definitely the same quality of Engrish as in Pokemon Ruby. Though I'm amazed they spelled "Ruby" correctly there. :lol:
Edit: Also, the Digimon Rury box art (shown in that post above) is directly stolen from Digimon Battle Spirit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digimon_Battle_Spirit)-- they even tried to knock off the font used for "Battle Spirit", albeit not very well. Incidentally, Battle Spirit is one of those rare legit GBA games that uses GBC-style music.
Edit #2: Oh yeah, and the Digimon Sapphire box art is stolen from the Japanese release of Digimon World 3 (http://www.gamerankings.com/ps/562323-digimon-world-3/images/box7357.html). Gotta love bootlegs.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 24, 2010, 01:49:45 PM
- codeman38
- Oct 24 2010, 12:11:56 PM
(Is the poster of that anyone here, or did someone else manage to get a Digimon Rury cartridge with a broken battery?)[/quote]I think bootleg GB game manufacturers just have some secret source for the worst batteries ever. I don't have a single one with its original battery that actually still holds a save. but I can replace them with the cheapest batteries I can actually find for sale anywhere and they last forever.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 24, 2010, 04:32:01 PM
- taizou
- Oct 24 2010, 01:49:45 PM
I think bootleg GB game manufacturers just have some secret source for the worst batteries ever. I don't have a single one with its original battery that actually still holds a save. but I can replace them with the cheapest batteries I can actually find for sale anywhere and they last forever.[/quote]Probably the same source as those knockoff AA batteries that are sold at flea markets, heh. Those things do not last long at all.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Awesome Panda on October 24, 2010, 04:58:11 PM
- codeman38
- Oct 24 2010, 04:32:01 PM
- taizou
- Oct 24 2010, 01:49:45 PM
I think bootleg GB game manufacturers just have some secret source for the worst batteries ever. I don't have a single one with its original battery that actually still holds a save. but I can replace them with the cheapest batteries I can actually find for sale anywhere and they last forever.[/quote]Probably the same source as those knockoff AA batteries that are sold at flea markets, heh. Those things do not last long at all.[/quote]Presumably it's some knockoff batteries they could get for as cheap as possible, considering that some bootleg handhelds like this POS Popstation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9FFuHQtIiE) use them. Then again, I don't think GBC carts used AA batteries so obviously V.Fame were being cheap with production costs.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 25, 2010, 07:59:22 AM- well i replaced the battery and it works. woo. incidentally theres a battery test screen that sometimes comes up if you wait for the title music to finish, but thats complete bollocks. it was still reporting "battery OK!!" when there was actually no battery in there.
there also seems to be a bug with the music that occurs after you load a save (one of the sound channels doesnt play until you exit to the map screen, which is kind of an arse). but it doesn't happen every time.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 26, 2010, 09:13:43 AM- video! :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqqjA-5r_2c (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqqjA-5r_2c)- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 26, 2010, 09:53:20 AM- Hey, the
first town'smusic in the prologue is from Crazy Richman 2!
Also, the intro music is used on the title screen of VFame's Digimon Sapphire, albeit without the neat added PCM percussion.
Edit: The added PCM percussion gives the music a really neat effect, actually. I sort of like it.
Edit #2: The town music seems to have a weird glitch. Listen to the second loop of it starting at 7:13 in the video-- the bass line starts to become more and more incoherent, like it's out of sync or something.
Edit #3: The compass on the world map is... interesting. It's got north and south, but south is at the top; that's reasonable, because not all maps are oriented northward. But the "S" is forwards, and the "N" is backwards. Bwuh?
OK, I just mucked around with the title screen music in Audacity, and it's not just me: it is being played at double the speed it should be. Still no idea where it came from, though.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Awesome Panda on October 26, 2010, 10:28:25 AM
- codeman38
- Oct 26 2010, 09:53:20 AM
OK, I just mucked around with the title screen music in Audacity, and it's not just me: it is being played at double the speed it should be. Still no idea where it came from, though.[/quote]Doing the same, I'm not sure either but judging by the general sound (as in, it doesn't sound like a video game song in my opinion) I'm guessing it was probably taken from the anime's OST or something. I doubt I'm right but I can't think of a better guess. :huh:- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 26, 2010, 10:37:52 AM
- Cheetahmen
- Oct 26 2010, 10:28:25 AM
Doing the same, I'm not sure either but judging by the general sound (as in, it doesn't sound like a video game song in my opinion) I'm guessing it was probably taken from the anime's OST or something. I doubt I'm right but I can't think of a better guess. :huh:[/quote]I'm thinking it's probably from the anime as well. It sounds vaguely like the English dub ending from series 4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0CSKWLFwY8)--probably it's whatever Japanese song that one was based on, heh.Actually, the ending is based on the 4th-season English opening (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUSzqnjakGM), which, of course, bears no resemblance to the Japanese theme. Duh. And I can't find any of the Japanese themes with a similar tune...
(Edited because I can't keep the series straight. That's the 4th season, not the 3rd as I originally wrote.)
Edit: And they probably didn't base it on the American opening anyway-- Taiwan uses dubs of the original Japanese tunes. So I have no idea where it came from.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 26, 2010, 10:51:55 AM- found it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sRVDjMbv3k (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sRVDjMbv3k)- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 26, 2010, 10:53:17 AM
- taizou
- Oct 26 2010, 10:51:55 AM
found it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sRVDjMbv3k (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sRVDjMbv3k)[/quote]Ooh. Good catch! I didn't even think to look for non-OP/ED music. D'oh! ::facepalm::- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Awesome Panda on October 26, 2010, 11:02:46 AM- I wonder where they got that 50 second (approximate) re-edit from then, unless they did that themselves.
- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 26, 2010, 11:12:39 AM
- Cheetahmen
- Oct 26 2010, 11:02:46 AM
I wonder where they got that 50 second (approximate) re-edit from then, unless they did that themselves.[/quote]Might've been on a soundtrack CD or something that had a "TV-size" edit.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Awesome Panda on October 26, 2010, 11:17:01 AM
- codeman38
- Oct 26 2010, 11:12:39 AM
- Cheetahmen
- Oct 26 2010, 11:02:46 AM
I wonder where they got that 50 second (approximate) re-edit from then, unless they did that themselves.[/quote]Might've been on a soundtrack CD or something that had a "TV-size" edit.[/quote]Bootlegged, I presume. :P Mind you, if they had a DVD of it as well that'd explain where the images in the intro are taken from. What I don't get is why they would speed it up to twice the regular speed. Maybe it was a bug that the programmers didn't feel like fixing, which would explain the glitchy town music.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 31, 2010, 11:03:56 AM- Out of curiosity, taizou, were you able to get even a bad dump of this game? I'd be curious even to look at a bad dump to see if there's any interesting information hidden within-- it was from an incomplete dump of Rockman & Crystal that I found Vast Fame's logo hidden in the ROM, for instance.
- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 31, 2010, 11:15:55 AM- Yeah, I do have a bad dump - I'm just about to try dumping it again with something else, if I get the same result I'll PM you (and anyone else who wants it) a link
- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Awesome Panda on October 31, 2010, 12:11:55 PM- I'd like to see that rom as well, even if it doesn't work.
- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 31, 2010, 12:41:50 PM- well the DS dump was 32mb, the PC one is 2mb, but the 32mb dump seems to just be the same 2mb repeated 8 times plus 16mb of repeating patterns after that.so i've just uploaded the 2mb one for now.
- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Awesome Panda on October 31, 2010, 01:05:53 PM- Looking through the hex, I can see that the ROM header is "Digi World" so maybe this is based off another pirate called Digimon World or something? (given that it's an RPG, I very much doubt that it's based off the Playstation game)
I also found some error messages which I guess appear when you crash the game or something. One of them, which is seperated from the rest, says "Unknown Signal." No idea what that one's about. Another one says "This code can only be run on a Thumb compatible processor" which I don't understand either. Some of them also appear at least twice in the ROM.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 31, 2010, 04:11:58 PM
- Cheetahmen
- Oct 31 2010, 01:05:53 PM
I also found some error messages which I guess appear when you crash the game or something. One of them, which is seperated from the rest, says "Unknown Signal." No idea what that one's about. Another one says "This code can only be run on a Thumb compatible processor" which I don't understand either. Some of them also appear at least twice in the ROM.[/quote]Pretty simple, really: The Thumb is the processor architecture that the GBA runs on. It's closely related to the ARM architecture used in the iPhone and iPod, actually (hence the punny name).
There's no actual dialogue text, not even encoded in a non-ASCII character set-- I did a relative search for "igimon" (so that capitalization wouldn't count), and it's nowhere to be found.
Incidentally, this dump has the exact same issue that the attempted dump of Rockman Crystal had: it's the same bank of ROM repeated 4 times. I guess VFame must do some sort of bank-switching trick that throws off copiers or something.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Awesome Panda on October 31, 2010, 04:39:29 PM
- codeman38
- Oct 31 2010, 04:11:58 PM
- Cheetahmen
- Oct 31 2010, 01:05:53 PM
I also found some error messages which I guess appear when you crash the game or something. One of them, which is seperated from the rest, says "Unknown Signal." No idea what that one's about. Another one says "This code can only be run on a Thumb compatible processor" which I don't understand either. Some of them also appear at least twice in the ROM.[/quote]Pretty simple, really: The Thumb is the processor architecture that the GBA runs on. It's closely related to the ARM architecture used in the iPhone and iPod, actually (hence the punny name).[/quote]Well I'm not exactly the most knowledgable person when it comes to GBA hardware. (or any hardware, myself) I figured it might be like that but I wasn't entirely sure.
Also, I don't know much about dumping either but is the whole game in that ROM or just part of it? If only some of it's there, then the text could be stored in a part of the game that wasn't dumped. Given that's an RPG on the GBA, I'd assume that the game would be larger than 2MB.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: codeman38 on October 31, 2010, 05:47:27 PM
- Cheetahmen
- Oct 31 2010, 04:39:29 PM
Also, I don't know much about dumping either but is the whole game in that ROM or just part of it? If only some of it's there, then the text could be stored in a part of the game that wasn't dumped. Given that's an RPG on the GBA, I'd assume that the game would be larger than 2MB.[/quote]Yeah-- it's definitely a bad dump. It's the same 512K repeated 4 times, which is clearly not right.- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: Awesome Panda on October 31, 2010, 05:59:29 PM- Mind you, that raises the question: Why do pirates even bother copy protecting their games in the first place? Then again, it's probably because us lot (among others) end up finding hidden stuff they can't be arsed to remove. :P
- Title: GBA Digimon RPG from Vast Fame
Post by: taizou on October 31, 2010, 06:34:45 PM
- Cheetahmen
- Oct 31 2010, 05:59:29 PM
Mind you, that raises the question: Why do pirates even bother copy protecting their games in the first place? Then again, it's probably because us lot (among others) end up finding hidden stuff they can't be arsed to remove. :P[/quote]Well they have more incentive to protect their games than licensed developers. Theyre releasing stuff exclusively into markets where nearly everything is pirated already, and they can't exactly take legal action to stop some other pirates flooding the market with a million copies of their game that they get 0 money from. I think us digging through their roms for leftover crap is pretty low on their list of priorities :D