V-Mega Famiclone

[Awesome Panda]

I recently found the V-Mega, an educational Famiclone made by "Yese" in 2005. One thing that I find strange about this is that one of the songs in the menus is taken from Go! Benny! by NTDEC and modified. (you can hear it clearly about 7 minutes in) And considering all of the stuff lifted from early Famicom titles (as well as Bubble Bobble and Kirby's Adventure) and that NTDEC released those titles (hence the lawsuit against them) they might be connected with this thing. Either that or Yese felt like nicking the music for the sake of it. Also, the graphics on this thing look too advanced for 8-bit if you ask me. (technically, at least) Also, Pop Monster looks somewhat like "Robot" off those Waixing Famiclones to me.
Footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkVo-84aqV4&feature=grec_index

[codeman38]

Wow. I found the video of this thing a while back, and had forgotten about it... I didn't even notice the NTDEC music connection. And given that I've seen some other educational Famicom carts credited to Asder (Edit: Like this one from the related videos!)... could easily be possible.

I'm guessing this thing probably uses the same enhanced graphics chip found in some of Waixing's clones and the Yobo Factor 5. It still looks 8-bit to me, just with a fancier palette. Probably has a similar sound chip to that one DDR clone, too, given the heavy use of voice sampling.

(Also, as an aside, I can't get over the completely random mixing of British and American English on that cart. Reminds me of Steve Martin's old routine about teaching your kids the wrong words for things.)

[Awesome Panda]

codeman38

Sep 12 2010, 11:21:13 PM

Wow. I found the video of this thing a while back, and had forgotten about it... I didn't even notice the NTDEC music connection. And given that I've seen some other educational Famicom carts credited to Asder (Edit: Like this one from the related videos!)... could easily be possible.

I'm guessing this thing probably uses the same enhanced graphics chip found in some of Waixing's clones and the Yobo Factor 5. It still looks 8-bit to me, just with a fancier palette. Probably has a similar sound chip to that one DDR clone, too, given the heavy use of voice sampling.

(Also, as an aside, I can't get over the completely random mixing of British and American English on that cart. Reminds me of Steve Martin's old routine about teaching your kids the wrong words for things.)[/quote]Thing is, Asder put their brand name on that computer and released it in multiple languages. (there's a rom of the Arabic translation which changes some of the applications) You'd think given that they're still around, they'd have put their name somewhere as opposed to "Yese." At a guess I'd say they stole the song from Go! Benny! and used it on the menus, given that they ripped off plenty of stuff from other games. Then again, for what I know Yese could've been an alias or regional name or something, seeing as the reviewer bought it in Finland.

As for the hardware, I'm guessing it's the same graphics chip and such (the part I highlighted was what I meant) and it probably uses the same sound chip as Street Dance, although seeing as that was made several years after, this might have been one of the first Famiclones to use it.

Also, about the creators confusing American English and British English, I presume Yese or whoever are Asian and confused the two dialects or whatever the word is, although the guy doing the voice definitely sounds American so I don't know what's up there. Either that or an American did the menus and the English Paradise thing and a Brit did the Dialogue scenes, although that's pretty unlikely given that this is a Famiclone. Maybe the people who made it nicked the voice samples from some other educational computer system, (like a Leapfrog or something) seeing as pirates did PCM rips of songs for Street Dance.

[taizou]

yeah i'd say its probably not Asder itself, just some other company that ripped off their music.. a lot of other parts seem to be stolen or "inspired" by other games. like Lucky Ball, or the Typing School II title screen - its not directly stolen but it looks *really* adventure island-ish. i swear i've seen that exact same "Painter" program somewhere before though, maybe an older educational famiclone, maybe thats a clue to its real makers?

although Asder's name in Chinese is 亚斯德, "ya si de", which i suppose you could sort of almost abbreviate to Yese. maybe theyre just being careful about using their real name on products containing stolen material, considering what happened with NTDEC? i kinda doubt it though.

btw even though its seemingly more advanced palette and sound-wise it is compatible with standard famicom games, someones selling one here with a few generic pirate carts:
http://www.huuto.net/kohteet/famiclone-yese-v-mega-pc-cib-testattu-peleja-ei-hv/143025136

and as for the mixing of british and american english, i think the most likely explanation is they didn't give a shit the voice actor was probably just reading lines off a printout, i doubt he had any input into the actual development.

[Awesome Panda]

taizou

Sep 14 2010, 06:14:34 AM

yeah i'd say its probably not Asder itself, just some other company that ripped off their music.. a lot of other parts seem to be stolen or "inspired" by other games. like Lucky Ball, or the Typing School II title screen - its not directly stolen but it looks *really* adventure island-ish. i swear i've seen that exact same "Painter" program somewhere before though, maybe an older educational famiclone, maybe thats a clue to its real makers?

although Asder's name in Chinese is 亚斯德, "ya si de", which i suppose you could sort of almost abbreviate to Yese. maybe theyre just being careful about using their real name on products containing stolen material, considering what happened with NTDEC? i kinda doubt it though.

btw even though its seemingly more advanced palette and sound-wise it is compatible with standard famicom games, someones selling one here with a few generic pirate carts:
http://www.huuto.net/kohteet/famiclone-yese-v-mega-pc-cib-testattu-peleja-ei-hv/143025136

and as for the mixing of british and american english, i think the most likely explanation is they didn't give a shit the voice actor was probably just reading lines off a printout, i doubt he had any input into the actual development.[/quote]I think Typing School II was on some other Famiclones with a different looking title screen. I'm pretty sure I saw Painter on some other PC Famiclones, although I can't remember which ones TBH. I'm pretty sure the "IQ games" are from them as well, I definitely remember Minesweeper, Solitaire and Stick Fever from elsewhere. (and no, not Windows ) I'm also betting (although not really) that Smart Millionaire is a Monopoly clone with maths questions. (I saw that on another Famiclone) "Editor" looks like it was ripped from some Famiclone trying to copy a Windows OS.

Also, I noticed that Lucky Ball is somewhat different to those horrible hacks you find on Famicom Yarou, especially seeing as the music doesn't sound like a horrible re-edit of the Pinball theme. Mind you, Famiclones by Asder tend to have games developed by them included. (like PC-95, which had several Caltron 6-in-1 games)

BTW, I wonder where they got the voice actors from in the first place. (keep in mind that they have different voice actors for the dialogue section) Also, I wonder if this was released in languages other than English. I somehow doubt it given the voice acting, but I wouldn't rule it out.

[taizou]

I guess quite a lot of it is based on older educational famiclone software. this is kinda the next generation of those, with more advanced (but still backwards compatible) hardware. probably by one of the same companies that made the older ones.

as for the voice actors, i dunno, maybe the developers hired them through an contacts in the US or something, and they just emailed the recordings over? or maybe i'm giving them too much credit and they just grabbed the first few native English speakers they could find in Shenzhen, or wherever they were based. (i know thats how some of the lower budget HK film studios did their english dubbing)