New Game Color Advance/(N) company

[taizou]

okay this is a completely uninteresting thing i just noticed but i'm gonna post it here anyway in case it leads to some kind of fantastic discovery later on.

heres my Pokemon Sapphire box front and back - on the front it has that fairly unusual "New Game Color Advance" logo which also appears on Rockman Zero here, and theres also an N in a circle in the bottom left which I'm pretty sure does not appear on any official game. and on the back theres copyrights from Croc 2 at the bottom and that "Advance" logo in the top right.

now I also have this pirate copy of the GBC Metal Gear Solid - its a pretty cool pirate, the cart is white and it has a nintendo seal of quality embossed on the back, but the actual game is unchanged from the original. and that one *also* has the (N) on the front and the Croc 2 copyrights on the back (as well as the same fake looking seal of quality and the same misspelling of "seal"), although with the standard Game Boy Color logo instead of the NGCA one. Rockman Zero does still seem to have the Croc copyrights but some other stuff has been removed, like the seal, Natsume logo and THQ's address, and it doesnt have the (N) but it *does* have the Advance logo on the back, so that probably came after Sapphire.

so it seems to be kinda an interesting case of a company that started out making standard pirates, then moved into publishing pirate originals under the "New Game Color Advance" name.. i wonder if there are any more out there?

[codeman38]

taizou

Sep 17 2010, 06:07:27 PM

so it seems to be kinda an interesting case of a company that started out making standard pirates, then moved into publishing pirate originals under the "New Game Color Advance" name.. i wonder if there are any more out there?[/quote]WhiteLionness' copy of VFame's Pokemon Ruby has the same branding-- see the very end of her recording. So there's definitely some sort of VFame-Sintax thread here, at the very least.

Edit: Better shot of Pokemon Ruby here, via this RX Forums thread. And it, too, has the N-in-a-circle.

Edit again: And the back of the box, for those without access to the RX forum. Yep, it's got Croc/Argonaut/Natsume credits.

[Barver]

I just assumed this packaging style was used by Vast Fame for their games they sold outside of Taiwan. Then again if Pokemon Sapphire has confirmed Sintax connections then I don't know what to think =p

[KingPepe]

I kinda find that bizarre how they just repeatedly reuse the Croc 2 copyrights.

[codeman38]

Oh, another interesting observation: the box art for Rockman Crystal, on the same page as the Rockman Zero box, has the same dodgy-looking seal, but no Croc copyrights or "seal" misspelling. I have a feeling there's a common thread here.

Edit: More randomness. The barcode on Rockman Crystal is for Mario Golf Advance is from a number of games according to Google... probably bootlegged ones, heh. Appears that the legit game that used it was Fifa 2000 GBC. The one on the New Game Color Advance games is for... go on, guess... yep, it's Croc 2.

[Awesome Panda]

What I don't get is, why would they need to take the barcode of all things from other games? Is it really that hard to draw some lines and numbers in a box? Also, is it possible that N or whoever they're meant to be are distributors or something?

[taizou]

i just noticed the same seal on another game, "2000 King of Fighter", a title screen hack of Super Fighter S. but the copyright text is from Street Fighter Alpha, the barcode is from somewhere else (probably SFA too) theres no (N) or anything, even the generic text on the side about warranties and recycling and stuff is laid out differently with different typos and whatnot. and its a pretty bad hack, I don't think it was made by V.Fame themselves. hmm.

and i notice only the V.Fame developed games have real screenshots, original (sometimes) artwork and original engrish text - Pokemon Sapphire's box looks like it was just slapped together using google. so I guess V.Fame supplied their own box art for the games they developed, but the Sintax/BBD/etc ones were probably just designed by the publisher.

KingPepe

 

I kinda find that bizarre how they just repeatedly reuse the Croc 2 copyrights. [/quote]

Cheetahmen

 

What I don't get is, why would they need to take the barcode of all things from other games? Is it really that hard to draw some lines and numbers in a box? [/quote] probably the same deal with bootleg dvds that just reuse credits and copyright text from some other movie - theyre only there to give it a sort of air of authenticity, they don't expect anyone to actually look at them. so they just steal them from anywhere.

[Barver]

I just found this pic WhiteLionness sent me some time ago.


Another game from these same people. Is it known already? New to me anyways.

[codeman38]

Wow, I'm curious about that Digimon Emerald too. I can barely even find any references to it on Google, other than a link to that same auction photo on someone's LiveJournal.

Edit: Said LJer seems to have an interest in unlicensed games. Maybe I should send them over here...

Edit again: Posted a comment on another post.

[codeman38]

Ooh, I just noticed something. The box art for Digimon Emerald-- especially the title font-- is incredibly similar to NusuttoSan's carts for Digimon Amethyst and Digimon Yellow Jade (see this post), both of which are Sintax productions! So I would guess that Emerald is probably Sintax as well... though what it actually is is still a complete and utter mystery.

[taizou]

Well I have to say I wasnt expecting Digimon Amethyst to tie in with all this stuff. Yellow Jade & Pokemon Sapphire are both pretty high-quality Sintax games compared to some of the lazy graphics hacks they released later on.

 i had a theory that their earlier games were basically produced entirely by BBD, and when they parted ways Sintax didnt really have the expertise to develop much on their own, so they just rehashed BBD's games for a while before eventually hiring a few new people to make stuff like Castlevania DX and Bomb 2.  then it'd kinda make sense that BBD might have had some of their games published elsewhere, by New Game Color Advance (or whatever).

But Amethyst actually has a Sintax logo and is pretty firmly in cheap hack territory (just look at that title screen.. not to mention trying to pass Bub off as a Digimon). so I guess it really was Sintax dealing with NGCA. so much for that theory

[codeman38]

Does your Sapphire cartridge, incidentally, have a (fake) product code of CGB-KJ1E-USA? Because that's on both Digimon Amethyst and Digimon Yellow Jade.

Edit: Oh, this is getting even more interesting. Nusutto's Pokemon Adventure cart has a code of DMG-AFOE-USA. That belongs to FIFA 2000... whose bar code was also used on Rockman Crystal. Does this mean New Game Color Advance was distributing Yong Yong games? :faint:

Edit #2: VFame's Pokemon Ruby? Also CGB-KJ1E-USA. Obviously New Game Color Advance uses the same code on almost everything.

[Awesome Panda]

codeman38

Nov 5 2010, 03:23:56 PM

That belongs to FIFA 2000... whose bar code was also used on Rockman Crystal. Does this mean New Game Color Advance was distributing Yong Yong games? :faint:[/quote]As they said in the Tom & Jerry Movie, we've got to have money. And looking at that info, apparently whoever New Game Color was distributed quite a lot of games. Judging by what I've heard (or rather read) before I'd say Sintax and V.Fame collaborating for Crash Advance IV would be plausible but I doubt they were ever associated with Yong Yong at any point. If they were, then they would have published the games and nothing more.

[taizou]

Sapphire's code is CGB-BPKE-USA, doesnt seem to correspond to any real game.

[klax]

can anyone find a site?