Did you manage to grab those ebay auctions or did someone else beat you to em? I've been super lazy for about a year now and just occasionally go into ebay and search the completed listings lol.
I cant remember all my games, but some of the rarer ones i have include Mars Voyage, Volcano Panic, Punk Boy, Metamorphosiser, Ancient Tomb, Bao Qing Tian, Golden Pyramid and Robin Hood.[/quote]Nope, I missed those auctions. They must have sold within hours of showing up on eBay.
You have some nice rare games, none of which I own. It's funny, if you break down the card rarity to common, uncommon, rare & super rare and go through the full list of games released for the system, almost half of them fall into the "super rare" category.
BTW, I picked up my Gamate stuff from storage today. I played C1-041 Mighty Boxer for the first time, and it's not so great. You select your character which have different portraits, names, and originate from from the USA, Japan, China, Brazil or England. That's where buck stops, in-game the characters are the same sprite with a different shade of grey for skin tone. You move around a large ring with the D-Pad, B button blocks and the A button punches. The D-Pad movement is fine, but punching and blocking has a tremendous amount of input lag/is generally unresponsive. One final thing worth mentioning is that it is a 2P link cable game. My guess is that this middle-period game was mostly finished before UMC got their hands on it.
I did pop in C1-061 Dinosaur Park for ya'. It's a knock off
My neighbor Totoro fighting game. Besides the single character story mode, you can indeed play as 8 different characters in "Battle Mode". The eight characters comprise of a little girl with a folded up umbrella, a slightly older little girl, a little boy with a hat (Kanta clone) , a Totoro-clone (which is Hannibal) , a mole, a Susuwatari clone fuzzy black-ball thing, a cat (shown as a cat-bus in the character portrait, but is just a large fat cat during gameplay) & a frog. Sorry, no Dinosaurs in this park. In battle mode there is also a stage select in which you can choose from 8 different backgrounds. I don't believe you can execute any special moves, just punch and kick buttons. There is an English language setting under options which is pretty cool, though.
C1-060 Further Adventures of Hannibal the cat is another Gradius clone and has all the standard Gradius power-up options, except you play as a Totoro clone character instead of a space ship. Look back to Dinosaur Park to understand where the "Further adventures" part comes in (even though Further adventures came first, I imagine they were programmed at the same time since they were released back to back... or the missing number C1-059 is also Hannibal related? Curious if the missing C1-062 is also relevant?). The blurry screen renders it nearly unplayable, but I must mention that my only Gamate that had one of the good checkerboard screens broke a long long time ago. The options menu lets you choose between 1-5 lives, difficulty setting 1-5, and has a password based save system. Unlike Insect War, this game does not have a stage-select option.
I've never seen the 1988 Studio Ghibli film
My Neighbor Totoro, but it must have been pretty popular since UMC was still so obsessed with it in the early 90s. You'd think since both
Dinosaur Park and
Further Adventures are shameless Totoro-inspired games, that they'd have made even the slightest effort to give them Totoro-inspired box art so that they could sell more copies? *Swing and a Miss*
Having two UMC Gamate games featuring this Totoro inspired character named
Hannibal the Cat is not a coincidence. I wonder if UMC was planning on replacing Bit-Corp's lowly & significantly unknown
SuperBoy with a fresher mascot to help out with the new UMC era? If C-059 & or C-62 also end up being Hannibal related I'm going to be chock-full of "warm UMC fuzzies".
UMC's cover artwork for the character
Hannibal the Cat depicts him as a mix between a Bubble Bobble Dinosaur, but with a Cat like nose and whiskers. He also has Alien antenni & carries an umbrella. In-game sprites of him look like Studio Ghibli's Totoro though.
I hate post-merge, but I imagine this will be since I was the last poster.
What do you guys think about the middle-era to full blown UMC era? A big problem is that they overlap and some backlog middle era titles are all over the place. The middle era titles show up in numbers as early as C1-008 to as late as C1-054. I believe the easiest way to help identify the era of a Gamate game is by the font on it's card label itself. Of course I'm sure there are exceptions, but we need to start somewhere.
The earliest Bit Corp Era games will have the "C1" card number printed in the center of a tiny silver ribbon on the bottom right-hand corner on the game card's label. Middle-era games will simply have the card number printed on the label with no background around it at all. There There are two different middle era categories, those finished by UMC & those not. For this lists sake I'm going to bundle them into the same category. UMC era games have the card number printed in a large Oval on the bottom of the label in a painfully obvious fashion as follows: (GAMATE CARD C1-0XX). Middle era games are mostly unfinished or unreleased Bit Corp games that UMC finished or published at some point in time. The rarity varies vastly for the mid era games, but almost all of them are rarer than the silver ribbon Bit Corp titles.
I believe early Mid-era titles were still most likely finished by Bit Corp, and the later-middle era titles were most likely finished by UMC. The later Middle era titles usually have a large rectangular UMC sticker on the bottom left of the back of the game boxes (EDIT: The Gamate Seal of Quality on card labels seems to be a more accurate way to gauge mid-era titles).
Worth noting, UMC Games usually have UMC style boxes with the bottom white border and 4 big dots progressing in size. The only game in question is Kiki Island which has been released as both a later mid-era and UMC-era title. Kiki is such a wonderful game, I highly doubt that Bit Corp did much for it which would explain why UMC later released it with a UMC label. That's the one strange case and exception to the rule.
Using the above as a guide, lets see how each of the games rank.
*EDIT: I Have updated the list to reflect mid-era games that came with the Gamate seal of Quality on the card label. "Seal of Quality" games will be listed as with (SOQ), the majority of early mid-are games will fall into this category. Most of the rarer later middle era titles will not have a Seal of Quality (No SOQ).
I am attempting to have a go at rarity, at this point in time I have not tackled Italian GIG vs Non GIG comparisons. Italian GIG releases are generally easier to find.
C1-001 Cube-Up ***Bit Corp era #Common
C1-002 Witty Apee ***Bit Corp era #Rare (Gamate™ Card-back #Super Rare)
C1-003 Box Forum ***Mid era (SOQ) #Uncommon
C1-004 Mighty Tank ***Bit Corp era #Rare
C1-005 Enchanted Bricks ***Bit Corp era #Rare (Gamate™ Card-back #Super Rare)
C1-006 Mini Golf ***Bit Corp era #Common
C1-007 Galaxy Invaders ***Bit Corp era #Common
C1-008 Legend of Dragon Knight ***Mid era (SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-009 Tornado ***Bit Corp era #Common
C1-010 Bump N' Run ***(Have not seen label) #Ultra Rare
C1-011 Money Maze ***Bit Corp era #Common (Gamate™ Card-back #Super Rare)
C1-012 Pharaoh Revenger ***Bit Corp era #Rare
C1-013 Dino Bibo ***Mid era (SOQ) #Rare
C1-014 Time Warrior ***Bit Corp era #Uncommon
C1-015 Kill Shot ***Mid era (SOQ) #Uncommon (No SOQ #Rare)
C1-016 Volcano Panic ***Mid era (with or without SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-017 Devil Castle ***Mid era (SOQ) #Rare (No SOQ #Super Rare)
C1-018 Kung-Fu Fighter ***Bit Corp era #Common (Light-Grey card #Ultra Rare)
C1-019 Dino Ball ***Mid era (SOQ) #Uncommon
C1-020 Bad Bud Chou Chu's Adventure ***(Have not seen label) #Ultra Rare
C1-021 Myth of Asamia ***Bit Corp era #Uncommon (Light-Grey card #Ultra Rare)
C1-022 Pipemania ***Mid era (SOQ) #Common
C1-023 Tennis ***Bit Corp era #Uncommon
C1-024 Marauder ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Rare
C1-025 Jackpot ***(Have not seen label)
C1-026 Flipuzzle ***Mid era (SOQ) #Uncommon
C1-027 Monster Pitfall ***Bit Corp era #Common (Light-Grey card #Ultra Rare)
C1-028 Vindicators ***Bit Corp era #Common
C1-029 Brick Blaster ***Bit Corp era #Common (#Rare Boxed)
C1-030 Beach Volleyball ***(Have not seen label) #Ultra Rare
C1-031 Bomb Blaster ***Bit Corp era #Common (Gamate™ Card-back #Super Rare)
C1-032 Cosmic Fighter ***Bit Corp era #Common
C1-033 Fist of Thunder ***(Have not seen label) #Super Rare
C1-034 Superboy ***(Have not seen label) #Ultra Rare
C1-035 Treasure Hunter ***Bit Corp era #Uncommon
C1-036 Jewelriss ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-037 Nightmare of Santa Claus ***Bit Corp era #Uncommon (Light-Grey card #Ultra Rare)
C1-038 Mars Voyage ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-039 Fortress of Fierceness ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-040 Incantational Couple ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-041 Mighty Boxer ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-042 Flying Goblin ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-043 Boom! ***Bit Corp era #Uncommon
C1-044 Snowman Legend ***Bit Corp era #Uncommon
C1-045 World Soccer ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-046 Kiki Inland (Kiki Island) ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare (UMC era label #Ultra Rare)
C1-047 Fortune 'n Luck ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-048 Baseball (Super Baseball) ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-049 Punk Boy ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-050 Fortress Of Fierceness ***Mid era (No SOQ) #Super Rare
C1-051
- Unknown title #Ultra Rare
C1-052 Famous (7 Famous) ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-053 Metamorphosiser (Tough Guy) ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-054 Magic Jigsaw ***Mid era (SOQ) #Uncommon
C1-055
- Unknown title #Ultra Rare
C1-056 GP Race ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-057 Fantasy Travel ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-058 Heaven Clash ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-059
- Unknown title #Ultra Rare
C1-060 Further Adventures of Hannibal The Cat ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-061 Dinosaur Park ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-062
- Unknown title #Ultra Rare
C1-063 Basketball ***UMC era #Ultra Rare
C1-064 Bao Qing Tian ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-065 Hot Hero (火爆英雄) ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-066
- Unknown title #Super Rare
C1-067 Robin Hood ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-068 The Golden Pyramid ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-069 Riddle of the Ancient Tomb ***UMC era #Super Rare
C1-070 Insect War ***UMC era #Ultra Rare
Multi-game cartridges
C1-401 4-in-1 (Mini Golf, Cube-Up, Brick Master, and Vindicators) ***Three variations:
(Copyright Bit Corp in red, words 4-in1 in blue) #Rare
(Copyright Bit Corp in blue, words 4-in1 in red) #Rare
(GAMATE CARD CI-401, words 4-in-1 in red) <-- UMC? #Super Rare
K1 series
K1-001 One Million Whys (緑野迷蹤) ***UMC era #Super Rare
I hope that this list will help give some insight about the different labels variations.
