Digimon Sapphire (GBA)

[codeman38]

For those who haven't been following NusuttoSan's YouTube channel... well, this is a real treat. A newly discovered Vast Fame platformer for GBA. And it's good. Much better than that Crash Bandicoot platformer animation-wise, and no, it's not that other Digimon platformer for GBA either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNG4k0h8qTg

Alas, the audio is significantly out of sync, but still. It's video footage of a Vast Fame game that nobody had ever heard of, on a system where they barely even had any known existence.

[taizou]

Wow. this looks 100 kinds of awesome!
i love that new Vast Fame GBA games are still showing up, too - i'd like to think one day we'll discover a ton of their DS games or something

[Barver]

And I thought the RPG I had was considered Digimon Sapphire.

This looks like it's probably better than that other one that was ported to SNES. Definitely better quality than Lord of the Rings heh.

[Awesome Panda]

Sapphire? I'm guessing knowing the difference between Pokémon and Digimon wasn't a requirement at V.Fame. (although seeing as this came out before Ruby & Sapphire, I guess you can blame Game Freak for that one ) Also, is there any reason why they made the music sound like it was being played off a Game Boy instead of a GBA?

[codeman38]

Cheetahmen

Oct 1 2010, 02:42:25 PM

Sapphire? I'm guessing knowing the difference between Pokémon and Digimon wasn't a requirement at V.Fame. (although seeing as this came out before Ruby & Sapphire, I guess you can blame Game Freak for that one ) Also, is there any reason why they made the music sound like it was being played off a Game Boy instead of a GBA?[/quote]That seems to be the case with all of Vast Fame's GBA stuff that I've come across-- they only use the sound channels from the original GB hardware, or make very minimal use of the PCM channels at best.

[Awesome Panda]

codeman38

Oct 1 2010, 03:53:15 PM

Cheetahmen

Oct 1 2010, 02:42:25 PM

Sapphire? I'm guessing knowing the difference between Pokémon and Digimon wasn't a requirement at V.Fame. (although seeing as this came out before Ruby & Sapphire, I guess you can blame Game Freak for that one ) Also, is there any reason why they made the music sound like it was being played off a Game Boy instead of a GBA?[/quote]That seems to be the case with all of Vast Fame's GBA stuff that I've come across-- they only use the sound channels from the original GB hardware, or make very minimal use of the PCM channels at best.[/quote]At a guess I'd probably say that they originally composed the music for their GBC titles and then they couldn't be arsed to upgrade them to GBA format. (either that or their composer left before they started making the GBA games) Given that laziness is something pirates tend to be known for, I wouldn't be surprised.

[codeman38]

Cheetahmen

Oct 1 2010, 04:20:04 PM

At a guess I'd probably say that they originally composed the music for their GBC titles and then they couldn't be arsed to upgrade them to GBA format. (either that or their composer left before they started making the GBA games) Given that laziness is something pirates tend to be known for, I wouldn't be surprised.[/quote]Or their sound programmer couldn't be bothered to reverse-engineer a whole new sound driver when they already had Capcom's GB one.

[Awesome Panda]

codeman38

Oct 1 2010, 06:53:29 PM

Cheetahmen

Oct 1 2010, 04:20:04 PM

At a guess I'd probably say that they originally composed the music for their GBC titles and then they couldn't be arsed to upgrade them to GBA format. (either that or their composer left before they started making the GBA games) Given that laziness is something pirates tend to be known for, I wouldn't be surprised.[/quote]Or their sound programmer couldn't be bothered to reverse-engineer a whole new sound driver when they already had Capcom's GB one. [/quote]Or that. Typical pirates. :somari:
BTW, I think the intro stills were taken from the anime. Thing is though, could they be taken from one of the Digimon games on the Playstation or something?

[taizou]

found a couple of completed ebay listings, one possibly for this game:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180535022675#ht_500wt_1156
and... "Digimon Rury" http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180535021629#ht_500wt_1156
which another seller described as a "Great RPG".. maybe the English version of this one?

[Awesome Panda]

Those boxes definitely look like they were done by the same people so I think we can assume that Digimon "Rury" is by V.Fame as well, or at least published by the same people.

[codeman38]

taizou

Oct 2 2010, 09:02:24 AM

found a couple of completed ebay listings, one possibly for this game:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180535022675#ht_500wt_1156
and... "Digimon Rury" http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180535021629#ht_500wt_1156
which another seller described as a "Great RPG".. maybe the English version of this one?[/quote]Oooh, good catch! The first three characters in the subtitle on Barver's cartridge appear to be 紅寶石, which means... ruby. Or "rury", as it were. The first character's a little blurry, but I don't think it's 藍 (the first character of "sapphire"). And it's in red anyway (i.e., ruby), not blue (i.e., sapphire).

[codeman38]

Something else random that I noticed yesterday: the character select screen in Sapphire is a blatant knockoff of that from Digimon Battle Spirit for GBA. It's not identical-- the portrait and the sprite are in the opposite positions-- but Battle Spirit was clearly VFame's inspiration. The character portraits are even identical... and I'm pretty sure the sprites are stolen from there as well.

[Barver]

I asked and got the for-some-reason-recently-popular-despite-them-mostly-selling-shitty-famicom-multicarts volumerates.com to put Digimon Sapphire in their stock.

http://www.volumerates.com/product/gba-card-adapter-with-digimon-sapphire-99136

Looks like it might just be a flash card or something and not an original copy(I've seen the game for sale on several wholesale sites actually that list it as though they've got the ROM ready to burn and make copies for you). For anyone wanting to dump it though this might be a good chance t pick it up.

[Awesome Panda]

I might be wrong, but wouldn't it be easier to dump a flash cart than a GBA ROM?

BTW, I think Volumerates gained popularity because Taizou (if I remember correctly) put a link to them on Famicom World showing how cheap those multicarts were and then one of the support staff from the site started talking to members on there.

[Barver]

Too bad people keep reporting their carts being messed up =p The multis anyway.

Yeah, since they've apparently got a ROM source or something I imagine it'd be easier to dump now.