Whilst browsing ebay, Mac came across something of an oddity. A game by the name of "Rockman DASH: To Save the World Adventure", a supposed Taiwanese PC title licensed by Capcom. The seller goes on to describe the title as an "I.Q game" involving "puzzles and stuff."Is it legit? A quick trip to The Mechanical Maniacs indicates that the game is, among many other Taiwanese PC titles, official:
" These games have the official nod from Capcom to be made thereby making them official. To review: A licence is what separates official megaman merchandise (such as the MM mangas) from bullshit merchandise (like doujinshi). These games are Taiwanese-only. Originally Taiwan only had guides to walk players through Japanese or American games, but these were made when the Taiwanese (different than the greater Chinese) market began to open up. "
Pretty neat to see something like this in the wild, if you ask me. That said, those interested can bid on the game here. Starting price is a steep $49.99 plus $4 shipping to the US.
Wow, I never remember seeing this on Mechanical Maniacs. My mind drew a blank and I will not frame the picture. I wonder if there is any gameplay footage from this nugget out there...
ReplyDeleteLike the Rockman Strategy game, if these truly are official, why were they not mentioned in the R20 book? There was no artwork shown, and that book had everything, including the American Tiger LCD Mega Man games.
ReplyDeletePlus, companies usually keep a pretty tight reign on how their characters are depicted with licensed products, and the artwork for both this and Rockman Strategy is terrible, off-model, and inconsistent. Sorry, I still don't buy that these are official. It just doesn't make sense to make games for such a small, niche market with a universally beloved character. It's like Nintendo allowing a German company to make a Germany-only Pokemon game.
Gone already. Oh well.
ReplyDelete@Zack: R20 didn't encompass DASH. (And just because MM Strategy is "bad", doesn't make it less official.)
ReplyDelete@ RADIX I know R20 didn't cover DASH/Legends. I meant it in regards to Rockman Strategy.
ReplyDeleteI work in an industry with lots of licensees etc. and know for a fact that the Mega Man license nowadays is very difficult to obtain. I also know that the way characters are depicted, especially on packaging, is ruled over with an iron fist, right down to making sure that colors for characters match up to their pantone #'s and so on. This is how it is for most companies that deal with creative products and franchises. This is also why numerous Japanese companies (animation and video games in particular) have been at the throats of the Chinese, Hong Kong, and Taiwanese markets which pirate their works. It is not only a money issue, but also a quality control issue because no one wants a crappy product released under their name to an unsuspecting audience.
Are these games officially licensed by Capcom by an amateur company for a small market? It's possible, but extremely unlikely. There is just so much more evidence from a behind-the-scenes view against these products being official. I would love to be proven wrong, but so far the only evidence I can find of these being official is from fans on the internet saying so.
@Zack - Need I remind of Megaman 1 & 3 for the PC? Really, how clean were those games?
ReplyDelete@Hypercoyote: You're right, but those games were also made nearly 20 years ago when the video game industry was not in the same state it is today (i.e. you could get away with things like that). Plus, they did use official Capcom artwork for the boxes/inserts.
ReplyDeleteRAPIDSHARE PL0x :3
ReplyDelete@Zack: Rockman Strategy is actually a pretty good game, and it's music (particularly the opening theme and the stage-select theme) is very nice. The only thing that sucks about it, really, is the fact that you cannot beat it without cheating, because one of the later bosses fully heals after each "turn" and you can only do a very small amount of damage to him, even with max stats (poor programming, I guess?).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, yeah, this game is official, in that it's a licensed product, but that's about as far as Capcom's hand in its development goes (the same can be said for RM Strategy). $50+ is very steep, especially since games like this are extremely common in Asia, and this game is probably still in production, much like RM Strategy is over there. If you really want this game, I'd suggest checking on a site like TaoBao, or a similar Chinese auction site, because you could get it there for under $10 USD.