December 31st, 2017 will be the last day "dumbphone" cell phone users in Japan can play Rockman EXE: Phantom of the Network and Rockman EXE: Legend of the Network. The service required to play these two games over the internet is shutting down, Capcom announced. Refunds for unplayed chapters and content will be accepted starting January 5th, 2018 to March 31st, 2018.
Originally released in 2004 and 2007 respectively, Phantom of the Network and Legend of the Network acted as side-story games released in chapters exclusively in Japan. A handful of new characters were introduced between the games: Shuuichi, Hat Man.EXE, Cache, Jamming Man.EXE, Sherrice, Ride Man.EXE, Nobody, and Trojan Horse.
Though the games will no longer be playable, we have lots of gameplay captured online. The entirety of Phantom of the Network is up for viewing here, with an in-complete but ongoing run of Legend of the Network here.
Source: Capcom Japan
Couldn't someone, you know, rip the assets and make a full rom pock out of these for use on apk playable machines?
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid it isn't going to happen. There's probably a good reason why no assets were ripped yet. I mean the fact that you needed internet to play the game...
DeleteWell, I hope someone managed to rip the sprites of the unique characters, at least.
ReplyDeleteSo the internet was required to play a singleplayer game? I've always wanted to play, or at least see, them in English so I could experience all of the new characters and music. I hope that there's enough online already.
ReplyDeleteAt the least I want to download the full OST.
DeleteSince 2004... It stayed on for quite some time.
ReplyDeletebut remember, always online is the future for gaming. who wants to play the game offline when i can play the game whenever capcom feels like it before shut it down.
ReplyDeleteI never seen that these required Internet to play before now. Typical stupid decision making at Capcom. Well, that puts the chances of ever playing this down to nearly 0%, unless Capcom were to release a "Battle Network Legacy Collection" with them. Which, just like the other two, would be cheaply done with minimal effort even for the main games, so forget them adding any obscure games.
ReplyDeleteHopefully someone can losslessly rip all the graphics, music, and sounds before the shutdown.
This has less to do with Capcom specifically and more to do with how Japanese mobile games were delivered. Most of them used a subscription service, which needed a server check to verify you still had access to the game.
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