- This article is about Digimon Adventure (Game Boy Advance). For the Game Boy Color role-playing game by Vast Fame named Digimon 3, see Digital Monsters 3.
Digimon Adventure (aka Digimon 3) is a bootleg platformer for the Game Boy Advance loosely based on the Digimon Adventure series and ported from the SNES game of the same name. It is notable for being the basis of many low-effort Game Boy Advance titles produced by Sintax, with some gaining infamy among online video game communities in the 2000s.
Overview[]
The Game Boy Advance version of Digimon Adventure is a simplified version of the SNES original. It is believed to have been developed by Sintax with assistance from Vast Fame (which is heavily implied by the GBA version's use of their sound engine and music), and was likely released after the original SNES version. Currently, the only ROM of this version of the game circulating on the internet is an unfinished prototype built on June 11, 2003 that was leaked from a Chinese forum in the early 2010s and is notably buggy even compared to most unlicensed games. A finished version did see proper cartridge releases in both English and Chinese, though. These releases were made known when a Twitter account shared videos of one of the versions publicly circa 2020, as well as another video and a picture showcasing both the English and Chinese versions, the latter of which would be uploaded together publicly onto YouTube by a third party.
The common prototype ROM is known to have all the stages and bosses from the SNES version (in a different order), and it is assumed the final versions are similar. However, levels in the prototype version cannot be completed by normal means without hacking because the bosses take no damage and eventually disappear, making it impossible to progress any further. It's not entirely clear how much of the final version of the Game Boy Advance Digimon Adventure is different from the prototype ROM, but it is known that the prototype ROM doesn't play music on the title screen (or plays a noise depending on what emulator is used), while the final version plays a remixed track from the Vast Fame game Shui Hu Shen Shou on the title screen.
The level order for the common prototype ROM of the GBA version of Digimon Adventure compared to the SNES version follows this sequence:
- GBA stage 1 = SNES stage 4
- GBA stage 2 = SNES stage 1
- GBA boss 1 = SNES boss 2
- GBA stage 3 = SNES stage 2
- GBA stage 4 = SNES stage 3
- GBA boss 2 = SNES boss 1
Also in the common prototype ROM, unlike in the SNES version, the player doesn't transform into Greymon after collecting a strawberry, although the graphics data in the ROM shows that the transformation graphics are still there. It is currently unknown if the transformation ability was added in the final version.
The music in the GBA version of Digimon Adventure is taken from various games known to have been developed at least partially by Vast Fame.
Regional Differences[]
The English and Chinese GBA releases received unique cartridge labels with different names printed on them. The English cartridge label uses the name Digimon 3, although the label itself is just a version of the US Digimon "Digital Monsters" logo with a 3 printed slightly above "DIGIMON", making the intended name hard to read. The Chinese cartridge label uses the name 数码暴龙3, with the "数码暴龙" inside a shape similar to the US Digimon logo without the "Digital Monsters" markings, and the 3 being printed on top of the Chinese text.
Outside of the cartridge labels, there are also known regional differences in the title screens of the final GBA version of Digimon Adventure. In the English version, the title screen is identical to the SNES version, with the text "DIGIMONADVENTURE" below the Japanese Digimon Adventure logo. In the Chinese version, however, the "DIGIMONADVENTURE" text is replaced with a Traditional Chinese name for Digimon - "數碼暴龍".
Variants[]
- Main article: Digimon Adventure (Game Boy Advance)/Variants
Sintax would later go on to release a series of GBA titles using the engine from this version of the game, including Rayman IV, Sonic 3: Fighter Sonic, and Crash Advance IV. The released games fix many of the bugs found in the prototype Digimon Adventure ROM and generally feature the same set of levels reordered, but some later titles replace Digimon Adventure's stage 1 with an entirely new level.
Trivia[]
- A game that only exists in ROM form that was developed by Sintax, called Kou Dai Yao Guai Zhi Hong Lan Dui Jue, uses the same sprites from Digimon Adventure but on a different engine with different levels and new, MIDI-sounding music. No cartridge release of the game is currently known to exist.
See also[]
External Links[]
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