Makon Soft (more commonly known as Yong Yong) is a bootleg game developer that has made numerous games for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Their games are notorious for being of particularly poor quality even when compared to other pirate games, as well as most of them being strikingly similar in design and gameplay. Their games are known to have been released in English, Spanish, and Chinese.
Overview[]
Sonic 3D Blast 5 ending, where the name originated.
Makon Soft seems to have originated in 1997. Their first three games, Sonic 3D Blast 5, Super Donkey Kong 3, and Rockman 8 were monochrome, whereas all subsequent games are in color. (Their earliest color games, such as Sonic Adventure 7, suffer from a limited palette, but this improved with later games.)
The alias "Yong Yong" comes from the ending of Sonic 3D Blast 5 and Sonic Adventure 7. However, all of their color games either have a maker code of "MK" or write the text "MakonSoftStudios" to RAM.
Although their games often suffer from emulation problems, even the actual cartridge games are flawed, as due to either poor programming or the hardware being used, some of the games can either crash at random moments or at certain points. As well as this, at least two of their games cannot be completed on a real cartridge due to programming flaws, in a similar manner to the NES version of Action 52. Collision detection faults resulting in the player falling through the floor are also common.
As well as this, all of their games seem to be built off the engine used in their Sonic games. The Sonic engine was later used in Pokémon Adventure, which refined the controls a bit from Sonic 7 and Sonic 3D Blast 5, with slight changes made to secondary game aspects, such as the health system and the character's attack. Another game engine they used was from Rockman 8, which changed certain control aspects such as the removal of momentum while walking. This engine so far has only been used in Rockman 8, hacks of said game (like Rockman X4), and Sachen's Thunder Blast Man for the Game Boy Color.
Games[]
Gameplay of Digimon 02 4.
Digimon []
- Digimon 2
- Digimon 2 Crystal
- Digimon 3 Crystal
- Digimon Diamond
- Digimon 4
- Digimon Jade
- Digimon 5
- Digimon Pocket - A hack of Mewtwo Strikes Back.
Pokémon and Digimon (2000-2003)[]
- Mewtwo Strikes Back - Uses elements from Pocket Monster.
- Pokémon Adventure / Pocket Monsters Gold (Pokémon Gold Version 2) - Appears to be based on the Sonic games.
- Pokémon Diamond Special Pikachu Edition - Hack of Super Mario Special 3. A Chinese release by Li Cheng exists (which appears to be the full game) and an English version that starts at stage 4 of Super Mario 3 Special, which is still made unwinnable. The Chinese version Makon Soft themselves released crashes upon beating the first level (stage 4 of Super Mario 3 Special).
- Pokémon Jade - A hack of Sonic Adventure 7 that is in full color and changes the sprites for Sonic and the enemies. Similarly to Pokemon Diamond Special Pikachu Edition the game (at least the English release) cannot progress past stage 1 due to a glitch that causes the game to crash when the goal sign is touched.
- Pokémon Ruby - A hack of Mewtwo Strikes Back. Both an English version and a Chinese version with debugging enabled exist, the latter being published by Li Cheng.
- Pokémon Sapphire[1] - Seems to be based on Super Mario 3 Special's gameplay but with new level layout, graphics from the Digimon bootlegs and new music. Very obscure and currently dumped. Only the first three levels are original, the remaining five are from Super Mario 3 Special.[2]
- Pokémon Pearl[3] - Reskin of Digimon 02 Jade.
Others (1998-2004)[]
- Super Donkey Kong 3 - A colorized release later appeared in the form of Super Donkey Kong 5.
- Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Hack of pokemon sapphire.
- Harry Potter 3
- Rockman 8 - Game Boy version of Mega Man 8.
- Rockman X4 - Color version of Rockman 8.
- Sonic 3D Blast 5
- Sonic Adventure 7 / Sonic Adventure 8 - Hacks of Sonic 3D Blast 5.
- Super Mario Special 3 - Game Boy Color port of Super Mario Bros. 3.
Android Era (2011)[]
- Rolling Ball
- Crazy Ball
- Crazy Ball HD
Trivia[]
- Makon Soft was possibly contracted to make the GBC release of Rocman X (aka Thunder Blast Man), a Famicom action platformer by Sachen. Or they probably had a few staff members work for Sachen, so the rest could go and work on a few of Gowin's Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.
- Makon Soft games use a rumble cartridge similar to Pokémon Pinball and other licensed releases. They are believed to be the only unlicensed developer to do this. Games that used the rumble cartridge include Super Donkey Kong 5, Rockman X4, Super Mario Special 3 and Sonic Adventure 8, although all these games are available in non-rumble versions as well.
- It is possible that Makon Soft published games for mobile devices using the Android operating system, under the name "Makon Mobile Studios". However, these games were since delisted and cannot be found on Google Play anymore.
- In VBA-M when checking the ROM info option, a game's maker code can be seen. Most Makon Soft games use the maker code MK. Rockman 8 however uses the maker code 4b. Rockman X4 however uses the maker code MK. Pokémon Jade, Pokémon Diamond, and Pokémon Mewtwo Strikes Back all use the maker code GC.
- Makon Soft games often have an ID number printed on their sticker. Many of these use an ID number GANNN where N is any integer. Capcom vs SNK Millennium Fight 2001 and Pokémon Vietnamese Crystal were also released in cartridges with these sorts of ID numbers.
- The original version Pokémon Adventure, Pokémon Gold 2 was released in a cartridge with an ID number in the style of SCRNNN where N is any integer. Street Fighter Zero 4 was also released in a cartridge with style of ID number.
- Street Fighter Zero 4 and Capcom vs SNK Millennium Fight 2001 use the same type of copy protection as some of Makon Soft's games.[4]
- Some of the oldest dumps of Makon Soft games appear to have the incorrect title screens.