Pokémon Diamond and Jade

Pokémon Diamond and Jade
Hack of	Keitai Denjuu Telefang
Console	Game Boy Color
Date	Unknown

Pokémon Diamond and Jade are bootlegged versions of Keitai Denjuu Telefang. Keitai Denjuu Telefang was divided into two versions, Power and Speed. Pokémon Diamond, not to be confused with the legitimate Pokémon Diamond for the DS, was pirated from Power Version, and Pokémon Jade was pirated from Speed Version.

Overview

A screenshot of Pokémon Diamond. Note the poor grammar.

These bootlegs are best known for their extremely poor translation. Some of the more infamous lines of Engrish are "Some points of 5 lost!", "For the clever opponent, Injure increase!!" and "In severe illness!", among many others. There is also profanity in the games. Many characters and Denjuu (electric monsters) have had their names changed. Some of them are slight changes: for example, one Denjuu called Crypto is called Kuribute in the bootleg. Others are changed completely and inexplicably: for example, the Denjuu Easy Dog becomes Hat, Chameraid becomes Icecream, and Funmachine becomes Game Boy; similarly, the character Kai is interchangably called Boundary, Ken, and Kate.

It also has numerous glitches, the most serious being an inability to load its own save data. Other glitches include crashing after the Game Over screen, and crashing after dialing numbers of secret Denjuu.

Copies of Pokémon Diamond and Jade were once easily available on auction sites like eBay, but have since been banned. Nevertheless, copies spring up from time to time.

Bugs and Glitches

This bootleg contains a rather incredible number of severe bugs, adding to its widespread infamy.

• The game would not load a save on some carts. Depending on the emulator/ROM/cartridge, selecting "Contin[ue]" when a saved game is present will either cause the game to freeze up or act as if there is no saved game. The save data is saved properly, and is valid; the bootleg is simply unable to properly load its own SRAM data. Via emulation, one can use the save file from Diamond and load it in Power; it will work correctly, but the nicknames will be glitched.
• Dialing secret Denjuu causes the game to crash. This makes it impossible to obtain secret Denjuu without cheat codes.
• Selecting "Prop" when you have no items causes the game to crash.
• Pressing A+B+Select+Start simultaneously causes the game to crash. On most normal Game Boy games (not only Telefang), this makes the game run its soft reset routine. The routine is implemented by the games themselves; given that it crashes here, the routine was likely damaged in the process of creating the bootleg.
• Pressing Start after the Game Over screen causes the game to crash.
• Rapidly pressing B in the phone menu screen sometimes causes the game to crash.
• The player cannot be named; he/she is automatically named "Bek".
• Denjuu cannot be nicknamed; they are auto-nicknamed (with the 6-character limit that the original already had). Additionally, the Lampgela obtained in the game is nicknamed "o".
• The color palette is glitched in the introduction.
• Custom tunes can not be created. When attempting to do so, it produces terrible screeching noises, rendering the feature unusable.
• There is a glitch in Ion Island where the door sometimes locks after beating Gypsophi.
• On some carts, vases can not be picked up after you reload a saved game. However, considering that some carts can not load save data, this glitch may not even matter.
• When playing in monochrome mode, the title screen is invisible until the Start button is pressed, at which point it darkens and becomes visible.
• When playing in monochrome mode, the background of the letters in the phone menu screen are darker than they should be.
• The game's clock does not function as it should. It does not run in real time. This is evident when one uses an emulator. When the emulator is paused, sped up, or slowed down, the clock will pause/speed up/slow down as well. In contrast, in the original version, the clock runs at a constant speed (real time) no matter what. In addition, in the bootleg, a second in the game passes after every 50 frames instead of 60, making the clock run 20% faster than normal. This is due to the use by Telefang of an actual RTC device in the cartridge, which is left out of the bootleg carts to save money and instead just faked in the game code.

Other related bootlegs

• There are also Chinese versions of Pokémon Diamond and Jade. Due to the similarities in dialogue

  

  Title Screen from the Chinese version of Pokemon Jade.

  between the Engrish and Chinese versions, it is likely that the translation of the Engrish version was based off the Chinese translation.

• Supposedly a German translation exists as well.

• There is an NES port made by Waixing. The NES port was made from scratch and poorly follows the original. The battle mechanics are nothing like the original, and none of the music in the NES port is from the GBC version. It also has Pokémon from Ruby/Sapphire, such as Mightyena, Zigzagoon, and Marshtomp, dating this pirated game to 2002 or later. The only thing that is remotely intact is the basic plot.

• There are Chinese versions of Telefang 2, the sequel to Telefang. Not surprisingly, the Power Version's bootleg is called "Pokémon Diamond 2," and the Speed Version's bootleg is called "Pokémon Jade 2." Diamond 2's title screen has a picture of Arcanine and a couple of Pokémon characters, and three diamonds on the bottom, very similar to the three diamonds in Diamond 1's title screen. Diamond 2 crashes after the menu screen and is completely unplayable (if emulating, a save state from the authentic Power 2 may be used to bypass the crash.) Jade 2's title screen has Dragon from "Shrek" cartoon, with Pokémon characters, and a jade on the bottom, very similar to the jade in Jade 1's box art (which suggests that these are the same pirates). Jade 2 does not crash after the title screen.

• There is also an Engrish bootleg of Telefang 2, called Pokémon Ruby (has nothing to do with the real one). [1] [2] The title screen is similar to the Chinese version, but with Groudon instead of Arcanine or Charizard, and the text saying "Pocket Monster Ruby". Due to the similarities, it is suggested that these have the same origin. The Denjuu names are very odd, even when compared to Telefang 1's names. For example, Rex is called Leku and Doon is called Dorin.
• Another version titled 口袋妖怪大集合 exists that is the original Japanese verson of Telefang Speed, but all monsters in battle and on the map are replaced with Pokemon. Interestingly, the piraters also went to the trouble of replacing all monster names with the appropriate Japanese name of the Pokemon in its place.

See also

• Kou Dai Jing Ling - Fei Cui

External links

• Wikifang article on Telefang
• Wikifang article on Pokémon Diamond and Jade
• Wikifang article on Pokémon Diamond 2 and Jade 2