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Rainbow Prince, named 彩虹戰士 in Chinese and also known as Prince Rainbow, is an unlicensed Game Boy game initially released in the early 1990s. It was originally released by an unknown publisher under its Chinese name and the English name The Rainbow on the box, and would later receive additional releases by the unlicensed game company Gowin starting in 1993. It is unknown who the developers of this game are, but it is likely that people connected to Gamtec and Vast Fame were involved, particularly since the latter company would include an earlier build of the game on three multicarts they would release circa 2002.
Plot[]
The plot of the game is depicted in its intro, which is shown after waiting a few seconds on the title screen. The princess of an undisclosed kingdom is captured by the devil, and the king and queen urge the prince to do something about it. The intro then depicts the prince in a heroic pose wearing armor before going back to the title screen.
Gameplay[]
Rainbow Prince is a vertically scrolling shoot-'em-up game heavily inspired by TwinBee. The player controls the prince as he flies in the sky throughout five stages, with the end goal being to fight the devil and save the princess.
Releases[]
Original release (The Rainbow)[]
This game was originally released in the early 1990s as a standalone cartridge by an unknown publisher. This release uses the Chinese name of the game (彩虹戰士) on the box and cartridge label, with the box additionally including the English name The Rainbow on the front and back. Bizarrely, the art used on both the box and cart label is completely unrelated to the game and features a pirate.[1] This release of the game uses copy protection that prevents the entire game from being dumped with standard cartridge dumping hardware.
Gowin[]
In 1993, unlicensed game publisher Gowin would start publishing Rainbow Prince under their name alongside other unlicensed monochrome Game Boy games, most of which are also connected to Gamtec and Vast Fame. Gowin would first release the game under the English name Prince Rainbow, using unique art for the box and cartridge label featuring a depiction of the titular prince flying in the air surrounded by enemies from the game. The game would later receive a re-release by Gowin in 1998 alongside most of Gowin's older monochrome titles. This first re-release would prominently feature the Chinese name on the box and cartridge label this time, with the box using the Prince Rainbow name as a secondary English title. New art would be used for the box and cart label as well. Both the 1993 and 1998 releases are copy protected with a scheme identical to the one used in the pre-Gowin The Rainbow release.
In the early 2000s, Prince Rainbow would be reprinted again, with the box using Gowin's newer "Hotkid Color" box layout and new box art along with it. Unlike the previous two releases, though, separate Chinese and English versions would be produced for this specific reprint of the game. The English version is reported to contain in-game differences on the title screen, but otherwise appears to be identical to all other known releases of the game.
The only ROM of the Gowin version of this game known to have been publicly released online is a cracked version of the original/Chinese release by "GYY Game Unlock Team", which adds an intro with the cracking team's name that appears before the actual game starts. Due to the aforementioned copy protection mentioned earlier, the 1993 and 1998 releases of Prince Rainbow are currently undumped. Both the Chinese and English versions of the 2000s Prince Rainbow reprints are also undumped, and it is currently unknown if they use different copy protection schemes or have copy protection at all.
Vast Fame multicarts[]
Circa 2002, unlicensed game developer and publisher Vast Fame would release a handful of multicarts containing their Game Boy Color games. Three of these multicarts also contain versions of games that Gowin would previously publish in the 1990s, which include Rainbow Prince. The multicarts in question that include the game are:
- Gold Version 12-in-1 (金版中文RPG戰略+動作+益智12in1)
- Silver Version 12-in-1
- Shishang Chaoqiang RPG + Gedou + Yizhi Ban Zuhe Ka 18 in 1 (史上超強RPG+格鬥+益智版組合卡18in1)
The version of Rainbow Prince included on the Vast Fame multicarts contains graphical glitches starting on the second stage.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Music tracks from this game would end up being reused in two of Gowin's in-house developed Game Boy Color games.
References[]
| Gowin games |
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