Shui Hu Feng Yun Zhuan (水滸風雲傳), released in the West as Water Margin, is a beat 'em up for the Sega Mega Drive, made by Never Ending Soft Team, published by Kin Tec[1] in 1996 and re-released in 1999. An arcade version is also known to exist, released by Wah Lap in 1999.[2]
The game is completely in Chinese. Enemy sprites are taken from other beat 'em ups and modified, including Knights of the Round, Golden Axe and Streets of Rage.
A full English translation of the game was published by Piko Interactive in 2015.
Like many unlicensed Mega Drive games, it uses the High Seas Havoc sound engine. For this reason, tracks from this game frequently appear in other Mega Drive bootlegs, including The King of Fighters '99 and Mulan. The boss theme reappears in MK5 - Mortal Combat - Sub Zero.
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Trivia
- One re-release cartridge reads "Zoka Drive Cartridge" (ゾーカー ドライブ カートリッジ) in Japanese katakana. This possibly may indicate a connection to the "Zoga" clone console brand, as the "ka" and "ga" katakana are similar and could be confused by someone unfamiliar with Japanese.
- The final boss will sometimes perform an Oniyaki, a move used by Iori Yagami from The King of Fighters. It is possible that the sprite of the projectile was reused in The King of Fighters '99 for Mega Drive.
- The game contains a hidden credit to the developer as follows:
SUIKODEN (ACT. GAME) Written by TSUI-ChienHua (C)1996 NeverENDING--SoftTEAM IN TAIWAN,TAICHUNG
- The opening theme seems to be an arrangement of Terra's theme from Final Fantasy VI.
- Most of the sound effects are taken from Streets of Rage II.