The Panda Prince

The Panda Prince
Publisher	Ka Sheng
Developer	Ex-Sachen developers
Console	Famicom
Date	1996
Sound engine	Sachen/Ei-How Yang
Alternate names/hacks	The Panda Prince 2(?) Jungle Adventure Super Lion King 2

The Panda Prince (called 熊貓太子 on the unused Chinese title screen) is a pirated Donkey Kong Country port made by Shin-Shin Electronics in 1996.

Overview

File:PandaPrinceGameplay.png

Screenshot of the first stage.

The Panda Prince plays similarly to Donkey Kong Country, but with a different story of a queen panda getting captured by a wasp (who looks like the Zinger enemy species from Donkey Kong Country). The intro has some original graphics, but the game borrows several tracks from the Donkey Kong Land pirate and Donkey Kong Country.

The gameplay and graphics are mainly based on Donkey Kong Country, but the third and fifth levels are slightly more original. The game's bosses (Very Gnawty and Master Necky) are also faced outside, rather than in front of a hoard of bananas, and have minor graphic edits such as backpacks and moustaches. The word KONG from Donkey Kong Country was replaced by GOOD. There are two bonus rooms in the game, one placed in the first level, and another in the third. If the player is able to match up three Expresso tokens in the first, providing they entered with two tokens already collected, they will be sent to a bonus level where they control an ostrich with unlimited flight ability gathering bananas. Regardless of succeeding or failing in either the slot or Expresso room, the player will be sent back to the beginning of the first level. The bonus room in the third stage is reachable, but the Rambi bonus room afterwards is inaccessible because the game takes away the Rambi tokens upon finishing the slot level, thus preventing the player from picking up all three tokens. Like in Donkey Kong Country 4, the save feature from the original has been replaced with passwords, which are given after every level.

Super Lion King 2

File:Super lion king 2 gp.png

Super Lion King 2's gameplay.

A hack of this game, published under Ka Sheng's other name, NT, in 1997 was released titled "Super Lion King 2". It removes the opening storyline, replaces the Panda Prince with Simba, and changes the levels. The first level is a different mine cart level, and the second and third being done from scratch before the final boss against the Necky from the original game. Despite that there are only three levels in this hack, much of the original game is intact. After the final wasp boss, it sends the player to the first level of The Panda Prince and allows the player to play through the levels of that game. The passwords from that game work as well.

Unused content

Graphics

There are unused graphics, such as a Panda Prince 2 title and map screen graphics, even though the game lacks a map screen. There are also several sprite tiles from The Dragon, such as ones for the bomb and crate, suggesting this game was built from it.

Levels

The Panda Prince also has a few unused levels, with almost all of them appearing in Super Lion King 2. One that goes unused in both games is a red and yellow underwater level with slightly faster music. There is also a wasp battle that you never encounter in the game, despite the story mentioning a wasp stealing the princess. Another interesting thing about the battle is that you can pick up barrels to throw at the wasp. Beating the wasp brings you to a glitched up title screen when playing The Panda Prince, but beating the wasp in Super Lion King 2 causes you go to The Panda Prince's first level instead.

All of the unused levels can be accessed by pressing Start in the bonus room (with the 3 barrels), then pressing Up or Down to choose what level to go to. Pressing Start selects the level, and Select lets you choose the banana rooms and bosses; however, you can only cycle through the levels by pressing A or B. If you wait a while on the selection screen, it sends you back to the intro.

File:PandaPrinceChinaTitle.png

The unused Chinese title screen. The pandas themselves animate and scroll across the screen horizontally.

Chinese mode

The Game Genie code AANGAIPA changes the game to Chinese mode where the intro and menu are in Chinese and the title screen is different with scrolling pandas going across. This can be seen as odd, since there is no known Chinese version of this game.

Gallery

Shin-Shin Electronics copyright hacked version.

Scan of another Shin-Shin Electronics copyright hacked version.

Cartridge of The Lion King 2 hack.

"Panda Prince of Disneyland" cartridge - identical to the regular version without Shin-Shin copyrights

Another (clearer) image of the Shin-Shin Electronics cart.

Trivia

• This game contains copyrights for Shin-Shin Electronics, Ka Sheng and Family. To access them:
  • Title screen: Up, Left, Down, Down, Right, Right, Left, Up (Copyrights for Shin-Shin Electronics, Ka Sheng, and Family)
  • Main menu: Left, Up, Right, Right, Down, Down, Left, Up (Copyrights for Ka Sheng)
• This game appears to predate Super Donkey Kong due to Panda Prince's title screen music appearing in Super Donkey Kong's sound data. It is also worth noting that Super Donkey Kong uses some updated versions of two songs that appear in this game; the Temple theme was given another audio channel, and there is a complete version of the Jungle theme (Which ends and loops halfway through in The Panda Prince.)
• A hack of The Panda Prince titled "Jungle Adventure", which appears on the vanGard 8-bit Gamecore and other handheld/plug-&-play Famiclones, is just all the boss levels from the original Panda Prince (albeit glitchy), including the otherwise unused wasp, but the music is from Boogerman II. "Lair's Secret" on the same console is a hack of Sachen's Rockball with music from this game.