Japanese mobile games emulation

[ghanmi]

Hello everyone. You probably know by now that mobile phones in Japan are an entirely different beast than in most other countries, even housing a host of quality games, rivaling GBA/early DS titles in quality:

* An exclusive Layton
* 12 Tales Of games, among which 4 true RPGs (one with DLC dungeons)
* A Ninokuni prequel
* An exclusive Inazuma Eleven game
* Ganbare Goemon games
* Kingdom Hearts Coded (It was later ported to the DS)
* Racing games and many, many other RPGs...

I find it truly a shame that the CD-i and some early calculators have emulators, while these gems are being overlooked.

May I ask anyone versed in the subject, since such info is nonexistant in the English web:
* Has there been any work on emulating JP mobiles on a PC / SDK leaks ?
* Is there any effort made to preserve the ROM images?

I may ask also the same questions about western mobile games, since those Bonk and Donald game mentioned in HG101 picked up my interest. Maybe also iPhone games, but for those the game preservation issue is not that big of a concern for them (well.. emulation still is).

Thanks a lot, in advance!

[starscream]

Western mobile games are relatively easy to find and emulate (at least J2ME), and to a large extent preserved by the sheer amount of warez availability. I'm not aware of some kind of coordinated effort comparable to old computers/ consoles. Except maybe for the old N-Gage, of which you can't emulate the specific games that were developed for it.


I do have a sorted Nokia Java game set (including dat) of unknown origin downloaded from Undergroundgamer. Something of a rarity in the sense that it's reasonably sorted.

Usually it's easy enough to find a specific game, but specific versions for certain phone models can prove to be much more difficult.
I also have the impression that there is a difficulty getting American releases versus European ones. E.g. I was looking for Mr. Do ports which where listed on Namco America's site with no luck.

I've never seen anything indicating that the Japanese games you mentioned are available in some form and playable via emulator.

However, I assume that the technical gap isn't as wide anymore with the proliferation of Android in Japan. There are still other hurdles though.

I know people have been trying to get Cave shooters and other games (a Sega Shining title for example) to run on their devices. I've been fiddling around with Espgaluda on the Android SDK emulator a little myself.

[ReyVGM]

I've looked, but I've never found emulators or "roms" for Japanese mobile games.

[lightingman]

Yeah Mobile games are sadly the LOST era of gaming there are some good 3d games that are exclusive to mobile phones.

[iniche]

The mobile emulation scene is very dispersed. J2ME, RIM and Windows Mobile games are prominently emulated; getting game images for the emulators are another story (except for J2ME). As for other mobile platform-based games, it gets rather complicated. Android is somewhat doable; most others (BREW, iOS, Danger-based handsets, etc.) are currently not. But it gets even more complicated; there's an Exen mobile emulator, but game performance varies. East Asian regions (Japan, China, Taiwan, etc.) has, like their own universe of cell phone gaming.

So what am I trying to say out of all of this? Your best bet for emulating cell phone games is only being able to emulate J2ME-based mobile games. Japanese companies usually employ platforms more advanced or sophisticated than J2ME for their mobile games, so you're likely out of luck for emulating those games you listed.

[starscream]

Do you happen to have a source for the ExEn emulator iniche? When I was looking into the platform some time ago, I found some games, but the emulator I couldn't locate.

[iniche]

I do not have a source for the Exen emulator, whichever way you mean. However, I still have the emulator on one of my computers. When I get back to it, do you want me to upload it for you? I can tell you that the Exen emulator is nowhere near in a state to play games, and it seems to be unsupported. One prominent example was an interesting Crash Bandicoot game.

[starscream]

Right, I meant source as in "for downloading" . Your description of it's state surprises me, because I recall someone writing he was able to play a few levels of that Crash game. Perhaps that was based on a different version. Regardless, I'm been interested in what you have. Would appreciate it if you could upload the emulator.

[iniche]

Here you go: speedy.sh/zJnqp/exen.7z I'm sure nobody would mind. It contains a slew of goods you might be interested in; most of it came with the download when I got it, so I did not test it. I only tried the Crash game (of course, not so well).

I am, though, interested in that review you read. Which is it? Did the person actually use an emulator? I would be interested in trying another version of Exen simulator if it works better.

[starscream]

Thanks! When I was looking for ExEn stuff, I found a posting about Crash and the emulator.

The game loads and seems to work at least in the beginning on the emulator you uploaded, too.

[iniche]

Yeah, it can play the start just fine. It's been over a year since I tried, but I'm pretty sure I'm stuck at the exact same spot as that guy. In fact I think I remember reading his post. I don't think it's a demo since there's no indication of that. Could either be the emulator or the game file that's the problem.

I would consider such a state unplayable, though. As simplistic as the game is, being limited to about 20% of any game is unplayable to me. I wouldn't be surprised if many/all other games have problems of this magnitude.

[skyewelse]

An emulator for Japanese mobile games would be fantastic and something I'm sure a lot of us would enjoy, but hell, I'll fork out money for a earlier Japanese cellphone if I knew of a method of how to get certain games installed on the phone and simply play the games only on the cellphone not connected to any network.

Someone living in Japan who knew how to do this could really capitalize on this if they came up with a plan and business model for this... Hint Hint. : )

Then again, maybe it's impossible since I'm sure that many of these games, especially earlier ones may not be available to download anymore and were probably only distributed for a short time through the provider.

In any case, I'd certainly pay for a Japanese phone from back around 2004 or after that would support and come with just two games, Xak: The Art of Visual Stage (remake for Japanese phones from Bandai) and Ys Gaiden featuring our favorite Wall Crusher. : )

Edit: A little more research and I found out that these games appear to be pay-as-you-go titles, so unless you are connected to a network subscription... Hmm. Well there goes that idea.

-Thomas

[khronos616]

Hello everyone! I know it's been a while since the last activity of the post, but I'm looking for the Exen emulator, if anyone was kind enough to upload it, I'd be very grateful!