Keitai Denjū Telefang
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| Keitai Denjū Telefang | |
|---|---|
  | |
| Developer(s) | Smilesoft |
| Publisher(s) | Natsume |
| Designer(s) | Takagi Toushi |
| Composer(s) | Kinuyo Yamashita |
| Platform(s) | Game Boy Color |
| Genre(s) | Console role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Keitai Denjū Telefang (携帯電獣テレファング, Keitai Denjū Terefangu, lit. "Mobile Electric Beast Telefang") is a series of video games for the Game Boy Color, produced by Smilesoft and published by Natsume. The games are monster-battling games, where the player contacts various creatures using a cell phone-like device called a D-Shot in order to get them to battle the foes he or she will encounter. The name of the series derives from Keitai, which is Japanese for "cell phone," since phoning creatures is an integral part of the game, and "fang," to symbolise the various beasts involved.
There are two games in the series as of 2002, the first for Game Boy Color and the later for Game Boy Advance. However, as Smilesoft went out of business in 2003[1], the prospects of another Telefang game are slim at best. Both games were divided into two versions: Power and Speed. Each version featured creatures who were either stronger or quicker, respectively.
Gameplay
Telefang revolves around collecting the phone numbers of various creatures, referred to as Denjū, that the player encounters. These are used to be able to request aid from them at a later time, should he or she require it. The game is played from a third person perspective, the player taking the role of the young protagonist, Shigeki.
One Denjū stays by Shigeki's side at a time and follows him around, but in battle he can call up to two other Denjū to help him. Denjū will sometimes give him their phone numbers after he beats them in a random battle, but take longer to arrive in battle if they're originally from a distant area, due to getting lost. Sometimes, they may not even show up at all if called, so care must be taken to make sure that he is not calling a Denjū who is too far away.
All Denjū have a range of statistics - HP, Speed, Power, Defense, Electric Power, and Electric Defense. These determine how powerful, fast, or robust any given Denjū is. The type of habitat a Denjū lives in determines how weak it is to attacks from Denjū from other habitats; there is a vulnerability chain that goes Mountain > Sky > Forest > Aquatic > Desert > Grassland > Mountain. This also applies in reverse, a Denjū of certain types inflicting less damage upon one it is weak to. This is slightly changed in Telefang 2 however, where Denjū's habitat types are defensive, and attacks are of separate offensive types such as Flame, Water, Machine, Thunder, etc. This arrangement makes Denjū a bit more versatile, as they may carry moves that would be effective against opponents they would normally have trouble against.
In battle, the Denjū have an array of two to four attacks specific to their species. These cannot be altered, unless a Denjū evolves. Evolution is achieved by three different methods: Natural evolution, achieved by training them, Mod evolution, by giving them certain items in a mod evolution area, or Experimental evolution, achieved by taking the DNA of one Denjū with a Phone Card and giving it to the Denjū to be experimentally evolved. Some Denjū do not evolve. Evolution is permanent, however, in Telefang 2, evolution can be reversed if it was not by the Natural method. Battles are done in matches where each team may have anywhere from one to three Denjū participating. The battles are not strictly turn-based; the speed stat of a Denjū determines how many turns it can take, and when. Thus, a Denjū with a high Speed stat could attack twice for every time a Denjū with a low Speed goes once, also attacking before the low Speed Denjū can get a hit in.
Many Denjū have a special attack that needs to be charged up, and takes multiple turns to execute. This special attack does damage based on the Denjū's Electric Power stat, and is often considered not to be worth the wait. Due to the time it takes the special attack to charge, it is easy for the opponent to attack multiple turns or avoid the move entirely. In Telefang 2, instead of having to wait for an Electric Attack to charge, its use is limited by a DP meter. Other abilities—like skills that raise power or defense, or heal the user or its allies—vary from Denjū to Denjū.
The use of items varies greatly between Telefang and Telefang 2. In the first games, items were only used for evolutions or gifts, not including a few items important to the storyline such as keys to unlock doors, or a plush Denjū toy that has been stolen. Evolution items are generally things that come from the human world that effect Denjū in some way when they are forcibly combined. These items range from things such as pencils and batteries to flamethrowers, computers, cranes, and shuriken. Denjū which evolve by the Mod method will only do so if they receive a specific item, certain items also give large amounts of experience points to Denjū without evolving them. In Telefang 2 though, evolution items are typed the same as Denjū (Mountain, Forest, Sky, etc.) and any item of the proper type can be used to evolve a Denjū, however different items may have certain effects on stat growth. Evolution items can also be thrown at enemy Denjū to attempt to befriend them easier, which is more likely if the item thrown matches their type. In addition to evolution items, there are also special items which can be held by Denjū to boost one of their stats. Telefang 2 also introduced items which can heal HP and DP, and cure status effects such as blindness or paralysis. Items can be purchased at shops or found in treasure chests. In Telefang 2, they may also be picked up after battles or found by running through grass.
Storyline
It's the year 2020 and there are certain mobile phones equipped with a special antenna called "D-shot" which allows teleportation through "antenna trees." A boy named Shigeki finds one of these phones, and is accidentally transported to another world when he loses a baseball near an antenna tree.
This world is full of strange animals called Denjū, who all own D-shot phones and use them to call their friends to help them compete in battles. These phone battles are also known as Telefang. Shigeki basically travels the Denjū world trying to learn more about it but also gets wrapped up in several plots to overtake it, both by other humans and evil Denjū.
Characters
Humans
- Shigeki (シゲキ) - The protagonist of the game, he is an average boy who loves baseball. He is transported to the Denjū world when he loses a ball near a strange tree. In Diamond/Jade, he is called Bek.
- Matsukiyo (マツキヨ) - A child genius who wants to learn more about the Denjū world. He accidentally gets transported there along with Shigeki. In Diamond/Jade, he is called Sungki. In Telefang 2, Matsukiyo runs a laboratory in the human world where he pays the player for information on certain Denjū.
- Miyo (ミヨ) - She is a strong-willed girl who is described as a childhood friend of Shigeki, but teases him about never having been to the Denjū world. Her partner is the weasel-like Denjū Suguri (スグリ). In Diamond/Jade, she is called Miyor.
- Kai (カイ) - A mysterious boy encountered during Shigeki's travels, his purpose in the Denjū world is unclear. In the Power Version, his partner is Angios, while in Speed Version it is Gymnos. In Diamond/Jade, he is called Boundary.
- Sanaeba (サナエバ) - The owner of the Sanaeba pharmaceutical company, who were the first to discover the Denjū world. After the discovery they began to branch their business into other areas, and they control the human-to-Denjū world gates. While they allow children to come and go freely, adults must pay a fee. Sanaeba seems to have his name attached to many of the problems which have cropped up in the Denjū world, and is apparently manipulating Denjū for some unknown reason.
- Nerikara (ネリカラ) - A member of Sanaeba who tries to become prime minister of the Denjū world. He tries to get people to vote for him by setting up a curry store.
- Tabasco (タバスコ, Tabasuko) - A enemy of Shigeki in the Denjū world.
Denjū
- Crypto (クリプト, Kuriputo) - A strong Denjū with a hot-tempered personality. It is assigned by Musa as Shigeki's first partner in the Power Version. In Diamond/Jade, he is called Kuribute ("Kuribu" during battles due to lack of character space).
- Fungus (ファンガス, Fangasu) - A swift Denjū with a faithful personality. It is assigned by Musa as Shigeki's first partner in the Speed Version. In Diamond/Jade, he is called Fanges.
- Musa (ムサ) - An old, turtle-like Denjū who is the first to greet Shigeki and Matsukiyo after they're dropped into the Denjū world. He asks for their help with various problems that his world is suffering, and introduces Shigeki to his first partner. Musa's phone number is one of the secret ones which must be manually inputted, and he cannot otherwise be obtained as a partner during normal gameplay. His name was not modified from the Japanese name for Diamond/Jade.
- Angios (アンヂオス, Anjiosu) / Gymnos (ヂムノス, Jimunosu) - Partners of Kai/Boundary (Angios in Power Version and Gymnos in Speed Version). In Diamond/Jade, they are called Anjiosi and Jimunosi.
Manga
A manga series was produced by Kodansha Publishing Ltd. It is based on the first game of the series and was first released as a monthly feature in the magazine Comic Bon Bon. The comics were later reprinted as a three-volume book set. This set is often sold through Japanese retailers online (such as Yahoo! Auctions Japan or Amazon Japan.)
Bootlegged versions
The Telefang games were bootlegged into English under the names of Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Jade and are likely distributed by low-profile retailers (curiously, only the box and in-game title screen make any reference to Pokémon at all; the games themselves are devoid of any mention of or reference to Pokémon), which is thought to be the main reason why they were never released outside of Japan. The Power version became known as Pokémon Diamond (not to be confused with the official Nintendo-published Pokémon Diamond that was released later for the Nintendo DS) while the Speed version was known as Pokémon Jade. The bootleg names were likely made to convince people that these were two rare versions of the popular Pokémon video game series. The creatures on the box art for both games are neither Pokémon nor Telefang creatures; the deer-like creature on the Jade box art is actually an altered version of the forest spirit Shishigami from Hayao Miyazaki's anime Princess Mononoke. The snake-like creature on the Diamond box art is obscure; it may be entirely made up by the pirates or based on Dratini or Dragonair from Pokémon. The Diamond box art also features several of what appear to be Chaos Emeralds from the Sonic the Hedgehog games. The backs of boxes also contained screenshots of official Pokémon games, but with non-pixelised pictures of creatures in the game poorly edited into them.
The translation quality of the bootleg is very poor, often containing profanity, the best example is the majority of enemies exclaiming "Shit! Remember it!" after being defeated. The bootlegs also contain many examples of Engrish such as "Some points of 20 lost!" and "For the clever opponent, Injure increase!!". Many characters have different names in translation. Shigeki's name becomes Bek. Matsukiyo becomes Sungki. Kai becomes Boundary, and even later, is also called Ken and even Kate. The Sanaeba group is shown as SANARBA. A human who befriends Denjū and participates in battles is originally referred to as a T-Fanger (Tファンガー, T fangā), but called a T-Mildew in the bootleg, possibly due to the mistranslation of ファンガー into fungus. Virtually all of the Denjū's names change as well, such as the two main Denjū of the two versions. Several other Denjū are even renamed, apparently randomly, to things such as Hat, Icecream, and Gameboy. The names of items also show traces of Engrish. One item is a frying pan, but is named "Flying" in the bootlegged version. However, it should be noted that even the original Japanese version has at least one line of Engrish, with the text "THANK YOU FOR YOUR PLAYING!" at the end (which, interestingly, also appears in Telefang 2).
Some features were also removed or broken in the bootlegs, such as the ability to name the protagonist and any Denjū he befriends, the credits, and the ability of certain versions of the bootleg to load a saved game. There are even secret Denjū in the original game that can be acquired by calling their numbers in the game. This cannot be done in the bootleg, as calling Denjū manually does not work in the translation, crashing the game after the phone is answered. The bootlegs were also plagued by a number of other bugs and glitches, likely due to the sloppy editing of the cart's data. Such glitches include rendering the game's introduction sequence with an incorrect color palette and crashing after the game over screen. Some early game cartridges even lack the mobile phone background on the load game screen. These do not work at all, they crash whenever you try to start a new game.
References
- ^ "SIT Developer Table (す)" URL accessed on June 10, 2007.