Japanese feature phone games, also known as keitai games or I-Mode games, remain one of the stranger side quests in gaming history. At a time in the aughts that started to see more official releases for Japanese-only titles in the West, keitai games from the aughts remain locked in time addition to space due to the highly specific software they were designed for. Nevertheless, keitai game preservationists have had an eventful last couple of months, with obscure Mega Man, Sonic the Hedgehog, Dance Dance Revolution, and Professor Layton games all making significant strides to playability.
Back in September Yuvi of SciLab Secrets, dumped nine Capcom games from a discarded N904i phone. As is common for keitai releases, the games that incidentally happened to be on this particular phone are a mix of ports and original titles. Here is the full list as provided by RockmanCosmo, also of SciLab Secrets-
Hajimari no Dokutsu and Your Planet are original games entirely about which very little is known. The new version of Rockman X is in the curious version of being the missing link between previous Mega Man X versions and the iOS port, using the same tilesets. However, as per I-Mode games’ then revolutionary connectivity features, has a level rush and online leaderboard. Rockman-Corner has details on how to play this title.
Sonic 3D Golf, a Sonic Cafe game preloaded in CA-01C phones, has also made great strides to playability, as can be seen in RockmanCosmo’s extended gameplay video of the title. As the name implies, Sonic 3D Golf features the character playing golf in stereoscopic 3D. The 2006 title was either ahead or behind its time, depending on how you define stereoscopic 3D’s significance in gaming history. As to be expected, such functionality is tough to emulate.
Elsewhere, Cuebes and Unabandonware have dumped an N503iS phone, including a 2001-era version of Dance Dance Revolution. Yuvi has also dumped an F906i phone with Professor Layton and the Mansion of the Deadly Mirror and Mr. Driller Aqua. The first chapter of Professor Layton and the Mansion of the Deadly Mirror has also already been translated into English. Five chapters yet remain- with this mainly being a technical challenge. There are other versions of Professor Layton and the Mansion of the Deadly Mirror, but the I-Mode version has different puzzles.
One topic of particular interest with these titles is how they’ve been salvaged from virtually destroyed machines- according to RockmanCosmo, the F906i was in abysmal condition– it only looks like it survived a house fire. The sad fact of the matter is, noone really took good care of these older phones, and it certainly didn’t occur to developers that it was worthwhile to maintain playable copies of these games, as opposed to just salvaging the assets that could be repurposed. Nevertheless, great recent progress has been made in keitai game preservation. We can only hope for even more in the months to come.
