Question about Konami GB Collection (GBC) series. (European)

[Ed Oscuro]

Quick notes for people reading this thread: This is not about U.S. released titles; and not about the planned (but ultimately dropped) port of Castlevania II: Simon's Quest to the GBC (which would've been neat).

Did this series have a fourth installment? I've been hearing of a GBC version of Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge (arr) for a while now, but haven't been able to track that down. Why? I recently got ahold of volumes 1-3 (would post link, but it doesn't seem to work for some reason...) and I wonder if I'm still missing something.

Link so everybody can see what I'm talking about:

eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8156023729)

[maxlords]

Not in the US it didn't. There were:

Castlevania (forget the subtitle)
Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge
Castlevania Legends

then the GBA ones. That's it as far as I know.

[MegaDrive20XX]

CastleVania II: Simon's Quest was planned for GBC...but that was canned (It was supposed to be released along side Super Mario DX)..yes that's right...an NES port on GBC....it was mentioned in Nintendo Powers and EGM's back in 1999

but Belmont's Revenge was never re-released

Yes there was a Konami GB Collection Vol. 4 which had Gradius II, Castlevania II, Antarctic Adventure and Yie Ar Kung Fu

[MegaDrive20XX]

Not in the US it didn't. There were:

Castlevania (forget the subtitle)
Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge
Castlevania Legends

then the GBA ones. That's it as far as I know.

psst....CastleVania "Adventure".. ;)

[Ed Oscuro]

Extra psst: "The Castlevania Adventure."

Nope, this topic isn't about U.S. released games. This is a question for European folks.

[TRM]

I do think that Castlevania 2 (original b/w Gameboy game) was re-released in color on one of the European Konami collections. I am 90% certain that I remember seeing screenshots for the game, so yes, I think you must be missing one of the collections (and since you have 1-3, there would have to be a #4 containing this).

[MegaDrive20XX]

Extra psst: "The Castlevania Adventure."

Nope, this topic isn't about U.S. released games. This is a question for European folks.

TEH! LOL Not again!

btw...EUROPE SUCKS!! *runs*!! :evil:

[Ed Oscuro]

Well, I've had people swear up and down that there's such a game, and it has to be European as well. Hmm. I'd really like to get that compilation cart.

*edit just in time*

Hey, I've just answered my own question. Playagain to the rescue! My goodness, it scares me how stuff's been dumped that nobody here has heard of. Yup, there was a 4th version. Here's screenshots of the European versions for everybody:

http://home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/gbc_kgbc_v1.png
That's Christopher, with his back to us, holding his whip (not a very obvious pose at first!). He blinks.

http://home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/gbc_kgbc_v2.png
PENTAROUUUUUUUuuuuu
No animation on this one that I noticed, besides the cursor.

http://home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/gbc_kgbc_v3.png
Goemon.

http://home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/gbc_kgbc_v4.png

Now for the Japanese variety.

http://home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/gbc_kc1.png
This game is a GB Color game as well - kind of Konami to release this package for Japanese gamers in the early days of the GBC! The ROM is not marked as such, which threw me off. The game selections (at least in this volume) are the same as in the European version; music is the same (I knew I recognized the music at this screen!), and the pictures that appear when introducing the games are the same.

This game crashed back years ago; I thought it was a mislabeled ROM. Well, now I know: Konami's just thrown in random girls for the Japanese version (Tokimemi girls maybe?). The European title screens are definitely much cooler.

[retroman]

one the snes there was super castlevania 4

[Ed Oscuro]

one the snes there was super castlevania 4
lol yes. I own the European and Japanese versions.

http://home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/gbc_kgbc_v1_probo.png
laff

This is interesting because the character's still a HUMAN. Different from the other Probotector games, no? So much for the "Violence to Human!11 - banned omg lol" theory ;)

http://home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/gb_probo.png
What's more, it's different from the regular European Probotector release (shown above), complete with ghetto Samus-ripoff sprites (no really, take a look!). For comparison, here's the Konami GB Collection Volume 1 version of those two enemies:

http://home.comcast.net/~edoscuro/gbc_kgbc_v1_probo_b.png

What really sets the Konami GB Collection's version of "Probotector" apart is that it has an area select that shows up all the time (in Operation C, this was only available as a cheat).

The ten lives cheat in Operation C/Probotector - Up(4), Down(4), Left(4), Right(4), Start at the title screen (remember to press Start once first to make the title graphic completely show) doesn't work in the Konami GB Collection version, either.

Unfortunately, I'm currently unable to compare this with the Japanese version of the collection's Contra, as it crashes in VisualBoyAdvance.

[Ed Oscuro]

Ack, just my luck! Comparisons:

Konami Collection 1/Konami GB Collection Volume 1
Gradius
Contra
Konami Racing
Dracula Densetsu/Castlevania

Now here things start to change. The games on the compilations are different, but the order of release is different.

Konami Collection 2/Konami GB Collection Volume 3
Twin Bee Da!!/Pop'n Twinbee
Ganbare Goemon/Starring Goemon
Motocross Maniacs/Bikers
Guttang Gottong

Konami Collection 3/Konami GB Collection Volume 4
Gradius II
Dracura Densetsu II/Belmont's Revenge
Yie Ar Kung~Fu
Kekkyoku Nankyoku Daibouken/Antarctic Adventure

Konami Collection 4/Konami GB Collection Volume 2
Konami Sports/Track & Field
Frogger
Parodius
Quarth/Block Game

Possibly they changed the order of releases for Europe so the compilation went out with a bang, Belmont's Revenge being so good. It was probably a good idea to release Konami Collection 4 second, instead of last, as the games there are good, but I can see right away that three aren't exclusives.

I also discovered that only the first Konami Collection freezes when trying to select a game - possibly a bad dump? In any case, the one thing the Konami Collection games have that the European releases are missing is the inclusion of the girls and a fifth menu option - apparently you can talk to the girl. At this point, I'm going to back out and say I'm finished with THAT line of questioning. (Edit: Okay, you can find out stuff about the various games. Yay.)

Anyhow, wow, pretty interesting stuff.

[SoulBlazer]

I just wish these collections had come out in the States. Wonder why only in Europe, which had the smaller market?

[Ed Oscuro]

Who knows? Now, stuff I'm writing here has been reposted elsewhere, and at one such place (here actually (http://www.forumplanet.com/gamespy/topic.asp?fid=1422&tid=1571121)) a person wrote "I understood just enough of that to be interested, but I really can't follow what on earth your talking about. I'm american so I don't know anything you mention aside from the hero turtles..."

So I simplified things.


Hmm, well it's like this:

Once upon a time there was a bad man in Germany and lots of people followed him. After the troubles, the country decided it would solve its problems via censorship.

The noble software house "little wave" wanted to send good entertainment products to the country Germany but their efforts were reviled by the censor. So they set up a shop in a nearby schloss and set the old man there to making changes so the censor would not put the stamp of revilement on the games.

In 1999, the old man died, and "little wave" did not know how he worked his magic. Therefore they put sleeping powder in the bureaucrat's soup and released the original versions with the same name.