So, once again, today is my birthday!
Of course, I wouldn’t let my birthday go by without a ROM release after last year had a great one! I’ve been planning on having something up here for November 4th for a good amount of time. But Satellaview games don’t grow on trees, so it left me wondering what to put out.
Thankfully, the residents of Snesfreaks answered my question for me back in October! ChronoMoogle found an interesting auction on eBay.de and set up a multi-party fund for it’s purchase and release, leading to the first release on the blog with 5 people who can be credited to it; The funders, ChronoMoogle, MarcoEagleEye, Svambo (all from #snesfreaks) and myself, and of course the ROM dumper, ikari.
So, what called for such a banding together? It must have been a game that we’ve known about prior and has eluded us before, right? Is it a killer app? Does it teach us something new about the Satellaview? Drum roll, please, this is going to be a really long article…
The newest ROM is a RPG Tsukuru Super Dante RPG game… starring farm animals.
“Now, I know these are supposed to be called role-playing games for a reason, but this is ridiculous!”
In this game, you don’t ride, feed, cook or harass the poultry, because you are the poultry!
This game eluded me on Yahoo Japan Auctions multiple times, so when ChronoMoogle found it on eBay, I was eager to help the cause of having it archived. On top of that, this is one of the first ROM releases on the blog where there’s a large amount of other Japanese websites and related media ready for viewing in advance, leading to a write up that can be incredibly detailed and informative right off the bat.
The game itself may not look too impressive at first glance… after all, it’s another Super Dante RPG Tsukuru game. Perhaps you’re wondering if this is any more significant than Jewel of Live.
The answer to that question, though, is a definite “Yes, it is much more significant. At least as far as I can Google.”
The search term クック・ドゥー・ドゥル・ドゥー (Cock-A-Doodle-Do) should show it all.
The game is an infamous and very notable piece of Japanese indie gaming history.
(From henceforth, the title shall now be referred to as “Cock-A-Doodle-Do”.)
Originally developed by a 17-year-old Nakanishi Byakuya (中西 白夜) in the retail version of Super Dante, Cock-A-Doodle-Do would go on to be the 10-million-yen winner of the first of the ACON Grand Prix competitions, which rewarded indie game developers. For those wondering how significant ACON is, try asking a fan of the Corpse Party franchise; the original Dante98 version of Corpse Party won 5 million yen in ACON2. Also, if you look at the various ACON entries, you might find some names that match up with entries on the Satellaview undumped list. It appears a good amount of St.GIGA’s broadcasted game content included indie gaming related works.
Speaking of Dante98, Cock-A-Doodle-Do was ported to Dante98, presumably due to a high demand to play the game. This Dante98 version can be downloaded on Famitsu’s website to this date! Since Dante98 was originally for the PC-98, interpreter software is needed to play the Dante98 version. Don’t be surprised if you have difficulty getting it to work – I had to dabble with both “Dante98 for Windows” and “D2Win” to get it to play, and I don’t know exactly what I did to get it to work to this date.
Based on what I can look up in terms of discussion of the game, Cock-A-Doodle-Do was a controversial win. You wouldn’t really consider a prize-winning game to get C-grade reviews and all. It was criticized for being a Super Dante game which used no original resources. And also probably for being a comedy. (Thus lacking in more typical JRPG qualities of the time, such as FMV sequences of long-haired pretty boys spending 3 hours cutting themselves in angst over their former best friends who have become the big bad villain guys killing their girlfriends while the other party members float in sea of LSD-induced graphical effects porn contemplating the meaning of their existence and a J-Pop vocalist sings a dissonant romance song.)
While the exact scope of the debates over the merits of this game have likely vanished from the internet and are lost in realm of forgotten Japanese Geocities sites, there is still at least one site with a long article meant for defending it’s prize-winning status, Said site also has a patch for the Dante98 version, for some reason.
Man, all this for a JRPG starring a chicken!
Cock-A-Doodle-Do is about the misadventures of an alcoholic boy named Nicole (unfortunately for him), who recently lost all his fortune, and his last possession, a pet chicken named Pal. Pal fights animal poachers, befriends a cat and a fairy, and perhaps later on in the game does actual JRPG-like heroic deeds. All while Nicole, um, constantly runs to the pub.
The ROM appears to be perfectly preserved. It’s code structure is very similar to the previously-released Jewel of Live ROM. In fact, the only differences in code besides the header are from 60000-67FFF, meaning a mere quarter of a meg of code is the difference between “Cock-A-Doodle-Do” and “Jewel of Live”.
It’s emulator compatibility is also similar. The game will depend on BS-X SRAM compatibility. (For you unfortunate ZSNES loyalists, I got an alternative for you in the downloads section).
The download date is marked 4/27. Rather surprising – and refreshingly so – is that this appears to match perfectly with a Satellaview History Museum schedule archive for April 27, 1996. Cock-A-Doodle-Do was broadcast on this date at 19:00 (7:00 PM) and 23:00 (11:00 PM). The game is in fact listed as being in the schedules from the 22nd through the 30th of April, suggesting that the game was probably broadcast repeatedly throughout the month. No other dates confirmed, however.
Also, I’ve played both the Super Famicom/Satellaview and Dante98 versions of the games and compared them pretty closely. Here’s some screenshots of both, in link form.
Dante98 Title screen
SFC Title screen
Dante98 Pub
SFC Pub
Dante98 Town
SFC Town
Dante98 Overworld
SFC Overworld
Dante98 Battle
SFC Battle
I’ve also been recording gameplay of both the Super Dante and Dante98 versions on my Youtube page.
The ROM is available for download below. Also, the game will be available to play on the Java and Flash embedded emulators.
Cock-A-Doodle-Do (RPG Tsukuru Super Dante) | クック・ドゥー・ドゥル・ドゥー (ＲＰＧツクール ＳＵＰＥＲ ＤＡＮＴＥ)
ROM Download
Also, a bonus: For those who are dependant on ZSNES or want to play these on the SNES Powerpak but need hacks to deal with it’s low Satellaview compatibility;
Hack of the retail RPG Tsukuru Super Dante with “Cock-A-Doodle-Do” replacing “FATE” as the sample game.
And since I didn’t link this here year for some reason..
Hack of the retail RPG Tsukuru Super Dante with “Jewel of Live” replacing “FATE” as the sample game.
