Bomberman and other Hudson Soft games on the Spectrum

Ivanzx

As I suspected, the games, or at least, I found a comment which confirms it, were ported from the MSX to the Spectrum.
The MSX was very popular in Japan, so thats the most plausible answer:

"This is a direct port of Hudson's original Bomber Man that came out on the MSX (v=qs5JWLORfoY) and NEC PC-8801 computers in Japan in 1983. The NES one didn't come out until 1985 (and was ported to MSX a year later (v=vNYVWpqHA98). The MSX1 and the ZX Spectrum had similar hardware, so it's almost exactly the same game."

So for once, we got conversions from MSX, when usually it was the other way around.
I guess if the authors of some Hudson Soft games, which still remain unauthored, could be found?

BTW Stop the Express is listed in WoS database as released in 1983, but all the reviews are from 1984 and the MSX version is also from 1984, so could it be wrong?

fatbob

The date on the actual Stop The Express cassette tape is 1983 but on the inlay it says:

"First Published in 1984 Sinclair Research Ltd" and "Software (c) Hudson Soft 1983 Document & Packaging: (c) Sinclair Research Ltd 1984"

Ralf

I agree that it would be interesting to know who wrote Stop The Express. Such an important game remains anonymous till now.

And I only recently learnt that it was, together with few others, written in Japan. I'd never believe that there were Japanese Spectrum games if someone told me

Ivanzx

fatbob wrote: »

The date on the actual Stop The Express cassette tape is 1983 but on the inlay it says:

"First Published in 1984 Sinclair Research Ltd" and "Software (c) Hudson Soft 1983 Document & Packaging: (c) Sinclair Research Ltd 1984"

That makes sense, as the MSX version, that is, the software, is from 1983, and the Spectrum version, with the packaging is from 1984.

Thanks! :)

Ivanzx

Ralf wrote: »

I agree that it would be interesting to know who wrote Stop The Express. Such an important game remains anonymous till now.

And I only recently learnt that it was, together with few others, written in Japan. I'd never believe that there were Japanese Spectrum games if someone told me

Yes, it would be nice to find out about the authors, as these games are very unusual being japanese.
It could be the same authors that did the other Hudson Soft conversions for the ZX...

Hikaru

The Dean of Games wrote:

Note: By the time I wrote this review I noticed the authors name in 'Stop the Express' wasn't attributed. It only claimed to be made by Hudson Soft. But I have found some clues that maybe lead to F.Itagaki. Take a look at the first syllable in both Itagaki's name and his game 'Itasundorious' released by Hudson Soft. Well, the action in 'Stop the Express' happens aboard the ITA Express.
Coincidence? Was there just a collaboration between programmers? I don't know, but it sure looks like F.Itagaki was involved in the game.

http://www.spectrum20.org/reviews/1171

Ivanzx

Hikaru wrote: »

http://www.spectrum20.org/reviews/1171

Good one, it makes a lot of sense...I would say it is about 99% that he was involved :)

daveysludge

Despite being a Hudsonsoft title, did the Spectrum version of Stop the Express not originate from Australia?

Or was it just popular over there?

MagicKnight

His name is Fumihiko Itagaki and apparently it was first written on the Sharp X1.
If you can read Japanese well enough you can read here about it, with a mention of the mistakes in the English.

http://itagaki.eek.jp/works_ste.php

Ivanzx

daveysludge wrote: »

Despite being a Hudsonsoft title, did the Spectrum version of Stop the Express not originate from Australia?

Or was it just popular over there?

Errr, as far as I know, the game does not have anything to do with Australia, although that does not mean that the game was sold and was popular there :)
Its more a Japanese-UK connection ;)

Ivanzx

MagicKnight wrote: »

His name is Fumihiko Itagaki and apparently it was first written on the Sharp X1.
If you can read Japanese well enough you can read here about it, with a mention of the mistakes in the English.

http://itagaki.eek.jp/works_ste.php

Thanks a lot for the link, MagicKnight! Sadly, I dont understand a word of japanese, lets see if any of our members who speak the language, see this thread and translate it ;)

Ralf

Actually Google Translate makes some sense:

http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fitagaki.eek.jp%2Fworks_ste.php

And we could even write to Mr Itagaki and explain the things :)

http://itagaki.eek.jp/contact.php

carlsson

Hm, it seems the Engrish message only exists in the ZX Spectrum and MSX versions, while it was changed and corrected for the C64. Either Mr. Itagaki didn't do all the conversions himself, or Commodore had some kind of QA department that spotted it, unlike Kuma (MSX) and Sinclair (ZX).

Morkin

Ralf wrote: »

I agree that it would be interesting to know who wrote Stop The Express. Such an important game remains anonymous till now.

And I only recently learnt that it was, together with few others, written in Japan. I'd never believe that there were Japanese Spectrum games if someone told me

Yes, it would be interesting to know more about this one. It was a bit of an early Spectrum classic for me, so it would be great to hear from Mr Itagaki.

Ivanzx

Ralf wrote: »

Actually Google Translate makes some sense:

http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=ja&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fitagaki.eek.jp%2Fworks_ste.php

And we could even write to Mr Itagaki and explain the things :)

http://itagaki.eek.jp/contact.php

Done! :)

Thanks for the help, Ralf ;)

MagicKnight

I should send him a link to my post about using my Spectrum in Japan, there can't be too many people with a Spectrum version of the game here.

http://pcbiroiro.blogspot.jp/2012/01/running-zx-spectrum-in-japan.html