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Let's talk about old mobile gaming (Java, Symbian, BREW)

Shakunetsu

Neo Member
Hi guys, I am a fighting games enthusiast

Here are some of the Japan exclusive Mobile Fighting games that needs to be preserve and archive

The Japan exclusive version of Alpha 1 and Alpha 2

BtyV37j.png


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Here are some footage





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There was a version from Gameloft?
Which was a whole different version of SF Alpha/Zero One for the international game that looks like this

V75bScV.png


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Other Non-Japanese titled Fighting Games in mobile that wasn't preserve and archive yet mas Verizon Mobile's Tekken 2 which also did an earlier release with Docomo and Foma phones in Japan.

5Im9bTc.png





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Some of the Fighters that are already archive but in different sizes of screen

1.) Virtual Fighter Mobile
2.) King of Fighters M2
3.) Ultimate MK3
4.) Tekken Mobile
5.) KOF Mobile
6.) Soul Calibur
7.) Samurai Shodown
8.) Fatal Fury

MwSeY7d.png



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This later Fighting Games lack a multiplayer feature or a versus mode compare to the Nokia Ngage /Ngage QD's the KOF Extreme and One

Another problem with Fighting games in Symbian mobile era back then was they are trying to emulate the controls of their arcade counterparts and console versions. Because simple controls in fighting games aren't considered before.

Nowadays even the upcoming Street Fighter 6 is already adopting simple controls that became something of a new norm and universal that did start of smart phone era of fighting games now as a new universal accessibility feature.

before we can see these controls on mobile counterparts like SF4Voltz, UMK3 Mobile and KOFA





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It would be interesting to see this relic of the past tweak with simple controls and all compatible with a single brand new symbian mobile handheld game, added with local multiplayer features that the whole multiplayer aspect is more focus to face to face versus instead of the most recent mobile FGS that abandoned the concept of face to face aspect because they are now focus on finding online matchmaking and the implementation microtransactions.

Mobile Fighting Games had change so much in Smart phone era that the face to face multiplayer feature is now a side design. I used to be hyped by this Ngage commercial back then that you can go for a quick fight with anyone you come across with.



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It's kinda like a real life Power Quest without the tedious upgrading and leveling system other than going to lab(training mode) then pick up and play.

A "more social experience multiplayer feature" that is immediate and face to face that can imitate the local multiplayer aspect of the past like gaming with Classic Counter Strike, Classic DOTA, PSP Monster Hunter Games, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Gauntlet Legends, PowerStone2, Golden Eye N64 then a lot of Kart games, TCG(Card Games) and tons of Beat em up.

Combining the experience of Face to Face centered multiplayer with Augmented Reality (AR) technology can do wonders.

Online competitive games with AR tech doesn't really feel more impact compare into the face to face experience



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And of the recent smart phone online games nowadays isn't just design for connectivity but also on grinding and pay to win aspect that leveling system is a major aspect to distance each player to each other not something that has an equal standoff in the beginning because the ideas of being designed into face to face were not the priority in the multiplayer game design. So it's always been an uneven ground not by skill and choice but rather because of investment.

Like the newer MK Mobile, Marvel Contest of the Champion, Injustice and Tekken Mobile, it's not like a real time fighting game multiplayer anymore but rather like comparing stats numbers and timing to press the right buttons against an idle cpu characters under another player ownership that he purchase from a random generator microtransaction system.

 

Shifty

Member
Wolfenstein RPG and Doom RPG were amazing.

Doom RPG (1) only had three versions: Java ME, BREW (Low End) and BREW (High End). BREW version had many improvements over Java, including textured floors and ceilings.

Kraze, a Youtuber with many BREW devices, has recorded the entire Doom BREW High End on the infamous Tectoy Zeebo.



Doom RPG 2 had more ports, including Java, BREW, Windows Mobile, iOS.. maybe more.

These are what I clicked for and am not disappointed :messenger_beaming: games that had no right to be as excellent as they were.

It's a shame the RPG titles didn't get proper ports to non-dead platforms. You can emulate the J2ME versions quite easily these days, but the iOS editions were seriously gussied up by comparison and can't be played unless you have a device that's still running that year's version of the OS.
 

stranno

Member
In the latest months Bent has added quite a bunch of interesting features in EKA2L1.

- Touch mapping. Now touch-based games (S60^1 and S60^3) can be mapped to keys. Motion mapping hasn't been added yet, so of course those fully motion games (SSX, for example) cannot be played on Windows yet (they work on Android fine).

wyzopO1.png


- Bluetooth Multiplayer. EKA2L1 now supports bluetooth emulation through Wifi. It has been introduced for N-Gage (S60v1), but it should work across all platforms supported. Real bluetooth support cannot be done, since it would require a low level emulation bluetooth implementation (and it wouldn't make much sense in these days anyway).

5ByiP8d.jpg
41UsvPD.jpg


- Per-device apps. EKA2L1 now filters each device's apps, not showing the rest of device's installed apps, which was a mess in previous versions.

Hi guys, I am a fighting games enthusiast
Very cool. Yes, there are certainly a bunch of obscure, yet interesting, ports to Java ME and DoJa.

It's a shame the RPG titles didn't get proper ports to non-dead platforms. You can emulate the J2ME versions quite easily these days, but the iOS editions were seriously gussied up by comparison and can't be played unless you have a device that's still running that year's version of the OS.
I'm not sure about the rest of the ports, but Doom 2 RPG is the same game across all platforms, except Java ME. I compared the Windows Mobile, BREW and iOS version time ago and they are pretty much identical, aside the aspect ratio. I guess it makes sense, since they probably use the same software rendering engine.
 
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Shifty

Member
I'm not sure about the rest of the ports, but Doom 2 RPG is the same game across all platforms, except Java ME. I compared the Windows Mobile, BREW and iOS version time ago and they are pretty much identical, aside the aspect ratio. I guess it makes sense, since they probably use the same software rendering engine.
I must be thinking specifically of Wolfenstein RPG in that case - I distinctly remember it having higher-res spritework than the version I had on my Blackberry at the time, and being quite jealous :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
I must be thinking specifically of Wolfenstein RPG in that case - I distinctly remember it having higher-res spritework than the version I had on my Blackberry at the time, and being quite jealous :messenger_grinning_sweat:
I actually completed Wolfenstein RPG on my old Nokia mobile phone and it was an absolute blast. You actually battle a Cyberdemon at the end with the Spear of Destiny and when you win, BJ walks away from the camera wondering how he'd explain this to his superiors lol.
 

stranno

Member
I hear old japanese mobile games was best than western games. Is that true?
Well.. I'd say no, since we had Gameloft, which was, by far, the best Java studio.

But, in terms of graphics tech, DoJa (Japanese Java, different from western Java ME) was very powerful. Apps had bigger memory footprint and they used Mascot Capsule 3D (the best 3D engine ever developed for Java) a lot. In the west, there were very few Mascot Capsule 3D games, most of them developed by Fishlabs, and most 3D games were either done in software, using very basic shapes (most Gameloft games) or they used M3G. Also, Japanese market (mainly NTT's i-Mode) used BREW a lot. Here in the west we barely saw BREW games for mobile phones, except in the Verizon market. BREW phones weren't popular either.

Long story short: In terms of graphics tech, Japanese market probably took the lead. In terms of overall gaming quality, I'd say Gameloft, Macrospace, Mr.Goodliving, Digital Cholate, among others, destroyed the Japanese mobile gaming. Also, some of those very cool DoJa and BREW Japanese games were actually developed in Europe, not in Japan. Macrospace did some games for Capcom and Squaresoft, London based studio Ideaworks3D developed Metal Gear Solid Mobile (BREW/Symbian) or Resident Evil 4 Mobile (BREW/iOS), among many other crazy-impossible ports. They were pretty amazing.
 
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stranno

Member
Easily my most played java game on my Nokia X3. I think it was Formula Extreme.

171976_9formula_ex_3.jpg
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Nice. There were a lot of Formula games. The Fernando Alonso games, produced by Movistar (not sure who developed them) were pretty amazing. I think Gameloft also used their Asphalt engine for some Formula 1 games, iirc.
 

stranno

Member
I want to see jap games. Where to find video channel about this.
Then you want to check the Ruwaga's channel. He was trying to record as much i-appli games as possible before the i-mode closure, but I suspect something happened to him or the phone broke since he stopped one year ago.




Bomberman 3D, for example, which is one of my favorite mobile games, had like 8 o 9 worlds in the DoJa version, using Mascot Capsule 3D. There's a western Java ME version with Mascot Capsule 3D (as well as another using regular M3G), but that version only features 4 worlds and, apparently, it only has three in reality, since you can't access the fourth world. Graphics are pretty much the same in both versions, but sound is also far superior in DoJa. I don't remember the name of the studio, but this game was also developed in Europe.
 
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stranno

Member
I have to clean up this thread a bit. With my YT channel lost, it is a bit messy :messenger_grinning_sweat:

Hikari no Yume, the developer of touchME, the "trendiest" emulator right now, has twitted some interesting insights. Apparently, all those exclusive games from the first years of the App Store were never ported to Android basically because the Android SDK sucked and it didn't have OpenGL ES support until September 2009 :messenger_neutral:



She has had some very funny/weird feedback from the ChatGPT.



The emulator supports two games right now: Super Monkey Ball (in fact, the emulator was developed for Super Monkey Ball) and Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D. Binaries for the last one hasn't been compiled yet, because she wants to emulate it perfectly before the next version. But you can compile it already and try the game. It works almost perfectly, except for some minor graphical glitches and the lack of touch-mapping, to map the weapon into a button (all these accelerometer games requiere a gamepad to emulate the tilting).

POQnkch.gif
 
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stranno

Member
Following the Yuji Naka's re-re-re?-arrest, I have played his first? (maybe second) game on iOS (3.x), FlickPig, and it surprised me. It is a little funny "endless runner" (with short levels) with an interesting stacking twist.

 

Tams

Member
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Probably the first Symbian game I ever installed on a phone.

No way! That was the first mobile game (and one of very few since) I downloaded too!

Thanks for this thread. I love Symbian and am still sad that it's gone (along with old Opera).
 
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stranno

Member


Hikari has published another stable version of touchHLE, the iOS emulator. Among many improvements, including the drag-n-drop feature for the Windows build (just drag the IPA file into the touchHLE executable), it now supports a third, non-exciting, game: Touch & Go LITE.

I haven't found the game and it seems Hikari had his own dump from back in the day, LITE stands for demo on iOS. Apparently, the full version is not preserved, or at least it hasn't surfaced as a single game. According to Hikari, she has a three-games pack, including the full version of Touch & Go, but of course it is not working so far due lots of things needed to be supported yet. touchHLE is progressing slowly for now, in terms of compatibility, but once it builds a solid UIKit base, compatibility will probably blow up, since OpenGL ES and OpenAL are already there.

 
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stranno

Member
Apparently, life got in the way of Bent, EKA2L1 developer and Master of Symbian, and development stopped a few months ago. There are some interesting improvements for the next stable version, but he won't be very active in the future. Still, it is absolutely crazy what he has archived in just 5 years. He basically nailed all the Symbian platforms emulation in that short period of time. And still had time to do a Dirk Dagger port to Unity :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Hi guys some update, I will go over the messages sent in last month in the next few days.

1. about development
- In s80 branch
+ you can change background displaying game on PC now
+ The bluetooth netplay should be stable only on LAN now: gameloft games, pathway to glory, high seize. Ideagames has some timing problem that trigger timeout too quick. If you still get disconnect please tell, but for now searching for other players in same network should always hit

- I want to release a stable 0.1.0 in april. Soonest is 1st. I plan to make this netplay stable on most games on LAN, microphone support fully and s80 support are two more major points.

2. A game port

The anniversary for 5th year is on 24 march. But with this pace of my life I cant be schizo enough to sit at home and do many things.

I make a port for dirk dagger in a free time as my project to throw in a cv. For now you can play the demo at https://anni.12l1.com/dirkdagger/dd1demo/. Its just 60fps and nicer text, I hope to bring the game to more people since I think its nice. Full game launcher will be put out later , and I will public the source code in unity

3. Development pace

- I will be honest that currently Im in the 3rd year in university, beside prepare to take toeic test to graduate, I have to prepare plans for jumping jobs and studies. I unfortunately dont want to grow up to be a 40 year old schizo who have no social life working on emulator all time getting goverment unemployment support money to live on.

But as you can see I have stopped even checking the emulator for a while.

I will try to make schedule to balance out my life to fix games, but officially I think the emulator may go to maintainence mode soon, with very slow feature roll out if I plan to do more. I am not very talented like other people, a lot of stuffs I roll out require work and test for 3 or 4 days . But i will try since this is still my passion project

I will keep working and merge the s80 branch soon. Rarely anyone test custom branch

I tested the local BT emulation years ago and it was a bit unstable, hope it has been improved, since it was pretty cool.

mPSio7Lh.jpg
 

stranno

Member
Apparently, the next game supported by touchHLE will be EA's Spore Origins.


It seems that Hikari wants to support every game presented in the Apple iPhone OS SDK conference.



Bent has pushed many EKA2L1 improvements in the S80 series branch (Nokia 9210 and 9300 Communicator), including support for the two last games crackedd by BinPDA: Civilization and Warhammer 40,000: Glory in Death, BT LAN stability fixes and other stuff.

 
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stranno

Member
Hikari has been working on touchHLE and there are not just one, but two new games supported, Fastlane and Wolfenstein 3D. On top of that, the emulator now has a "launch menu" and touch mapping, both features still very basic, so don't expect the fancy EKA2L1 mapping UI (yet).

ZOhfsjl.gif

Options crash, so you cannot disable the uber-annoying tilting camera

Fastlane was a Ridge Racer clone originally developed for Tiger Gizmondo. The console failed amazingly hard, so devs moved the development to Playstation Portable. Then App Store was a massive success, so in the end, it became an iOS exclusive game. It is a very good looking game to be one of the earlier racing games on iOS, unfortunately, as most racing games from the first batch of iOS apps, it only has motion controls. So it is certainly much more playable now.

quNRUn8.gif


Wolfenstein 3D is the ZODTTD version (com.zodttd.wolf3d). This game had, at least, three ports in the earlier days of iOS, two of them banned for licensing issues. AFAIK the first one was ported by Carmack himself in one of those very quick porting marathons. At least it has exactly the same UI as Doom, also ported by him in a weekend (this guy was a genius). That one was banned for engine licensing issues (?). The second port was this one, I believe, banned for using licensed DATA files. And the last one was the so called Classic, which is not the current Wolfenstein 3D port, that is another one made by the modern iD Software.

The Wolfenstein 3D branch has been developed by ciciplusplus, which is the main contributor of touchHLE besides the author, Hikari. He has also improved the iOS 3.x support, so expect more games in the next months. The HLE design of the emulator, recompiling everything, still limits the explosion of the compatibility tho.

EA's Spore is not supported yet, since it requires a variety of hacks to even get to the first level, and it crashes in the end of it anyway. Those hacks are not in the main branch.

Compilation is no longer required since touchHLE supports Github Actions, just go to the latest commit and download the builds. Android build is not included yet because it is a bit unstable to compile in some environments.

 
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Hikari has been working on touchHLE and there are not just one, but two new games supported, Fastlane and Wolfenstein 3D. On top of that, the emulator now has a "launch menu" and touch mapping, both features still very basic, so don't expect the fancy EKA2L1 mapping UI (yet).

ZOhfsjl.gif

Options crash, so you cannot disable the uber-annoying tilting camera

Fastlane was a Ridge Racer clone originally developed for Tiger Gizmondo. The console failed amazingly hard, so devs moved the development to Playstation Portable. Then App Store was a massive success, so in the end, it became an iOS exclusive game. It is a very good looking game to be one of the earlier racing games on iOS, unfortunately, as most racing games from the first batch of iOS apps, it only has motion controls. So it is certainly much more playable now.

quNRUn8.gif


Wolfenstein 3D is the ZODTTD version (com.zodttd.wolf3d). This game had, at least, three ports in the earlier days of iOS, two of them banned for licensing issues. AFAIK the first one was ported by Carmack himself in one of those very quick porting marathons. At least it has exactly the same UI as Doom, also ported by him in a weekend (this guy was a genius). That one was banned for engine licensing issues (?). The second port was this one, I believe, banned for using licensed DATA files. And the last one was the so called Classic, which is not the current Wolfenstein 3D port, that is another one made by the modern iD Software.

The Wolfenstein 3D branch has been developed by ciciplusplus, which is the main contributor of touchHLE besides the author, Hikari. He has also improved the iOS 3.x support, so expect more games in the next months. The HLE design of the emulator, recompiling everything, still limits the explosion of the compatibility tho.

EA's Spore is not supported yet, since it requires a variety of hacks to even get to the first level, and it crashes in the end of it anyway. Those hacks are not in the main branch.

Compilation is no longer required since touchHLE supports Github Actions, just go to the latest commit and download the builds. Android build is not included yet because it is a bit unstable to compile in some environments.

Hurray!
But now that you mention Gizmondo, hopefully we'll have emulators for that and Zeebo, there've some sick exclusives.
 

stranno

Member
Hurray!
But now that you mention Gizmondo, hopefully we'll have emulators for that and Zeebo, there've some sick exclusives.
Zeebo emulation is fairly close. The console itself is nothing more than a BREW device with OpenGL ES and gamepad support. Melange, the current BREW translation layer for Android (it features some sort of emulation, but runs bytecode on the phone's SOC) is adding OpenGL ES and gamepad support to it, so maybe we would see Zeebo games running on Android this year.

Gizmondo emulator happened two years ago, but nobody knows the state of the emulator. According to the repository, the author had to start it again from scratch because of QEMU licensing problems. It only ran a Gizmondo tech demo (Alien Hominid preview) anyway.


BTW: Another contributor to touchHLE has added partial support to a game called Mistery Mania. I haven't compiled it yet, not sure if its fully playable besides the graphical issues. It seems that BubbleBash also works on touchHLE, but bubbles chain doesn't show up, so it is not really playable.

237210024-15fc4c0a-ada6-4c8e-b9a1-79acdc749ba5.png


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stranno

Member
There has been some movement in the mobile scene lately.

/bin/cat (aka usernameAK) has published a new version of Melange, the BREW translation layer for Android, with OpenGL support (required to eventually support Zeebo), Japanese games improvements and he is working on sound support! The BREW sound containers were undocumented and it has taken a while to figure out them. So we will get sound in Melange soon (ish).

A Japanese trial of Metal Gear Solid Mobile for BREW (previously mentioned by Synless) has been preserved and already implemented in Melange. Dump is not public yet, but don't expect much differences with the already available N-Gage (2.0) version.

IUZxY7z.png


Nikita Shakarun has published another version of J2ME-Loader (1.7.9). Among other improvements, he has refactored the SMS system (required to activate some games), fixed the BT on Android 12+ and implemented a location API (JSR-179) for GPS capable games/apps. I have tried FollowME, one GPS app from back in the day, and it triggers the GPS permissions, but it doesn't get the position. So IDK if it is fully implemented.

 
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Trunx81

Member
Great thread, a lot of memories. I worked during university in a Vodafone shop and remember how the first Java games rolled in. They had this big promotion for the Jurassic Park 3 game (ALAN!) on one of their phones.

I also have really fond memories of Nokia N-Gage. Sold my collection last year for over 1k, some of the cards are pretty rare. Although the system flopped and was over-ambitious (and had some really, really bad ports like the slugfest Call of Duty and the SIMS game that even had the "don´t turn off your GBA" while saving screen), some of the later games showed it´s potential. Pathway to Glory was one of the best COMMANDOS clone out there, with impressive graphics (you could see the guts of killed soldiers!) and amazing soundeffects (they recorded the real weapon sounds for it). The same company made a pirate-themed Advance Wars clone called High Seize that to this day is still pretty fun. And if you need a zen-like gaming experience, I highly recommend Mile High Pinball.
 
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