What if Telefang was never bootlegged?

[Wario Bros.(imported)]

Just a question to think about. But basically what the topic title says, how would Telefang's fan reputation (or the series for that matter) differ if the Telefang games were never bootlegged? Another idea could be if Telefang WAS bootlegged but did not going under the name of a big-name series like Pokemon or such?

If you ask me, for never being bootlegged, We'd probably would never have this website or people interested in it. Sure, some guy who'd go out and play Japan-only ROMs might find this game, but it would be as well recognized today.

And for if it wasn't under the name of a big series, people would know it better than my previous answer, but again not getting the reputation.

What do you guys say?

[andwhyisit]

On the downside no-one would have played it for years until a patch that translates the game hits the net. On the upside it would not receive the hate, scorn, and cries of "pokemon clone" it does now for simply being associated with the bootleg. You lose either way really.

[Blaziken257]

I for one definitely wouldn't have heard of Telefang were it not for the bootlegs. So, they exposed me to the original games, at least when I found out at some point that they were merely hacks of an existing game. So, that's a good thing for me, as I would have really missed out. However, I do not like how people bash Telefang and judge it based on the bootlegs, which sadly almost everybody does, except for the few people who do any kind of research on them. (For that, I don't even play the bootlegs anymore.)

So, yeah, you lose either way, sadly. It's a shame, because it's a good game; it just never got the recognition it deserved.

[Locololo(imported)]

i agree with the others, it wouldn't really be known except to a few causing sadness, but because it was bootlegged it got alot of negative feedback, personally i would never have found out if it wasn't for trsrockin, and youtube telling me about the first game and second one.

[SM-dood(imported)]

Well, like many, I found out through the bootlegs. I saw some videos on youtube and what-not, but I don't wanna trail off topic here.
If Telefang was never bootlegged, I'd assume, like some of you have said, that we'd never have had found out about it, and it'd just be one of those regular JPN-only games. I assume it might've been able to get overseas that way as well, but looking at the history of it I guess nobody wanted to release it elsewhere. A little sad too, considering how good and unique the series is.

[KenjutheDenjuu(imported)]

I think I probably would have found out about the games anyway, since i'm interested in obscure Japanese Gameboy games in general. Overall, I think the bootleg did both a good and bad thing really. On one hand, it popularised the game more and brought it to an overseas audience, but on the other hand the games have had to put up with being dismissed as a fake bootleg game with an engrish-y translation. I think there probably would have been talk of it being a pokemon clone regardless of whether it was bootlegged (as is usual for most monster catching/battling series), but the fact it was passed off a new Pokemon game didn't help. I think the engrish translation also made the games more popular because it was so funny and weird. Also most of the lines people associate with Telefang all come from the bootleg (like the infamous 'Well, have you had curry?').

You have to give credit to the bootleggers for trying to actually translate the game directly from Japanese though. Even though their translation skills are not so good, they did actually try. It's the closest thing Telefang will ever get to a 'real' english release (besides the translation the forum is working on). It's only a shame that it never received an official release :-/

[kmeisthax]

Probably not. The only non-infamous games that get translated are usually SNES games, since the fan translation community is so heavily SNES centered it hurts. (And don't get me started on how bad the SNES scene is in general, just look at half of byuu's rants)

[RacieB]

You have to give credit to the bootleggers for trying to actually translate the game directly from Japanese though.

Well... it was more of a translation party of Japanese > Chinese > English

[KenjutheDenjuu(imported)]

Well, the Chinese bootleggers did translate it exactly into Chinese from Japanese, that's sort of what I meant. I think the translation was only lost from Chinese to English, although they still got the basic idea with the text (albeit engrish-ed, but still xD).

[Sanqui]

Well, the Chinese bootleggers did translate it exactly into Chinese from Japanese, that's sort of what I meant. I think the translation was only lost from Chinese to English, although they still got the basic idea with the text (albeit engrish-ed, but still ).

Actually, while the Chinese writing was decent, most of the names were lost from Japanese to Chinese, according to Garmmy and Milnivri: http://s15.zetaboards.com/Tulunk_Village/topic/515438/1/