Legend of Wukong: A Taiwanese Mega Drive RPG Finds an English Voice
Few Mega Drive cartridges have a stranger path to the West. Legend of Wukong began life as Wucom Legend, a Chinese-language role-playing game released in Taiwan in 1996 by the contract developer Gamtec. Gamtec, a Taichung-based company founded in 1989, is known for unlicensed Mega Drive work. Brandon Cobb of Super Fighter Team bought a copy, grew interested in localizing it and secured the rights, and the English edition began shipping to pre-order customers on 3 December 2008, at around US$40.
At a glance
- Based on: Wucom Legend (Gamtec, Taiwan, 1996), loosely inspired by Journey to the West
- Created by: Gamtec (original); Super Fighter Team (English release)
- Released: 1996 in Taiwan; English version in December 2008
- Genre: turn-based role-playing game with animated cutscenes
- What sets it apart: an officially licensed English release of an obscure Taiwanese title
The story
This is not a literal retelling of the classic Chinese novel. Wukong is a mischievous thirteen-year-old whose neighbour, Dr. Tang, loses a time machine, and he ends up stranded hundreds of years in the past. With companions Wujing and Piggsy, he sets out to recover the machine and get home. Previewers compared the look of the game to Game Arts' Lunar series.
What the localization changed
Super Fighter Team did more than translate. It made nearly three dozen code changes, bug fixes and enhancements, including repairs to magic effects, damage calculations and world map errors. It also made the game work on any Genesis, Mega Drive or Nomad, whatever the region, supporting both NTSC and PAL. The English release is a 16-megabit cartridge with battery backup and three save slots, with hardware designed by Kim Biu Wong of Tototek together with Cobb.
A short family
Super Fighter Team brought out Beggar Prince and Star Odyssey in the same fashion, and all three were later bundled for Windows and Mac in August 2013.