I saw the news article on the main page, which mentioned the Consumer Soft Group scans ( http://www.planetvb.com/modules/articles/?s056305001 ). It seems like there are quite a few VB games listed in that… has anyone (that can read Japanese) gone through it and made sure that they’re all accounted for, as well as any details given on them?

For example (using best guesses, and various translation tools)… I glanced at page 6, which in the upper left is a box for J-Wing. The first VB entry is Virtual Lab. But the three below are for three unreleased J-Wing games. Looking at the list on this site, there are 3 unreleased games by J-Wing: J-League 3D Stadium, Out of the Deathmount, and Signal Tatto.

I looked at the last one (because it was short, and Katakana, which I can manually try to compare characters), and typed it into the translator. It says シグナル・ラット (Shigunaru ratto), which translates to “Signal Rat”. So that’s probably what’s listed as Signal Tatto ( http://www.planetvb.com/modules/games/?u016g ), which has almost no info on it. The words below it say it’s a race game, and MSRP of 5900 Yen, and planned release date of March 1996 (I think).

Does anyone know where the name “Signal Tatto” came from? Looking at the Japanese text on the PVB page, it looks like there was a typo of タ (ta), rather than ラ (ra) (which is clearly correct in this scan).

Maybe this info could be added… and more interestingly, maybe there are some other interesting games/details in the scan that we don’t know about.

DogP

Here’s a list of all the mentioned games, maybe someone can go from there and enricht the list with additional info.

Nico-Chan Battle (にこちゃんバトル)
Virtual Pro Baseball ’95
Virtual Jockey (バーチャルジョッキー)
Red Alarm
T&E Virtual Golf
Virtual Lab
Out of the Deathmount (tentative) (アウト・オブ・ザ・デスマウント)
Strange Animal School (tentative) (妖獣学園)
Signal Tatto (tentative) (シグナル・ラット)
Insmouse No Yakata (インスマウスの館)
Virtual Bowling (バーチャル・ボウリング)
Wangan Sensen Red City (tentative) (湾岸戦線 RED CITY)
Jack Bros. No Meirô De Hiihoo! (ジャック・ブラザースの迷路でヒーホー！)
Virtual Bomberman (バーチャルボンバーマン)

DogP wrote:

Looking at the Japanese text on the PVB page, it looks like there was a typo of タ (ta), rather than ラ (ra) (which is clearly correct in this scan).

I went through all of my Famitsu Magazines a short while ago and thoroughly checked all of the titles listed on the Release Schedule pages, and I remember seeing that all of the spellings listed on Planet Virtual Boy were correct and that there were no Virtual Boy games listed in the 1995 Famitsu Magazines that did not appear at all on Planet Virtual Boy. Thus, I am rather confident that “Signal Tatto” appeared on those Release Schedule pages as シグナル・タット, which means that シグナル・ラット must have been an earlier spelling that later got altered into シグナル・タット. I can check my magazines again to be sure if I remember to do so when I get home from work this evening.

Wangan Sensen Red City says it’s a shooting game in these scans, but on here it says it’s a war simulation. Judging from the other games this publisher was making probably an airplane dogfight game.

It definitely says Signal Rat in this scan.. Katakana is usually used when the words originated from another language, usually English. I’m not sure what Tatto (or Tat) would mean unless it’s a word they made up for the game. Otherwise, Signal Rat doesn’t exactly make a whole lot of sense either.

speedyink wrote:
It definitely says Signal Rat in this scan.. Katakana is usually used when the words originated from another language, usually English. I’m not sure what Tatto (or Tat) would mean unless it’s a word they made up for the game. Otherwise, Signal Rat doesn’t exactly make a whole lot of sense either.

Well, it said it was a race game, right? maybe it’s a joke on “rat race”.

As for “tat”, I know that’s British slang for “rubbish, junk” but I doubt that’s what they were referring to.

[speedyink]

gunpeiyokoifan wrote:Well, it said it was a race game, right? maybe it’s a joke on “rat race”.

As for “tat”, I know that’s British slang for “rubbish, junk” but I doubt that’s what they were referring to.

Yes, it does say it’s a race game. A play on ‘Rat Race’ would make sense..Perhaps you controlled rats that ran through mazes to see who could find the cheese fastest =P

Interesting…”Strange Animal School” is listed as a 3d Shooting game(??), Just like Out of the Deathmount above it

speedyink wrote:
Wangan Sensen Red City says it’s a shooting game in these scans, but on here it says it’s a war simulation. Judging from the other games this publisher was making probably an airplane dogfight game.

Actually looking closer it doesn’t list it as a dogfighting game like the other game on the list. It’s some type of shooting game anyway

• This reply was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by speedyink.
• This reply was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by speedyink.
• This reply was modified 11 years, 3 months ago by speedyink.

Benjamin Stevens wrote:

DogP wrote:

Looking at the Japanese text on the PVB page, it looks like there was a typo of タ (ta), rather than ラ (ra) (which is clearly correct in this scan).

I went through all of my Famitsu Magazines a short while ago and thoroughly checked all of the titles listed on the Release Schedule pages, and I remember seeing that all of the spellings listed on Planet Virtual Boy were correct and that there were no Virtual Boy games listed in the 1995 Famitsu Magazines that did not appear at all on Planet Virtual Boy. Thus, I am rather confident that “Signal Tatto” appeared on those Release Schedule pages as シグナル・タット, which means that シグナル・ラット must have been an earlier spelling that later got altered into シグナル・タット. I can check my magazines again to be sure if I remember to do so when I get home from work this evening.

Well, I went through and even scanned all of the Release Schedule pages of my 1995 Famitsu Magazines, and it does, indeed, appear that “Signal Tatto” is supposed to be “Signal Rat.”

“Signal Rat” first made its Famitsu Magazine appearance in Issue # 349 (August 18 & 25, 1995 Issue), where it appeared on the Release Schedule page as:

シグナル ラット

It also appeared this way in Issues 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, and 360/361. After Issue # 360/361 (November 10 & 17, 1995 Issue), it no longer appeared on the Release Schedule pages, so J-Wing must have notified Famitsu Magazine at that time that the game was definitively canceled. Thus, the game never appeared on any of the Release Schedule pages as シグナル・タット = Signal Tatto.

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Cool! I really need to learn Japanese.

Did you take a look at the rest of the CSG scans? I’m just curious whether there’s any other different info that’s not in the Famitsu magazine (or other articles).

DogP

DogP wrote:
Cool! I really need to learn Japanese.

Did you take a look at the rest of the CSG scans? I’m just curious whether there’s any other different info that’s not in the Famitsu magazine (or other articles).

DogP

Well, I went through all of the CSG scans and noted how each of the Virtual Boy titles appear in Japanese, and the results are as follows:

Page 3 Shows:
にこちゃんバトル – which translates to “NikoChan Battle”

The only thing to note about this is that the first two Japanese characters differ from the first two characters used in the final title “ニコちゃんバトル.” Nevertheless, they are pronounced the same.

Page 4 Shows:
バーチャルプロ野球’95 – which translates to “Virtual Pro Baseball ’95”
AND
バーチャルジョッキー – which translates to “Virtual Jockey”

Page 5 Shows:
レッドアラーム – which translates to “Red Alarm”
AND
T&E ヴァーチャルゴルフ – which translates to “T&E Virtual Golf”

Page 6 Shows:
バーチャルLAB – which translates to “Virtual Lab”
AND
アウト・オブ・ザ・デスマウント – which translates to “Out of the Deathmount”
AND
妖獣学園 – which translates to “Strange Animal School”
AND
シグナル・ラット – which translates to “Signal Rat”

Page 8 Shows:
インスマウスの館 – which translates to “Mansion of Insmouse”

Page 11 Shows:
バーチャル・ボウリング – which translates to “Virtual Bowling”

Page 12 Shows:
湾岸戦線 RED CITY – which translates to “Gulf Front Red City”

Page 13 Shows:
ジャックブラザースの迷路でヒーホー！ – which translates to “Hee-Haw in the Maze of Jack Bros.!”

Page 14 Shows:
バーチャルボンバーマン – which translates to “Virtual Bomberman”

Thus, other than the first two characters of “NikoChan Battle” and the spelling error already noted in “Signal Rat,” I believe all of the spellings of the Japanese titles on Planet Virtual Boy match to what appears in the Consumer Soft Group catalog. As for the titles appearing in the Famitsu Magazines, I’ve wanted to go through all of the Release Schedule pages and see if there were any differences in the titles of games during the period prior to commercial release and note all of them. I did notice some as I glanced through them, but I have not noted all of them or examined all of them extensively yet. I still hope to do so, but for now, I’ve posted all of the scans here:

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=25177#forumpost25177

so that others can begin to look through them all and see how some of the titles changed over time.