Difference between revisions of "Beggar Prince"

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Beggar Prince
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Developer:
Genre: RPG

















Beggar Prince, originally known as Xin Qigai Wangzi (Chinese: 新乞丐王子, Hanyu Pinyin: Xīn Qǐgài Wángzǐ, Wade-Giles: Hsin Ch'i-kai Wang-tzu, literally The New The Prince and the Pauper) is a Chinese role-playing adventure game for the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis and PC. It was originally released in 1996 for the Mega Drive by C&E Inc. and later ported and released in 1998 for PCs.

An English translation of the Mega Drive version was created by the North American company Super Fighter Team. A prototype version was first shown to the public on August 20, 2005 at the Classic Gaming Expo in Burlingame, California. The completed game began shipping to pre-order customers on May 22, 2006, at the price of $40 USD per copy. This edition of Beggar Prince was the first Mega Drive game to be commercially released in North America since 1998.

Technical information

For a Mega Drive / Genesis game, Beggar Prince is rather large, being 32 megabits (4 megabytes) in ROM size. Players could record their progress to any of the four available save slots. The game shipped within a plastic clamshell case along with a glossy, full-color 27-page instruction manual. The game's unique cartridge hardware was designed by Kim Biu Wong, head of Tototek, and Super Fighter Team president Brandon Cobb. All pieces were manufactured in China.

Beggar Prince works with any Sega Mega Drive / Genesis (with the exception of Sega Genesis Firecore) or Nomad system, regardless of its region (the ROM is not region-locked, thus NTSC and PAL regions are both supported). But for the first two revisions of the ROM, due to the manner in which the game's save function is programmed, it is impossible to save on systems connected to the Sega 32X or hybrid CD systems such as the CDX/Multi-Mega and X'eye/Wondermega. The game works on Model 2 Sega Mega CD/Sega CD systems. On a European Multi-Mega, the game resets itself after the introduction scenes, making it unplayable.

The third production run is notable, as the box and manual art were changed and, more importantly, the game's save feature had been re-programmed to allow full functionality with all Genesis, Mega Drive and compatible systems (such as the Nomad, 32X, CDX, X'eye, LaserActive and so on).

Availability

Beggar Prince began shipping to pre-order customers on May 22, 2006. By September 8, 2006, all 600 copies had been sold. However on October 18, 2006, Super Fighter Team announced that they had begun taking pre-orders for a second production run of 300 copies. On June 19, 2007, this production run had also sold through.

The third production run, introducing several changes, became available for pre-ordering on October 9, 2007 and started shipping on November 27, 2007. In total, the game sold 1,500 copies.

Critical reception

Beggar Prince was perhaps the most widely publicized new game for a retrogame system, being featured and reviewed in gaming magazines across the world such as Tips & Tricks, Hardcore Gamer, Play, Retro Gamer, Edge, GamesTM, Super Play and Master Player, among others, and having been sold to people in over 25 countries. This success proved that a worldwide market for retro games still exists.

Although it received critical acclaim upon its release, gamers soon discovered a few glitches in the game. While Super Fighter Team had spent over a year working out the bugs left behind by C&E, it was simply not cost efficient to fix them all. While most of these errors were trivial, one or two could result in the game's main character getting stuck in a certain place where he was not supposed to be, meaning the player would have to backtrack by loading a previously saved game. Fortunately, the majority of the glitches present in the original Chinese release have been fixed.

The third run has also received some critics for fixing those issues of the first two runs; some customers were upset to have received an "inferior" version although they, as early buyers, helped making further production runs possible to begin with. Also some say that the third production run, being as big as the first and second runs combined, was made to get collectors to buy Beggar Prince again even though they already own one of the earlier versions. This rumor is based on both the number of copies produced for the third production run and by the fact that customers of the old version have no other way of getting at least the new cover than to order a second copy of Beggar Prince.

Physical Scans

  • Cart (1st/2nd print)

  • Cart (3rd print)

External links

Retrieved from "https://segaretro.org/index.php?title=Beggar_Prince&oldid=40414"