Xin Qi Gai Wang Zi

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Xin Qi Gai Wang Zi (CH: 新乞丐王子, lit. "New Beggar Prince") is an unlicensed role-playing adventure game by C&E Inc.. It was initially released in 1996 for the Mega Drive, and later in 1998 on Windows PCs. Both were exclusive to Chinese territories. The title and story are based on The Prince and the Pauper, which itself is known as 乞丐王子 (CH: Qi Gai Wang Zi, lit. "Beggar Prince") in China. Super Fighter Team acquired the translation rights to the Mega Drive version in the early-mid 2000's and released the final product in 2006. It was now known in english under the title Beggar Prince. The game has seen three print runs so far totaling 2,400 copies. It is now undergoing another print in 2016 for the twentieth anniversary of its initial release.

The first two prints of the game have SRAM mapped to the $40xxxx memory area, which prevents it from working on systems with a Sega Mega-CD attached. (The Mega CD maps its own boot ROM to M68K $400000 when a ROM cartridge is present.) The third print with the revised artwork fixed this issue.

The Windows PC version is a direct port of the Mega Drive version with the music redone through a general MIDI module, but playable through the disc as CD Audio. It contains all of the same glitches that plagued the original Mega Drive release. Because of technical issues and limitations in being able to reverse engineer this version, localization for it was scrapped in favor of the Mega Drive original. Super Fighter Team wanted to reinvent the physical cartridge market with a respectable product. The convenient possibility of being able to quicky adapt the game to other systems using an emulator (as is the case with its digital counterpart, the RPG Trifecta Pack) made the localization of the Mega Drive version more ideal. There was also the help of several others in debugging the game to be playable for the average consumer. Therefore, the english version contains numerous bug fixes. Lastly, it was said in interviews by Brandon Cobb (the head of Super Fighter Team) that some liberties were taken to bring out the personality and humor of the original dialogue, making it superior to the Chinese in many ways.

An unauthorized port to the Game Boy Color exists, done by the bootleg company Sintax. It uses some assets from the Zelda Oracle games.

Story

Steven, prince of Shatt Kingdom, is undergoing his diligent studies in the royal castle. After complaining to the Cat Minister of his boredom with these affairs, Steven plots to escape out of the village and succeeds by tricking the guards. In the fashion of Mark Twain's novel The Prince and the Pauper, Steven finds a pauper (named Tom) who looks exactly like him and trades places. However, watching from a balcony on the castle, the Cat Minister sees this and uses the opportunity to seize the kingdom for himself with the prince now gone. In the course of time, the Prince discovers that not only is life as a beggar difficult and gritty, but also learns of the Cat Minister's campaign to conquer Shatt. He attempts to re-enter the castle, only to find himself falling through a trap door in the way there, set by the guards. After escaping a second time, he leaves town and goes on a journey to find a way to overthrow the Cat Minister, meeting various friends and trials along the way.

Gameplay

Although a JRPG, the game differs from the standard formula in several ways:

1. The player does not obtain money. Disposable items for HP/MP recovery, as well as weapons and armor are found in chests while exploring.

2. The battle system is driven by spending SP points as well as MP. This are indicated by a red gauge which shows how much energy is available to execute a command. Stronger spells require more SP to be spent, but normal attacks can be delivered in several small increments. The enemies also function in a similar way, shown as a green gauge. Turns are taken between players and enemy characters after their gauge is depleted.

3. There are no allies to accompany the Prince in battle, but he will occasionally gain creatures to allow him to use Summon magic.