Telefang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Keitai Denjuu Telefang | |
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| Developer(s) | Smilesoft |
| Publisher(s) | Natsume |
| Designer(s) | Takagi Toushi |
| Release date(s) |  November 3, 2000 |
| Genre(s) | Console role-playing game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
| Platform(s) | Game Boy Color |
| Media | 16 megabit cartridge |
Telefang (also known as Mobile Electric Monster Telefang or Keitai Denjuu Telefang in Japan) is a series of video games for the Game Boy Color, produced by Smilesoft and Natsume. The games are monster-battling games, where you contact various creatures using a cell phone-like device called a D-Shot in order to get them to battle the foes you will encounter. The name of the series is presumably a portmanteau of Telephone, since phoning creatures is an integral part of the game, and fang, to symbolise the various beasts involved.
There are two games in the series as of 2002, the first for Game Boy Color and then later for Game Boy Advance. However, Smilesoft has not released any new games in recent years, so the prospects of another Telefang game are slim at best. Both games were divided into two versions; Power and Speed. Each version featured creatures who were either stronger or quicker, respectively.
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[edit] Gameplay
Telefang revolves around collecting the phone numbers of various creatures you encounter, in order to be able to request aid from them at a later time, should you require it. The game is played from a third person perspective, you taking the role of the young protagonist, Shigeki.
One creature stays by your side at a time and follows you around, but in battle you can call two other creatures to help you. Creatures will sometimes give you their phone numbers after you beat them in a random battle, but take longer to arrive in battle if they're originally from a distant area, due to getting lost. Sometimes, they may not even show up at all if called, so care must be taken to make sure that you are not calling a creature who is too far away.
All creatures have a range of statistics - HP, Speed, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense. These determine how powerful, fast, or robust any given creature is. The type of habitat a creature lives in determines how weak it is to creatures from other habitats; there is a vulnerability chain that goes Hill beats Sky, Sky beats Wood, Wood > Lake > Sand > Land > Hill. This also applies in reverse, a creature of certain types inflicting less damage upon one it is weak to.
![A battle between Kuribu[te] and Kokia.](../../../upload/c/c6/Telefang_battle.png)
In battle, the creatures have an array of various attacks specific to the creature. These cannot be altered, unless a creature evolves; this is achieved by training them, feeding them certain items, or using the DNA of one monster to alter another. Some monsters do not evolve. Battles are done in either one on one, two on two or three on three matches. The battles are not strictly turn-based; the speed stat of a creature determines how many turns it can take, and when. Thus, a monster with a high Speed stat could attack twice for every time a monster with a low Speed goes once, also attacking before the low speed monster can get a hit in.
Most creatures have a special attack that needs to be charged up, and takes multiple turns to execute. This special attack does damage based on the creature's Special Attack stat and is considered not to be worth the wait. Other abilities—like skills that raise attack or defense, or heal the user or its allies—vary from E-Monster to E-Monster.
[edit] Storyline
It's the year 2020 and there are certain mobile phones equipped with a special antenna called "D-shot" which allows teleportation through "antenna trees." A boy named Shigeki owns one of these phones, and is accidentally transported to another world when he loses a baseball near an antenna tree.
This world is full of strange animals called electric monsters, who all own D-shot phones and use them to call their friends to help them compete in battles. These phone battles are also known as Telefang. Shigeki basically travels the electric monsters' world trying to learn more about it but also gets wrapped up in several plots to overtake it, both by other humans and evil electric monsters.
[edit] Bootlegged Versions
The Telefang games were bootlegged into English under the names of Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Jade and likely distributed by low-profile retailers. (Curiously, only the box and in-game title screen make any reference to Pokémon at all—the games themselves are devoid of any mention of or reference to Pokémon.) The Power version became known as Pokémon Diamond, while Speed version was known as Pokémon Jade. The bootleg names were likely made to convince people that these were two rare versions of the popular Pokémon video game series. The creatures on the box art for both games are neither Pokémon nor Telefang creatures; the deer-like creature on the Jade box art is actually the forest spirit Shishigami from Hayao Miyazaki's anime, Princess Mononoke. The snake creature on the Diamond box art is obscure—it may be entirely made up by the pirates. The Diamond box art also features several of what appear to be Chaos Emeralds from the Sonic the Hedgehog games.
Since this bootleg is obviously not a genuine Pokémon game, it has been banned by some online auction sites such as eBay. Interestingly enough, for the next Pokémon generation, Nintendo is calling one of the two versions Pokémon Diamond—the other being Pokémon Pearl. Since these games had obviously not yet been announced at the time the bootlegs surfaced in 2001 (during the Gold and Silver generation of Pokémon), this is deemed an odd move by Nintendo as the bootlegged game is considered to be quite well known.
The translation quality of the bootleg is very poor, often containing profanity, the best example of which being the majority of enemies exclaiming "Shit! Remember it!" after being defeated. The bootlegs also contain many examples of Engrish such as "Some points of 20 lost!" and "For the clever opponent, injure increase!". Some features were also lost, such as the ability to name the protagonist and any monsters he befriends, as well as certain versions of the bootleg apparently being unable to load a saved game. They were also plagued by a number of other bugs and glitches, likely due to the sloppy editing of the cart's data.
