One of the rarest Dreamcast Games? Illbleed, Taiwan version

[fcgamer 4,050]

Last month I had poked me head into a local game shop after church one Sunday, as I didn't feel like heading directly back home. I've been in there hundreds of times over the years, and have been slowly trying to scrape any remaining scraps of meat off of the, by now, picked-clean bones.

On this particular day I decided to look at the Wonderswan games, eh, I have a small collection of those and if they are cheap, yeah, why not add a few more to the collection. It was then that an odd-looking Dreamcast game caught my eye, as it had Chinese text on the spine, mentioning a ghostly world.

So I turned it over, saw the other side of the spine read "Illbleed", then looked at the back, which looked incredibly low quality. There was a second case taped to the first, with the words Mr Game on it, as well as an address in Taipei. I thought this must be a bootleg, as it looked quite odd, but I knew I had to have it, so I asked my friend what he wanted and grabbed it for about $8.

When I get home I see that front artwork is essentially missing, and the disk itself is trashed. I felt a little sad, though after doing some research I felt much, much better about my purchase.

As the story appears to go, the game was original Japanese game was slated for translation into Chinese, though the release date kept getting pushed back, to the point that many people began to believe that the Chinese localisation had been cancelled.

Eventually though, the game was released, bundled with a 2002 calendar, all housed in a box that would be slightly larger than a pair of Sega Dreamcast cases stacked together.

Due to the very late release of the game, as well as the limited audience, I reckon that this is one of the rarest commercial Dreamcast games available. In fact, rumours / word on the street say that this version of the game only had 300 pieces made.

There are other rumours that suggest the game was also sold in Hong Kong; I personally don't believe that though, as all addresses on the box are situated in Taiwan, aside from the address of the original Japanese company. In my opinion, it's more likely that any copies that made their way to Hong Kong were unofficially imported, either by shop keepers or gamers, rather than an actual true intended distribution for that region.

I uploaded some pictures of my current copy of the game and the calendar. I have a sealed brand new copy of the game as well as an opened, but nice condition copy, coming in the mail soonish, thus being able to upgrade this poor condition copy I currently have.

 

[fcgamer 4,050]

On another note, this particular item has become a favourite of mine, in my collection. I find it really fascinating this sort of one-off localisation, even for such machines as Dreamcast. It paints a very interesting view of the gaming landscape back then.

By now, basically every Switch game gets a proper localisation, same with the modern PS4 games, Xbox, etc. But back then , just a few years earlier, such a localisation was an anomaly, and oddity floating amongst common Japanese versions.

[RH 4,221]

I don't collect DC games and I never know if I will.  Regardless, it's stuff like this that keeps me coming here.  I mean, this is a great community, but so many of you guys are deeply hunting down the obscure stuff within the gaming world.

So, thanks for sharing.  That's pretty cool!

[DarkTone 862]

Thanks for sharing. 

[phart010 1,631]

Hold onto it. Maybe if Asia becomes the new center of world dominance it will someday be revered by a new collector class of Asians as highly as stadium events.

[fcgamer 4,050]

My opened (upgrade) copy just arrived today, here's a few more pics.

Someday this will get scanned and archived, I think.

[OptOut 8,004]

BUMP!!!

I got one too!

And I didn't pay THIS MUCH for it, let me tell you, this guy is a nob:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/174777437989?hash=item28b18c0f25:g:bHoAAOSwDqlgqOCe

Anyway, more importantly, I bought it in a bundle and it came with a cool book, lol!

If you want to buy some other Dreamcast stuff I got in the bundle, check out my selling thread in my signature, I'll cut you a deal!