The Chinese Mega Man | Zook: Hero Z | St1ka

A Mega Man series developed in China that you never knew existed! This is Zook: Hero Z, a series of Mega Man games created for the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance.
Support me on Patreon: / st1ka
Donate to the channel: bit.ly/retrocorner
Follow me on twitter: / st1ka
Follow me on Facebook: / st1kasretrocorner
Join my Discord: / discord
Intro created by: / wanyodos
Theme song created by: / @michirin9801
00:00 - Quote Reading
00:28 - Opening Statements
01:29 - Zook: Hero Z
06:18 - ZOOK IS INCREDIBLE!
07:48 - Problems with Zook: Hero Z
09:56 - The Sequel - Zook: Hero 2
12:16 - A Bootleg of a Bootleg?!
12:50 - A Castlevania Spin-off
18:29 - Zook in 32-bits!
21:09 - THIS GAME IS TERRIBLE!
25:28 - The Silver Lining
26:45 - Plz Subscribe! :D
#MegaMan #Capcom #Gameboy

[@SNESdrunk]

I'm stunned at how... not terrible?? these games look. Great job covering these

[@st1ka]

They are surprisingly good, especially the first Zook game. I really recommend you give them a try if you can ^^

[@fayezfawzi3255]

Nice to see you here man! Great work too St1ka!

[@st1ka]

@@fayezfawzi3255 Thank you! And yeah, not gonna lie, knowing that SNES Drunk watched my video made my day! :D

[@hyakugame]

omg it's the Verified Man :o

[@codydfwn]

You are awesome my dude! :) Cool to see fellow retro enthusiasts end up in the same place

[@SPac316]

The Bootleg scene is fascinating on it's own with all the ambitious games out there.

[@st1ka]

agreed, and it's even more fascinating when the games actually pull it off! :D

[@Retro_Royal]

This is a LEGITIMATE great channel!

[@st1ka]

Aww thank you! I try! ^^

[@SOBBLESALLOVERTHEPLACE]

@@st1ka agrred

[@t0xcn253]

So... not just by bootleg standards?

[@Geno746]

Could you possibly yell "WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOR!"?

[@st1ka]

Yes I can! Adding it to the list! :D

[@Geno746]

@@st1ka Awesome, thank you very much.

[@st1ka]

@@Geno746 it will take a while though. Usually it takes about 3 months to get to a quote D:

[@Geno746]

@@st1ka Perfectly fine, keep up the good work though.

[@st1ka]

@@Geno746 thank you! ^^

[@DiRekt.EXE_Music]

I actually enjoyed the zook hero series aside from the few bugs. The music was pretty good. I played it in high school back in 2018 during a band concert. Its actually supposed to be called Luke hero

[@st1ka]

Yep! It seems like Zook is a mistrannslation

[@Dragon-Slay3r]

Too many heroes in the world

[@ShadowArtist]

I'm surprised the game wasn't titled "Mecha Man Z"

[@st1ka]

Haha that's not a bad idea

[@hungrygoriya]

Well there are several things you talked about here that I'd like to try out, especially that metroidvania! Thanks so much for pointing these games out. I, like probably many others, had no idea these even existed. You're doing some good work to give Zook games the attention they deserve!

[@st1ka]

Aww thank you! And you keep up the great work too, I love your channel :D

[@strain42]

When I lived in Beijing one of my coworkers and I actually talked about this game. He basically told me the same thing you did "Like yeah, it's a bootleg. But it's REALLY good." I tried finding a copy while I was over there, but never could.

[@st1ka]

Yeah tracking down specific bootleg games is super difficult

[@st1ka]

PEOPLE WHO HELPED ME RESEARCH THIS VIDEO: A big thank you to Taizou from Handheld Underground for all the research support in making this video! Be sure to check out their website, Handheld Underground here: hhug.me/ Also, a huge thank you to @PC98_Audi for finding me an English rom AND English manual of the first game. Follow him on Twitter here: twitter.com/PC98_Audi And yet ANOTHER big thank you to Faustie for translating the Chinese intro and menu text from Rock Hero Legend 3. twitter.com/DengistFemboy Did you know I have a Discord channel? Come say hi! discord.gg/J6XG6kw :D

[@WrestlingWithGaming]

Ha that was your best intro yet. Most of these actually look really decent. The first game in particular looks really, really, good. Great job covering these games and the history behind them. Your channel is criminally undersubbed, my friend.

[@st1ka]

Aww thanks man. maybe one day I'll have a video get promoted by the algorithm xD

[@poptheweasel100]

As someone who plays Zook Hero Z anually pretty much, this was the review I was waiting for. Someone who did their research, enjoyed the game (and amazing music) despite its flaws, and actually acknowledged the other games in the series. I never knew the original Castlevania one was dumped, I'll have to put that on my flashcart! The GBC is my favorite handheld because of games like this. The Japanese, unreleased and bootleg libraries elevate the GBC super high.

[@st1ka]

Yeah I noticed most videos on Zook and other bootlegs tend to play up the humor and ignore the legitimately good things about the games. :\

[@Dragon-Slay3r]

Nice

[@jackhaberdasher6396]

Does st1ka have a Chinese bootleg we've never heard about?

[@st1ka]

Sadly I don't own bootleg games, but I do like to think most people weren't aware of the bootleg games I've looked at xD

[@jengelenm]

You’re content’s so good! Great video!

[@st1ka]

aww thank you! :D

[@Meximagician]

Can't be worse than the *OFFICIALLY LICENSED* Mega Man games for DOS by Hi-Tech Expressions, _Mega Man_ and _Mega Man 3: the Robots are Revolting._ And no, I don't know why Hi-Tech Expressions skipped 2.

[@st1ka]

Oh worry not, these games are FAR better than that :D

[@hyakugame]

Nobody knows, so you aren't really unique

[@unlicensedarchive-bootlega2766]

They skipped 2 because they wanted to cash in on the latest game

[@Dragon-Slay3r]

@@hyakugame Dajjaal and sphinx goes hand in hand. It's like ying and yang

[@suntaxis]

I told you it zooked good! Ok, my idiocy apart, this was immensely informative: I've never played any of these games but now I really, really want to! The Castlevania one took me incredibly off guard too. Thanks for your great work!

[@st1ka]

Yeah, we usually think the worst of bootlegs, but the Zook series is a surprisingly provides a surprisingly solid Mega Man / Castlevania experience.

[@suntaxis]

@@st1ka it really is. Bootlegs are strange, sometimes they fail miserably and sometimes they don't, and when they don't and you see that someone tried they can be magical.

[@Dragon-Slay3r]

Sorry don't know any taxi drivers. 🤣 actually now you mention it someone did tell me of a taxi driver but I can't mention it as unfortunately his hands are tied

[@RetroRecollections]

Love it, great video meticulously researched as usual! 👍🏻

[@st1ka]

aww thank you! Glad you liked it! :D

[@SnappleRyRy89]

Alongside jimmy hapa, I found your channel from your old mega man legends videos and am glad that you made more mega man related videos. I know you're mostly doing sega related videos but heres to hoping you do more mega man related content!

[@st1ka]

aww thank you! If it helps, I actually DO have another megaman video planned next. I haven't started working on it fully, but if it pans out, this will be one a Mega Man themed video based around a suuuper obscure content for the blue bomber! :D

[@adventuretaco7140]

New St1ka! HELL YEAH!

[@st1ka]

Hope you'll enjoy it! :D

[@DanielsArtStudioGamesAnimation]

Amazing, I am loving this already.

[@st1ka]

Thank you!! :D

[@baddestmofoalive]

Wrestling with Gaming sent me. Glad he did! Your accent is dope af. You got a new sub :)

[@st1ka]

Thank you so much! I hope you'll enjoy my content! :D

[@JeremyPeeples]

This looks shockingly great - good stuff!

[@st1ka]

I was just as shocked lol

[@shadowhunter9976]

Loving all your bootleg videos dude! You've got an amazing voice for these kind of videos

[@st1ka]

haha thank you!

[@datassetteuser356]

Wow, very nice! Learned something again, had no idea these games existed. Cheers man!

[@st1ka]

Glad you enjoyed it! When I discovered the Zook series I just HAD to talk about it :P

[@ecmyersvids]

Thanks for bringing these bizarre hidden gems to our attention! I am looking forward to checking out at least the first three games and that Castlevania bootleg. I really love your production quality, humor, and enthusiasm.

[@st1ka]

Anytime! Glad you enjoyed the video and hope you enjoy the games! :D

[@MegaMacTV]

I own a copy of Rockman & Crystal. It's around here...somewhere. It's not the greatest programmed thing, but you can tell the creators definitely had a vision!

[@st1ka]

Oh agreed completely. They were definitely aiming for a quality MegaMan experience, but sadly, didn't quite reach it

[@user-ik8vy1rg8f]

You are very well spoken. Nice script and pronunciations.

[@st1ka]

Thank you so much! I try ^^

[@djcactus]

Awesome can't wait for this

[@st1ka]

Hope you'll enjoy it! :D

[@Katosepe]

That was really cool😁

[@st1ka]

Right? I think games are so cool! And they make for some really solid mega man-like titles.

[@robertocarlosgonzalesatora6898]

Your content is amazing dude, btw are you going to make more Mega Man videos, if so I could suggest talking about the less popular fan games and rom hacks like Rock n Roll or Rockman 7 EP

[@st1ka]

I'll admit I don't have any more Mega Man videos planned for the near future. But if someting surfaces I might do a video on it again ^^

[@ShyShades]

My god you are one of those gem of the channels.

[@st1ka]

Aww thank you!

[@user-ik8vy1rg8f]

Nice animation in your intro.

[@st1ka]

Thank you! Glad you liked it! :D

[@puresugah]

Here is my official "you're awesome" post! Keep up the good work, buddy. I'm off to play some Mega Man 2.

[@st1ka]

Aww thanks man. I hope you have fun

[@ankosgbx]

Fun fact: the first Zook Game was not released in Chinese. It was exclusively released in English (based on where I've seen copies, this release was for the South East Asian Market), and Japanese (which is a surprisingly common language in where this game was made, Taiwan). I posted a dump of an English rerelease of this game on the bootleg games central forums, but I've heard that in one level it crashes. Luckily this game uses passwords, which do not change between languages, so the crash can be bypassed by beating that level in the Japanese version, and then switching over to English once you get the password.

[@st1ka]

oh interesting, I did not know that.

[@ankosgbx]

@@st1ka I think that Vast Fame originally wanted to disguise themselves as a Japanese company. Their first two games, Zook and Super Fighters S, were the only ones they officially released in English and Japanese. All their future games were officially only released in Chinese, however some of their future games were re-released by an unnamed company that would have the text "New Game Color Advance" on the side of the boxes their games came in. That company re-released Zook 2, and Zook Man ZX4 in English, however only Zook Man ZX4 has a working dump. Based on how Vast Fame numbered the Zook games, I am under the impression that Sintax's Zook 3 was official.

[@st1ka]

@@ankosgbx yeah a shame about their broken japanese xD

[@RetroBreak]

Thanks for this video! I had no idea these even existed! Pretty impressive for random bootleg games!

[@st1ka]

Right? They're so cool! :D

[@danielboanerge5228]

Great Games, Great Video!

[@316whatupz]

If I had a dollar for everytime that I have heard about the bootleg game Zook, I would have $1. 😂 Great review👍

[@st1ka]

Hahah

[@DanielMonteiroNit]

That was amazing! I can't help but laugh every damn time I hear that phrase

[@st1ka]

Glad you liked it :D

[@Bofner]

That's a damn fine thumbnail.

[@st1ka]

Yeah I think so too ^^

[@ryukusu_luminarius]

Thank you! It was nice to know there are Chinese copies of Megaman!

[@st1ka]

Hope you enjoyed it! :D

[@BowsettesFury]

That’s impressive they put so much work into it.

[@st1ka]

Indeed they did an amazing job

[@chancehelton942]

I really dig how Dr. Light was turned into Col. Sanders.

[@st1ka]

Haha I hadn't thought of that

[@dexocube]

i love these cazy bootleg videos St1ka

[@st1ka]

They're super fun to do :D

[@bluphantomexe8279]

I heard bootleg but now I'm more convinced it's a fan project. Edit: Terminal Montage reference automatically subscribe

[@st1ka]

haha glad you liked the video. And I mean, the devs were clearly fans, but it also launched physically when the gameboy color / GBA was still in production.

[@radiokunio3738]

Honestly i wonder why they didn't take freedom planet approach, and just make original characters and sell it under their own franchise.

[@noaht2005]

@@radiokunio3738 they kinda did for the second game and arguably the GBA game (although many assets are stolen), which had original original art and character design. They’re more ripoffs than full on bootlegs

[@DanielMonteiroNit]

Now I want to play this!

[@st1ka]

I recommend it :D

[@ChaossX77]

8:54 Love how Dr. Light looks like the Colonel Sanders. Lol

[@st1ka]

haha

[@megadizzy9320]

have you seen pirategamething's channel? he reviewed zook before, and I do reccomend you take a lot at his stuff, since a lot of the bootlegs he covers are quite interesting (also a funny thing about his zook hero z review is that he incidentally uploaded the video on mega man x's birthday)

[@st1ka]

Oh I'll have to check the channel out. Thank you for the tip! ^^

[@jengelenm]

That pixle grid looks so great! Is it some scanline option in some emulator?

[@st1ka]

Oh it's a shader that you install onto retroarch. This is where I got it forums.libretro.com/t/handheld-border-shaders/2551

[@Myako]

Another good option is Sameboy with Integer Scaling and the "LCD Display" shader.

[@st1ka]

@@Myako Oh, thanks for the tip! I didn't know about that one.

[@alexander_mejia]

👍

[@st1ka]

@@alexander_mejia hehe thank you for all your help with the shader, Alex :D

[@Dragon-Slay3r]

Cranes a nice cover story. Thanks guys

[@Kenny0136]

Why is the music for this game actually so good lol

[@st1ka]

right?! The first Zook game is full of surprises.

[@xtremekirby07]

I played through all the three main Zook games and totally coincide with you in opinion, It's like Vast Fame got too confident of their franchise's popularity in their home countries they just started to make the games bad. Something curious is that the first Zook game was probably released around 1998-1999 making It predate the Mega Man Xtreme games by a bit, and the Zook Hero Legend game, albeit being a heavy edit of an existing (also bootleg) Castlevania game, would be the first ever metroidvania Mega Man clone predating the Mega Man ZX series by far (or maybe Capcom took and polished the concept inspired by Zook Legend for ZX?), I think the undumped game you're talking about is the Zook game that is sort of a Metal Slug-like game, isn't It? as far as the screenshots I've seen could tell, they recicle some sprites from Mega Man Xtreme 2 and Mega Man Zero too, the game was also reedited afterwards to include, this time, actual Metal Slug characters.

[@st1ka]

Ah sadly, I couldn't find any info on when the games came out, so I had no idea that Zook 1 predates Megaman Xtreme. Also, as for the other Zook game, I sadly have no idea what it looks like. All I know is that it exists :\

[@xtremekirby07]

​@@st1ka the information is in the Bootleg Games Wiki, you can find more details there bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Zook_Hero_Z

[@st1ka]

@@xtremekirby07 Oh I use the Bootleg wiki as my source too, but sadly it only has the dates for the first game. The second one doesn't have dates and it has a question mark on the date of the GBA one, so I wasn't sure if I should include that info on my video :P

[@keyronlinarez9043]

I'll always be impressed by how solid Zook Hero's OST is.

[@st1ka]

So true. Usually bootleg games have a less than stellar sountrack, but Zook is a clear exception. It's even more impressive when you consider that this is an original soundtrack.

[@forple8930]

@@st1ka These two games definitely have a solid soundtrack, but they're not Vast Fame's only good soundtracks, either. Zook Hero 2 credits a composer named "Jason". This composer is likely Yisheng Liao (hence the term "Jason") who did all kinds of tracks for Vast Fame's other GB/GBC soundtracks. Additionally, Kouji Murata, the composer behind the original GB Mega Man 3/4/5, and the guy who made the sound driver Vast Fame used, found out about this soundtrack via a nicovideo upload of the game. He's also genuinely impressed with what the composer did, claiming he would have sold them the driver if he knew about VF back then.

[@st1ka]

@@forple8930 funny you should mention vast Fame. I'm doing another video on them as we speak:D

[@forple8930]

@@st1ka I'm definitely interested, I'll definitely check it when it comes out!

[@st1ka]

@@forple8930 thank you! I hope to have it out next week

[@sarysa]

2:14 - Colonel Sanders

[@st1ka]

Haha I never thought of that

[@unlicensedarchive-bootlega2766]

I really like the first game, despite the awkward moments and tedious minibosses. It’s a shame they didn’t improve on it and half-assed the sequels, although I think ZH2’s music sounds just as good as the original, if not better. I have a headcannon that these games took place in the Mega Man world, in another part. Meet was a relative of Wily, which is why they look similar, and the Artificial Man was based on the blue bomber’s design with some tweaks, which then went on to inspire X, and the final boss of ZH2 inspire Sigma. Vast Fame’s games are legitimately great (my pfp is from one of their games,Soul Falchion), and I’m in a discord server that’s attempting to translate and improve Space Time Star Beast (Shi Kong Xing Shou), a Pokémon-inspired game by Vast Fame, into English, and they’ve done a damn great job so far. It’s not quite as balanced as it’s inspiration (although it will be tweaked once the translation is done) but the story is actually really good. I can link you to the server so you can try yourself

[@st1ka]

Oh the first game is genuinely good. It's just a shame that they kept getting worse as they made new sequels

[@unlicensedarchive-bootlega2766]

@@st1ka would you check out the fan translation? It would be so nice if you cover it. We’re currently fixing a bug with the menus, so once that’s done, I can tell you. You don’t have to, though, it would just be cool

[@st1ka]

@@unlicensedarchive-bootlega2766 I can't make any promises but I can check it out. What's the link?

[@Goldfire345]

Any idea where to get the English rom of the first game as I can't find it on handheld underground?

[@st1ka]

Sadly, the English rom isn't publically available, it was sent to me personally. This was done because the dump wasn't properly done and so the game will crash when you reach a certain level :\

[@Goldfire345]

@@st1ka darn well i guess i have no way of getting it then

[@st1ka]

Sorry. Wish I had better news D:

[@ankosgbx]

A company in mainland China called Li Cheng rereleased the English version. I posted a ROM of their rerelease on the bootleg games central forums. To my knowledge, some parts of some levels can cause crashes, but you can just use the passwords from the Japanese version to bypass those levels.

[@oldfan4049]

*Excitement Multiplier Intensifies!* 🤣🤣🤣

[@codydfwn]

Nice thumbnail game, bro. It's nice to see someone actually take pride in their work instead of trying to shit out something quick. Lol

[@st1ka]

haha thank you!

[@codydfwn]

@@st1ka no problem! Lol

[@Jenovi]

Zook battle network GBA makes me want to play Battle Network on he Gamecube. I won’t, but I want to.

[@st1ka]

At least there's Battle Network GBA games, those are actually good :P

[@wesleyhudson9560]

We need to get these to Dan and Arin.

[@st1ka]

Haha be my guest ^^

[@TheNei]

Cool Megaman Game!

[@AzafuseKingTora]

i tought you were going to talk about Rockman Strategy and those other chinese mobile games.

[@st1ka]

Oh, I thought this would be more interesting. ^^

[@SgtSega]

Being a Mac player as a kid, I know about a TON of bootlegs of classic games. :) Pac The Man (Pac Man) Bub & Bob (Bubble Bobble) BOOM (Bomberman meets DOOM) Monkey Shines (Donkey Kong Country... Kind of.)

[@st1ka]

I MUST know more about Boom! Do I just type Boom Mac?

[@peachflavored]

Zook The Legacy Collection needs to happen, on the Switch!🤣

[@st1ka]

Heck yeah!

[@t0xcn253]

The Hero Z's Journey: 1. You're Zook 2. There are some robots 3. Have to fight them Timeless.

[@st1ka]

A tale as old as time

[@mrmadmight266]

The GBA game seems like a game i would want to like, but just could not like at all. I noticed they also ripped a background from In The Hunt for the underwater sections. What's that drink you're drinking by the way? seems good.

[@st1ka]

Yeah It rips graphics from a lot of games. And its Sumol a portuguese soft drink xD

[@mrmadmight266]

@@st1ka What flavour is it? lemon? or orange?

[@st1ka]

There's three flavours, orange (my favorite), pineapple and passion fruit. They occasionally launch some temporary flavours too

[@mrmadmight266]

@@st1ka sounds delicious and like a relief of stress.

[@st1ka]

@@mrmadmight266 yeah it's a Comfort soda for me

[@Dead-Pool3_II_Sij6]

"he gets an original look that's not based on the hero" yeah, now he looks like Terra(Mega Man V) with a hair cut XD but overall the three you recommended as good are cool bootleg games to play. great retrospective review *hug*

[@st1ka]

Haha I didn't even think of that

[@PowerPandaMods]

Zook Hero 3 was found and preserved! The news broke yesterday.

[@st1ka]

Yep I saw :D

[@Acriz.]

Sooooo, why do you play your GB/GBC games with those pixel separations? It looks really odd to me.

[@st1ka]

Oh, mostly because I feel Gameboy games look a bit odd when stretched so it was a way of making more tolerable I guess ^^

[@Acriz.]

Ah yes, I know what you mean. Yesterday I started SML3 again and I put the emulator window on only 2x size, cause that's how GB/GBA sprites look the best: small and compact :D

[@st1ka]

@@Acriz. Yep exactly! Unfortunately, for the video, I couldn't use a window that small, so I use a shader that allows me to stretch the image while making it a bit more tolerable. The shader is made to mimick the Dot matrix screen of the gameboys :D

[@jayt2917]

Where can i acquire this game

[@st1ka]

You can download the Rom from handheld underground. As for buying the game... Good question. Bootlegs don't appear on eBay very often

[@CRTWorlds]

Evil Dr. Stevens... Other than that less-than-evil sounding name, the game seems worth a play. Impressed they put in so much effort...unlike the official, yet horrible horrible PC DOS MegaMan. Thanks for sharing, glad I watched!

[@st1ka]

I've actually played the PC Dos version of Megaman and oof... it's really bad. Though it is one of those "so bad it's good" kind of games :P

[@CRTWorlds]

@@st1ka As a kid, I used my own money to buy it. The disappointment was high, but have to say that I DID beat it. Just couldn't understand why my 486 computer game was so much worse than my old NES.

[@st1ka]

@@CRTWorlds Oh man, I am so sorry. I used to pirate all my PC games as a kid lol

[@Keinish79]

Zook's head in that gba game looks like seiya from saint seiya.

[@st1ka]

Hah, I noticed that too! :P

[@rift3487]

This is like the 1st megaman fangame

[@st1ka]

The whatnow?

[@dayveeman]

Future St1ka sent me here!

[@st1ka]

Haha

[@alexander_mejia]

Gb shader looks good in this video.

[@st1ka]

Couldn't have done it without you! :D I also used this shader for my Gameboy metal gear solid video too ^^

[@ryuumajin]

The name is um... "Rock", the Great Police vs. Dr, "Mitt" and then he's turned by Dr. shiKI (shi hiragana, Ki katakana) into... "Hero Rotsuwa"? Dude, I think even the Japanese of this game is REALLY full of typo tho'. I tried to look for some phrases in the jisho but... no translation for the work. Also "CONGRADULADIONS" ( "AmeDeDou") instead of "Congratulations" (Omedetou) at 8:52 is hilarious.

[@st1ka]

Oh the Japanese here is full of mistakes. We actually showed the text to a native Japanese speaker who told us that these are common spelling mistakes when people from China try to speak Japanese.

[@rimmynerd5746]

I had seen it at my friend's birthday party at 2000...Its good quaility make me so confuse that is it official์?...5555

[@st1ka]

Ah it's actually not official, but it's close to enough to fool most people ^^

[@MagzaoPT]

Esse mega man tinha quantos finais?

[@st1ka]

Ah os Megaman só costuman ter um final :)

[@MagzaoPT]

@@st1ka ah ok é que havia um com mais de um final

[@st1ka]

@@MagzaoPT Sim sim, alguns têm. Acho que o X4 e o X5 têm finais diferentes :)

[@techiepicker7981]

Is there a specific name for his exaggerated accent?, like the transatlantic accent for example.

[@st1ka]

As far as I know it's just the Portuguese accent.

[@shabmaster7128]

Lol the doc looks like Col Sanders

[@st1ka]

Haha

[@MagzaoPT]

25:31 um final sem boss 😕,curto mais jogos com bosses finais

[@st1ka]

Sim, o ultimo jogo é bastante mau :\

[@johnsilver6396]

Where to get this rom?

[@st1ka]

HandheldUnderground.com

[@BendApparatus]

"We can rebuild him, we have the technology...but...we don't want to spend a lot of money..."

[@st1ka]

I actually thought about using that family guy joke in the video lol

[@DeepWeeb]

Dr. Stevens looks like Colonel Sanders without glasses

[@st1ka]

haha I hadn't noticed that until people told me xD

[@MagzaoPT]

Great

[@st1ka]

Thank you! ^^

[@MaoRatto]

... If didn't use a filter, I would say it's a damn good watch for this. Though I can read the Japanese and pronounce it.

[@st1ka]

I applied a filter because Gameboy games look super weird and blurry when the image is stretched. :)

[@MaoRatto]

@@st1ka I would recommend disabling anti-aliasing and record it inside the emulation with no filters. As I know in visual boy, you can play it within zoom 1-4 where it is in the proper aspect ratio.

[@st1ka]

@@MaoRatto Oh I was originally using Visual Boy Advance, but changed it to retro arch because I still felt it was weird when the screen sized was expanded.

[@MaoRatto]

@@st1ka You have to work Visual Boy Advance to make it look good. =P Forgot my other comment. I'm going to say... The Japanese translation, for a newbie like myself in Japanese... Can tell it's broken Japanese.

[@st1ka]

Yeah I actually showed the Japanese text to a few people including a native Japanese and he said it's the type of gibberish you get when someone from China tries to speak Japanese

[@JogoVelho]

tive a impressão que o nome dele em japonês é Rock ^^

[@st1ka]

Ah na versão japonesa é rock na inglesa, na inglesa é Luke e parece que na Chinesa também é Luke :P

[@mypkamax]

If it wasn't for the changed plot, title and names, you'd never guess that this is a bootleg. Little did we know back then, we'd be making Mega Man fan games in the 2000s-2020s. I'm talking about the first Zook.

[@st1ka]

Yep, exactly!

[@mypkamax]

@@st1ka Zook went downhill with each game. And with each game it got more bootleg. Imagine how AVGN would react to this... It would probably go downhill even further. Like what were they thinking?

[@st1ka]

@@mypkamax Right?! The first game was so good, why would they do this.

[@zanegandini5350]

It's disappointing just how bad Zook Man ZX4 is compared to the other games in the series. Just by watching I can tell that the game is running way faster than it should. If I had to take a guess, it was probably originally designed for the Game Boy Color's Z80 processor, and then they decided to put it on the GBA without taking into account the faster cpu speed. But I'll definitely be checking out Zook Hero Z and Shengui Diguo Zhi Emo Cheng.

[@st1ka]

That would make sense actually. The game is just so hard to control

[@NovaAnimations365]

I acctually played these (with an emulator tho).

[@nintendonicholas9141]

I feel like I could see myself playing these games if I officially master all the X Games but I don't think that would happen anytime soon

[@nintendonicholas9141]

Is it possible that at the start of one of your videos you can say zeros famous line from x 4?

[@st1ka]

Haha understandable. If it helps, these games are way easier than the Megaman games :P

[@st1ka]

You're the second person to ask for that quote reading today. Yep, it's on the list! :D

[@ShaunMoore]

Is this an official Mega Man game?

[@st1ka]

Nope, not official :)

[@jayduffy5532]

The last zook game is like okay the fans didn't like the slow speed of everything how do we fix it and some schlub is like I know and they turn and say nameless drone how would you fix it and nameless drone would be like why don't we we speed it up like someone on a massive coffee fix lol Ike in that movie where the guy drinks too much and acts crazy and they pause and think and drone guy starts to worry he just lost by his job and boss guy is leans back in his boss guy chair and says yes do it and you have been promoted good job much better job guy do it and they do

[@insectduel]

Great video, wish Allie-RX would review it as part of his bootleg s**t series.

[@st1ka]

Oh I'm not familiar with that channel ^^

[@insectduel]

@@st1ka His bootleg s**t reviews kinda like AVGN style but much serious game reviewer. Channel is currently on hiatus.

[@st1ka]

@@insectduel ah he's on a hiatus? That's a shame. D:

[@fumomofumosarum5893]

It says his name is "Rock"(ロック) tho, not Luke... Luke would be " ルーク " ...

[@st1ka]

Yes, but that's the Japan translation, not the original Chinese rom ^^ Basically, he's called Luke in China, Rock in Japan and Luke / Zook in the west

[@lowscoreboy]

Nice review, but I have one criticism: Since the developer Vast Fame is based in Taiwan, these games should not descript as "The Chinese Mega Man". As a Taiwanese I have to say, Taiwan is not part of China(PRC).

[@st1ka]

Oh, my apologies. I didn't mean any offense :(

[@Klaus_Schwab_777]

Damn , graphic are fine, imagine if they have bigger budget🧐

[@st1ka]

Yeah visually it looks amazing and the music is great too

[@Klaus_Schwab_777]

@@st1ka thx for vid btw 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@st1ka]

@@Klaus_Schwab_777 glad you like it! I try my best ^^

[@ELV13S]

now i wanna see zook in smash yhanks to this vid

[@st1ka]

Maybe one day... Maybe one day

[@KathyXie]

This mega man game is Taiwanese not Chinese, Vast Fame were based in Taichung, Taiwan. The game is not even Chinese language, all text is in Japanese, back in the day it was very difficult to display text with hanzi characters with the low resolution, most Japanese GB and GBC games display their text in full kana without kanji. I don't think you should call it Chinese Mega Man. The carriage and instruction book you show is the English one, the taiwanese cartridge does look like a typical bootleg with Chinese text, the English version was probably for Hong Kong market and maybe Singapore, so not sure how "worldwide" that could be considered.

[@st1ka]

Indeed. Calling it Chinese was an oversight on my end. One I seek to correct with my next video as I'm revisiting Vast Fame again and giving them proper credit

[@megadizzy9320]

sorry for the second comment, but man it is kind of dissapointing that across all 3 zook games, vast fame never bothered to put in a mega man stage start transition when you select a maverick master

[@st1ka]

Oh no need to apologize and I agree, it would have been cool if they done that. But oh well

[@mjc0961]

So it's Mega Man X but if he had the backstory of Robocop? Sign me the heck up!

[@st1ka]

pretty much xD

[@MrCaotico666]

So, basically in the Chinese parallel universe of Megaman, it gets mixed with Robocop. lol

[@st1ka]

Yep pretty much xD