Silhouette illustration by me.

Brief Summary

While it may not be everyone's favourite, Telefang is special to me as it's one of the reasons I'd like to get into game development, due to a very unique gimmick it has that I haven't seen anything like elsewhere. It was able to win me over with this and its charm, that I can easily overlook some of its flaws that I think were due to the limitations of the Gameboy Color. It had the potential to be a successful series due to this if it wasn't for its uninspired sequel and trying to be a competitor to Pokemon. Although understandable because of the Pokemania at the time of release, the only thing they really have in common is the genre of beast tamer.

Another reason would be attributed to its reputation being ruined in the west, due to it being pirated and packaged into the pokemon bootlegs, Pokemon Diamond and Jade (this was before the actual Pokemon Diamond released) with a botched english translation. However, the silver lining of this is that it introduced the west to this great game, as there were no plans for an official English release. Many people were still able to see the potential the game had despite the shoddy pokemon coat of paint and were able to come together to make a more faithful English patch of the game which you can download here if you are interested. As of writing, this patch isn't finished but I still recommend giving it a go.

The plot follows a baseball player, Shegeki, having found a special phone, called a D-Shot. This allows him to travel to an alternative world, the Denjuu World, inhabited by the Denjuu creatures that live there. Many Denjuu ask Shegeki to help them with their problems and investigate the strange goings on in each town he visits. While making friends on the way, he can call his new Denjuu pals with his D-shot.

Good Points

As stated in the summary my main praise for the game is for the gimmick of the D-Shot, because it solves the problems many RPGs have, that being a game can get stale very quickly due to getting too over-levelled making the game too easy and therefore boring. Telefang gets rid of this for the most part, by making it so you can only call Denjuu to battle within the D-shot's signal range, or they take longer to arrive at the battle. Let's say for example, you want to call a Denjuu friend from the 1st town, but you're now in the 4th town, this may mean it would take this Denjuu 8 turns to show up to the battle! You're likely to lose if you haven't made any nearby friends, meaning you'll need to train up Denjuu in the new town, so it keeps the balance fair and fresh on this part. Also I feel this does a better job at incentivising you to catch Denjuu, then Pokemon, as it isn't just for the sake of collecting them all, for people who aren't the completionist type.

The game does a perfect Job of making the Denjuu World feel full of life, personality and scope despite the limitations of being on the Gameboy Color. Instead of an overarching loose plot like Pokemon games of this era, The game has been designed to have a new story to solve in each new town, ranging from waking sleeping Denjuu to stopping an evil Scientist! I feel this makes the game feel larger than it is and usually keeps the game from having a dull moment.

An excellent Job was also done making the Denjuu feel like they are actually a part of the world. Not only do they have homes in the towns, story elements where they talk about one another and you sort out disagreements between them sometimes, but there is another feature of the D-Shot. This takes the form of the Denjuu calling you randomly or sending you text messages, to ask you random funny questions, give you tips, tell you which Denjuu can evolve with special items and even to react to the current story going on. Not only is this good for world building, but also serves purpose for game play as your Denjuu friends gain experience when you pick up their call and you can gain a little more depending on how you answer their questions.
I also find it sweet that both Telefang 1 and 2 came with a D-Shot athena attachment that would light up when you got a call. However this immersion is broken sometimes due to this dialogue being completely randomised, meaning that Denjuu may talk about themselves as if they're another character, but as there are many different conversions this doesn't seem to happen very often.

Telefang also has interesting evolution mechanics, as not only is there the natural way but also the Augmentation and Lab Methods. Augmentation takes place when you combine a Denjuu and a special fusion item with many of these that can be bought in shops. The Lab method is when you use a DNA item on a Denjuu specifically in a laboratory. This helps to add more customisation and replay value to the game and encourages you to look for or save up money to get rare items. This has inspired me to add different evolution methods in one of my own concepts, as I am on and off working on a beast tamer game myself. These items are specific to each Denjuu, so it may be frustrating if you're trying to evolve a certain Denjuu but the item you need isn't available yet. The only thing the sequel does right, is fix this issue by having groups of items they can evolve with instead of just one, making these 2 methods of evolution more accessible.

My critique

As I've previously mentioned, the game is at its best when it's moving town to town, story to story, so its at its worst during backtracking sections. When having to backtrack, it becomes apparent how little there is to do in each town, when the story isn't moving you along, not helped by the asset reuse in a number of towns, loosening the immersion. The D-Shot's core mechanic that I really like, totally comes undone in these sections as you are able to call on Denjuu you've already befriended and levelled up, so the combat becomes too easy and boring. This is made even worse by the fact that there were backtracking sections back to back. I was worried the game was running out of steam, but luckily there was new content afterwards. Given that these sections don't really add anything given each part has its own story generally, I would suggest these sections be cut, as they don't really add anything and only serve to slow down the game for a little while.

On the subject of levelling, there's a couple of instances of opponent Denjuu being obscenely over levelled. One you fight in a cave, who was supposed to become your friend after you gave him an item he wanted, so story wise this comes out of nowhere. I found the fight very tedious to win due to not being able to level up my Denjuu friends high enough as the random encounters in this area were way below his level that I just couldn't gain enough experience. So I had to wait until I eventually won out of pure luck.

However I don't completely hate it when this happens, as there is another instance of this in the evil scientist's lab, where he unveils his modified Denjuu to fight you. This actually happens to be my favourite moment in the game, as story wise it fits here because it's a modified evil Denjuu so of course it's going to be a much higher level. The sharp increase in level helps to communicate the tension and seriousness of this moment through game play. It's impactful seeing the higher level and thinking "Oh Shit now this is an actual boss" as the other bosses in the game aren't that hard as they are a similar level to what you are at that point in the game. Also it's good at visually encouraging you to Lab evolve your Denjuu by showing off how powerful Lab evolved Denjuu can be. Though this feeling is instantly shattered by the fact that the scientist's Denjuu is weak to all your attacks!
The fix I'd give to this is simple: Take away this Denjuu's weakness and have it so you need to strategize memorising its attack pattern. I suggest that this Denjuu leads with a powerful physical attack, but then must rest some turns due to being mentally weak from the scientist's torment, so you would need to time when you use a status effect like paralysis. This makes the fight fair, despite the opponent's higher level, while still keeping the challenge and tension of the scene.

This next point isn't so much an issue but a missed opportunity, I find the fact you play as a baseball player and not someone who is already T-Fanger (this is someone battles with Denjuu) an interesting concept but apart from allowing the introduction to the Denjuu World to flow naturally, this isn't explored further. I feel the game would have benefited from utilising Shegeki's baseball skills in puzzles sections. This could have been done by batting objects into certain goal posts to access hidden areas or maybe a minigame where he is showing the Denjuu to play baseball so you can work on their stats.

While I don't think Telefang will get a revival, I like to imagine how fitting it would be if a new instalment was a mobile game.

Posted: 02/11/2023