Medarot Kuwagata Version - The First Medabots Game (Game Boy, Japanese Import) - Authentic Imagineer Cartridge
The 1997 game that started Medarot, the robot-beetle franchise the West knew as Medabots. Stag Beetle version, never released in English. Japanese needed: a fair amount for story and shops.
$35.00
How I grade condition: every grade is tested and plays; grades differ only in looks.
Want to see the exact copy you'd get, inside and out? Ask me for photos, board included.
The first Medabot
If you watched Medabots on TV around 2001, this is where it started. Medarot (medal + robot) launched in November 1997 as a Game Boy RPG from Imagineer, developed by Natsume, based on Rin Horuma’s manga, which began in Comic BomBom a few months earlier. You build robots from parts, slot in a medal that gives them a personality, and fight “Robattles” where the winner takes a part from the loser.
It came in two versions, a habit the series kept. This is the Kuwagata (Stag Beetle) Version: your starting Medabot is the stag-beetle type, and the parts you can find differ from the Kabuto (Rhinoceros Beetle) version.
A franchise from a gray cart
This cart led to Medarot 2 through 9, a TV Tokyo anime (1999-2001) that was dubbed into English, and 3.3 million games shipped across the series by 2015. Imagineer reissued the early games for the 20th anniversary as Medarot Classics on 3DS (2017) and Medarot Classics Plus on Switch (2020), both Japan only. The only main-series Medarot game ever released in English was the Game Boy Advance Medabots, a remake of the second game.
About the Japanese
Battles are menus and learnable; story and shops are Japanese. A fan group, Cash Medal Chameleon, has released English patches for Medarot 1 if you want to know what everyone is saying first. On a Super Game Boy it gets a border and colors on the TV.
More Pokémon-era collecting: Dragon Quest Monsters and Devil Children.
Specifications
| Authenticity | Authentic original Imagineer cartridge (DMG-AMYJ-JPN) - not a reproduction |
|---|---|
| Condition | Graded on my condition scale - every copy is opened, cleaned, and tested by playing before it ships. |
| Gameplay | RPG with robot battles, 1 player |
| Includes | Loose cartridge only (no box or manual) |
| Language | Japanese, moderate to heavy: battles are menu-driven, story and shops are Japanese text. A fan English patch exists |
| Region | Japanese release, never sold outside Japan. Region-free: plays on any Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance or Super Game Boy (border and colors on a Super Game Boy) |
| Save | Battery save. Tested, and replaced if it reads under 3.0 V |
| Title Full | Medarot: Kuwagata Version / メダロット クワガタバージョン (Game Boy, Imagineer, Japan, 1997) |
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