Shi Kong Xing Shou

Inner Senses (異度空間)
Spatio Monoster *[sic]*
 Genre
 System
 Release date

**Shi Kong Xing Shou** (**時空星獸**, lit. "*Space-Time Star Beasts*"), is a Pokémon-esque RPG developed by Vast Fame and released for the Game Boy & Game Boy Color systems in 2001.

## Synopsis

After the moon mysteriously turns blue and a meteor shower transforms local wildlife into monsters called "Star Beasts", a young boy named Ballot leaves his hometown in search of his missing father, with blueprints of an unknown machine as his only lead.

## Features

* 8 playable characters, each with their own Partner Beast which allows them to perform unique actions in the overworld
* 152 Star Beasts to catch and use in battle
* 6 tough Boss Beasts to battle during the adventure
* An expansive quest spanning across 8 chapters
* Mini-games to switch things up
* 140 moves to use in battle
* Equipment items which can swing the tides of battle
* 9 elemental attributes for Beasts and skills to determine their strengths and resists

## Characters

### Playable characters

The game has a total of 8 playable characters, which can be switched between through the Party screen or by pressing Select.
A character's partner Beast can be used in-battle only if they are leading the party.

* **Ballot**: The main character. A 12-year old boy with a hot-blooded temper, who left his hometown to look for his missing father. His partner Beast is **Bladeberus**. Some story-related events can only be triggered by talking to people as Ballot.

* **Buck**: A robot able to feel human emotions, but not express them. He wishes to become a human being one day. His partner Beast is **Beattro**, which, after being upgraded, allows the party to fly over chasms in the road.

* **Nina**: A young shepherdess from Mountreach Farm. Descending from one of the 8 Great Scientists, she decides to join the team to uncover the secrets behind her late father's notes. Her partner Beast is **Electreep**, which can remove thorny weeds blocking the path.

* **Claude**: Heir to the prestigious Bang Lin Entreprises, he's more interested in wandering off and playing with animals. He has a crush on Nina and joins the group to stay with her. His partner Beast is **Charrot**, allowing him to talk with various animals.

* **Helen**: A mermaid that traded part of her soul away to become human and join the man she loves. Her partner Beast is **Merlith**, which allows the party to travel across water.

* **Lante**: A mischievious flutist who can control people through his music, usually putting them to sleep. His partner Beast is **Muserode**.

* **Randt**: A young genius inventor who loves to boast about everything he does. His partner Beast is **Signaliton**, which can warp the party across dimensional rifts.

* **Mitt**: A young boy who loves to paint. He lost his parents because of a wild Star Beast and sustained some heavy emotional trauma from it. His partner Beast is **Drawvile**, which has the ability to make the items it draws become real.

### Other characters

* **Saya**: Ballot's father, an astromer. He disappears at the beginning of the game, after the moon turns blue and a meteor shower destroys his observatory.

* **Dr. Leo**: A descendent of the 8 Great Scientists, living in Tech City. A great inventor, but he's already quite old. Havig no children of his own, he created Buck to serve as one.

* **Laki**: Part of the Team Volt duo, and generally the driving force behind their actions. She's selfish, spoiled, and has a very distinctive laugh.

* **Kulu**: Part of the Team Volt duo. He follows Laki wherever she goes and supports her in whatever she decides to do, often complimenting her.

* **Mark**: Nina's older brother, abandoned at birth. He has a unique necklace called the "Moon Glaze".

* **Anton**: A marine biologist descending from one of the 8 Great Scientists. Helen is in love with him.

* **Haiqing**: Helen's sister. A kind and caring mermaid who does her best to try and save the children that get dragged into the sea by the Sea Witch.

## Other releases

Outside of Vast Fame's official multicart re-releases, there were a number of bootleg re-namings and releases over the years.
Notable examples include:

* Waixing's Inner Senses, released in 2003, which removes the intro & Vast Fame copyright icon, changes the title screen, and adds a third option to the title screen to start the game with all in-game cheat codes enabled.
* Harvest Moon 6, which is a simple title screen hack (which, again, removes the Vast Fame copyright info) without any further modification. The developer of this version is unknown. This version was published by Kong Feng, a manufacturer of Gameboy and Gameboy Color clones.
* A release in a transparent cartridge with glitter embedded in the plastic was released by a company whose name has yet to be identified. This company released games featuring an ID system that would follow the pattern SL-XXX where X is a number between zero and nine. Shi Kong Xing Shou was released with the ID SL-001.

## Translation

Although the game was originally only released in traditional chinese (even in areas usually using simplified writing, such as mainland China), a few attempts exist to make the game accessible to english-speaking audiences:

* A complete written walkthrough of the game was released by user sinkpenol on Pirate Games Central *(now Bootleg Games Central)* in August 2011. Although it has translation errors and inaccuracies, it is as of now the only complete way to follow along the story in english.
* A first attempt at translating the game ROM itself surfaced on YouTube around february 2018 by BGVC. Work on this version has since gone stagnant.
* A second attempt at translating the ROM (as well as disassembling it) started around 2021 by ZumiIsawhat? and WHY. Work on this version is still currently ongoing.

## Trivia

* The Game Over screen from Shui Hu Shen Shou can be found by using GameShark code 0103FAD0, complete with animations. This would suggest that Shi Kong Xing Shou was built off an early version of Shui Hu Shen Shou instead of the often-assumed other way around. As Shi Kong Xing Shou does not have a Game Over state, this would suggest that it wasn't fully implemented in Shui Hu Shen Shou when the project data was transferred to the team working on Shi Kong Xing Shou.
* An otherwise-unused sound test can be accessed with GameShark code 0119FAD0.
* What appears to be a debug start menu can be found with GameShark code 0102FAD0. It functions the same as the title screen options.

## References

1. ↑ https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/pgc\_forums/shi-kong-xing-shou-galactic-beasts-space-time-star-t559-s50.html
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knSbddtmdHk&ab\_channel=BGVC%2a
3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70uhDj6Vjvs&ab\_channel=ZumiDaxuya