Kikansha Thomas: Sodor-tou no Nakama-tachi

A Japan-only, Japan-developed Game Boy Color Thomas & Friends game. Yes, you heard that right. The game's title roughly translates to Thomas the Train: Friends of the City of Sodor.

Graphics#

Unused Sprites#

These diagonal Thomas sprites can be found stored with his other overworld sprites. Whether a cut in-between for turning corners or an indication that diagonal tracks once existed, they ended up here, unused.

Early Sprites#

The sprites for Gordon and Diesel used in the racing minigame appear to be earlier versions of their sprites. Gordon gains two pixels representing his steam pipe, while Diesel was almost entirely redrawn to be slightly wider and was based on how his basis, the BR Class 08, looks from the right side instead of the left. Both also gained a slightly brighter/less saturated palette in the process.

Unused Portraits#

The character portraits in this game appears to be split up between a main cast and supporting cast. Of these, the main cast have five main expressions drawn for them (with Thomas getting an additional five), while the rest only get one, default expression. Despite this, not every expression ended up being used in the game, leaving us with a few unused ones to cover here.

Even with the additional expressions, Thomas still has two unused. Curiously, these are among the unique ones created specifically for him.

Kindly old Edward had little to get angry or upset about, it seems, nor did he appear enough to need more than one happy expression.

Henry was similarly too busy moping about the rain to be angry about anything this time.

Not much unused for Gordon, just a little too hot-tempered to be glum much.

It is really James who gets the short end of the stick here, as a whopping four out of five of his expressions go unused due to only having a single, brief appearance in-game!

No misfortune surprises poor Percy anymore, which is also why he never gets to express his true happiness.

Finally, nothing much for Toby to get angry about here.

Sound Test#

Pressing Up, Up, Right, Right, Down, Down, Left, Left, A on the title screen or using Game Genie code 052-04F-F7A will start the game in a basic sound test.