The feature phone preservation community has done it again, preventing a further two "previously lost" games for Japanese mobile phones from being lost forever.
This time around, according to RockmanCosmo, it's the turn of the 2006 Monster Hunter spin-off Monster Hunter I and the 2007 motion-controlled mini-game compilation Chokkan Crash Bandicoot to be preserved, with both games being dumped from a SH904i phone by the community member XYZ.
Just to give you some background, Monster Hunter I is an action RPG, similar to the mainline entries in the series. It sees players embarking on various quests across exotic locations, with the overall aim being to battle and defeat large dinosaur-like monsters roaming the world.
The first few maps for the game (Forest and Hills, and Jungle) were released in February 2006 for FOMA 900i series phones, shortly before the launch of the Japan-exclusive Monster Hunter II Dos for PS2.
More maps were then added throughout the remainder of 2006, with these additional areas including a Desert and Swamp, as well as a rocky area and a volcano. It was then included as a pre-installed app that came included with the SH904i — a feature phone from Sharp that was released in May 2007.
According to RockmanCosmo, the game is only considered partially preserved, for the time being, as "unfortunately it requires a network connection to switch weapons". Nevertheless, the team still considers this "a big accomplishment", with the milestone meaning that "all preloaded Capcom i-mode games are preserved in some form".
Chokkan Crash Bandicoot, on the other hand, is preserved in full. This title also came pre-loaded on the SH904i and saw players competing in various minigames, including skydiving and hammer throw events.
The game took advantage of the SH904i's motion capabilities but also handily allowed players to control Crash using key controls if they didn't fancy waving their arms around while waiting for a train.
If you want to learn more about these games and how you can play them, as always, the best place to go is the Keitai Wiki Discord community — the home of Japanese feature phone preservation. There you'll find a community of like-minded individuals all working to locate and archive games produced for Japanese feature phone services, from obscure entries into well-known series to curiosities that would otherwise be lost to time.