Savage Bees

Savage Bees
Also known as: Exed Exes (JP) Developer: Capcom Publishers: Capcom (JP), Memetron (US) Platform: Arcade (custom) Released in JP: February 1985 Released in US: March 1985 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has regional differences.

Savage Bees is Capcom's third shoot 'em up title and their fifth game overall. Shoot bees, then shoot things that are not bees.

Unused Graphics

	Three unused characters in the game's font: A small POW, a TEL character, and a snowman tile from Pirate Ship Higemaru.
	Two Kanji tiles that appear next to the runway background tiles. They translate as "AOKI". The name Aoki also appears in Gun.Smoke, another Capcom game from the same time period. (Translation: Joe)

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Text

A build date can be found starting at 3C70 in Memory:

84110   ExedExes

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Region Differences

High Score List

Exed Exes	Savage Bees

The number of characters for a high score name was shortened from 8 to 3. This necessitated a change in the default high score names.

High Score Entry

Exed Exes	Savage Bees

The Exed Exes logo was replaced with a message unique to Savage Bees.

Additionally, Exed Exes has a feature that's not present in Savage Bees. If the player doesn't enter any characters for a name, a default name is pulled up instead. There are 8 names that cycle, and there are different names depending on the language dip switch.

Notably, seven of the eight default Japanese names appear to be people who either worked on the game or their spouses or relatives.

English	Japanese	Translated	Developer
■★EXED★■	かわもと■たまこ	Kawamoto Tamako	Kawamoto Tamayo (One of Capcom's first composers)
■★EXES★■	えぐぜどえぐぜす	Exed Exes	N/A
★■GOOD■★	いはら■なつみ	Ihara Natsumi	Fujita Harumi (Credited as Ihara Harumi in early Capcom games)
© CAPCOM	♂はらだ♀まゆみ	Harada Mayumi	Unknown
■SON■SON	よしきお■かもと	Okamoto Yoshiki	...Okamoto Yoshiki (Designed & directed many early Capcom games)
GOOD BYE	よしきお♥みか	Okamoto Mika	Okamoto Yoshiki again
♥♥AOKI♥♥	あおき★けいた★	Aoki Keita	Aoki Takashi (See unused graphics section)
■MR.JACK	すずき あきこ■	Suzuki Akiko	Unknown

Since Savage Bees reduced the number of characters per name, these default names can't be used. So, rather than make new names, this feature was simply disabled, making it possible to enter a completely blank name in the High Score list.

(Translation Support: Joe)

Round Clear Text

Three of the round clear messages are in Japanese. Rather than translate them, Memetron removed these messages entirely.

Round	Text	Translation
Round 3		We Did It
Round 6		We Made It
Round 8		Excellently Done

Additionally, the message for clearing Round 16 was changed from "CONGRATULATIONS" to "LUCKY SHOT EARTHLING".

(Translation: Joe)

Game End Message

Exed Exes	Savage Bees

Savage Bees, oddly, has three more lines to the 10,000,000 points message than Exed Exes. The shared part of the message (おめでとう) means "congratulations," fittingly enough. Savage Bees also has the line "PGCもよろしく" (Also, take care of your PGC.).

PGC stands for "Play Game Card". A message in the Japanese version of Commando mentions a PGC as well.

The most likely explanation is that Savage Bees is based on an unreleased or currently undumped revision of Exed Exes which included this expanded message, and Memetron simply weren't aware of its existence (and why would they, getting 10,000,000 points takes more than 2 hours of consecutive playtime).

(Translation Support: Joe)

(Source: Original TCRF research)