BS Do-Re-Mi Oku no Original Sound Witch

(images taken myself, they do not depict the game in question)

Bit of a short post today. The game in question is so rare that there's little I can even write about it. Plus, this series has a few other lost games I'm going to cover in a separate post. I'll keep it brief.

The Milon games are a series centred around Hudson character Milon. I consider there to be three mainline games in the series. Milon's Secret Castle (1986), DoReMi Fantasy (1996) and Milon no Hoshizora Shabon: Puzzle Kumikyoku (2006). That they were all released 10 years apart is a coincidence.

Milon's Secret Castle is an infamous NES platformer known for its unclear routes, hard difficulty and repetitive music. Most of the hate it gets these days is from an AVGN review which I disagree with in the fullest terms. Back then the game wasn't well-like much either. Reviews were mostly sub 5/10. I believe the game to be misunderstood. I could write a whole apologetic doc in support of the game, but I'll save that for the future. This is also one of the two NES games I own physically (and the only one I have two copies of)!

DoReMi Fantasy, the sequel is one of the best SNES platformers ever made. However it was never released outside of Japan. A translation does exist, but it still hasn't boosted the games popularity much. It remains mostly unknown. It's really good though, I highly recommend it.

Milon no Hoshizora Shabon is a Bust-A-Move-style game for NDS that is even more unknown than the first two. No translation exists although it's not like you'd be missing much.

There were also a bunch of mobile games, though those games will cover an entire article themselves in the future. Finally, Milon has a bunch of cameos across various Hudson games and manga, making several appearances in the Bomberman games. Milon's most recent appearance was the 2013 re-release of Milon's Secret Castle on the Nintendo 3DS. I'm sure he's appeared in other Hudson games since then, but I don't have any proof.

Aside from all these games there are two final pieces of Milon media out there. They are the subject of this article. However, information is so scarce I can't write much on them.

In 1997, the Satellaview (more on that later) saw the release of 2 more Milon 'games'. They were the following.

• BS Do-Re-Mi Oku no Original Sound Witch - Blue Sound Witch
• BS Do-Re-Mi Oku no Original Sound Witch - Power Sound Witch

The original (uncited) reference on Wikipedia claimed them to be sequels to DoReMi Fantasy. I believe they are probably more like expansion packs than full-on sequels.

And that's it! I can't find any reference to them outside of several lists of undumped BS-X games and the unsourced Wikipedia reference. Hell, on the English Wikipedia those references were removed. I'm positive they exist but references to them are so scant it brings that into question.

When you find these references, you may notice they mention a third game, BS Do-Re-Mi No.2. This was actually dumped! But it has nothing to do with Milon. It's just a magazine that about music.

The screenshots above are taken from the original SNES game and from that magazine. I haven't been able to find a scan, photo or crumb from these games.

I guess this kind of brings into question is the Sound Witch games even were related to Milon or just something else entirely. But again, information is so rare I've already covered all I can. I'd like to believe they are expansion packs.

Let's say these are Milon games. They would be no doubt pretty good. DoReMi Fantasy was an outstanding game, I would imagine that these expansions would be good too.

Enough about my daydreaming. Let's get to explaining how these games were released and why they were lost.

They were distributed via the Satellaview system. The system was a collaboration between Nintendo and satellite company St.GiGA. To use it you would get a peripheral that you attached to your SNES. It would serve as a modem and obtain a satellite signal then giving you the ability to download the game and access the network. The game was only available during the broadcast window at which point you would be unable to play it. It was about as ephemeral as a TV show. If you weren't there when it was broadcast, you were SOL.

There were plenty of games out for the Satellaview too so there was always something different on.

And like TVs sometimes the game would be re-broadcast. In a way this was video game streaming in the 90s, beating out Stadia by decades (and also being way more successful at it). In the case of Milon I don't expect it was re-broadcast much.

This makes preservation efforts abysmal. Satellaview shut down in 2000, just 5 years after it launched. St.GiGA isn't around, dying in 2003. Oh and Satellaview wasn't available outside of Japan either.

Legally, there is only one thing that can be done. Go to auction sites, buy BS-X cartridges and hope the game is present on it. That's it. As far as I know dumping the actual cartridges isn't that challenging.

Maybe the game still exists on Nintendo's servers, or Hudson's servers, or some computer in storage in a St.GiGA building but nobody knows for sure.

At least emulation for BS-X is stable. Most SNES emulators support it.

There is one person leading the Satellaview preservation charge. LuigiBlood, a France-based archivist. He has been instrumental on Satellaview preservation, running a blog dedicated to the effort, dumping tons of cartridges, buying up others and writing guides on Satellaview dumping. He is generally a 'subject-matter expert' on the topic. (he was also the person who dumped BS Do-Re-Mi No.2 too).

There are two final leads that I could track but it's beyond my capabilities. Satellaview announcements were done via the in-game messaging system.

Satellaview announcements were mainly done via the in-game messaging system though also likely in magazines and ads.

It's possible that a dumped BS-X cartridge has info on the message board about these games. However, as interested as I am in these, I'm not about to start digging through ever Satellaview ROM to find an offhand reference to the game.

It is also possible that an announcement about these 2 games were published in a magazine and then preserved on the internet somewhere. But it's the same issue with the ROM checking. I could start aimlessly flipping through scanned Japanese magazines but without a proper understanding of the language I would be looking blindly. All I know is that these games were supposedly released in 1997 and that only barely narrows down the search.

There's very little I can personally do to assist BS-X preservation. But if the Sound Witch games are actually DoReMi expansions then I hope they see the light one day.

Brief

• Title: Do-Re-Mi Oku no Original Sound Witch - Blue Sound Witch
• Year: 1997M
• Platform(s): Satellaview
• Developer(s): Hudson [unconfirmed]
• Publisher: St.GiGA
• Playable-If-Recovered: Yes.

• Title: Do-Re-Mi Oku no Original Sound Witch - Power Sound Witch
• Year: 1997
• Platform(s): Satellaview
• Developer(s): Hudson [unconfirmed]
• Publisher:St.GiGA
• Playable-If-Recovered: Yes.

Evidence Dump

• Satellaview Project Homepage
• Old list of undumped BS-X games.
• Example of what I mean that these games were mentioned on Wikipedia once.
• LuigiBlood's guide on how to dump BS-X games.
• French video on the history and state of the Satellaview.
• LuigiBlood's homepage.