​

Mobile games from the 2000s are some of the most elusive and difficult titles to preserve and play in the modern era, mostly due to how niche most of these titles were, usually locked to either a specific region like Japan, locked to a specific kind of phones line (Nokia, Sony, etc.), or worse, having both regional and technological locks, making it much harder for the average user to experience these lost media games in the current landscape of gaming.

It's thanks to the great efforts of gaming and archival/preservation enthusiasts that games like these can live to see another day and be brought forth to the modern age of gaming, like Resident Evil: The Operations, by dumping these long forgotten titles and making them playable through modern emulators for older cellphone devices.

However, and as if there amount of region and technology hurdles weren't enough, there are some instances in which the game in question was never released for mobile devices in the first place, making it a legend and rumour about the game ever existing in the first place.

Such was the case with one of Ratchet & Clank's most obscure titles, titled "Clone Home", which was announced all the way back in 2006 as a Java (J2ME) game for mobile phones that many thought was another instance of a lost media videogame, given how it was announced but never came out.
Ratchet & Clank already has a successful release for mobile devices, with "Ratchet & Clank: Going Mobile" releasing back in 2005. "Ratchet & Clank: Clone Home" was supposed to be the sequel to Going Mobile, announced in June 2006 and slated for a late 2006 release, but it didn't see the light of day, and news about it went silent, eventually falling into the "cancelled" category due to its lack of updates.

It wasn't until 2023 that YouTuber "The Golden Bolt" got in contact with two other members, Super Gamer Omega Clank (SGOC) and SuperSmasherEmily, to delve into the whereabouts of the long forgotten game, to try to track down what they could about the game, its development, and hopefully, a dump of the game, and after several efforts (and some money being spent on purchasing 20 year old mobile devices to test the modding software on), they managed to track down a person with the game installed on their 20 year old phone, after almost two decades of it being originally announced and never mentioned again, Ratchet & Clank: Clone Home was finally dumped successfully.

​

Alongside the dump, and given how the game was in a lost media status, some of the people involved, alongside other anonymous users, have provided a download for the full mobile game on proper archival websites, with proper guidance by the Video Game History Foundation and other sources as to how to properly handle the release of this lost media videogame into the internet.

The full cancelled "Ratchet & Clank: Clone Home" J2ME game is now available in a fully decrypted format, and can be played through J2ME emulators, but be mindful that download links cannot be shared.

 

[lightwo]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN PRESERVED!? I LITERALLY HAD THIS GAME ON MY Sony Erricson in 2006-s..!

Are you sure it wasn't the prequel you're thinking of?

 

[FriendlyPolygon]

Are you sure it wasn't the prequel you're thinking of?

It might be? It looked absolutely the same

 

[DragonMals]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN PRESERVED!? I LITERALLY HAD THIS GAME ON MY Sony Erricson in 2006-s..!

you could've talked amongst the people on how your game could've been bought back in the modern day.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Neato

He never really explained how they got the phone that had the game on it though - or how he managed to dump it

Just a lot of very vague discussion about different people they contacted

I wonder if they managed to get an old phone off of someone who was actually involved in the creation of the game

Yeah that's one thing that threw me off.
It's never explained who or how they managed to do it. It's just casually mentioned and passed on, and that's the actual important part.

Most likely they're trying to protect the identity of the donor. Thats the only thing that would make sense.

 

[x65943]

Yeah that's one thing that threw me off.
It's never explained who or how they managed to do it. It's just casually mentioned and passed on, and that's the actual important part.

Most likely they're trying to protect the identity of the donor. Thats the only thing that would make sense.

in this case you wonder how someone manages to make a 30 minute video where he talks the whole time but says nothing

 

[superlio]

More mobile phone goodness? Yes please.

 

[ChronosNotashi]

in this case you wonder how someone manages to make a 30 minute video where he talks the whole time but says nothing

Gotta generate that YouTube ad revenue by padding a 30-second video with 29.5 minutes of nothingburgers that serve zero purpose otherwise. And don't tell people that it'll be explained at the end, so they'll feel they have to watch the whole video to avoid missing any..."important" details.

(Average YouTuber in a nutshell. Only in actual legal analysis discussion videos do you consistently see padding that has an actual purpose. (For those that care to listen, anyway.))

 

[eriols]

I remember there were a lot of games in Nokia and Symbian OS. I hope they are preserved

 

[spotanjo3]

Never knew it ever existed. What about NInja Gaiden X A Prequel mobile in 2004? It was lost and no one had been dumped yet.

 

[firke_the_one]

neat, I remember downloading and playing r&c going mobile when I was a kid on my Samsung Champ back in like 2010, the touch screen controls on that phone were awful lol, never knew this one existed

 

[Skelletonike]

There were some great mobile games before.
I recall a few that were really cool, tons of great little platformers and rpgs, I can't recall their names anymore.

Early android also had really good and original games like Zenonia... Shame what happened to that series.
At least I can still have play the port of the original game for the DSi since I bought it for the 3DS. Illusia was great too...
Dammit, I miss the early 2010s Gamevil, unfortunately most games didn't get any ports.

 

[LoggerMan]

I don't think anyone really cares about pre-iPhone mobile java games. Most people don't even really think of them as real games. The only ones we actually liked and wanted to keep, like Phoenix Wright, have already been ported.

 

[Robert Newbie]

I don't think anyone really cares about pre-iPhone mobile java games. Most people don't even really think of them as real games. The only ones we actually liked and wanted to keep, like Phoenix Wright, have already been ported.

The audience is definitely limited. Most people probably don't want to venture outside the most mainstream handhelds. For years, I wanted the Seiken Densetsu i-MODE remake to be found and preserved. This year, I discovered that someone had done just that, and I'm glad it exists in a way that can still be enjoyed. I'm probably one of only a handful that even remembered its existence.

It's true, these mobile games don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but I'm happy they're still available somewhere. If someone really wanted them, they're not lost forever.

Prototypes to be seized,
Relegated to screens,
Alive in fantasies,
In our ultimate wheeze,
Do we have right to see,
What gameplay could be,
Let betas become free!


TL;DR: Better to exist than not, I say.