One thing I've looked into considerably while running this wiki are the handheld LCD games produced in the early 1980s. There are tons of bizarre Pac-Man variants released as proprietary handhelds, some of which could even be considered entirely unique games (most notably PacMan2). But one company has led me to endless confusion with their handhelds, to the point where I don't even want to make more pages for them...Epoch.
Epoch is best known for the Epoch Cassette Vision, which was the first successful game system in Japan. It isn't a handheld LCD thing - its an entire game console similar to the Atari 2600, but running on cassette tapes instead of cartridges. Atari, Intellivision, etc. were never popular in Japan, but the Cassette Vision sold fairly well.
Why is the Cassette Vision important? Two of the games released for it were based on Namco games - Galaxian and PakPak Monster (the latter being Pac-Man). Neither of these games are even close to the arcade counterparts. Galaxian is a rip-off of another game called Moon Cresta, for some reason; PakPak Monster is a unique game, but its close enough to where it definitely is trying to be Pac-Man.
Going back to the LCD games, they released tons of Pac-Man games, all under strange names like "Epoch Man", "Pak Pak Man" and, uh...how do you pronounce this? "C-Man"? Just "Man"? But notice the artwork on that box; that is official Pac-Man artwork from Japan. A major Japanese game company could NEVER get away with using that! The copyrights for video games were all over the place at this point, but one thing was for sure; Pac-Man was a character, and you couldn't steal him specifically (even if you rip off the gameplay). Something strange is going on...
Later, Epoch released the Super Cassette Vision, a sequel to the original Cassette Vision system. Some official Namco ports were released on it (like Mappy and Pole Position II). Late into the 1980s, they also released Pac Pac Doraemon, which is the same as Epoch Man and its 582 variants, but with Doraemon as the main character. There was even a keychain version of Pac-Man, *titled* Pac-Man, released by them in 2000.
So clearly they did have an official Namco/Pac-Man license later. Its hard to say if Pac Pac Doraemon got the Pac license, but I think its fairly likely that it did. But with their earlier titles, were they somehow licensed? Or were they just strange bootlegs?
As it turns out, Epoch was involved in a court case for some unnamed handheld, which was either Pac-Man or Galaxian-related. But there's one interesting line I saw in the court document:
"A similar license as to a Galaxian-type game was granted Epoch, originally a defendant here but since dismissed."
So at least SOME of Epoch's games were licensed. Unfortunately "a Galaxian-type game" doesn't exactly tell us much. I don't think its the Cassette Vision version; it might be this? Which would also mean that the weird titles don't automatically prove the games were unlicensed. And as this case was in North America, its entirely possible that the "bootleg" games in the U.S. had licenses similar to the Galaxian one in Japan.
That's as much as I can find on Epoch, and I don't think the mystery will ever be solved as to the other games' legitimacy. Everything new I find just raises even MORE questions. But whoopee, I found a new semi-sort-of-licensed-kinda "Galaxy II". How...exciting?
Ireallydontcare123456789 (talk) 21:59, August 21, 2019 (UTC)ireallydontcare123456789