Title: Cowboy Guns: Rail Wars
Developer: Chuo Team
Publisher: Pilcom Corporation
System: Musjido 32
Release Date:
JP: N/A
NA: June 6, 1998
EU: February 12, 1999

With the localization of Kauboigan 4: Tetsudō sensō, a confusing situation arose. The first game in the series had been localized as Western Guns by Glowbe USA, but had released as Kauboigan, or Cowboy Guns, in Japan. When Chuo Team had localized their own game, it had been as Cowboy Guns. But when Glowbe was prohibited from using the Kauboigan name in Japan, they called their next game Seibu no jū or Western Guns.

The result was Glowbe’s games being Western Guns in Japan and Cowboy Guns in North America and Europe, while Chuo Team’s games were Cowboy Guns in Japan but Western Guns in North America and Europe. As game journalist Lance Oaks said in 2006 “it’s a naming scheme that seems deliberately designed to sow confusion among fans and scholars alike.”

The name confusion aside, Cowboy Guns: Rail Wars was a largely faithful port, though the evil Mr. Baron was changed to Mr. Barron, and Satan was recast as a demon named Asmodean. The Musjido 32 was more popular in North America than in Japan, and Cowboy Guns: Rail Wars saw healthy sales, but it was also outsold in every respect by the competing game on the Phonos FunSystem. High demand and low supply has made Cowboy Guns: Rail Wars one of the most sought-after games for the Musjido 32 in recent years; it is often cited as the third most-expensive game on the system after the Summer Championship 1999 multicart and the first-run grey Tale of Sayre that was pulled from distribution.

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