I live in the US and bought this on ebay from a US seller. I am waiting for my Hyperkin 5 to arrive so I haven't been able try the game out yet to see what comes up.
I was looking around online and I can't find another Famicom Zelda that looks like this. My guess is that it is a fake or early pirate copy off the famicom disk system. No triforce anywhere and it doesn't have 1 in the title. From what I read when Nintendo did release The Legend of Zelda to the Famicom it had 1 in the title.
Any thoughts? Well besides doing your homework before you buy.
Thanks in advance
If that bootleg does predate the official Nintendo port to Famicom, that'd be quite an interesting find.
This is probably too difficult a request, but would you be able to open the cartridge and take pictures of the circuit board inside?
I thought about opening it up, but don't want to remove the back the label.
Yeah it's a bootleg, who knows what is on the actual cartridge though.
I have a couple bootleg Zelda carts; one is a later one with the Famicom version of the game, and I also think I have one with the English version of the game on it.
It's also interesting that it has a mix of Chinese and Japanese text. The warning on the back label is in Japanese, but the text in the upper right corner as well as the top label or whatever it is (the third photo) is in Chinese (traditional characters so it's probably Hong Kong or Taiwan or something).
Quote from: sillic on February 18, 2016, 05:49:24 pm
No triforce anywhere and it doesn't have 1 in the title. From what I read when Nintendo did release The Legend of Zelda to the Famicom it had 1 in the title.
Bootleg titles often doesn't have much in common with the original title though, so I wouldn't consider that as a hint.
Easiest way to see is to to play it. If it's really an FDS conversion, the sound must have been modified in some way or it will sound very weird. Either way it will probably sound totally different from the Famicom cart and NES versions sound.
Thanks for the input!! I can't wait to play it to see exactly what I have.
Yes the third pic is from the top. I was wondering what language the back sticker is in. I tried scanning it into google translate and didn't get anything made sense in either Japanese or Chinese. Not that I expected much from Google Translate. I thought about asking someone that works at one of the Asian Markets in town about it, but I didn't want to come off as if I assume they all are they same. I can't read French or German even though the alphabets are similar, so I wouldn't expect someone from Japan to read Chinese or the other way around.
It's traditional Chinese embellishments, on top of the standard Japanese kana back label text.
Top left call out is also Japanese, with that one Kanji character which is Chinese essentially). Top label is Chinese also.
Basically, Traditional Chinese is/was used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Simplified Chinese is used in mainland China. I don't claim to be an expert though.
Text on the back is in Japanese, top right corner text is traditional Chinese. Top label is also Chinese.
Front side, markered out or whatever it says Lee Yin, again Chinese.
I have a lot of bootlegs with Japanese text on them, as well as some Chinese text here and there. Basically, all of these were made in Taiwan and Hong Kong, and to disguise / make them look more authentic, they threw on some Japanese text. I've seen this time and time again.
As for understanding of the two languages, with writing there is a degree of shared characters, with Japan borrowing from the traditional Chinese.
I'm pretty sure Lee Yin did some other FDS ports too. It'll be interesting to see the game running :)
Quote from: sillic on February 19, 2016, 05:02:36 am
Yes the third pic is from the top. I was wondering what language the back sticker is in. I tried scanning it into google translate and didn't get anything made sense in either Japanese or Chinese. Not that I expected much from Google Translate. I thought about asking someone that works at one of the Asian Markets in town about it, but I didn't want to come off as if I assume they all are they same. I can't read French or German even though the alphabets are similar, so I wouldn't expect someone from Japan to read Chinese or the other way around.
The Japanese warning says the usual stuff like don't remove cart while power is on, touch pins, pour water on it and so on. The Chinese to the right, I have no idea (I have very limited knowledge of Chinese). The Chinese on the top label probably say Zelda no Densetsu in Chinese.
People that know Japanese may understand some of the Chinese since the Chinese characters generally have the same meaning in both languages, but since Chinese have changed over the years since Japan borrowed the characters and Chinese uses a lot more characters, it's not easy at all. Grammar is also totally different so Japanese people can't expect to understand more than just some words and then guess the context based on that.
this is a taiwan bootleg, and i doubt it has an acual fds conversion inside, cart version released at least in 1992, so most probably it is, not the fds
Then again, Zelda 1 NES was released in 1987, it's entirely possible it got bootlegged before the advent of the FC cart release.
I doubt it too since there's a lot of work to convert something like this to a cart. They'd have to rewrite the songs for one thing (but this is pirates, it's possible they left the sound part incomplete and it sounds like crap). Even if the bootleg is from before 1992 it's possible it's just the NES version.
But it would be really cool if it was a FDS conversion, we can always hope.
Thanks for everyone's help and input!! I got my retron5 in today. It is a US NES copy of the game.
Yappari
Too bad.
I wonder if it was made by the same people who did the Zelda 2 pirate cart, which the NES version of that game (scroll down): http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=12776.0
Sorry. This was actually an official Hyundai Release of Zelda 2 for the Famicom. Wether it was approved to Nintendo or not is debatable. It does uses original Nintendo chips from what I can recall but the Korean market is kind of a jungle. Althought they released the official NES there under the name "Hyundai Comboy" it was not really popular in Korea due to the fact that the Famiclones basically took over the whole market regarding FC 8-Bit, which leads to the conclusion that it might have been that Nintendo and Hyundai stroke a deal to release the game there officially for the FC...Stranger things has happened though, especially when it comes to Sega and Samsung, but that's a totally different story.
Regarding the topic. This is a fake Zelda. It is based on the US verison (As previously stated). Other games that were released from the same company includes among many others, some Taito titles like Bubble Bobble (also with the US chips and not the FDS conversion). These were being sold in Taiwan exclusively and eventually some products went to HK.
Indeed I must say that the cartridges holds a really high quality although I am not sure what kind of roms (as in chips) they were using since both of my copies of Bubble Bobble shows some kind of darkened effect.
Anyway, nice find. Hope you enjoy it!
Even with that being said, the Zelda 2 cart is only authentic in my eyes if it was approved by Nintendo.
Quote from: Retrospectives on June 03, 2016, 12:18:30 am
Althought they released the official NES there under the name "Hyundai Comboy" it was not really popular in Korea due to the fact that the Famiclones basically took over the whole market regarding FC 8-Bit
I've heard that HK had a similar thing going on when they got the NES there. Prior to this, people were importing Japanese FCs and using a couple different methods to make them work on their TVs. Then, Nintendo officially released the FC and FDS there, and presumably they sold at least fairly well. But due to this, when they released the NES there, it failed horribly.
Quote from: P on February 19, 2016, 02:10:08 pm
Quote from: sillic on February 19, 2016, 05:02:36 am
Yes the third pic is from the top. I was wondering what language the back sticker is in. I tried scanning it into google translate and didn't get anything made sense in either Japanese or Chinese. Not that I expected much from Google Translate. I thought about asking someone that works at one of the Asian Markets in town about it, but I didn't want to come off as if I assume they all are they same. I can't read French or German even though the alphabets are similar, so I wouldn't expect someone from Japan to read Chinese or the other way around.
The Japanese warning says the usual stuff like don't remove cart while power is on, touch pins, pour water on it and so on. The Chinese to the right, I have no idea (I have very limited knowledge of Chinese). The Chinese on the top label probably say Zelda no Densetsu in Chinese.
People that know Japanese may understand some of the Chinese since the Chinese characters generally have the same meaning in both languages, but since Chinese have changed over the years since Japan borrowed the characters and Chinese uses a lot more characters, it's not easy at all. Grammar is also totally different so Japanese people can't expect to understand more than just some words and then guess the context based on that.
A little more complex than that from a linguistical point of view. Chinese Hanzi didn't just come here and stayed in their original form. Many Kanji has changed, evolved and even been removed many tims over again within Japan. Korea is by far the easiest language for a Japanese person to learn and from a grammatical standpoint it is like ten times easier for us to learn Korean. Their version of Hanja pre-dates the Japanese Kanji but even if I try to read some old Korean text written in their form of Hanja, then it makes much more sense than what it does to me in modern day traditional Chinese.
In Taiwan it was pretty easy to get a grasp of the context of many things compared to mainland China, but even in Mainland China it is possible to guess even in simplified Hanzi what they are meaning. Not too easy but it is definately possible. But that's pretty much far as the connection goes. In both TW and HK I saw a lot of Japanese restaurants (They are very much into Japanese culture, especially TW), but almost half of them was written in the incorrect Kanji that we are using in Japan. So even though the understanding of a context might be possible, it is also hard for them to understand us, since our written language also has evolved and changed during many hundreds of years.
Spoken Mandarin/Cantonese etc shares absolutely no resemblance to Korean/Japanese except for a lot of loanwords but even then they are conjugated into totally different sounds which makes it almost impossible to guess just by listening by ear.
Just to chime in - the Zelda II cart is generally considered a pirate and not an 'official' release regardless of chips. There is a giveaway on the label given that it uses A Link to the Past artwork.
Beautiful item though, I'd like to grab one one day, as well as a cart version of this: http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2317/
Yeah, well I suppose that another clue to the question might be that it was from what I remember a quite generic pirate cartridge made of cheap plastic that other pirates used of the time... I am not sure though since it's quite a job to put all the effort into putting just that game onto a cart, print a box with Hyundai Comboy logo and a manual for it, and using chips that has Nintendo branded on them...just for one single game.
Regarding the label. It isn't that strange. Alex Kidd for the Master System/Mark III was released in the West and at least the U.S manual of that game Alex is shown as he is shown as in "Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle" which was released for the Mega Drive/Genesis. Even so, SEGA released the Aladdin Boy II in South Korea with Sonic on the package while the inbuilt game still was Alex Kidd In Miracle world, which was around the time that the Disney movie Aladdin was released, which had about nothing to do with the console itself, and even this was an official release. So the label might be a clue, but I wouldn't judge it out as a pirate just because of the label itself. Especially not for the East Asian releases (excluding Japan). But well, that's kind of off topic but I totally agree, it's a nice item. :)
Here is a page documenting / explaining some of the sound shifts between Chinese and Japanese cognates:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Japanese_vocabulary
I've always found this stuff interesting when studying the Germanic languages, and now studying Chinese and with an interest in Japanese, also, quite interesting.
Regarding the Zelda cart in question, there are many folks that think it to be legit, I would say more like 50:50, not "generally considered a pirate" as L___E___T said. I personally think stuff like this lies in the middle, having opened some pirate carts with boards with Nintendo printed on them, etc. Some of the factories making legit products also made fakes, so a lot of middle-ground stuff could be around.
I haven't seen the board of that cart yet, but as L___E___T said, it has been "confirmed" to be a nice pirate. Both Zelda 1 and 2 had their official Korean NES release, but no official FC games at all, since the FC/FDS was never released over there. Korea has been kind of retro-raped already, I'm sure we would have seen at least a small proof of anything FC-related for the Korean market.
Hong Kong and Taiwan did have the FC officially distributed, and Hong Kong had the FDS too, so it makes sense that there are a few official FC games with Chinese labels.
It's still a nice item but let's not spread more unnecessary rumours about this being official. NintendoAge already has some pirates listed as official releases, I think it's bad enough, we don't need more!
Korean Legend of Zelda (http://s36.photobucket.com/user/DarthCloud/media/zeldakorea/NES-ZL-KOR_BoxFront.png.html?sort=3&o=20)
Korean Adventure of Link (http://s36.photobucket.com/user/DarthCloud/media/zeldakorea/NES-AL-KOR_BoxFront.png.html)
I feel that we can't be saying something *is* or *isn't* without some sort of evidence. If you can remember, for years everyone assumed Kiddie Sun was a pirate game too. Then there are items like Time Diver Avenger and Queen Bee V, which I personally believe to be official products, though FW and some other places list them as pirates. Without evidence either way, we shouldn't be saying that things have been confirmed...
Regarding NA, their lists are a mess and a joke. They even give "repros" rarities, and the list excludes items that don't fit into their collecting agenda.
Quote from: fcgamer on June 03, 2016, 08:31:29 am
Regarding the Zelda cart in question, there are many folks that think it to be legit, I would say more like 50:50, not "generally considered a pirate" as L___E___T said. I personally think stuff like this lies in the middle, having opened some pirate carts with boards with Nintendo printed on them, etc. Some of the factories making legit products also made fakes, so a lot of middle-ground stuff could be around.
Yeah. I totally agree with you fcgamer. In much and many ways I would say that these parts were kind of "grey zones" which would just be ridiculous to say that someone has "confirmed" something, since then we have to go to sources that most of us "normal" people wouldn't have access to anyway.
Just because the system wasn't officially released in ROK back then (an official FC release), doesn't really mean very much at all since the Zemmix for example was released there as a standalone gaming console based out of MSX hardware, which is basically the same thing but in this case it was the console who was based on a licensed architecture and not the opposite. Goldstar and Daewoo held the MSX licenses in ROK for the MSX and while Zemmix held no official MSX license while it could play most of the games that didn't require extra keyboards (for all generations except the V which had a keyboard integrated).
Same in TW. Aaronix held the licensing rights from SEGA to release the Mark III at the same time as they were releasing high end Famiclones which just proves how juridically diverse it was back then, (neither ROK of TW was back then a part of the WTO), so to say that it has been "confirmed" as being a pirate is just as much spreading false rumours as saying that it isn't.
In my personal opinion, I don't know. Why? Simply because I do not know anyone from back then who can confirm it, and therefore it might as well be a pirate just as much as it might well be a legit copy. The arguments from either sides does of course have it's points, but who decides what is confirmed or not just because a market has been exploited by foreign gamers? (myself included) Or did the Korean community at Ruliweb or any former employee at Hyundae confirm that it is a pirate? ;)
Well, the evidence for me is right there on the front of the label - that is SNES Zelda art that Nintendo would surely not have supplied for use (let alone designed) for even a half-official release.
Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely game and I really appreciate the artwork, the pink shell and everything else, but I see nothing to suggest it is official at all, on the flipside of that debate.
I can see at least half a dozen telltale signs that this is a pirate, or at the least correlates strongly with the approach that (high quality) pirates and modern repros use. I will update.
I may have no hammering evidence, but facts so far strongly lean toward it being a pirate.
- Existence of official NES Zelda 1 and 2
- No existing Korean FC hardware
- "Wrong" box and cart artwork
Really, I have a hard time seeing Nintendo doing/approving a Zelda II release for Korea with artworks and text from their other game. The format of the box is also reminiscent of some HK pirates, as well as the cheesy pink cart.
But yes, I don't have a proof. I just base on personal experience, knowledge of Asian (extra-Japan) market and common sense. :)
And yes, it's better to call it a pirate until proven otherwise, rather than call it an official Korean release for the Famicom like you did, when it screams pirate all over it. You can throw me all your knowledge and company names you may think I don't know, it won't change this fact.
The official logos? The fact that it uses Nintendo-chips? The fact that the FC still was going strong in Korea well into the late 90s? The fact that Korea together with Taiwan was by far the most diverse regions when it comes to official-unofficial licenses? Etc etc. Why wouldn't Nintendo let them print the label in a way that Sega did for the Master System manual of Alex Kidd in the west? Not saying that you are wrong (absolutely not), just saying that there is plenty of arguments on both sides which must been taken into consideration before anything even vaguely can be "confirmed". :) Personally considered is of course something subjective, and that's pretty much why I personally don't take a stance before more solid proof has been put on the table.
Post Merge: June 03, 2016, 09:19:06 am
Well, I might have to clarify that I did post that it was an official release, but when thinking about it. I am not sure since it's a subject of debate. But on the other hand. It really doesn't matter what anyone personally thinks unless they can come up with solid actual sources to even being able to critize those sources. But I personally don't see why it couldn't be a legit copy regarding the diversity of what was official or not.
I believe that common sense should be used very carefully when it comes to these type of things. Is it common sense to name a console Samsung Aladdin Boy and put a Sonic logo on it and then include Alex Kidd In Miracle World for it?
I do not know anything regarding your knowledge or common sense. I do not assume that you know anything about anything. I am just saying that there are two sides of the coins and before starting to telling people that they are spreading false rumours just based on how yourself considers something to be something based on your own subjective opinions is just the exact same as you say that other people do.
I'd like to see the board and its chips, it could probably help yes :) It could also mean nothing if this is a recent pirate production.
Official logos? You mean that copy/pasted "Nintendo Family Computer"? You can print whatever you want really. Instead, look at the way Nintendo handled their real official Asian versions (games, accessories, hardware), including Korea, and you'll see this game just doesn't fit at all. We are talking dozens of items that are 100% official or official/licensed.
This being said, Sega is Sega, Nintendo is Nintendo. Whatever Sega did means little in this topic. If you want to scratch the mystery you need to look at Nintendo in Asia.
FC released in Taiwan --> Official FC games in Chinese found
FC/FDS released in Hong Kong --> Could be that they got the same games as Taiwan, but after 7 years here, I haven't seen a single cart. Not even one. So I think they only imported (legally and illegally) FC/FDS games from Japan.
SFC released in Taiwan --> At least one official game released in Taiwan (Romance of the Three Kingdoms III)
SFC and SNES released in Hong Kong --> At least one official game released in Hong Kong (Yoshi's Island)
GB/GBP released in Hong Kong and China --> 60+ games released
The list goes on with GBC, GBA, N64 up to DS and more.
And of course the NES released in Korea with a nice selection of games. No FC to be seen.
Well, don't get me wrong, I'm not feeling nervous or angry, I just think you guys know better than this in order to say that it's a 50/50 between pirate and official. It clearly isn't. This isn't my personal opinion, it's based on everything Nintendo did in Asia (Japan excluded) for over a decade on several hardwares.
Sure thing. I don't looking for a flamewar what so ever. :-[
At the same time. Let's see it from a broader perspective. If we take each argument alone then I might just say the exact same thing. HK got the FC console, but no games. That means that the HK Famicom is fake? Of course not.
For sure you have a good point. For sure certain companies operates in a totally different manners (I am Japanese and I don't even consider SEGA to be a genuine Japanese company). Regarding Nintendo, for sure they were much more strict when it came to their licensing rights and that's a well known fact...or is it?
From what we know so far, the FC was not officially released in ROK (and it most probably wasn't). But just to look at how a certain company operates is just one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is how the company operates within a specific market. Why did the HK get both the FC and the NES when America had like ten times more stricter rules on how many games a third party company could release within a given period of time? Why did Nintendo allow third party companies print their own carts in Japan? Very simple. Different countries, different marketing, different rules of how to play the market.
Sweden held one of the strongest support by Nintendo in the entire Europe, and as you certainly know, they got Mr Gimmick released, while no other market (except for Scandinavia which you again certainly know that Sweden was responsible for distrubution of the Nordic countries) got it. Why?
My point is that certain companies might operate totally different depending on the market they are investing in and therefore it would be kind of vague just to say that just because it was "Nintendo" then it must be a pirate. Don't you think?
Turbografx 16/PC Engine was released in Korea as well. If your argument is that Nintendo is Nintendo then I would say that NEC is even more NEC than what Nintendo is Nintendo if we should speak how certain Japanese companies operates globally.
For sure the East Asian retro market has been very much exploited in the last 10 years or so, but I still think that there are many questions that are still unanswered. :) This certain game we are talking about is for sure one of them. East Asia is a very diverse region with very diverse marketing strategies from Nintendo and that's why you cannot say that Nintendo operated like this or like that in "East Asia" since they clearly operated totally different within each of the so called "East Asian"-countries (Mainland China included).
The main point of my messy post was that Nintendo has never released localised games (officially imported games from other regions obviously don't count) in a region where the hardware for such game has not been released in a localised way (translated packaging, specific hardware...). It made complete sense for Nintendo to release a localised FC in Hong Kong, because it was modified to output PAL at 60 and 50 Hz. Note that they released the FDS too, but the hardware was the same as the Japanese version, because it didn't need any tweaking to work with the localised FC. They didn't "have" to release localised games, as the market was already flooded with Japanese officials and pirates of them.
(As for why HK got both NES and FC, it's a different topic, mostly related to crappy marketing strategy, I would go as far as to say that the NES was released first, and upon realising the idiotic choice that was, they tried to fix their mistake by releasing the FC. They should have released an "Asian version" FC too. ;D)
The pattern has been the same for over 20 years, be it Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong or "Asia" as they used to call Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and a few other countries:
- If they release a localised system, they may release localised games
- If they don't release a localised system, you won't find a single localised game
This makes sense to them and to me, and the logic continues even in the 21st century, with the DS and Wii. You won't find localised games without a localised console. Yes, it's not the proof you are looking for, but since I can't prove it's a fake and you can't prove it's official, it's definitely a good point.
So, when you are done with the pattern of Nintendo in Asia, you can have a quick look at this Frankestein Zelda II game and come to your own conclusions. You know that the instruction manual doesn't even fit inside the box, right? There are so many things wrong with this wanna-be Korean version I'll make a list if you want me to. But you know better than me it's not necessary.
I haven't seen the board and I have that itchy feeling it will be a Japanese board, 100% official and everything, because what they probably did is sacrifice a real Japanese Zelda II for each cart. Best option, given that Zelda II is not a rare cart in Japan. If not, well I can give you my opinion when I see the board. :D
In the meantime, if you want to see real localised versions with great quality boxes, manuals and cart labels that are completely in line with what Nintendo has released everywhere in the world throughout the years (even Brazil, where stuff was manufactured locally by a different company), you have plenty of options! I'm sure you have some of these nice official games, so I'm really even more confused why you still have this secret doubt (or is it hope? ;D) that this monster is official.
:gamer:
Calling out masterdisk I searched for the pics of the board but the pics seem to be deleted from the thread you posted it in. Do you still have the pics. I'm personally to afraid to try cracking the cart myself with risk of breaking it.
There goes one more massive proof it's a fake, cheap cart with no screws. Please don't tell me "it's possible Nintendo made/approved plastic clamshells that would most likely break when trying to take them apart". :-X
Reminds me of the so-called HKG Bubble Bobble cart, everybody vanished mysteriously when it was time to show the board. Not that it was hard to show an official board from the same game from any region. Still a better excuse than "I can't show pics, I don't have a gamebit". :help:
If you still think there's a 50/50 chance it's official, I'm sorry, I can't help you! But it was nice talking to you, see you around the forum :crazy:
Quote from: L___E___T on June 03, 2016, 07:08:15 am
Beautiful item though, I'd like to grab one one day, as well as a cart version of this: http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2317/
Is that a translation of the FDS version or the Japanese cart "Zeruda no Densetsu 1"?
Quote from: Flying_Phoenix on June 03, 2016, 10:41:10 am
But you know better than me it's not necessary.
I haven't seen the board and I have that itchy feeling it will be a Japanese board, 100% official and everything, because what they probably did is sacrifice a real Japanese Zelda II for each cart. Best option, given that Zelda II is not a rare cart in Japan."
You are not angry or anything but well, you put the bar where you put the bar but I am not that kind of a person who likes to argue over subjective opinions for the reason of just making fun over other peoples arguments or what type of persons they are. Sure, if you can tell me where I can find an official Zelda II cartridge from Japan then I would be glad to hear about it (it wasn't released and the Korean version uses the US roms)...Other than that, I think we are done. I never claimed you to have less or more knowledge than anyone else here. We are all fellow gaming enthusiasts and while our subjective opinions might differ, I honestly doesn't want to take it to a level where we make fun of each others in person instead of discussing over certain questions.
Comments like "You know better than that" and other pretentious things...like you said about NintendoAge, then let those guys have that tone of speech over there. I find this Forum a mostly friendly place and I am here to discuss in a civic tone which for me personally means that I do not question the knowledge of anyone or putting labels of what people know or what they do not know. I don't know about you but regarding this topic of what you say is a "Frankenstein", I have absolutely nothing more to say.
Have a good day.
Quote from: Flying_Phoenix on June 03, 2016, 10:56:23 am
There goes one more massive proof it's a fake, cheap cart with no screws. Please don't tell me "it's possible Nintendo made/approved plastic clamshells that would most likely break when trying to take them apart". :-X
Reminds me of the so-called HKG Bubble Bobble cart, everybody vanished mysteriously when it was time to show the board. Not that it was hard to show an official board from the same game from any region. Still a better excuse than "I can't show pics, I don't have a gamebit". :help:
If you still think there's a 50/50 chance it's official, I'm sorry, I can't help you! But it was nice talking to you, see you around the forum :crazy:
No famicom cart ever had screws.
Let's all be nice please - I didn't think I'd fanned any flames but it is just a game after all, and we are all friends here.
Quote from: aitsu124 on June 03, 2016, 10:58:50 am
Quote from: L___E___T on June 03, 2016, 07:08:15 am
Beautiful item though, I'd like to grab one one day, as well as a cart version of this: http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2317/
Is that a translation of the FDS version or the Japanese cart "Zeruda no Densetsu 1"?
I think it's a translation of the US version actually, looking at the ROM info on the page: "Legend of Zelda, The (USA) (Rev A).nes - NOINTRO"
Jay don't forget some of the bigger carts like MMC5 (i.e. Punch Out Gold) do use screws, if at least those Nintendo bit-head screws:
(http://famicomworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Holy_Grails33.jpg) (http://famicomworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Holy_Grails32.jpg)
Ah you're right I forgot those big carts. But we all know the majority didn't use screws. My Zelda 2 cart in question by the size would be obvious to most would not use screws. If it was as easy as unscrewing some thing I'd have posted pics of the board 10 posts ago in this thread. @ flying phoenix here is a reference video of how most Famicom carts are opened. https://youtu.be/LgCiAOmgeFc
Sorry guys, I crapped out on the FC carts and the non-existing Japanese FC Zelda II, it was 3am and I couldn't sleep. Thanks for putting me back on track ;)
Why they made the box too small for the manual is more evidence it's a pirate (I was discussing this game a few years back with someone who owned it, and he told me the manual couldn't fit in the box). Wish I had asked him photos of the board.
Sorry to say what I say Retrospectives, but while caution is always to be had, and it's a good attitude and you are right not to jump to a conclusion, the only proof you gave me is that there are copyrights on the cart, and that the FC was doing well in Korea. I hope you can realise there are much better reasons to argue this is not an official item, some of which I listed yesterday. You keep on saying they are subjective opinions when they're not.
- Box too small for the manual
- Manual looks to be the real NES Korean manual of Zelda (or Zelda II)
- Zelda III art
- Generic pink cart
- No product code/number/info on the back label
- Manual is Hyundai, and they forgot to mention it on the cart/box
- Contradicts all that Nintendo has ever done in Asia and in the rest of the world
- More simply contradicts all that Nintendo has done in Korea itself with GB, NES, SFC/SNES, N64
There was no personal attack in my posts. When I say you should know better, I mean it, as you are a knowledgeable person with surely many years of collecting and playing games. And yes it's a Frankenstein if it uses pirate/homemade cart and box with an official Hyundai manual. Again, don't take it personally. I'm just looking at the photographic evidence we have here. We're still all friends 8)
(http://s33.postimg.org/e5mv4h0rz/image.jpg)
(http://s33.postimg.org/g47b7oxf3/image.jpg)
The thing is that I have never questioned your knowledge what so ever. I even backed from my statement that it was an official product (since I got confused and it might as well be a pirate). I never said 50/50, that was fcgamer who did. Sure, you have solid arguments, but what I do not really think is appropriate is that you are adressing me as a person of what I know or what I do not know. Those were the "personal attacks" as you call them.
"You can throw me all your knowledge and company names you may think I don't know, it won't change this fact"
"But you know better than me it's not necessary."
Those quotes are adressing me as a person. Not what I have been written regarding the topic. But pure personal things that has no value to the discussion what so ever.
Why would I think that I think that you do not know about those companies? Why would you think that I know more than you? We live in a global world. We can easily track down information no matter where we live.
We are a community of fellow gamers. I wouldn't consider you as a friend if I do not know you in person. But as far as communicating in a civic tone and to discuss the topics in a friendly way, and not wether someone has lived in Taiwan, HK, Japan or even Antarctica isn't really that much of a value since there are for sure plenty of African gamers who knows more about games than my grandmother for example, even though she is Japanese (which doesn't mean anything regarding knowledge of games).
With that said. We come from all different parts of the world. We have to understand and respect each others cultural differences and I can honestly say that I am not used to discuss in a such "intense" and "harsh" manners as I know exist on serveral English speaking gaming forums like NintendoAge...that's all. The other way around as well of course.
This particular copy might be a pirate. But I have changed my mind in that it is an official Nintendo release. Not that I am saying that it wasn't officially released. But what I might think is possible is that Hyundae might have been releasing it, with or without the permission of Nintendo. Not that it matters, because if was not a licensed Nintendo product, then it is not a licensed Nintendo product. But that is why I was talking about "grey zones". Hyundae made other games as well for other systems and their roms for the official Hyundai Comboy was already compatible with the American NES, which would had been making it fairly easy for them to just take the roms of the already official product and put in on the FC. They also had the official manual for the game. They basically had everything except for a plastic cartridge and labels suited for the Famicom.
But is that making it a pirate? If we consider that theory, then well...Like I stated, "Grey Zones". I did some research around the Korean boards and what I could find was that no certain conclusion had been made regarding this game other than the fact that some people tend to believe it was made by Hyundae without the approval of Nintendo. But that's just speculations.
With your logics, then yes. It is not an official Nintendo product. That is for sure. But with all the efforts put into it, compared to many other Korean pirates that were straightly imported from Taiwan or the more "High End" ones from Korea itself, it clearly stands out as an item that really had been putting effort into.
That will be my last words regarding this topic. I just wanted to clarify because I feel that personal accusations should not belong in a forum where we are discussing games and not who knows the most or the least. Thanks for reading.
I don't want to debate but I have owned 2 of these at some point and I can say the chips really seemed official. It really seems some leftover stock of Zelda 1 / Zelda 2 US chips landed in hyundai hands at some point and that is how it made it to the market.
Well, we know they had Nintendo chips in the official Korean NES releases right? So that could relate to where the chips came from, considering it's the US version potentially.
Sorry if I sounded aggressive, it was not meant to be personal. It was part of my disbelief for hearing you'd give so much credibility to this game 8)
Thanks for the explanation, and who knows what happened. I'll try to find more pics and info about this, I know how to find this thread now :crazy:
Well, at least this gave me some time to think about Mani and the FC/NES business back in the days in Hong Kong. I'll be posting this in a more appropriate thread.
sorry for thos passing by who'll have to read through all of this :pacman:
The problem with the cart is that there is evidence on both sides of the coin, supporting both camps, and beyond the meager information we have, it is all just speculation.
Maybe Nintendo cut a deal with Hyundai and Hyundai decided that Famiclones were more popular, hence putting together those releases. Then the releases wouldn't exactly be pirated, but also not exactly official either. Sort of like some of the Nintendo NES Test carts, which aren't exactly official yet also not exactly fake. We just don't know.
With that said, it is extremely dangerous to jump to conclusions with broad statements like "Nintendo always did xyz here, so they must have done it that way in the other region too."
http://i58.tinypic.com/fxxi79.jpg
Samurai (from India) is the classic example of seemingly official Nintendo releases that look, well...fake. Samurai even put together some Nintendo multi carts of sorts, so would they be real or fake? As I said before, gray areas.
Also, Rerospectives, I just want to publicly apologize for acting like a dick to you four or five months ago. I was wrong to attack your sale threads back then, and thought a lot about what you had said in the PM you had sent me that day. If you want to unblock me so we can chat again about collecting sometime, that would be great. :)
Flying_Phoenix...Apology accepted. No problems. I know things might get heated sometimes and that during the time of intense discussions, it might well, overheat. So from my side, no hard feelings whatsoever.
fcgamer, Absolutely no problems. In fact, I unblocked you yesterday already and for sure. I'd fancy a chat someday, here or in person if you ever visit Kansai. I might apologize to you as well, since I think that we both threw the gloves that day and although it's sad since I know that we do have friends in common, it's not the end of the world so for me it's just like I wrote to Flying_Phoenix. We are all humans we all makes mistakes or crossing lines sometimes. I really don't feel that I am the person who should clarify that to anyone, but I just wanted to let you know that it's totally fine by me. :)
Anyways I might as well say sorry to the topic creator who just wanted to know if his game was legit or not haha. It certainly went pretty off-topic and that wasn't really the intention, so sorry for that!
Sure, I never said cheap/dodgy means pirate. ;D ;D Your example with Samurai and other (seemingly) official FC carts for Taiwan/Hong Kong works well. Those are a lot more believable than this game though (in my opinion), even if they were pirates. On a side note, Mani in Hong Kong had their hands in pirate/unoffical business as well, yet all they ever did which was released as official was of great quality with all the required copyrights, high quality material, signed/dated boards and so on.
I just have a very hard time with this game. It makes absolutely no sense. We don't even know Hyundai is involved at all in this game, or do we? Is it because we see that manual in the pics? What if it's just a good copy of the official one, or an orphan which was thrown in to make the thing look more official? I think the manual has nothing to do with the game. Even the silliest company or private "con artist" would make a manual fit in the box they design, and this one doesn't. I consider this game to be only cart and box. Let me know if we're on the same track.
I think it's a lot more dangerous to give it credibility just because we're not sure, and because it has a copyright on the front label. I think for obscure games, it should work "pirate unless proven otherwise". My feeling over the years is that we went from a mentality of "if I haven't seen it before, it must be a pirate" to "if I haven't seen it before and it has some kind of official smell to it, it must be a super rare official version we had never heard about". This, I believe is dangerous and pushes the smell of money towar repro makers and generally people looking to make fat profits off people's credulity and lack of research. Hope this clears why I'm so aggressively taking this side of the debate.
As to your theory, I would say: Why would Hyundai need to make this version so bad, so obviously looking like a fake, with wrong text font/alignment, wrong arts etc., when they had everything they needed from their official Zelda II released on 72 pins carts? I don't know why they'd need to do this and then mention their name nowhere on it (if this was a deal with Nintendo, what were they afraid of?). I still think the most believable theory is that this is a pirate by a local company or maybe even a more recent pirate by one/some private guys. (I'm not sure, when was the 1st copy found? It would be interesting to know).
I was also thinking about this... When I mixed up Zelda with Zelda II, which got no cart release in Japan, in fact it makes up for more evidence that it's a pirate, doesn't it? Korea had official NES versions of both games, great. FC machines and games were common though, and Zelda 1 carts must have been rather easy to import/purchase (I speculate, hope it makes sense). So all that FC owners could complain about was the lack of Zelda II, which required an FDS which was an additional cost and hassle. Here comes this pirate cart. Could explain why a similar version hasn't been found for the 1st Zelda.
What else can I add... I just noticed that the box seems to open from the long side (top and bottom). You guys see this too?
(http://s33.postimg.org/npwoir88f/lolol.jpg)
So essentially one theory of the Korean Zelda II FC cart is that it is "semi-official." I can see this as an example of plausible deniability. From the outside, the cartridge looks like a pirate. You have the wrong artwork, a pirate shell and label issues. On the inside you appear to have a Nintendo-made PCB and Nintendo-made ROM chips for the US version of the game. You also have a Hyundai box and manual, but as we know, Hyundai did release Zelda II in an official 72-pin version. Which of the two seems more plausible :
1. Hyundai, wanting to tap into the unlicensed Famicom market put together these cartridges. They could cull the necessary chips from unsold copies of their official Zelda II release. They have already printed a manual in Korean, so much of the hard work is already done. They design a box similar to the NES version.
2. A pirate outfit comes across a batch of Zelda II Korean NES carts, as in they fell off a truck, and decides to turn them into Famicom carts. They design a box to come close to what Hyundai might have done.
The main problem I see with either scenario is the use of an official Nintendo board. Zelda II NES uses SKROM. Typically Nintendo manufactured all boards and cartridges, but this is not universal. NES games with boards from Konami and Acclaim exist. It is not therefore unheard of for Nintendo to allow its partners access to its PCB designs, but its easier for a major distributing partner to obtain access than some random pirate. Pirate FC games with battery-backed saving capabilities are pretty uncommon.
I am more inclined to believe that Hyundai released this cart. Either it figured Nintendo was unlikely to be able to trace it back to Hyundai or Nintendo would have to accept it because Nintendo needed Hyundai more than Hyundai needed Nintendo in South Korea. Moreover, since Hyundai bought the NES cartridges, Nintendo could not really complain of lost profit, just a breach of a licensing agreement. However, Hyundai use of pirate-style shells and pirate mistakes would make it less likely that other Nintendo business partners would complain that Hyundai was getting preferential treatment.
Quote from: Flying_Phoenix on June 04, 2016, 08:19:38 am
I think it's a lot more dangerous to give it credibility just because we're not sure, and because it has a copyright on the front label. I think for obscure games, it should work "pirate unless proven otherwise". My feeling over the years is that we went from a mentality of "if I haven't seen it before, it must be a pirate" to "if I haven't seen it before and it has some kind of official smell to it, it must be a super rare official version we had never heard about". This, I believe is dangerous and pushes the smell of money towar repro makers and generally people looking to make fat profits off people's credulity and lack of research. Hope this clears why I'm so aggressively taking this side of the debate.
I was also thinking about this... When I mixed up Zelda with Zelda II, which got no cart release in Japan, in fact it makes up for more evidence that it's a pirate, doesn't it? Korea had official NES versions of both games, great. FC machines and games were common though, and Zelda 1 carts must have been rather easy to import/purchase (I speculate, hope it makes sense). So all that FC owners could complain about was the lack of Zelda II, which required an FDS which was an additional cost and hassle. Here comes this pirate cart. Could explain why a similar version hasn't been found for the 1st Zelda.
(http://s33.postimg.org/npwoir88f/lolol.jpg)
A Zelda 1 version has also been found. MasterDisk has one, IIRC.
Regarding authenticity, my largest problem is as follows: To claim pirate without knowing or without much "evidence" automatically causes interest in the item to be removed, in the opinions of a lot of people. The vast majority of collectors collect licensed products, not pirates. So say that the game is a pirate and no one will be interested in the damn thing, even if years later it is confirmed as being a licensed / legit release.
Take Kiddie Sun in Fantasia for example, the Adventure Island hack. It definitely seems to have been a promo of some sort officially produced by Hudson for the Taiwan region. Sure, the game is worth three figures probably, but seldom do people message me about wanting to buy mine. Why is that? For years, everyone wrote it off as a pirate hack, and now there is a stigma or mark on that cart, and it will never be seen as anything other than a bastard step-brother to the other licensed games. And to me, this sort of thing sucks.
I feel we should objectively try to list the games as what they are, whether it be licensed games, unlicensed games, pirate / bootleg games, reprints by company, fan "reproductions", etc. And if we don't know, then we just list the evidence on both sides, with the hope that someone will dig up more information.
But to say that it is pirate without enough evidence, I just don't like that at all, as it really does lower the desirability for the item, and the interest. And with less interested parties, well less chance someone can discover the truth as well.
Just to say, this is nice to see, usually when people get heated it's because they care (and we know you all care about Famicom) but it's rare to see gentlemanly spirit afterward, so thank you all for that.
L___E___T, it was mostly my fault, I could have said what I said in a different way. :D
fcgamer, I'd love to see it (can't find anything on Google right now). I have to say you sound like you dislike obscure items being treated as pirates, because it makes it harder for you to sell them afterward. ;D (and I did read your reply several times, just to make sure)
I think "special" items such as this Zelda II have to be proven official, just like you have to prove someone guilty. The fact that "people" won't hype as much if it ends up being official, well frankly, it's the least of my concerns. Evidence against it being official has been brought forward by me several times, and by other people before, and I haven't seen anybody respond to that. Box format, missing information, instruction manual, wrong art etc.
I won't keep on repeating the same thing, but if this is "maybe official because we can't prove it isn't", well, what else can I say. I make lists of what's wrong, if someone can comment those points and bring more points to prove it's official, sure, otherwise it's just a religion-type of debate. In the end, evidence or not, it seems most people will believe what they want to believe.
What my next steps would be at this stage...
- Find pics of the Zelda 1 game that you say exists
- Find pics of the board of Zelda 1 and 2
- If this is official, I bet there would have been some magazine ad or any kind of appearance on printed supports? Maybe in some Korean magazines? I know this will be super hard to find. But I did manage to find proof of Super Mario Land on Korean GB this way. Most collectors still think it was only a pack-in or wasn't released at all.
And if this game uses Zelda 3 art...
- Zelda 3 came out in November 1991 in Japan.
- Zelda 2 came out in January 1987 in Japan.
That's almost 4 years, but let's say 3 years and a half, because artworks were definitely available a bit early (magazine previews etc.).
This means the game must have come mid-1991 at the earliest. It can't be older, can it? With those ALttP artworks. That Link resting under a tree is definitely a Zelda 3 art.
It makes less and less sens to me as an official release, everytime I think about it.
I'd really like to see someone bring forward elements to show me why it's official, by looking at the cart and box (and deal with that manual too!). Been spending enough time looking at those pics, it still screams pirate to me. 8)
Quote from: Flying_Phoenix on June 04, 2016, 06:28:16 pm
fcgamer, I'd love to see it (can't find anything on Google right now). I have to say you sound like you dislike obscure items being treated as pirates, because it makes it harder for you to sell them afterward. ;D (and I did read your reply several times, just to make sure)
I think "special" items such as this Zelda II have to be proven official, just like you have to prove someone guilty. The fact that "people" won't hype as much if it ends up being official, well frankly, it's the least of my concerns. Evidence against it being official has been brought forward by me several times, and by other people before, and I haven't seen anybody respond to that. Box format, missing information, instruction manual, wrong art etc.
@Flying_Phoenix: You've read my last post wrong, to be quite frank about it...at least in regards to my intentions. If you really want to go down the route of "because it makes it harder for you to sell them afterward" then we can, but alas I would have many comments about your sellings as well. When I sell a lot of these obscure items for much cheaper than everyone else (including yourself), well I'm not in it for the money, never was and never will be. And whether I can sell rarities or not, well I don't really care all too much about it. If you saw my personal collection, you'd see what I mean.
I dislike obscure items being treated like pirates because it is a second-hand treatment, period. To go further with your analogy of "innocent until proven guilty", in the collector / gamer world, being a pirate equates to being guilty, and being a licensed / legit release is akin to being innocent. Now it is silly of course to say that everything of questionable nature should be considered a licensed release, so "not enough information to prove either way" is a much better way of classifying items like this But why?
Your primary concern is that you don't want other people making / creating fake pieces and claiming them to be obscure, and then having the market get flooded with this stuff. But why? Probably because it would bring your whole collection into question, regarding authenticity, should the tide ever turn the other way and people afterwards started proving that "legit" items turned out to be "not legit". To me, this is a selfish reason to denounce potentially legit items as fakes out of the gate, instead of trying to be more objective and just agree that more information needs to be discovered.
Regarding magazine ads and the like, good luck with that, it won't prove everything at all, sadly. Thanks to one of my friends, I have almost a whole series of several popular Taiwanese gaming magazines from back in the day, and although some revelations did come about, there were also tons of answers left, well unanswered. Tons of stuff never appeared in the magazines, sadly. So then we need to turn to other means to get answers. But being able to get our hands on evidence is quite a difficult task, as much of the "evidence" we need is either lost in time or thrown into the garbage years ago, if it even existed at all.
So to treat an item as if it is without a doubt a pirate, of course it will never be proved otherwise. Then collectors like you protect your assets, and historians like me struggle to get the game added to updated game lists, when tides start to change and it seems as though it may not be a pirate. Seems like a bad way to go about doing things, imo.
To sum it up, you don't give things the black mark and then try to erase it, rather be careful and don't give out a black mark unless it is known to be deserved, 100% without a doubt.
Post Merge: June 04, 2016, 10:23:22 pm
Also, you keep talking about box and artwork, please explain to everyone the chips. Why are they official if the game is a pirate?
There are many pirates with copy/pasted official artworks (from the game included or from other games). There are also many pirates with copy/pasted copyrights. 95% of all the Castlevania pirates I've come across in my life use official artworks. I'm not sure what your point was...?
I wasn't being selfish and thinking about my lootz, in fact i don't even have 10 Famicom games in my collection. Just wanted to warn people before they think it's official. I wasn't saying this with regards to my collection; I'm pretty much nobody on the Zelda scene anyway, with only a few interesting items. I think you're a lot more active selling stuff than me. Check the number of your sale threads on different forums versus mine. On eBay, I've mostly been relisting the same unsold items over and over. Please do comment my sales and general attitude, whether it's positive or negative. It will help me improve. :)
And we both agree that we need more information. Let me know if you find pics of the Zelda 1, and the board of Zelda 1 and 2. :)
(https://i.imgur.com/jZPmEsO.png)
Could not find (yet) pictures of Zelda 2.
To me this both carts are still clearly pirates, I don't afford much validity to the "X did this in Y market" type arguments personally, (no offense!) I just go on the signs that are there in front of me.
Am I missing something regarding the chips - what do NES marked chips suggest? Many repros use NES PRG chips right? Am I missing something? I am not an expert on electronics.
I do think that there are at least a dozen signs the cart is a pirate, versus one suggested sign that it's not (chips). Everything else feels like theoretical conjecture to be honest.
Let's be objective about this - but first I'd like to know what Nintendo chips suggest - can they not just be chucked in by any pirate outfit? Boards I can see are less likely.
Pirates getting official Nintendo MMC1, ZL 1 & 2 PRG chips in quantity? Please...
That's what I don't understand - why do we think that is so outrageous? We're not talking about a large quantity, and weren't those chips also made outside Japan back then?
I think it's clear the board is not an official Nintendo one, quality looks ropey. I don't see why a bunch of people couldn't just whack those onto a Famicom board, like repro makers do?
I might be missing something, but I don't think you can say that Nintendo chips prove an official release. They may demand a second look and prompt some debate, but I don't think they're proof.
Now, when you look at the Korean NES cart labels and boxes against these pink carts' labels and boxes, there is a massive disparity, with multiple telltale signs.
This is the best pic I can find as of right now of my Zelda 2 board. I'm still trying to see if I can find better. I know the pic is very poor quality but I'm not gonna risk breaking the shell.
Jay please don't risk opening the shell - it's not worth it and I don't think we need you to worry about that. I think it's reasonable to assume there are ZL 2 US NES PRG chips in there, and we know that it contains the US Zelda 2. But while I'm in the "I don't buy it" camp, let me reiterate again, that I think these are lovely items and not to be devalued whether they are official or not. Discussion itself shouldn't affect value.
I am however against the 'let's not assume they are pirates because it hurts the research sector". I have only recently had a discussion with a very qualified and accredited VB historian that 'proves' discoveries with this approach. That is a mistaken path, to temptingly say 'undiscovered rare new find' in order to encourage other interested parties to dig deeper, while selectively turning the cheek to objective evidence that doesn't support a desired theory. It's easy to come up with multiple 'what if' theories based on years of research and conclusions across the board, but you have to go on what's in front of you. I recently had that experience here: http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=34572#forumpost34572 - [for those interested the item was bought by a collector and confirmed heavily sunfaded]
Quote from: Flying_Phoenix on June 05, 2016, 02:43:12 am
There are many pirates with copy/pasted official artworks (from the game included or from other games). There are also many pirates with copy/pasted copyrights. 95% of all the Castlevania pirates I've come across in my life use official artworks. I'm not sure what your point was...?
I wasn't being selfish and thinking about my lootz, in fact i don't even have 10 Famicom games in my collection. Just wanted to warn people before they think it's official. I wasn't saying this with regards to my collection; I'm pretty much nobody on the Zelda scene anyway, with only a few interesting items. I think you're a lot more active selling stuff than me. Check the number of your sale threads on different forums versus mine. On eBay, I've mostly been relisting the same unsold items over and over. Please do comment my sales and general attitude, whether it's positive or negative. It will help me improve. :)
And we both agree that we need more information. Let me know if you find pics of the Zelda 1, and the board of Zelda 1 and 2. :)
If we look at the stuff for sale in both of our selling venues, we can compare prices. $100 for a Hong Kong Game Cartridges Mahjong? What makes this one so rare, just because the licensed version is rare? The stuff I sell is equally rare (or in some cases, rarer) but usually I just ask for a ten-spot or two. So it is not about quantity, rather prices, that was my point there.
Also, if you go back and re-read my post, I specifically mentioned about the chips, nothing about the box or art. Please explain about the licensed chips...
Post Merge: June 05, 2016, 05:54:17 am
Quote from: L___E___T on June 05, 2016, 04:52:41 am
I am however against the 'let's not assume they are pirates because it hurts the research sector". I have only recently had a discussion with a very qualified and accredited VB historian that 'proves' discoveries with this approach. That is a mistaken path, to temptingly say 'undiscovered rare new find' in order to encourage other interested parties to dig deeper, while selectively turning the cheek to objective evidence that doesn't support a desired theory.
It's easy to come up with multiple 'what if' theories based on years of research and conclusions across the board, but you have to go on what's in front of you.
Sorry, I broke up your paragraph into two, as it makes for better reading imo.
To address your thoughts though, why should we assume something is a pirate just because it is obscure and there is little research to prove it to be or not to be? Let's go back to Kiddie Sun, which I've mentioned time and time again.
For years it was thought to just be an unauthorized hack of Adventure Island. Just look at the cart, cheesy and pirate-ish:
https://fcgamer.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/img_5420.jpg
But then further research revealed the more likely truth to be that it was authorized and produced by Hudson's Taiwanese division. Yup.
Never once did I say that we should be calling something "legit" when its legitimacy is in question; however saying that it is a pirate when the piece is in question is just as bad and just as extreme, only in the opposite manner. The best way is to look objectively and state that here is the evidence for stance A, and here is the evidence for stance B, take it and reach your own conclusions, or do more research and perhaps be the one to dig up the advert or whatever. This is the appropriate manner by which to conduct one's behavior when it comes to obscure / questionable items, imo. Anyone that claims otherwise is doing so to push forward their own personal agendas, no matter which side it be on. If there is not enough evidence, there is not enough evidence, plain and simple.
MasterDisk: Is this another Korean cart... of Zelda... 2?
Jay-Ray: this the board of the game in MasterDisk's picture, or the one being discussed in the thread?
The rest is is off-topic, but since I've been publicly damaged (JK ;D), I have to reply here.
In the last six years, I've found many HKGC carts, but only two of them were Mah Jong. The first one was sold 80$, not to me, but I managed to track down the buyer and trade it back for some stuff he wanted more. That cart is in my drawer now. The other cart you are talking about (this one (http://www.ebay.com/itm/272254709129)), I bought it more recently for cheaper, as part of a lot, and I've been trying to resell it for 99$ to pay back the lot and make some profit, yes, absolutely. Just two days ago, someone offered me 100€ (not $), so it's packed and ready to go.
So, that's about it for this cart. And yes, it's special to many collectors and also to me personally, as it's an old 90s pirate from Hong Kong of a game which is a typical Chinese pastime, and an HK NES game that would eventually become a super hyped game in the 21st century. It's a funny coincidence that the guys behind HKGC didn't pirate more "famous" games like Zelda, but that they choose Mah Jong as part of their catalogue. It's also more of a funny coincidence that the pirate has a label which is clearly a colour photocopy of the official HK version. More funny again, is that this particular copy is an early HKGC cart with hand-cut label (of poor quality) with a code on it (C23). Later releases use plastified labels with nice rounded corners and no code. Sometimes the same game exists both with the old and new label, and older releases are in my experience harder to find, and only a handful of games exists. Most of the catalogue was released with plastified labels at a later stage.
I didn't even mention all of this to any of the guys who got in touch with me to bargain the price of the cart, as it's kind of personal and they can do their own research. Hope you enjoyed the info. ;) And met me know if you think that cart is common, like, if you've found some in the past or whatever. I truly had a hard time finding it, took a lot of patience, and as you can see, the 2nd one I found was in rather bad condition. It was easier to track down a brand new Hyundai copy of Zelda II, what an irony. :D
I don't think I was being a butthole asking 100$ for it :) I wouldn't have gotten 5-6 people mailing me about it to ask for more details
Those PCBs for both Z1 and Z2 look far too roughly cut to be an official Nintendo PCB. The PCB traces may have been copied from official boards, but it is a little hard to tell when bootgod's NESCart DB is down. The label on Z1 is obviously wrong (thanks to the "2") and off-center.
Still, you have a situation where the chips appear to be genuine Nintendo chips intended for their respective NES carts. Note that Z2 uses a PRG-ROM and a CHR-ROM while Z1 only uses a PRG-ROM. S-RAM chips are generic but these are the brands and packages I would expect to find in an official Nintendo product.
These carts are obviously unofficial products, but are they pirate products? A pirate could conceivably acquire a batch of NES Zelda 1 & 2 cartridges, but I'm still more partial to the theory that Hyundai wanted to clear out unsold inventory by converting their NES cartridges into Famicom cartridges and selling them like pirates.
Quote from: Great Hierophant on June 05, 2016, 09:42:56 am
Those PCBs for both Z1 and Z2 look far too roughly cut to be an official Nintendo PCB. The PCB traces may have been copied from official boards, but it is a little hard to tell when bootgod's NESCart DB is down. The label on Z1 is obviously wrong (thanks to the "2") and off-center.
Still, you have a situation where the chips appear to be genuine Nintendo chips intended for their respective NES carts. Note that Z2 uses a PRG-ROM and a CHR-ROM while Z1 only uses a PRG-ROM. S-RAM chips are generic but these are the brands and packages I would expect to find in an official Nintendo product.
These carts are obviously unofficial products, but are they pirate products? A pirate could conceivably acquire a batch of NES Zelda 1 & 2 cartridges, but I'm still more partial to the theory that Hyundai wanted to clear out unsold inventory by converting their NES cartridges into Famicom cartridges and selling them like pirates.
I could easily see something like this being the truth of the matter, gray area.
The pic I posted is the board of the cart in question. @ flying Phoenix please tell me where you can find a cart like mine for sale because I've only ever seen 3 in my life.
Post Merge: June 06, 2016, 02:06:02 am
Any one notice the back of the boxes are almost identical from the famicom Korean version to the nes Korean version
I had noticed that - it supports and makes sense for both theories that it would, but it's worth noting.
Quote from: Great Hierophant on June 05, 2016, 09:42:56 am
These carts are obviously unofficial products, but are they pirate products? A pirate could conceivably acquire a batch of NES Zelda 1 & 2 cartridges, but I'm still more partial to the theory that Hyundai wanted to clear out unsold inventory by converting their NES cartridges into Famicom cartridges and selling them like pirates.
This is refreshing to see. To me it's clear that these are not official, or at the very least have not taken on an official guise. With that out of the way (IMO), the question in hand is - does that make it a pirate?
Now, for me, I tend to think that anything unofficial is essentially a pirate. That's like an umbrella term I slap on (rightly or wrongly) myself as a categorisation. I see repros sitting as a sub-category underneath that really, because they are different and DIY efforts, but they're not licensed or put out by approved 3rd party developer/publishers, so to me they are fundamentally a 'pirate', which is as I said that label that I (personally) use for non-official releases. I wouldn't count a licensed distribution, i.e. by Mani or by Hyundai or Samurai as a pirate, to clarify. Homebrew sits in a grey zone that I don't want to digress into.
As for this particular cart - whatever the insides are, to me it is not official because of the packaging and manufacture signs. I do however entertain the notion that Hyundai had leftover stock of NES chips and sold or passed those on or however they made their way to someone else. I don't think Hyundai released this themselves, personally. But that's not something I can 'prove' either way.
But what I would say is that I still consider this an unofficial 'pirate' because the game is not official at all in the presentation or localisation, which is fundamentally the difference to me in what makes something 'official' or not. I can in today's day and age harvest some official Famicom boards for Mother, stick them in a NES shell with a converter and make a little box and label, but that does in no shape make it an official release. It doesn't matter that the chips are real Nintendo, or that I myself have done previous business with Nintendo, what makes it official (for me at least) is whether it was a legitimate release in the market in agreement with Nintendo, and it wouldn't have any of those points.
So I think it's not just a question of 'what is a pirate?' it's also in part a question of 'what is an official release?'. This is my personal stance on this (very lovely) game, not to be taken with any negativity.
It is indisputably unofficial and therefore would be a pirate cart by Nintendo's standards.
If a Korean pirate outfit obtained a batch of Zelda II NES carts, desoldered the chips and put them on a pirate Famicom PCB in a pirate Famicom shell and adapted the official Zelda Famicom cart label and appropriated official Nintendo Zelda (SNES) artwork, it is a pirate cart. People who make and sell unauthorized cartridges containing copyrighted code are pirates. It does not make it legitimate because the game did not come out in your region. You are still a pirate whether you have a clandestine factory in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province or are making them by hand in Hoboken, New Jersey. You can call yourself a reproduction maker, but you are still flying the Jolly Roger.
Given the similarities in the box backs, I am a tad more inclined to believe that Hyundai did this one on the sly. Since they probably didn't have their own factories with the machining to produce Famicom carts, they may had to contact a pirate factory in Taiwan or on the mainland.
Quote from: L___E___T on June 06, 2016, 02:39:08 am
Now, for me, I tend to think that anything unofficial is essentially a pirate. That's like an umbrella term I slap on (rightly or wrongly) myself as a categorisation. I see repros sitting as a sub-category underneath that really, because they are different and DIY efforts, but they're not licensed or put out by approved 3rd party developer/publishers, so to me they are fundamentally a 'pirate', which is as I said that label that I (personally) use for non-official releases. I wouldn't count a licensed distribution, i.e. by Mani or by Hyundai or Samurai as a pirate, to clarify. Homebrew sits in a grey zone that I don't want to digress into.
I personally think it sloppy to "think that anything unofficial is essentially a pirate" and that "I wouldn't count a licensed distribution...as a pirate". Here is why.
Let's take a company such as Samurai. You already said that you wouldn't count them as pirate, and they were seemingly licensed distributors. However, they also crossed over to the dark side, as can be seen here:
http://postimg.org/image/e38yz4oef/
So not all Samurai games were official, and some were pirates. They dipped their toes in both waters.
Then take something like the game Videomation. According to Wikipedia, it was developed by FarSide Studios, the same guys that developed Action 52 for Sega. The game was published in the USA by THQ (licensed) yet published on Famicom by BIC and also another company, both of which were unlicensed. So then is it a pirate or official? In some places it is pirate and others it is official?
Unofficial is okay, but pirate is a poor word choice. Many companies produced games that weren't licensed by Nintendo (whatever that even means), but it doesn't make them pirates. ;) Let's lose the close-mindedness and examine the games in a more open way. Also, if unlicensed games are pirates, than homebrews essentially are as well :)
That's exactly as I said, I do count homebrews and repros essentially as 'pirate' - but I don't use that term as derogatory or with negativity to insinuate that they are made by evil doers etc.
I use it in place of 'unofficial', which is how I view this game. Hard to say on that Samurai game whether it's official or not, it looks unofficial to me. Videomation for Famicom I would also say is an unofficial release, like 8-Bit Music Power. It was a licensed release in other regions on NES sure, but the Famicom release is clearly unofficial, even if the code is legit, and the effort applaudable. I don't think that's weird, because what ultimately makes an official or unofficial release is the release itself, not necessarily the quality of the game that plays when you fire it up. There are some truly awful officially licensed games, and some excellent unlicensed unofficial releases, that's a pretty separate discussion in my opinion and again, an unofficial release does not mean 'a rubbish quality experience' which I've tried to hammer home.
In the end, I agree "pirate" probably isn't the best term because it is as I referred to it, an umbrella word and that might have been enough decades back, but with a need to differentiate today it doesn't work for all.
However FCgamer, you're kinda assuming that any negativity you appear to associate with the label 'pirate' is shared by everyone, and it's certainly it's not in my case. Linguistics are tricky and what is an ugly word to you or someone else may not be an ugly word at all to others. I find 'US NTSC' a label I steer away from, but for Nintendo Age regulars, that could well be seen as a boon, right? That's the best example I can think of on the fly, to why it's not a big deal to me to think of and refer to the game as a pirate.
I consider these Zelda cartridges as pirate carts because they contains Nintendo's software released in an unauthorized manner. Nintendo could have released Zelda and Zelda II for the Famicom and did release Zelda for the Famicom. If Hyundai wanted to release some English Zelda cartridges for the Famicom clones in South Korea, Nintendo technically could make them for that market. Of course, Nintendo wouldn't because it would only encourage sales of unauthorized console hardware. So, Hyundai under this theory was both a licensed distributor of Nintendo hardware and software and also a pirate.
Outside pirate cartridges, there are only licensed and unlicensed cartridges. Licensed cartridges are a finite quantity. Nintendo entered into licensing contracts to companies to give them official permission to release games for the Famicom and NES. Nintendo stopped producing NES cartridges in 1993 and Famicom cartridges in 1994, discontinuing the NES hardware in 1995 and the Famicom hardware in 2003. The number of licensed games is set more-or-less in stone because Nintendo does not license games for its 8-bit hardware anymore.
Unlicensed cartridges, whether by Tengen, Hacker International or homebrew produced by RetroUSB, is a universe that is not closed. All unlicensed means is that the company has not contracted with Nintendo to be granted permission to release games on Nintendo's Famicom and NES. All pirate cartridges are unlicensed, but not all unlicensed cartridges are pirates. No one needs a license from Nintendo to produce cartridges for its systems anymore and no one can get one anyway.
As noted in fcgamer's blog, there were companies that may have dipped their toes into the unlicensed waters. Hudson Soft seems pretty "guilty" here, perhaps Konami as well. But even though Nintendo would not have approved, they were at least issuing their own software in an unauthorized format. By contrast, Samurai and Hyundai were releasing someone else's, Nintendo's software. A fine distinction between unlicensed and pirate, but a distinction none-the-less.
A pirate cartridge is illegal because it contains infringing content, whether copyrighted code, graphics, music or trademarked characters. Copyright and trademark violations carry both criminal and civil penalties. So it is unfair to characterize a homebrew like Kira Kira Star Night DX as a pirate cartridge unless there is some illegality in it.
That's kind of how it goes. There is no formal definition of "unlicensed" or "pirate", so if you are going to label a game as such, you need to lay out your definition of the terms first.
I dunno, I thought the term "pirate" refers to anything appropriating someone else's IP without permission. I can't say I've ever heard it used in any other way to be honest...
Quote from: chowder on June 06, 2016, 12:05:30 pm
I dunno, I thought the term "pirate" refers to anything appropriating someone else's IP without permission. I can't say I've ever heard it used in any other way to be honest...
Yup, this man gets it. Hence why pirate and unofficial are not very good synonyms. ;)
Agree. Earlier everyone say HK-Originals referring to these type of games. But if no universal (or for us on FW, locally) conclusion has been made about what we should define as a "Pirate/Unlicensed/Unauthorized" e.t.c then it will be just a matter of personal interpretation which might bring confusion so it might be a good idea to actually try to narrow it down for the sake of clarity, although it might be hard I think we can come to a somewhat diplomatic solution to what we should be able to refer to certain types of games.
At least it would be preferrable and easier for people to actually know what a person might refer to when speaking about games like these. :)
No people use it in any way they like. For example printer companies uses terms like pirate ink and pirate papers for compatible third-party ink cartridges and papers which is ridiculous.
Using that term for unlicensed original Famicom games is also rubbish. Bootlegs are pirates. "Unlicenced" can be used as an umbrella term for both unlicensed originals and crappy bootlegs, not the other way around!
This game has the artwork from another game, so licensed or not Hyundai screwed up.
I think some definitions need to be clarified to sort out this issue.
Pirate: As Great Hierophant said, software that has been released in an unauthorized manner. I.e. Stolen IP.
Hack: Although contains some unique work, it still contains (mostly) stolen IP. Therefore, it's a type of pirate
Unofficial: A game which did not have Nintendo's permission to be released on their system, but does not contain stolen IP like a pirate game. From an old court case, I think Atari vs Activision, the judge said that when a person buys a console, you can't stop them from what they put into it. So there is no legal or moral issue with the existence of "unofficial" games. Not having Nintendo Seal of Approval meant you didn't a guarantee from Nintendo.
Homebrew: if the content is not stolen, then it's a type of Unofficial game, usually low budget. If the content is stolen, all or in part, then it's a pirate.
Also, there is the grey area of what happens when the IP holder no longer exists (abandonware) but maybe we shouldn't discuss that here.
Regarding real Nintendo components in the cartiridge, it doesn't make the game an official Nintendo approved release. E.g. For any car manufacturer, about 70% of the components are purchased parts from 3rd parties. In some cases, some brands don't even make their own engine! It's not certain individual parts which make something genuine, it's the overall product. In our example, the overall product is the legal use of the game software as approved by Nintendo in which they receive royalties for the release.
In relation to the box, if it was real, then it would have Nintendo logos etc plastered on the back just the like official release does. If I was a gambler, I would bet it's a pirate.
Also, there was a comment regarding the value of pirate games. I saw on TV once a coin/banknote appraiser talking about counterfeit currency from the late 1800s, and how it was worth a lot more than "legitimate" versions due to the rarity. In time, the stigma of "low quality" pirates will fade and the focus will change to include rarity amongst other things.
I'll just put this here again. Once again, this is not a mandate on how the forum is to use the terms.
The official FW stance (that is, how the FW website defines them, not how the forum in general defines them) are (to paraphrase a post by JC from 2009):
Licensed -- the obvious one.
Unlicensed -- games with original gameplay when compared with licensed games, even if the game borrows some graphics from licensed games.
Hacks -- games with the same gameplay as a licensed game, only the graphics are hacked, either basically or extensively. I usually refer to hacks as basic hacks -- title screen, main character -- or extensive hacks -- more than just the title screen, main character.
Pirates -- games that are the exact copy of licensed games, except perhaps the removal of the copyright or an altered title screen.
Quote from: P on June 07, 2016, 05:18:40 am
No people use it in any way they like. For example printer companies uses terms like pirate ink and pirate papers for compatible third-party ink cartridges and papers which is ridiculous.
Well, yes, but I was referring to games, obviously. People who hijack and ransom ships at sea are also called pirates, but that's hardly relevant here ;)
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 07, 2016, 06:10:25 am
Unlicensed -- games with original gameplay when compared with licensed games, even if the game borrows some graphics from licensed games.
It's just that it makes very little sense. Unlicensed = not licensed right? So it could be anything that's not licensed by Nintendo for any region.
Quote from: P on June 08, 2016, 11:04:13 pm
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 07, 2016, 06:10:25 am
Unlicensed -- games with original gameplay when compared with licensed games, even if the game borrows some graphics from licensed games.
It's just that it makes very little sense. Unlicensed = not licensed right? So it could be anything that's not licensed by Nintendo for any region.
But calling a game "pirated" when it isn't stealing any IP, and is 100% legal, makes even less sense. Especially when no one would ever dare to call a homebrew game "pirated" (a homebrew game and something like the Micro Genius games are basically the same).
Of course unauthorized copies of games are not licensed; however, the original software *was* licensed by Nintendo.
Quote from: P on June 08, 2016, 11:04:13 pm
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 07, 2016, 06:10:25 am
Unlicensed -- games with original gameplay when compared with licensed games, even if the game borrows some graphics from licensed games.
It's just that it makes very little sense. Unlicensed = not licensed right? So it could be anything that's not licensed by Nintendo for any region.
I think the term "Unlicensed Original" was used sometimes in early FW. Yes, of course anything that's not licensed is unlicensed. Pirates and hacks are not licensed*. But the categorization was such that Licensed and Unlicensed games were actually original games, whereas Pirates and Hacks were just copies or variations.
It also has to do with how the FW game pages are organized. Licensed and Unlicensed games get their own pages, while Pirates and Hacks only get mentions on the respective games that they pirated or hacked.
*edit: there are a few licensed games that could be categorized as hacks also, though
According to the FW definitions we currently have in place (loosely) then this would fall under the pirate category:
Pirates -- games that are the exact copy of licensed games, except perhaps the removal of the copyright or an altered title screen.
Obviously there is genuine debate and contention with this game and it is plausible that this particular release doesn't 100% correlate with what pirate carts typically are though.
So it's enough to change the main character to Mario and it's not a pirate anymore, cool!
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 09, 2016, 04:26:36 am
Quote from: P on June 08, 2016, 11:04:13 pm
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 07, 2016, 06:10:25 am
Unlicensed -- games with original gameplay when compared with licensed games, even if the game borrows some graphics from licensed games.
It's just that it makes very little sense. Unlicensed = not licensed right? So it could be anything that's not licensed by Nintendo for any region.
I think the term "Unlicensed Original" was used sometimes in early FW. Yes, of course anything that's not licensed is unlicensed. Pirates and hacks are not licensed*. But the categorization was such that Licensed and Unlicensed games were actually original games, whereas Pirates and Hacks were just copies or variations.
It also has to do with how the FW game pages are organized. Licensed and Unlicensed games get their own pages, while Pirates and Hacks only get mentions on the respective games that they pirated or hacked.
*edit: there are a few licensed games that could be categorized as hacks also, though
I see so by Unlicensed you really mean unlicensed original games (I think that should be mentioned when using this term). That would also include homebrew technically.
Quote from: P on June 10, 2016, 03:46:44 am
So it's enough to change the main character to Mario and it's not a pirate anymore, cool!
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 09, 2016, 04:26:36 am
Quote from: P on June 08, 2016, 11:04:13 pm
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 07, 2016, 06:10:25 am
Unlicensed -- games with original gameplay when compared with licensed games, even if the game borrows some graphics from licensed games.
It's just that it makes very little sense. Unlicensed = not licensed right? So it could be anything that's not licensed by Nintendo for any region.
I think the term "Unlicensed Original" was used sometimes in early FW. Yes, of course anything that's not licensed is unlicensed. Pirates and hacks are not licensed*. But the categorization was such that Licensed and Unlicensed games were actually original games, whereas Pirates and Hacks were just copies or variations.
It also has to do with how the FW game pages are organized. Licensed and Unlicensed games get their own pages, while Pirates and Hacks only get mentions on the respective games that they pirated or hacked.
*edit: there are a few licensed games that could be categorized as hacks also, though
I see so by Unlicensed you really mean unlicensed original games (I think that should be mentioned when using this term). That would also include homebrew technically.
Yes it would; however, then a distinction should be made based on fan games (homebrews) versus commercial / for profit ones (like stuff from Waixing in the 21st century).
Post Merge: June 10, 2016, 06:35:40 am
Except for the fact that many people are not sure that it is a 100% unofficial release...
Quote from: L___E___T on June 09, 2016, 04:48:18 am
:link:
Pirates -- games that are the exact copy of licensed games, except perhaps the removal of the copyright or an altered title screen.
Obviously there is genuine debate and contention with this game and it is plausible that this particular release doesn't 100% correlate with what pirate carts typically are though.
Quote from: fcgamer on June 10, 2016, 06:34:57 am
Yes it would; however, then a distinction should be made based on fan games (homebrews) versus commercial / for profit ones (like stuff from Waixing in the 21st century).
So, like "commercial" vs "non-commercial"? I don't really see how that's relevant.
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 10, 2016, 06:40:07 am
Quote from: fcgamer on June 10, 2016, 06:34:57 am
Yes it would; however, then a distinction should be made based on fan games (homebrews) versus commercial / for profit ones (like stuff from Waixing in the 21st century).
So, like "commercial" vs "non-commercial"? I don't really see how that's relevant.
I personally don't like the idea of including homebrew games mixed on the same list as commercial releases from large manufacturers back in the day. Sivak and Color Dreams, for example, are totally different beasts and to categorize them the same is foolish. Same with categorizing Color Dreams or Tengen under the same term as a hack of Super Mario Bros.
Yes that gets confusing as UglyJoe said - especially when a non-profit game (like Kira Kira Night Star) eventually ends up being a for profit game, or apparently so.
FCgamer I'm not sure what you were trying to highlight with my quote - I don't agree that many people are not sure that it's a 100% unofficial release.
It should be deemed unofficial, the question is whether it was released by Hyundai through a backdoor. But with all the discrepancies on the packaging and the board, you can't say it's official.
Though I do agree historic 'originals' need some differentiation from say, Battle Kid or Lan Master (modern homebrew).
Quote from: fcgamer on June 10, 2016, 06:45:34 am
Sivak and Color Dreams, for example, are totally different beasts and to categorize them the same is foolish.
How is it foolish? They are of course different beasts, but in other ways they are the same beast. I think that categorizing "commercial vs non-commercial entity" or "large vs small entity" or whatever is splitting hairs. If we look at every detail then every game ever released gets its own category. We have to draw the line somewhere.
It is acceptable for you to organize things in whatever detail you wish, but I don't believe that anyone who does otherwise is foolish for not doing so.
Post Merge: June 10, 2016, 06:57:11 am
Quote from: L___E___T on June 10, 2016, 06:46:31 am
Though I do agree historic 'originals' need som differentiation from say, Battle Kid or Lan Master (modern homebrew).
Is the release date not enough of a differentiation? When does "historic" end and "modern" begin?
That's true, there's always going to be a blurry line. One should be able to look at them, the time frames, the box art, and see the differences as well I suppose.
I see the differences, but technically they're the same category really as you say.
Just that one correlates to the asian 'industry' back then and the other a more western 'community' from today.
@L___E___T: The Samurai Nintendo games don't look overly official to me, even the so-called official ones, yet it seems that they are indeed official items.
We don't know the story about the Zelda 2 game, so to label it as a pirate I think is a bit hasty. That is my point, and has always been my point. I am not sure why you are being so fast to label this as a pirate, just like the Luxembourg collector has been. What is the hurry, why the need to so quickly get this one in the "pirates" category?
You say that, but there are signs on the games that I saw that look official to me. I will run over these when I get a chance.
The frustration with this thread for me, is that it's the otehr side of the coin - where there is one sign to this game being debatedly half-legit, with numerous signs that it's unofficial and a pirate.
So there's no rush - but as it stands it should be taken as a pirate unless a new development comes in. It's a disputed, or contested pirate you could say.
An imagined theory isn't really tangible enough, but all the other signs that we see on undisputed pirate carts are also on this one. So it seems a stretch, at least to me. I don't think any of this is harmful.
Is there a desire to chuck this in the 'official' category? I get that impression from some collectors/owners, but it feels more akin to legitimising the value of it, ironically in a rush as well.
Quote from: L___E___T on June 10, 2016, 07:23:56 am
You say that, but there are signs on the games that I saw that look official to me. I will run over these when I get a chance.
The frustration with this thread for me, is that it's the otehr side of the coin - where there is one sign to this game being debatedly half-legit, with numerous signs that it's unofficial and a pirate.
So there's no rush - but as it stands it should be taken as a pirate unless a new development comes in. It's a disputed, or contested pirate you could say.
An imagined theory isn't really tangible enough, but all the other signs that we see on undisputed pirate carts are also on this one. So it seems a stretch, at least to me. I don't think any of this is harmful.
Is there a desire to chuck this in the 'official' category? I get that impression from some collectors/owners, but it feels more akin to legitimising the value of it, ironically in a rush as well.
One of the people that owns this game (and would thus have a vested interest in the value) is MasterDisk, and he chose not to talk about the cart in this thread. Jay-Ray also has one, and hasn't posted much either on it. A bit strange that the two people with carts, who would have the largest interest in maintaining values, are also the ones not speaking about it. So that leaves the rest of us and our stances.
I've always felt that there is not enough evidence to put this cart in either category, pirate or official. I've felt this way since the start, and therefore prefer it being placed in a category with similar items, where more research needs to be done, and more information needs to be discovered. What is so bad with this? If we mark the cart as a pirate, it gets a permanent stain on it, even if it turns out to be legit later. To do the reverse, although not as damaging imo, is also irresponsible. Hence why it should just be placed in a category where more information needs to be done.
Post Merge: June 10, 2016, 07:39:55 am
How exactly are they the same? There are huge differences, and we can especially see those when looking at the NES homebrew market. The homebrew games are mostly being made as a labor of love. Folks making limited editions of 10 pieces to give out to their friends, making games such as "I rubbed my nut sack on the neighbor's cat", etc. They just do it for the lols, some even repurpose commercial game boards for their products. And then for some of the homebrew games, no official versions were ever released (like Solar Wars), and repro makers just make them left and right, as the "distributor". I doubt Chris Covell was looking to get rich and earn a monthly salary from that game...
But with the unlicensed originals, those guys were more serious. They weren't (for the most part) making games for a 30-year old machine; they were making games for a machine that was still popular, trying to put food on the table for their families and to pay the bills. They weren't making games for the lulz, they were trying to sell product, at the end of the day.
Totally different contexts, different motivations, even differences in how the games were developed (many of the limitations back then have been all but removed today, in terms of development costs, parts cost, information how the machines work, etc). Totally different beasts, and to say that they are one and the same is quite misleading.
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 10, 2016, 06:50:34 am
Quote from: fcgamer on June 10, 2016, 06:45:34 am
Sivak and Color Dreams, for example, are totally different beasts and to categorize them the same is foolish.
How is it foolish? They are of course different beasts, but in other ways they are the same beast. I think that categorizing "commercial vs non-commercial entity" or "large vs small entity" or whatever is splitting hairs. If we look at every detail then every game ever released gets its own category. We have to draw the line somewhere.
It is acceptable for you to organize things in whatever detail you wish, but I don't believe that anyone who does otherwise is foolish for not doing so.
Post Merge: June 10, 2016, 06:57:11 am
Quote from: L___E___T on June 10, 2016, 06:46:31 am
Though I do agree historic 'originals' need som differentiation from say, Battle Kid or Lan Master (modern homebrew).
Is the release date not enough of a differentiation? When does "historic" end and "modern" begin?
Masterdisk and Jay have both posted in the thread - but haven't debated so much. But I wasn't necessarily referring to Jay and MS, it's more a feeling I get, which I did say was just an impression.
I don't think it's irresponsible. You have to go on the signs of what's in front of you. If a blue car has red paint under one of the wheelarches I would still say it's blue, just make it a talking point.
So that's how I see this - it is a pirate* cart, with a caveat. I.e. (*the legitimacy of this cart is currently contested). Wikipedia does this and it seems easy and clear enough.
I am going to post all of the evidence that points to this being a pirate, and at the least, unofficial.
But classifying this as a pirate doesn't put "a stain" on it - we've already said pirate carts are not 'dirty items' that should scoffed and spat at. In fact, you made a strong point about that some time back in this thread, that you dislike when people assume pirates are looked down on. But to overlook the signs and say it isn't a pirate because you're concerned of the effects of that, is not being objective. People interested in the history and background of this cart should need a little more reason that just investment value, IMO. To me that approach is actually the same thing you are complaining about, but the other side. It's like saying it's only worth researching and investigating if there's a widely accepted public domain value and sentiment slapped on it. Historians are not shy of rejecting previous given truths and facts.
TLDR; an investigative case should be that - investigation, not a pursual of a desired outcome. Until some real evidence is there - we're discussing a pirate cart with legit chips. The chips alone don't declassify.
Well L___E___T, here is the problem with what you propose. I will put your quotes in bold, and then discuss the problems with each point:
L___E___T: "Masterdisk and Jay have both posted in the thread - but haven't debated so much."
Yes, MasterDisk even stated that he didn't want to debate or argue about the cart. If anyone has a horse in the race, it would be those who either (a) own the cart or (b) those who are hoping the price will drop so that they can get one for a cheaper price.
L___E___T: But I wasn't necessarily referring to Jay and MS, it's more a feeling I get, which I did say was just an impression.
We have two main vocal people that are against the idea of it being anything other than a pirate, two cart owners that haven't said much of anything, and one guy that feels the cart should be left with a "not enough information to determine either way" status; exactly who would you be referring to, with this feeling?
L___E___T: I don't think it's irresponsible. You have to go on the signs of what's in front of you. If a blue car has red paint under one of the wheelarches I would still say it's blue, just make it a talking point.
Yes, I agree, you *do* need to examine the signs in front of you.
L___E___T: So that's how I see this - it is a pirate* cart, with a caveat. I.e. (*the legitimacy of this cart is currently contested). Wikipedia does this and it seems easy and clear enough.
Yes, you've made your opinion known many times on here, from the start. You were the first to say that the collectors had determined / decided it was a fake...
L___E___T: I am going to post all of the evidence that points to this being a pirate, and at the least, unofficial.
You do that. But I also hope you will be looking for signs, in general. Are we looking for the truth, or for evidence to support the outcome you already feel is the correct one? ...
L___E___T: But classifying this as a pirate doesn't put "a stain" on it - we've already said pirate carts are not 'dirty items' that should scoffed and spat at. In fact, you made a strong point about that some time back in this thread, that you dislike when people assume pirates are looked down on.
Please refer me to the page and post number, so I can reread what I wrote in context. I've always felt that the term "pirate" stains the cart, in collectors' minds, and I know a lot of others feel the same way.
L___E___T: But to overlook the signs and say it isn't a pirate because you're concerned of the effects of that, is not being objective.
Stating back on page one that the game is nothing more than a pirate, and then stating the same over and over again, furthermore trying to get it labeled hastily as a pirate. Is THAT being objective? I've stated dozens of times that if there is not enough evidence to draw a proper conclusion on what the item is, be it pirate or legit, then it should be classified as undetermined or something of the like. That is looking at the evidence and trying to be objective. And then you accuse me of not being objective here...
L___E___T: People interested in the history and background of this cart should need a little more reason that just investment value, IMO. To me that approach is actually the same thing you are complaining about, but the other side. It's like saying it's only worth researching and investigating if there's a widely accepted public domain value and sentiment slapped on it. Historians are not shy of rejecting previous given truths and facts.
Historians aren't shy of rejecting previous truths and facts; however, in this case, there just isn't enough evidence to state either of them as being fact. And that's the issue, right there. You want the game to be labeled as a pirate (maybe even hoping to lower the value so you can get one on the cheap, who knows if this or something else is your motivation) yet there is evidence suggesting the game might be more than just a flavor of the day pirate. So in reality, maybe the game is a pirate, maybe it is not. In the end, neither of us knows.
L___E___T: an investigative case should be that - investigation, not a pursual of a desired outcome. Until some real evidence is there - we're looking at a pirate cart some legit chips.
Touche. You are trying to pursue a desired outcome, that the game is a pirate.
What we are looking at here are some legit rom chips, a generic game case of high quality, a box that was based off of the legit box, a label with some pictures / naming errors, etc. Doesn't mean it's a pirate.
Quote from: fcgamer on June 10, 2016, 07:34:04 am
How exactly are they the same?
The games that they made are both for the FC/NES, both original creations, and neither of them were sanctioned by Nintendo. If you're looking for original games to play on your Famicom, they both fit the bill, and that's largely what the FW game list is about.
If you want to further categorize games by means of production, financial intent (or lack thereof), timeframe, development procedures, and general motivation, go right on ahead. That's totally valid.
Right, they both aren't sanctioned by Nintendo. But this has been discussed time and time again, as well. But the problem (as with everything in life), it isn't so black and white.
Take Time Diver Avenger / Time Diver Eon Man. I just viewed the database two minutes ago, and the game will only appear with the unlicensed box being checked. Houston, we have a problem though! The NES version of the game (although ultimately unreleased) was licensed by Nintendo. The same *would* be the case if you updated the database to include the NES Videomation (why the alias is titled Paint, never ever heard that name for it, but whatever). But that is the problem.
Even games that are licensed / sanctioned by Nintendo in one region, weren't in others. So it screws up the database to reference NES licensed games, when the license agreements are not always the same, 1:1 NES and Famicom.
Ultimately it is your FW list, but do we want to paint accurate depictions or misleading ones? I personally hate misleading lists, but that may just be me.
Quote from: UglyJoe on June 10, 2016, 08:11:03 am
The games that they made are both for the FC/NES, both original creations, and neither of them were sanctioned by Nintendo. If you're looking for original games to play on your Famicom, they both fit the bill, and that's largely what the FW game list is about.
Quote from: fcgamer on June 10, 2016, 08:35:43 am
Right, they both aren't sanctioned by Nintendo. But this has been discussed time and time again, as well. But the problem (as with everything in life), it isn't so black and white.
Take Time Diver Avenger / Time Diver Eon Man. I just viewed the database two minutes ago, and the game will only appear with the unlicensed box being checked. Houston, we have a problem though! The NES version of the game (although ultimately unreleased) was licensed by Nintendo. The same *would* be the case if you updated the database to include the NES Videomation (why the alias is titled Paint, never ever heard that name for it, but whatever). But that is the problem.
Even games that are licensed / sanctioned by Nintendo in one region, weren't in others. So it screws up the database to reference NES licensed games, when the license agreements are not always the same, 1:1 NES and Famicom.
I'm pretty sure the game page says that it was an unreleased NES game called Eon Man: http://famicomworld.com/game/1134/ (http://famicomworld.com/game/1134/)
It's also a list of Famicom games, not a list of NES games. If there was an NES version of a Famicom game (licensed or not), then we try to include it on the list as an alternate title to the Famicom game's entry, but not as its own entry.
The Videomation page needs updating, though, so thanks for pointing that one out.
You should make your own lists of "games with screwed up licensing around the world". You seem to know every single game that doesn't fit neatly into the usual categories ;D
FCgamer I do want to clarify that I personally am not after this cart. I don't want to say it's ugly because I don't think it is, but I don't desire it. I think I have it somewhere on NES but am aiming to get a Famicom repro made at some point as well. Ironically that would be quite similar to this cart, in build at least. So I don't "have a horse in the race" basically.
The other stuff I will have to dig through, but this was never any kind of attack on the game or persons from me - I simply think the evidence balance of pirate to legit is 90%:10% and that is the point where I think there's disagreement in this thread. For some it is 50/50, some it's 60/40 either side but if it wasn't for the chips raising one element of doubt I'd say it's 100% a pirate and I will explain why in time, maybe even this evening. I do not think packaging, label and outer elements are high quality, and the other raised points support both arguments (text/chips) depending on how you look at it, so I tend to disregard those factors from my own internal appraisal. I'm not trying to prove the cart is a pirate, as it really is OK with me whether it's a pirate or legit, that part doesn't change my feelings about the cart.
What I do object to is the constructive 'proving' of a theory based on other theories or ascertains and peer opinion.
I know you feel strongly about pirates, unlicensed, and official import games and I respect that - but you do tend to take disagreements with offence for some reason, none is intended.
I don't feel so strongly about those games. I mean, I like them and find them interesting sure, I even have a few, but they don't rock my boat as such. I do like rare games though, I think they're great.
But what I really don't like and what I calmly object to - is the acclamation that something is something it's not, so that's why I like to discuss in this thread. I have no strong feelings on the cart, only the topic...
Would the value of this cart be greater if you could definitively prove :
1. That Hyundai actually authorized this cart and had it manufactured, despite it looking like a pirate, or
2. That Nintendo allowed Hyundai to make Famicom carts out of unsold NES carts on condition they look pirated so Nintendo would not look like it encouraging other distribution partners and third party game makers to do the same?
Unfortunately labeling a game as a pirate release does put something of a black spot on the cartridge's value. If you label it like that, it becomes harder to segregate it from the modern reproduction, easy enough to do with both Zelda games. But if it was an approved yet unofficial product, suddenly the interest in it and the money willing to acquire it becomes much, much higher.
Is there such a thing as a company still making unlicensed games? Individual homebrew authors typically do not make games as their primary occupation, unless they are independently wealthy. RetroUSB is run by one guy. However, some companies on the Asian rim still manufacture Famicom cartridges. Are any of them actually not trying to steal another company's IP?
@L___E___T: I don't take offense to the things you say; however, I am just pointing out the dangers of what you propose everyone to do with the classification of this game. Now before we get properly started here:
Quote from: L___E___T on June 10, 2016, 10:55:30 am
FCgamer I do want to clarify that I personally am not after this cart. I don't want to say it's ugly because I don't think it is, but I don't desire it. I think I have it somewhere on NES but am aiming to get a Famicom repro made at some point as well. Ironically that would be quite similar to this cart, in build at least. So I don't "have a horse in the race" basically.
You initially said the following, just a few pages back:
Quote from: L___E___T on June 03, 2016, 07:08:15 am
Just to chime in - the Zelda II cart is generally considered a pirate and not an 'official' release regardless of chips. There is a giveaway on the label given that it uses A Link to the Past artwork.
Beautiful item though, I'd like to grab one one day, as well as a cart version of this: http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2317/
So you first say that you wanted this game, now you say you don't. Just thought I would mention this before we carry on.
Also, I just want to make a public disclaimer that I am not attacking you or your person on any level here, L___E___T, you are a mod here and have contributed tons towards the community, and that is something I can respect. With that said, I also feel that we, as a community, need to discuss the best way in classifying this game (and possibly other games) as unity helps a lot when it comes to people collecting, selling, buying, etc. But I think people need to be a bit more open-minded when looking at these games, instead of just trying to force square cartridges into round holes. That is my point.
Now I'll go through what I said before, I'll say it one last time, but then if you still don't want to try to see any other viewpoint than "IMO it's a pirate, so I want to classify it as such" then I don't know what to say, no point in discussing things with someone who already has their mind made up and is not willing to listen to other points.
We've previously discussed the packaging and what not, sure it looks pirate-ish in nature. So does that make the game a pirate? It possibly does. But then we have things like the Samurai games in India. The craftsmanship there is not the best either, judging from appearances. And then there was the "South African Version" NES game I found. Maybe official, maybe not, just one of those great oddities.
You mentioned the quality of the box, well unless you had touched this in person, I don't think we can judge too easily. And then on the flip side, we know that the chips are official chips, and we know that an official NES version of the game was released in Korea.
Now let's look if the situation were reversed. If we saw a cart that looked fabulous on the outside with packaging, but then the inside did not deliver (i.e. fake chips), we would conclude that it was a bootleg / pirate. And in reality, this happens daily, in the form of modern "reproductions". So which part of the product carries the heavier weight on whether the game is legit or not? If the chips carry such little weight, then a nice-looking label and nice box with wrong chips inside surely shouldn't be classified as a modern repro, right? That is, unless the chips themselves carry a lot of weight in determining whether the product is legit or not. Are you with me so far?
Now let's look at motivation:
The Luxembourg collector expressed that he doesn't want items like this to be considered legit if their is doubt, since he is afraid collectors (i.e. himself) could be "taken" or "duped" by a scammer making a one-off product and calling it rare.
MasterDisk would have a motivation to say that the game is legit, but he has stayed mum. Jay-Ray didn't say much either, yet would also have a motivation to say the game is legit.
So it feels confusing to me as it seems the only motivation for having this game marked as a "pirate" is from someone with an agenda to protect their own hobbyist habits.
And there comes the problem, and the area where there is disagreement in this thread. Several people have pointed out the dangers of calling this game a pirate, and then later finding out that it is not. One person mentioned the danger of calling this legit, and having it turn out to be a fake. Both situations could lead to serious issues for collectors down the line. So why the need to label it as anything to begin with? Why the need to try to force this square cart into a round hole? That is what I don't understand, and will not understand.
Why is it such a big problem to agree that there is evidence to support this game as being a pirate, as well as evidence to support the game as being legit or maybe grey area, and let users make their own judgements until such time where more evidence comes to light? Why the need to impose your viewpoint on others, like you were trying to do in the beginning namely with the following words:
"Just to chime in - the Zelda II cart is generally considered a pirate". None of us knows the story, taking either stance raises doubt elsewhere. Why not just say that there is not enough evidence to make a proper conclusion? What is so bad about doing that?
L___E___T: "But
what I really don't like and what I calmly object to - is the acclamation that something is something it's not, so that's why I like to discuss in this thread. I have no strong feelings on the cart, only the topic..."
Well I feel the same way. Hence why saying it is a pirate when there is evidence to suggest it is not necessarily one, doesn't float my boat very well. As I said before, why not just leave it open, why the need to push it into either category?
Ok ok ok im gonna chime really? Ive never beat my head against the wall over this. Here is my opinion i love my zelda 2 pink cart i think its awesome and im going to the grave with this cart. Dont give A shit about the value cause im never gonna sell it. I personally think its a legitimate deal they made with hundyi with left over chips. Wheather or not nintendo ok'ed it doesnt not matter cause THEY ARE OFFICAL NINTENDO NES CHIPS AND ZELDA WAS RELEASED IN KOREA AS THE NES VERSION AND THE CART IS 20+ years old. I highly doubt pirates would go though this much trouble. And that my friends is history in it self. We can piss in moan all day about this or we can be happy it exists not jealous. Listen nintendo of America (UK AS etc.) doesnt have to run things by japan with every move they make so why couldn't this be legit. L__E__T I understand your a mod but for fuck sakes you seem to only shit on things you dont own. Like deleteing my ann smb pics beacuse they looked to good. Ann has been being pirated for some time. My pics wont have hurt this fourm or the value cause i dont care about the value im a hardcore collecter.
...
Why can't people just take a SIMPLE pictures of their games?
This really pisses me off.
Quote from: MasterDisk on June 11, 2016, 05:15:41 am
...
Why can't people just take a SIMPLE pictures of their games?
This really pisses me off.
i've taking many very simple
I thought the pic was funny.
Guess we cant even bust chops around here anymore
Quote from: fcgamer on June 04, 2016, 08:47:47 amTake Kiddie Sun in Fantasia for example, the Adventure Island hack. It definitely seems to have been a promo of some sort officially produced by Hudson for the Taiwan region. Sure, the game is worth three figures probably, but seldom do people message me about wanting to buy mine. Why is that? For years, everyone wrote it off as a pirate hack, and now there is a stigma or mark on that cart, and it will never be seen as anything other than a bastard step-brother to the other licensed games. And to me, this sort of thing sucks.
1- See your words above. You're the one protecting your agenda, as you call it. You'd like people to stop calling "grey-area" games pirates because you can't sell them for three grands. Why do you keep pointing fingers at me, calling me a dirty collector (versus you, the illuminated benevolent historian who loses money with his sales) with a shady agenda of lowering the value of people's items? I have no plans doing that, and I have no special interest in this game either. I have many games in my search list, this one just isn't part of it. You're being an asshole, mostly to me, in this thread, for no good reason.
2- You'd sound a lot less patronising and condescending if you called me by my nickname, I have one too you know. Do you have a problem with me? Is it because I asked 100$ for an HKGC Mah Jong? Please let me know.
3- That South African game is a Hong Kong version Soccer with a sticker. Could be a real sticker, could be a fake sticker, the game underneath is still an official Hong Kong version, and either way it has absolutely no relation with the kind of item we're dealing with in this thread.
I want to believe you're just getting a bit heated up from all the discussion and strong points of view from both sides, because you're starting to be rather displeasant with your repeated personal attacks. ;)
1. Mine is not for sale and neither are the other carts in my collection. If I were concerned about money, I wouldn't be buying games. It's not an investment for me, it never was. What exactly is the agenda I am trying to push? Having a game be listed for what it actually is? What is so wrong with that?
Oh, and I'm not point fingers at you per se, I just mentioned your stance on the cart as well as your reasoning behind the stance that you took. Did I somehow misinterpret your words there? If so, please by all means correct me and say what you meant.
2. I don't mind to call you by your nickname, but the problem is you have two different nicknames on here and Nintendo Age, a third name for your ebay account, and I personally think of you by your real name E***** when I think about you, as we have talked on NA and here before, done several transactions before, even some emails from way back in the day. I am sorry if you take it as me being condenscending as it is not my intentions; however if I am in the middle of a post, I don't want to be bothered to go back and find the exact way you write your username. Is it lazy, yes, but is it a crime, maybe not. I don't think you would appreciate if I used your real name, hence why I referred to you by the other name. If you posted here more often, perhaps I would remember your exact username here as I do with L___E___T, MasterDisk, and Jay-Ray.
3. Yes, we both know it is a Hong Kong version Soccer with a sticker. Of course the HK version game is legit; but is the South African version legit? We don't know, there isn't enough information to tell.
You say that I am starting to be rather displeasant; this is fair as you are allowed your own opinions. With that said, I find it a bit off-putting how no one has offered any good reason as to the benefits of viewing this game as a pirate and nothing else, when there is not enough information to draw that conclusion.
At the beginning of the thread, L___E___T tried to make a generalization about how most people felt about this particular game, I called him out on it, since there isn't an agreement like that.
I've asked before, and I'll ask again: What is the harm of just leaving this one be, just leaving it as a game where there is evidence on both sides? Why try to push the square cart into the round hole? Why the need?
Great pic Jay ;) But I don't like the personal judgement - I've never 'shitted' on your finds, always congratulated those, so don't be salty on false pretenses. www.goo.gl/ayR3um (http://www.goo.gl/ayR3um)
But for the record, that cart is not official, as nice as it is. It will not be classified on the site as official either I should note. It is, as heavily discussed, a contested 'pirate'.
FCgamer I did not try to make a generalisation on this either - (and there was no 'calling out' only objection) please don't paint things black and white like that, with heroes and villain types.
By the way are we 100% sure this cart is 20 years old? It looks old, but HVC man is making similar looking carts for example with Nintendo chips, we just know that they are made today.
Jay having worked with Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe, I think your understanding is not quite correct on that statement about how much influence there is.
Lastly - I didn't delete your pics because they looked too good - I deleted them (and explained nicely to you at the time) because they are were high quality scans - there are none online for a reason, so that owners like yourself can protect that investment from direct reprints in this way. Believe me that it affect you way more than me, I was simply trying to be nice.
FCgamer there's no rush, there's just an imbalance of evidence. If it was 50/50, we wouldn't be calling it a pirate in the first place but it's fair to say it's a contested classification.
Jay there's no jealousy from my side (I reiterated this already) - I don't want this particular cart (just Zelda 2 on a Fami cart) even for a low price, as nice as it is. I have no idea of value on it either way, that's not the topic. I've been looking to get this instead in a higher quality repro: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1084/ FCgamer also also mistook this.
I would ask everyone to cool their heads on this topic though. We don't need to shout and swear, or be unpleasant about it, I shouldn't even have to remind on this point, this isn't NA.
FCgamer I just read your longer point and I think we feel the same way, but from opposite sides. I do think calling it official is a huge stretch (pushing a square peg through a circular hole).
Post Merge: June 11, 2016, 01:08:13 pm
Let's List everything out - for and against so we can remain objective.
Below are all the unofficial telltale signs and why I think it's an unofficial pirate, and I would even say obviously so, based on the actual evidence in front of us, no theories:
Anything not actual evidence as such but what I would say is a supported argument I've marked as 'NOTE'.
- A Link To The Past artwork on the label is incorrect, and this didn't even exist when Zelda 2 was released for the Comboy version.
- A Link To The Past character artwork colours are wrong, or at least look to be poor quality printing.
- Cheap looking, generic plastic cart shell of incorrect colour, clearly not an official Famicom cart shell.
- Rough, unofficial looking Printed Circuit Board.
- Front label has incorrect or poor spacing placement on cart.
- Back label is created in a different font to the NES release, has the same poor quality spacing and no official branding at all.
- The Zelda 2 game logo on the label is red instead of blue (top portion).
- The back of box packaging uses the same photos that look copied from the Comboy box packaging (print image quality depreciates with every direct copy of a copy made).
- The back of box text has been edited, it does not match the Comboy NES box is spacing, font or title.
- The front of box has even more problems - mixed fonts, incorrect title, incorrect artwork from A Link To The Past again poorly cutout and reproduced from a small print, you can see the print color separation (i.e dots) on this image even. Note - I would suggest that this has been ripped from the ALTTP manual, along with the label artwork.
- The Zelda 2 game logo on box (red ZELDA part) is incorrect itself, and the logo is from A Link To The Past, it didn't even exist when Zelda 2 was originally released.
- Front label uses the incorrect product code (code is from the Famicom Zelda 1 cart - not released until '94).
- Nintendo logo, legals are also ripped from the Zelda Famicom re-release, are wonky and appear to be poor quality printing.
- Comboy games were made in Japan, as marked on the back of their box. NOTE - this suggests Hyundai did not manufacture in Korea at all.
- Front and back labels nor box have any official branding on them (neither Hyundai nor Nintendo), where as the official Comboy NES versions do.
- Game manual is akin to the Comboy NES version, hard to tell much more without better pictures.
- The big one - the Korean Zelda 2 NES version was sold in '89 (dated on the back of box), but this cart could not have existed before '94 (Zelda re-release came out in '94).
Now the points for, based on actual evidence in front of us, not theories:
- chips appear to be legitimate chips. Notes - have these been 100% confirmed to be real NES chips? Could they be potentially be unofficial chips with an imitation labelling?
Overall:
I would propose based on the above evidence that the cart was therefore not made before '94. The Comboy was marketed in Korea from between '87 and '92 from what I have read. So if the Comboy was supported with official releases from '89 to '92, why does this cart have markings on from items that released in '94?
My objective argument based on this evidence:
So that also strongly suggests to me that this cart came out several years after the Korean NES release. Hyundai had stopped even supporting the Comboy by that time.
However, ALTTP was released for the Super Comboy, which also had bootlegs produced for it in Korea. So we know that ALTTP had awareness in Korea round that time.
I think the signs point to a bootleg outfit wanting to take advantage of this to release another Zelda title. There are numerous telltale signs that this cart was made by a bootleg outfit. The high quality Korean Super Comboy releases (I have one - Yoshi's Island) are high quality printing and production carts as you'd expect from an official release.
So the one piece of evidence that could suggest this was an official release is said to be the chips. However, this is still debatable - it's not dealbreaker evidence.
What would stop them just lifting the NES chips from a NES cart? By then they were in the used market and several years old. It seems tedious, but if there were cheap NES copies available, we can't rule that out. That is just one 'theory' of why it has Nintendo chips on and the point in that theory is that the existence of chips isn't enough.
Please tell me if this is straight out technically not possible so that we can rule that possibility out. I mention it not because I am saying that's exactly what happened, but because it could have been a route to getting the Nintendo chips themselves and my point is that's why just HAVING the chips isn't enough to say it's official.
All in, I'd also say it is unlikely that Hyundai held on to these chips for years just waiting to make a deal. I think it's plausible they sold a bunch of chips on to someone else, or they ended up in the hands of a bootleg outfit somehow, but that is just a theory. We do know (at least it is widely accepted) that the Comboy was a failure as the Famicom had already taken hold. So while these chips are present - how do we know they came straight from a factory? Comboy games were made in Japan, not in Korea. What says Hyundai even had chips in the first place? Why would they have stand alone chips when a license / distribution deal suggests they just would receive a box of games to sell in that market. I don't think they had a factory assembling chips onto boards myself, but that is just theory, in the same track is there evidence that they did and would have a batch of chips straight up?
I would propose based on all the above evidence that the cart was therefore not made before '94. The Comboy was marketed in Korea from between '87 and '92 from what I have read from Comboy historians. So if the Comboy was supported with official releases from '89 to '92, why does this cart have markings on from items that released in '94?
The verdict I came to based on that argument, supported by the evidence I can see:
Now, the Super Comboy was in Korea from '92. They used the US ROM set as a rule, but official Super Comboy games were apparently made in Japan.
There was bootleg company called Game Line (GL) that made games in Korea. perhaps Hyundai could have sold the chips to Game Line when they closed all of this.
Even if that were true, with only chips deemed official and the rest of the board, shell and packaging unofficial I don't think that constitutes an official release at all.
This is because the manufacturing process is mostly bootleg/pirate/unofficial, there was no official packaging and no suggestion of any official marketing.
The Famicom was not even officially endorsed in Korea. So if the chips are indeed from Hyundai through a back door, that's only small piece that makes up an official release.
It seems daft to say that because there is one sign that appears official, that the numerous unofficial signs should be put to one side. If there were more official signs, I'd be more open.
On me and any personal bias:
I have worked in the video game industry, in brand management, working with Japanese, American, Asian and European companies for the last ten years. So that experience probably plays a part.
You could say I'm biased because this is part of my day to day job, designing packaging, working with official branding guidelines, understanding artwork and correct usage.
We have seen those on the official NES releases, so why are they not here on this Famicom cart? I would say the evidence strongly shows it is not an official release. BUT, the real chips (if they are 100% real, I'm not an expert on those) demand a second look, with open discussion, and fundamentally while the case is not closed per se, the open question is not enough to declassify it just yet. It's a footnote.
I think this is a thorough and fair assessment, but would invite further arguments based on evidence we can all see in front of us, that contradict this. I will update with sources. Is there any new evidence?
(Edit: This was posted right after L___E___T posted his message.)
I agree that this game could be legit, why not, I'm just repeating that it looks far more like a pirate than an official release. I think that's what L___E___T thinks too. We did provide points as to why it looks like a pirate, it's just that you keep on telling us they're "subjective" opinions, when they're not. How can you say "a few wrong artworks" aren't a good point, seriously? You mean using a custom text font, wrong ™ and missing ©, as well as artworks from a completely different game is subjective opinion, and not serious clues? Then yes, let's all believe this is grey-area and could as well be real, while ignoring the visual clues that point the other way. I don't mind.
It has been well-noted that the chips are genuine, nobody's arguing that anymore. Yet, even looking at that board which isn't cut straight adds a clue to the pirate argument.
Nobody's also arguing that a lot of official games/items aren't super high-quality, while a few pirates/unofficials are top-notch. Yet, there is large gap between a low-quality official and something where everything is off, copyrights, text, box format, artworks, no manual etc., no matter how thick the cardboard is or how sharp the printing on the label is.
If this is official, surely it has its own manual, not a NES Hyundai manual that can't fit inside the box. Unless they printed Hyundai on the manual, but not on the cart/box, they probably forgot, whatever. When we have time, we'll make a list. Speculation is great, but what we can look at and analyse is the best we can go by right now, because we have nothing else.
And what I said before in this thread still holds - that the few "grey-area" items that you have shown to be (probably) official, are a lot more believable, and that is why I've never questioned them (Taiwan F-1 Race, Taiwan Kiddie Sun...). This game though, isn't very believable.
Hey flying Phoenix you're a piece of shit GO BACK TO NINTENDO AGE.
Nevermind, hope next time you won't have to be so rude. :)
Well that above message from Jay-Ray I think is a bit harsh, tbh. Despite any potential hard feelings caused by opinions the contrasting beliefs, I still like you Flying Phoenix.
Post Merge: June 11, 2016, 10:33:11 pm
Quote from: L___E___T on June 11, 2016, 12:53:29 pm
But for the record, that cart is not official, as nice as it is. It will not be classified on the site as official either I should note. It is, as heavily discussed, a contested 'pirate'.
See L___E___T, that is the problem that many people have regarding this cart. Did I
ever say the cart was official? No, I don't think I did. For all you or the others know, I might also believe it to be a pirate, or less than official. ;) But that isn't my point here.
Throughout the discussion, from the start, you have been acting as judge and jury regarding this game, stating in broad generalizations how everyone feels it to be a pirate, common belief is that it is a pirate, it is a "contested pirate", etc. You act as though everyone is in agreement to the game being 100% a pirate, without perhaps having some backstory behind it. You act as though you somehow have the authority to generalize and say whether the game is a pirate or not. Sadly though, with all due respect, you don't. And that is my point.
Some people feel the game is a pirate, others believe there is more to the story than it just being a pirate. Who knows, maybe some of those folks don't believe the game is 100% legit, but don't believe it is 100% pirate either. But you automatically fall into the trap of assuming that if they don't agree with your stance, then they must hold the polar opposite. And that is what I don't like, and have been trying to say countless times over the past several pages, something that you just don't seem to understand.
@Jay-ray: Harsh and constructive would have been welcome, unfortunately it's not even harsh and unconstructive, it's silly. ??? Besides, I've been registered here longer than you, so I'm not "going back to NA". I follow both forums, which are both full of interesting stuff to read and learn (and contribute to).
@fcgamer: This thread is absolutely nothing personal to me, I have the same opinion of you as I had before. We share a lot of interests and even more, so there is no point getting personal and lose a good mate over this. You'll always be free to think of me whatever you like, and this won't change the way I speak out what I think is right or wrong. :)
I also think L___E___T may have misunderstood some folks here (as I did), as they did not *say* or *believe* it is official. We've been slightly driven apart throughout the thread by our initial position. He did make a great comprehensive list up there, although some points aren't as strong as others. I think we can all help to improve/complete that list, waiting for the day of confirmation (who knows, it might come).
FCgamer please let me clarify again, I DO NOT consider myself any kind of final authority on the bootleg universe. I said most people consider this a pirate (albeit should have said bootleg) as that was my understanding. Digging into it, I still consider this a bootleg based on the evidence in front of us. I don't rule out any other evidence not seen, either new or old, or new findings - I invite them. I also previously said I use the label 'pirate' as an umbrella term for unlicensed/bootleg/unofficial games so will adjust that.
FCgamer you also quoted a sentence where I said I considered a 'pirate' personally, but didn't include the extra where I said I used the label 'pirate' as an interchangeable. the point I was making in that sentence you quoted is that the classification on FW won't change from current, as UglyJoe said. For what it's worth, I don't have any technical control over that, I am not 'the judge' of it.
It seems clear that there is some story behind this cart - however the makers got the chips. I would love to find some development on that story and history. That is interesting, but still unkown. It's also been said that the chips ARE official chips, so if that is definitely the case, I should go back and edit my question mark on that - but I don't know enough about that part to be certain myself, hence why I'd asked about that bit.
I want to build out the list of evidence FOR this game being somewhat toward official. To me, everything from the chips out is transparently unofficial, so it's a straightforward conclusion at present. But there must be more - we have the chips and that demands more investigation. Theories can be considered, but they always need some physical evidence to back them up.
- Jay-ray, please read the rules.
To date I have found three or four of the Konami game Astroboy, bootleg cases stamped "TPITA" / "TOITO Corpatatian" and also today found one Saint Seiya Ougon Densetsu Kanketsu Hen, fake case and legit Nintendo PCB and chips inside. I am sure that I have other bootleg games in my collection, containing official PCBs inside, but I will never know since I have no desire or great means of opening hundreds of bootleg carts, without risk of damaging the cases.
When everything is said and done, I feel in the following manner:
edit:
I was rushed a bit earlier today while I was writing, so here is better what I was trying to convey, I think:
Given the fact that so many cartridges for other games have been found, with licensed boards but clearly bootleg shells/labels*, it makes things seem more and more clear
that just having official chips =/= official game. Although I disagree with tyree's stance of dubbing the game a pirate right off the bat just due to things being off (I have seen so many shoddy products that seemed "off", which turned out to be legit), seeing so many other games that clearly were pirated / meant to deceive in everything except the boards / chips themselves, it strengthens the case that these games are totally unauthorized by Nintendo, but we basically knew that to begin with.
To label the carts as 100% pirates is a bit strange to me, as I could just throw away the case to my Astro Boys or Saint Seiyas, and people would just think it a legit, loose PCB of the game (and technically, they'd be correct). With Zelda II it is a slightly different story, as the game never had a 60 pins release. On the other hand, I doubt any of these games were licensed by Nintendo themselves. I think the best guess would be a bootleg company somehow obtained legit pcbs / chips for certain games. Maybe overproduced pcbs and chips, liquidated by the original publishers? Items made on the fourth shift? Components that fell / were stolen off of a truck? We'll never know the answer, I'm sure, but I feel that the items are in a gray area, dipping a toe into the pirate waters, but I feel they can't be 100% classified as pirates either, since their stories are much more complex than that.
*Since there is no Famicom version of this game other than these Korean carts, the art on the labels is not a 1:! pirate, unlike those of the Astro Boy and Saint Seiyas I have. A wonky, yet original label (imo) should not be dubbed pirated on that fact alone.
Interesting post FCgamer - I think we share the same view of this cart as your summary rationale echoes what I said in my post a bit earlier (in time and the thread). But what do you mean when you say the label is not a 1:1 pirate?
I think that point needs some elaboration / clarification before I mention something. For me, the label is the focus.
Quote from: L___E___T on August 26, 2017, 01:19:02 pm
Interesting post FCgamer - I think we share the same view of this cart as your summary rationale echoes what I said in my post a bit earlier (in time and the thread). But what do you mean when you say the label is not a 1:1 pirate?
I think that point needs some elaboration / clarification before I mention something. For me, the label is the focus.
It cannot be a 1:1 pirate when the label is unique, since there never was another version of this game out there. Something cannot be a 1:1 copy if there is no original source material, and unlike my Astro Boy and Saint Seiya carts, where the labels were directly taken from the originals, just maybe slighly cropped or whatever, the Zelda 2 label was made from scratch. Elements may have been stolen from other sources, true, but it is not a 1:1 copy of this label.
Some HKGC releases had their own unique (and extremely bad) cover art but I think you'll agree with me they're still "1:1 pirates", since they basically steal someone else's ROM, repackage it and resell it. Even if they modify the ROM by removing, fixing or modifying this or that, they're still pirates of an existing work. Adding an in-house drawing doesn't involve a lot of work and is actually a way to try to hide the source material, which in fact makes the whole process even more disrespectful toward the source (granted, this is probably more true of the HKGC games than for many unboxed, super cheap FC pirates from the same years).
Unofficial stuff that I don't consider "1:1 pirate" must have required extensive work, even though it was initially stolen from someone else. A great example are unofficial guidebooks in Chinese, where no official ones exist. The cover and the content has been copied/stolen from another guidebook (usually a Japanese one), but there was extensive work done (translation, proofreading, text alignment, screenshot alignment...).
Depends on how you define "1:1 pirate"? Even if the mask ROM software is identical there's still the board hardware and the packaging.
Yes a lot of this discussion comes down to semantics and what you define various terms to be. For me - "pirate" means something different to how you use that term.
What you call "pirate" I tend to see referred to as "bootleg" and I would say "pirate" is more of an umbrella term for 'not legit' so I still think it's fair to call this a pirate.
Now I accept that it's still a point of discussion, I don't pretend to set any rules when it comes to terminology and definition, to be honest I don't think there are any.
But I wouldn't downplay the packaging and aesthetic components either. Those are as much what make up 'the game' as the chip set is for many people I'd say.
Only somewhat reasonable way to check the chips that I could think of, is to desolder the MMC1 chip and put it on another board with an MMC1 test program that thoroughly tests all features of the MMC1. If it's a clone they might not have cloned all features of the mapper chip.
Still I doubt bootleggers would bother labeling the chips like the original.
If you compare the Zelda 1 cartridge PCB from this page : http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=12677.msg171465#msg171465
with the official PCB of Zelda 1 from here : http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=3948
You can see that the tracing is essentially identical. The board is cut in a different way to match the cartridge's plastic inlays. But the unofficial board definitely came off the same lines as the official board. Hyundai would have access to Nintendo's PCB art, pirates probably would not. This would lend support to the theory that this was not a pirate knockoff but product that Hyundai allowed to come into existence.
By the time of Zelda 2, I think Hyundai got wise to using a bit more effort to disguise the cartridge's origins by not using the exact same PCB art as a Famicom SKROM board and using a differently shaped cartridge shell and artwork from another game.
The PCBs are different anyway because Zelda 2 needs VRAM (offered on SNROM SKROM boards) I believe and whoever made it (Hyundai imo) had no example of a FC SNROM SKROM cart unlike Zelda I where they had the FC release (SNROM)
Both Zelda 1 and 2 uses SNROM with CHR-RAM. SNROM was used in many other MMC1 games including Final Fantasy so many SNROM boards existed.
Zelda one is SKROM SNROM, is it exactly the same as SNROM SKROM?
EDIT: I got them the way around. Zelda II is SKROM.
Oops Zelda 1 uses SNROM and Zelda 2 uses SKROM according to bootgod. The difference is that SNROM allows only 8 kB CHR-RAM/CHR-ROM while SKROM allows 128 kB CHR-ROM (wiki link (https://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/SxROM)).
So yeah NES Zelda 2 uses bank switched CHR-ROM instead of CHR-RAM. Maybe Zelda 2 is a bit larger which is why it needed a dedicated mask ROM for CHR. I guess the Hyundai Zelda 2 is an SKROM board then.
http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=12677.0;attach=5068
I just noticed, that's totally an unpopulated CIC spot under the MMC1B2. The traces are not connected to anything (they leads to nowhere on the left edge). Obviously it's totally useless in a Famicom cartridge but still. The chip placement matches completly the NES one.
It's like they took the NES design but reworked the traces.
But what board is that? It looks different from the Zelda 2 bootleg.
The link is the attached image in Jay-Ray's post from last year (https://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=12677.msg171471#msg171471).
I see, it certainly looks more Nessy. The one you posted looks more Famicom though.