Fake or Rare Zelda or What?

[aitsu124]

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

[Retrospectives]

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!

[aitsu124]

Even with that being said, the Zelda 2 cart is only authentic in my eyes if it was approved by Nintendo.

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.

[Retrospectives]

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.

[L___E___T]

 



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/

[Retrospectives]

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. 

[fcgamer]

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.

[Flying_Phoenix]

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

Korean Adventure of Link

[fcgamer]

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. 

[Retrospectives]

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? 

[L___E___T]

 



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.

[Flying_Phoenix]

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.

[Retrospectives]

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.

[Flying_Phoenix]

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.

[Retrospectives]

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).