Fake or Rare Zelda or What?

[Flying_Phoenix]

Sure, I never said cheap/dodgy means pirate. 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?

[Great Hierophant]

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.  

[fcgamer]

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.

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.

[L___E___T]

 



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.

[Flying_Phoenix]

L___E___T, it was mostly my fault, I could have said what I said in a different way.

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. (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.

[fcgamer]

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. (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?

[Flying_Phoenix]

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.

[MasterDisk]

Could not find (yet) pictures of Zelda 2.

[L___E___T]

 



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.

[MasterDisk]

Pirates getting official Nintendo MMC1, ZL 1 & 2 PRG chips in quantity? Please...

[L___E___T]

 



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.

[BonBon]

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.

[L___E___T]

 



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]

[fcgamer]

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

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.

[Flying_Phoenix]

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  ), 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$, not to me, but I managed to track down the buyer and trade it back for some stuff he wanted more. That cart is in my drawer now. The other cart you are talking about (this one), I bought it more recently for cheaper, as part of a lot, and I've been trying to resell it for 99$ 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.

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