Bramsworth's pirates sales thread UPDATED Dec. 12 09

[Bramsworth]

Which did you get? Pokemon Red? I know that one sucks..

I've never played all the others. I know Trenton was selling Pokemon Crystal. Still very curious what that one was myself, port of an NDS game? I honestly haven't kept up with Pokemon for years, so I have no idea what games came out on what systems after Red Blue Green Yellow Silver and Gold. Crystal's also supposedly dumped, but I've yet to ever come across that anywhere.

[nintendodork]

Pokemon Crystal is actually the one I'm talking about.  It's presented very nicely.  It came in a nice, solid box, with a tiny instruction booklet (which made me laugh), the cartridge seemed to be in nice condition, and the label was fairly appealing too.  It looks really nice, but when I actually pop it in to play it, I had a problem right away.  Since it's a pirate, it most likely wasn't made to play in the real Famicom, so every time I put it in, no matter how clean the pins are, or how I adjust the cartridge, I'm always presented with scrambled graphics.  My only option was to stick it in to my PowerJoy Famiclone, which produced nice enough results.  The screen produced a clear image, and after playing it for a few minutes, it seemed to be an exact port of Ruby/Sapphire (which, if you don't know, are the first two games in the Pokemon series released on the GBA, Crystal is the 3rd in the GS series.  Much like Yellow is to Red and Green.)  The biggest thing that made me almost downright mad was that I couldn't save my adventure.  So I can't really complete it.  From what I've played (up to a little past the first gym,) it seemed like an exact port.  Anyway, I soon came to realize that the cartridge was also a bit flimsy (as most pirates are), and when I tried pulling it out of the PowerJoy, a piece of the cartridge snapped off.  I haven't played it a whole lot since.

[MS-DOS4]

Pokemon Crystal is actually the one I'm talking about.  It's presented very nicely.  It came in a nice, solid box, with a tiny instruction booklet (which made me laugh), the cartridge seemed to be in nice condition, and the label was fairly appealing too.  It looks really nice, but when I actually pop it in to play it, I had a problem right away.  Since it's a pirate, it most likely wasn't made to play in the real Famicom, so every time I put it in, no matter how clean the pins are, or how I adjust the cartridge, I'm always presented with scrambled graphics.  My only option was to stick it in to my PowerJoy Famiclone, which produced nice enough results.  The screen produced a clear image, and after playing it for a few minutes, it seemed to be an exact port of Ruby/Sapphire (which, if you don't know, are the first two games in the Pokemon series released on the GBA, Crystal is the 3rd in the GS series.  Much like Yellow is to Red and Green.)  The biggest thing that made me almost downright mad was that I couldn't save my adventure.  So I can't really complete it.  From what I've played (up to a little past the first gym,) it seemed like an exact port.  Anyway, I soon came to realize that the cartridge was also a bit flimsy (as most pirates are), and when I tried pulling it out of the PowerJoy, a piece of the cartridge snapped off.  I haven't played it a whole lot since.

I also had a laugh at the size on the instruction manual. What cheap-o's! At least it's in full color... As for the cartridge, I've had the best results in my Power Joy 3 as well. Problem is, the cartridge wobbles because of the PJ3's bad design, and can sometimes corrupt the game. You really have to play carefully.

[Bramsworth]

Yes, those manuals  Sucks they can't even be held in properly in the case, they're always flipping out when i open a box.

These games play best on clones I guess. I get graphical glitching on all games at the title screens only. Sometimes games don't even start and you have to keep resetting or taking the cart out and put it back in. Not a single Famicom pirate I own or have sold has yet to not do that to me. They really AREN'T meant for official consoles, are they?

Pokemon Crystal sounds pretty interesting, sounds like you just got bad luck due to the build quality of these things. Probably just as good as the Yellow port. I guess they maybe actually have taken some time out with these ones, I'm really impressed how good it looks. Why can't they do that for more of their games? 

[nintendodork]

So, have you tried the Pokemon game on a real Famicom?

[Bramsworth]

All I have is a top loader NES. All games work perfectly fine though.

[nintendodork]

So you used a converter, eh?  I never thought of that.  I'll try that on my Pokemon game and see what happens.

[Trenton_net]

I haven't used a real console in a long time, but I have a Game Theory which works fine if not for the blurry LCD screen. But if I had to do a console setup, I'd probably use my Subor keyboard since most stores sell pirates to run on these.

As for save games, usually when I find my saves don't stick a simple battery swap works just great. If you use a cell phone opener you can pop open the case and just change the batteries.

[Bramsworth]

So you used a converter, eh?  I never thought of that.  I'll try that on my Pokemon game and see what happens.

Let us know what happens. I'm curious if you get a glitched title like I do for all games. Must just be the games not being meant to run on the real thing or something.

[nintendodork]

You get a glitched title screen for all games, or just your pirates?  I've played official titles and a few pirates on a black box converter in some kind of top loading clone that I have (which has really good game compatibility, by the way), and most of them show up/play just fine.  There are a few with messed up title screens, but not many.  The thing that I think is weird is Codemasters games in a Famicom through a converter.   The CODEMASTERS screen is ALWAYS scrambled on all of them, and then after that, they all show different graphical glitches here and there.

[Bramsworth]

Only the Nanjing games I have(Naruto, Pokemon Yellow and Harvest Moon). I'm guessing they display fine on other consoles. The converter I'm using btw is some odd thing that says Nintendo Power on it. No idea what it is, Nintendo never gave away converters after all, did they? But I do wonder if it could be the converter causing issues or some type.

[nintendodork]

This one? http://www.famicomworld.com/Doodads/Nintendo_Power_Adaptor.htm

[Bramsworth]

hey, that's it!  Is it an official product after all? Why did Nintendo care to help people play imports?

[nintendodork]

No, it's not.  FW just did a review on it.

[Bramsworth]

Alright, I'm willing to take reasonable(and by that I mean don't go down to $10 or something) offers for these games, since no one seems to be interested 

Keep in mind I don't do trades. Unless you had a Sonic 2 beta pirate or Kirby's Super Star pirate for Genesis, there's nothing I'm looking for I can't get myself already.