KingMike

RIP
I had only heard of Cyber Formula in learning of a Super Famicom top-down racing game that got released in America with content cut as Cyber Spin.

I heard Sega also got sued for using the Marlboro logo on a racing game (again, changing just one letter). Even though it was a billboard you probably weren't even going to be able to read playing the game normally.
I heard that logo got used a lot in the '80s in Japanese racing games due to them sponsoring Ayrton Senna.
Even Nintendo did that on the cover art of F1 Race for the Famicom. Since it was done frequently, I guess Nintendo and others got away with it and the Sega game was when somebody noticed and said 'no'.

@Damo Supposedly it was intended for a NES version of the Famicom Disk System (hence why the data lines for the auxiliary audio support are on that instead of the cartridge port on the Famicom) but it is said Nintendo was in plans with the Minnesota State Lottery in 1991 to make a modem accessory to sell digital scratch tickets of some kind (interactive but rigged, as you might imagine). Definitely before legalities of that online gambling were worked out.

Indeed, Paper Mario and Mario Party 3 are uncommon to find the USA versions, but I heard the PAL versions of both are comparatively much scarcer and thus even more exorbitantly priced.

@Damo Never mind. It appears to be the Mega Drive version, but they put it next to SMS games so it stands out.
I'm pretty sure that Master System Bubsy II isn't even a legitimately produced game, not even one of those Brazilian TecToy conversions. Naughty CEX for selling a bootleg.
I believe a Game Gear version was produced but never released, though the ROM has been posted online (surely a port of the released Game Boy version) so I'm guessing someone ported it to Master System (very likely a French person named Revo was has seemingly ported everything he can find from GG to MS).

The game already has a password feature which saves your score? I've heard that actually maxing the score is the game's win condition?
That would sound like it would otherwise make score meaningless, without like, making a recording.

DSI Games? Isn't that a developer that made A TON of Wii and PS2 shovelware games.
If I'm correctly thinking of what I've seen on RetroPals, they maybe even up there with... who was that company... Phoenix Games? A European publisher of what could be some of the most bottom of the barrel PS2 cheap licensed shovelware games.

I think I remember that Other Ocean Mike guy.
Something about crowdfunding for a controller, and when people suspected he might not be up on the level, all he replied was like "December 17" and someone other non-intelligible gibberish.

"Of course, you'll still have to go to the effort of tracking down a Nuon and a controller"
As I understand "Nuon" was released an extra feature of certain DVD players, rather than its own console.

I have no idea of the scarcity, but at least it's not what I heard was the rarest Nuon game, a Korean licensed game that was packed in and only compatible with a single Korean Samsung DVD player.

@Blofse Is that a joke? It feels like but I remember there could be some truth. I was going to say Nintendo would've never published it, but then I have to ask if the game directly splintered from Body Harvest.
I remember watching a streamer play that over a year ago and it looked kind of like what I imagine GTA is in actual gameplay (other than being an alien invasion themed game), though I've never actually play a GTA game.
Nintendo held on to the Body Harvest publishing rights for several years of its development until they dropped it for Midway to pick up, leaving it in development hell as Nintendo of America and Japan together gave very conflicting demands on the developer over gameplay changes, so it's not surprising that in that time they'd want to put their own game.

@Serpenterror "ripping the NES rom onto a Super NES chip" is not as simple as you make it sound. It takes A LOT of effort to rewrite the NES game code to work within the SNES hardware.
Whereas a "clone adapter" is an emulator-on-a-chip running on much more powerful modern hardware so it can do whatever it wants. If I recall, those are not even actually using the host hardware at all (going to the extent of having their own AV output), except as a power source and for getting the controller input.

I recall you frequently making posts against ROMs, emulation and/or ROM hacks (sorry if I forget exactly which) so you maybe you are not familiar with the difference.

@LowDefAl If Japanese retro stores think OG Famicoms are "trash", there's probably a lot of international fans who'd be happy to their "garbage" off their hands then.

@rob7979 Wow. How much was a credit?
Can it be as bad as that 360-degree G-LOC arcade machine that I heard cost $4 a credit to play?

@Peteykins It's the same thing and arguably the most of the questionably unnecessary entries in that series of re-releases (Zero Mission was released before the Classic NES series in North America, unsure about Europe). I bought the Japanese "Famicom Mini" GBA version of Metroid because that at least had the difference of being a port of the FDS version.
However I played through the Japanese version of Zero Mission just to verify that it also unlocks the NES version of the game.

VS. and PlayChoice-10 aren't quite the same.

Vs. games were more difficult (generally) versions of NES games with a skill-based credit system.
PlayChoice-10 had time-based credits, so it was like a regular console, except you to put in a quarter every 1 to 5 minutes (depending on how greedy the cabinet owner was) or get locked out of the controls.
Though its successor the Nintendo Super System did over the arcade operator both modes.
I'm not sure which Sega's answer, the Mega Tech/Play, did.

@MysticX Licensing royalties (using cartridge production as a means to control that) and Nintendo having a cocky attitude that because they were in the lead (in Japan), they probably expected to sell on brand recognition.
Something they've done repeatedly.

Funny that now FF7 is available on a "cartridge" (the Asian Switch version) and costs well under $1,200.
But, yeah, that wasn't happening in 1997.

I've played Hummer Team's port of the Game Boy Tiny Toon Adventures game, Babs' Big Break. It's not a completely accurate port but it was surprisingly playable for a bootleg port.

@Damo Reportedly the M2 hardware lived on in a few Konami arcade games, and as automated bank machine hardware.

How in the world are you going to put a RPG on the 2600?
I thought I read that had been attempted before realizing the technical infeasability.
Unless VCS means that modern Atari console thing (did that actually come out)? That one where you can play Pac-Man without a license!

@Damo It better have been one of the highest grossing titles, I heard someone an original cab would've cost an arcade owner 15 grand when it was new! Was that more expensive than an actual racecar? (definitely more than a standard car would've been in 1993)

@Poodlestargenerica Probably because whoever did the C64 emulator on Wii did an insufficient work such that Nintendo was forced to refund anyone who bought Last Ninja 3 on the European store when it couldn't pass the original game's copy protection checks.

@BeefSanta So half-based that Wii U port never left Japan, I believe.

Memory Stick is indeed an issue.
The last time I bought a Memory Stick, at the end of the PSP's lifespan (when the last digital games were released) in 2014 at Target, the girl working there didn't even know what I was talking about. Though I wanted just any SD card.

@pepsilover2008 There isn't. It also originally cost like $100 more, possibly to appease retailers with the first console designed to entirely cut them out of the game sales chain.

What I remember is that Sony had to recall an issue of the official PlayStation magazine because, only after it was sent out, did they decide this ad for the game with extremely graphic content, was a bad idea. (like goatse-level bad. The sort of thing you should not look up.)
This was around the time of the PS3 launch when it seemed like Sony couldn't stop making bad marketing decisions.

Well, two of the three games should be playable at least. I'm not familiar with Wing of Madoola but I hear it has little if any Japanese text.
Ripple Island though. That's a VN so it will be unplayable.

@BulkSlash I don't think Capcom would like it if a collection included a ton of their games, and then one from a different company.

It's really a jerk move to cancel a sale if it was paid, because you found out you could've gotten more. Well, that's the seller's fault, not the buyer's.
I hope he got a negative for that.

That controller looks like an absolute monstrosity! I know it's not like it was ever going to be used to play anything like Contra but wow who designs those!
The only time I've seen a real CDi in person it was demonstrated with a Sesame Street game and this giant trackball controller. Was it actually designed for babies?

@Hexapus One major reason is that the ROM hack author could be seen as voluntarily contributing to the profiteering, which makes it much more likely to see Capcom get on them if they felt like it.
That's the whole reason that sites like ROMhacking.net have work distributed as patches rather than ROM links.
Also, maybe the ROM hack authors just don't want to be associated with doing their work as an illegal business motive, doing it for fun.

@DestructoDisk You want the novelty of playing on a console? Buy a flashcart. No reason to give money to bootleg cart makers who have no authority to sell "their" work. Plus with a flashcart you can update if the mod gets updated. The bootlegger isn't going to give you that service.

@XiaoShao Contra Spirits (Contra III) is the huger omission!

Never mind, it's there... sort of. "MIDI Arrangement"?

Most of this collection is kusoge.

Bad Street Brawler I assume is the NES version, not whatever computer platform it was originally on which was much more unhinged.
Also, Skuljagger originally came with an 80 page instruction manual, for which 76 pages were a comic you were apparently supposed to read to learn some of the in-game secrets.

This announcement, surely, IT'S A JOKE!

What do you mean it's not?

This is not really new. DVDs of old cartoons carry warnings.
When I bought a DVD collection of Woody Woodpecker cartoons like 15 years ago, I was surprised to see an "adult content" warning on the box, though I kind of suspected the reason.
They are no longer "children's" cartoons by modern standards.

I want to say the Looney Tunes Golden Collection packages, maybe beyond the first volume, also had a similar warning.

@Poodlestargenerica If you had a 28" CRT in the '90s, you were doing well. Many were sitting pretty poor with TVs in the teen sizes.

@JackGYarwood Somewhat incorrect, BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 was split into a separate game for each League.
The first League has been dumped and available on the Internet since the '90s.
However, I have only seen the second League through a recording video on the Internet, and presumably there was a third League that also has not been preserved.

So what Nintendo UK produced is only a step worse than the "Play it Loud!" garbage ads Nintendo of America was producing in the same time period?
Such as talking about how you can play Super Pinball on SNES naked if you want, Super Game Boy is like Game Boy on steroids, subscribing to Nintendo Power will frighten your friends more than a toenail collection, some guy barfing to sell Yoshi's Island, to give some examples.

@Ryu_Niiyama Have you, yourself, made a game before or ever tried to make one? What you have said there, is usually not so easy to say, if you have. Few hobbyists have both programming skill and all the various artistic skills (visual, audio, etc.) to create their entire own intellectual properties.
Even the professionals have sometimes been caught, not completely using their own IP.

@XiaoShao I had to check after a Family Guy joke, and it seems that indeed the third movie was released about a month before the OJ Simpson murder scandal began.

@Porco @Poodlestargenerica I'm sure the publisher is aware that much of the game's potential audience is already well aware of that.

@Steel76 Yeah, the characters are a bit tiny and even in 1995 maybe weren't the best of graphics but I've heard it makes up for it in its atmosphere, I guess.

Great to see games get preserved, but there are SO many arcade games with only one or a few copies in existence, left to sit and rot because they are owned by people who don't want to share because of monetary value or desire to be the only person to own a copy of a game.

People reminded me that Ark Area game that got released recently was one that it was previously believe only three existed and the one who dumped it had some story about it being "stolen by repairman" because they didn't want to enrage the other two owners.

The NeoGeo alone has multiple games being "horded" that looked pretty finished.

@Nua Probably not. WonderSwan had a lot of Digimon games, and both coming from Bandai, no doubt wanted that IP to draw sales of the WS(C) (among the other licensed IP Bandai was dealing with).
Would make sense to move to GBA once it was clear WS wasn't going to be able to compete.

@Poodlestargenerica Yeah, but the main thing is it was probably the first to specifically focus on educational software, which is something the industry kind of a had a hard time making compelling, outside of a few examples.
Still though, nearly a decade later Sega would try again with the Pico, which managed to stick around in Japan. I see this was trying to use touch screens... in 1986.
Funny, I'd say the Pico was thinking like the Wii U... if the Wii U GamePad touch screen was made of paper.

@Bl4ckb100d The WSC graphics were the basis for PS1 and future ports, but the MAJOR difference that the GBA introduced was both making the PS1 "Easy mode" the standard difficulty as well as, for FF1 replacing the original, "Vancian" it seems to be called, magic system for the more standardized MP. It also introduces many items common from later games in the series. (it might be a shock to learn the original version of FF1 only had six consumable items, and half of them were the Tent line.)

@Damo I heard that the WonderSwan got a Hong Kong release with just two of the many Digimon games localized to English.

Also, it was quite a shock that Final Fantasy IV got released on the WSC, after the much anticipated remake of Final Fantasy III got canceled. (promotional material included within other WSC game boxes included a few screenshots of the canceled game.)

I only have a handful of WS(C) games but I feel like it's all I need.
Aside from those mentioned, there were other Square ports Makaitoshi SaGa (Final Fantasy Legend, it even included the option to play a port of the original Game Boy game) and Romancing SaGa (which reportedly included a little bit of extra content over the SFC original, though I hear the game never had quite all the content the intro would expect you to think is coming).
I also have a puzzle game called Mingle Magnet by HAL Corporation (which I thought I heard does have some relation to the HAL we know) and one I really want to play, an action-RPG called Star Hearts.

I do remember someone on a forum posting about Judgment Silversword being dumped just as it was released, and advocating distributing the ROM as they knew it was a game worth playing but destined to shortly become a game few would have the opportunity to play otherwise.
Even though, even at that time, I don't know if there were flashcarts other than the official one which was firmly designed around homebrew (such as only having either 512KB or 1MB, not nearly enough to hold most commercial games anyways) and emulators were quite lacking (like I recall just one supported sound and a different one supported all the buttons.)

Was it an international release?
The Japanese Sonic 3 commercial sure was something. In that era, it was typically the US commercials that were more unhinged, but I wonder if this one scared Japanese children away from the Sonic 3 box, lest it take them on a wild ride in the sky?

@Poodlestargenerica What does the Famicom have to do with this? It was already out at least three years earlier, and it was not a console designed for an educational market.
There were a couple attempts to make third-party education-based software and hardware on the Famicom but they were both extremely rare.

If I wanted pixel-sharp images from my SNES games, I could just use an emulator.

Oh boy, Japanese copyright lawyers probably can't wait to stomp out people who would want to copy software that hasn't been sold or available in twenty years.
Software that those who are into pirating have already been able to do so since the days they were released.