24 July 2019

Famicom Pirate Label Origins #2

We'll continue what I started in the previous post!
We discussed a few Famicom pirate cartridges and looked at the label origins.
This time we'll do the same with other 10 iterations that I prepared for you.
#famiclone_labels

11) Super Contra (20-in-1 ??) & Ikari 3 K-R3

These two guys on the two cartridges we get today are the same, and taken from one source. But which one is it? Well, as it turned out, it's Runark for Sega Mega Drive, which you can see below.
As for Super Contra, I can't say for sure if it's singlecart that goes straight to the title screen, or it has a menu of 20 or 24 positions where you can choose your weapon,  level to start from, etc.. But it exists.

12) Werewolf II [C-W3]


For this cart, pirates took the picture from Eternal Champions for Sega Genesis. They copied the bottom part. But, funnily enough, this label has nothing to do with Werewolf, and it looks kinda of strange, that pirates decided to choose it for Werewolf: The Last Warrior
Yet, there was a version with a proper label, taken from original deal.
13) FBI Policeman II [F-P2]
This is Golgo 13: The Riddle of Icarus. Yes, and I am not kidding you. Under this label you could meet that Golgo 13 game.
But the label we get here is actually a really fun mixture, that, once again, doesn't have any relations with the game itself.
The guy on the front is taken from "Dirty Larry: Renegade Cop" game for Atari Lynx, and the other one at the back is the main character from "Espace from New York" movie. And it's all titled as "FBI Policeman 2".

14) Alien Syndrome (ALIEN OME SYNDR) [A-R2]
This is possibly one of the best titles I've seen on any pirate carts - take out the three last characters from the second word and write them separately as if it's a separate word. Simply ingenious, isn't it?
I personally have never played this game before, but as people say, it's a good one. And interestingly enough, the original game is actually unlicensed one, released by Tengen for NES.
For this particular part, pirates took the label from "Power Factor" game for Atari Lynx.
The other thing left to search is the guys on the back side.
Can't say for sure if the character here matches well with "Alien Syndrome" game, so I will just leave you the photo of the cartridge and the source, where he was taken from.

15) Explosion / Dengeki - Big Bang! [S-Y5] v1
This is one of the versions of "Dengeki - Big Bang!" released on pirate carts under the ID S-Y5.
As for this cartridge, the label was taken from "Gunstar Heroes" for Sega Mega Drive with the removal of the bottom part and writing the title "Explosion".



16) Snow Bros
To my knowledge, this is the label, that you can commonly find on pirate carts, where there would be Snow Bros. game. The picture was moved to the left, and the game's title was added.
On certain pirate carts, you could also see the chinese title.
And the actual label is taken from Sega Mega Drive boxart of the game under the same name, as you can clearly see here.


17) JuJu Densetsu

Also known as Toki. There were both Japanese and North American versions of this game on pirate carts. On this JY multicart, where we also get Mortal Kombat, Grand Dad 7 and Gremlins 2, the label for JuJu Densetsu was taken from the game under the same name on MegaDrive. 

18) TMNT
Under this cartridge with this label I met TMNT2: The Arcade Game, but some people say that there should be Tournament Fighters instead... Oh well...
But the main thing is that the label is taken from TMNT Return of the Shredder for Sega Mega Drive, as said on the title here.
19) Championship Pool [L-P1]
The label used for this billiard game is basically the same for most of the cartridges that have Championship Pool on them. And funnily enough, the label is actually a picture from manual (with no pink text at the top of the title), as we can see that there is a line "Instruction Booklet Supplied" written here. But where the text "Attach the Explanation in English" came from and the text in Chinese - is not known to me.

20) Explosion / Dengeki - Big Bang! [S-Y5] v2

Remember me saying that there were two versions of this game, released on pirate carts? Well, this is the another copy of Dengeki - Big Bang!
In this case, the label was taken from Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future TV Show poster, and pirates used the certain part of the poster he needed and added their title.

Another 10 findings were added here. I will post a few other label origins that me and SuperBrain1997 found with other Famicom pirate carts labels a bit later, so look forward to those.

(C) AlexSRMD Productions (2019)

My Facebook group: https://en-gb.facebook.com/groups/SRMD.FCGROUP/
My Instagram: https://instagram.com/AlexSRMD
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexSRMD
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SomeRussianMarioDude 
Our VK group: https://vk.com/alexsrmd_and_spbr97 
SPBR97 Retro Museum: https://superbrain1997-retro-museum.herokuapp.com/ 
SPBR97 YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SuperBrain1997
SPBR97 YouTube Gaming channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6CIC-qTGjxDZFdJ4o0a1Bw
SPBR97 Blogspot: https://superbrain1997.blogspot.com/
SPBR97 Instagram: https://instagram.com/SPBR97_museum

23 July 2019

Famicom Pirate Label Origins #1 | Famicom Bootleg Oddities #3

Hello everyone! It's been quite a long while, since I made any post here, but here I am back.
With a pretty interesting topic to talk about.

It's that we will discuss the origins of labels that are used for certain Famicom pirate carts.
With the help of SuperBrain1997 / SPBR97_Museum we could find a few of them together, and here we'll present a few of our findings.
#famiclone_labels
 
1) Magical Doropie [M-D2]

The picture is taken from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Gateway to the Savage Frontier for IBM PC / Amiga / Commodore 64, nothing much less. We also get the game's title and ID added here. There is indeed a Japanese version of the game, and not Krion Conquest, as all of you may know. :)


2) Super Mario World 9 [S-D9] & Adventure Island [JY-110]
The original source to this label was found by accident. As it turns out the same picture was used for Super Mario World 9, that's Hudsons Adventure Island II hack and Adventure Island cart, released by JY Company. And that source is Famitsu magazine, #9 (1990). On the first picture, instead of Necky the Fox's head, ther was a Mario game put from Famicom Golf: US Course. And the second picture was copied without any changes.



3) Duck Tales
I think that this picture on Duck Tales pirate cart is well known to everyone: the small ducky near the pond, that doesn't have any relations to the Walt Disney's Duck Tales TV Show.
We couldn't figure out for sure where it was taken from, but we have a suspicion that it could be taken from Felix the Cat cartoon episode, where goose laid the golden eggs ("The Goose That Laid Golden Egg" cartoon). The screenshot will be attached below.

4) Bird Fighter [B-D5] / Choujin Sentai Jetman
As for this cartridge, there was two labels used from two Sega Mega Drive games: those are Golden Axe III and Gynoug, and funnily enough there are Japanese releases. But it remains a mystery to us, where the original background was taken from, which is used for this Choujin Sentai Jetman cartridge.



















5) The Punisher [P-R7]
The main character that we have here is taken from Dynamite Duke from Sega Mega Drive, but the original source for this background is still unknown to us.

6) Mickey Mouse [M-M1]
There exist at least two versions of this cartridge under the same ID, but the funniest thing is that two different picture sources were used for them. In our case, that you can see here, the picture with Mickey Mouse is taken from the Sega Mega Drive label for "Castle of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse". We guess that the choice for this artwork was because of the first stage taking place in house. But here, it's a huge and scary castle of illusion, as it was titled in original Mega Drive game.

7) 1991 Super Basketball
As many of you know, on pirate carts there would be Taito Basketball. But "where was this label taken from?" you might ask, because the official Famicom release clearly had a different picture.
So, here's an answer: the pirates simply copied the picture from Super Real Basketball for Sega Mega Drive, and removed the bottom part of the picture.
8) Ninja Ryukenden IV [N-R4] & Castle of Dragon IV [R-29]


As of the time we wrote the original post in VK, and posting it to SuperBrain1997's Retro Museum and copying the text here, we managed to find only one character from this label, who is located on the right side. We couldn't find the character on the left and the original background...yet,
Samurai on the right is from the game Second Samurai for Sega Mega Drive.

9) Joe & Mac [J-C5]
I don't think that it would be an easy thing to guess, that our character here is taken from Fight Through Time Tyrants, unless you played this game before in its original form, and saw it beforehand. The only difference is that, instead of a bone, he has an axe.

10) Bast of the Bast [B-T6]


The game's title was screwed up for some reason.
The picture with the character that looks like Alexander Nevskii, is taken right from Art of Fighting game for Sega Mega Drive. It was copied almost without any changes, except for adding the game's title and ID.




















We'll continue in the next part with a few other findings :)
See you in the next part.
(C) AlexSRMD Productions (2019)

My Facebook group: https://en-gb.facebook.com/groups/SRMD.FCGROUP/
My Instagram: https://instagram.com/AlexSRMD
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/AlexSRMD
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/SomeRussianMarioDude 
Our VK group: https://vk.com/alexsrmd_and_spbr97 
SPBR97 Retro Museum: https://superbrain1997-retro-museum.herokuapp.com/ 
SPBR97 YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/SuperBrain1997
SPBR97 YouTube Gaming channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6CIC-qTGjxDZFdJ4o0a1Bw
SPBR97 Blogspot: https://superbrain1997.blogspot.com/
SPBR97 Instagram: https://instagram.com/SPBR97_museum