13 August 2019

Reviews: TriStar / Super 8 [Famicom Clone]

Hello everyone!
I've decided to get back to business of writing text reviews of Famiclones, that I have or had in collection and made a couple of videos on my second YouTube channel.
So, let's take a look at one of those clone systems.

Today we get the TriStar, which is an accessory for SNES that allows up to play NES and Famicom games. It also acts in a way, like an adapter to be able to play SNES games of any region.


It's worth noting that this is actually a PAL release of such device, called TriStar. There also exists the NTSC version of it, called Super 8. The main difference between these two mostly depends on the 8-bit hardware stuff, but we'll get to that in more details later.

The Super 8 version looks like this:
Photo taken from "The Famiclone Shelf" Blog
(thefamicloneshelf.blogspot.com)
Upon grabbing it, we can see that on the top part, it actually has three cartridge slots, one for 60-pin Famicom cartridges, another one for 72-pin NES cartridges and finally the slot for 16-bit Super Nintendo / Super Famicom games.

60-pin cartridge slot for FC cartridges & cartridge slot for SNES & SFC games
72-pin cartridge slot for NES cartridges & cartridge slot for SNES & SFC games
You can play NES or Famicom games on it just fine. For a reason of not inserting two 8-bit cartridges at the same time, they have a little thingy that closes one of the slots. If two 8-bit carts get inserted, nothing good happens - you can choose only one cart to play in this case. But inserting 16-bit cart and 8-bit cart would be fine, no problems there.
Speaking of 16-bit cartridge slot, it's quite wide, and doesn't have any tabs that you prevent carts of different region to get inserted. So, you can insert here the North American SNES carts, and also European SNES and Japanese SFC carts.

And also, by the slot design, you can play not just the regular cartridges, but also the ones that require two extra tabs (but, by tech stuff, they might not always work too well, and with that, you'd need to desolder the unit, and make some soldering inside, in case the extra pin SNES carts behave weird).

RF connection, the cable that plugs into SNES unit, and the output for AV cable
Here's everything set up, and ready to get boot up.
On the back side of the device, you have the RF slot to connect the antenna cable, you have the cable, which you have to connect to SNES / SFC AV port, and then right next to it, you have a port where you insert your regular Nintendo AV cable, used for systems like Super Nintendo / Super Famicom, Nintendo 64 and Game Cube.
The setup is pretty simple.

TriStar. Bottom Side.
TriStar. Bottom Side. Better lightning.
Looking at the bottom part, we can see that the part with cartridge pins has rounded edges to be able to fit into Super Famicom or PAL Super Nintendo, and in order to use it with North American SNES, the two edgs have little notches to bypass the little tabs, found in the cartridge slot of the console unit.
So, this thing would work with all official Super Nintendo consoles. It also says on the sticker that it's PAL version. Neat.

Here's the comparison between two Super Nintendo cartridges of different regions, just so you could see the major difference.
Japanese Super Famicom & North American Super Nintendo cartridge cases comparison.
The setup is really simple: you just insert this device into your 16-bit console, hook up that cable to SNES unit, get all other connections set, insert your game, and turn on and play.

One interesting thing to point out about this device.
On European Super Nintendo, The TriStar boots up fine, even without having all the needed cartridges inserted.
However, on Super Famicom, unless you inserted an NTSC game into 16-bit cartridge slot, it would just stay at the black screen.

Upon booting up, a pretty interesting screen greets up.
On my version, it just says "Tri-Star" and copyrighted to 1993.
Odd thing at first sight might be the string at the bottom of the screen, where it says: "This product is not manufactured, licensed, endorsed or distributed by Nintendo of America Inc."

We pay attention to "Nintendo of America Inc.", and notice something wrong.
Our Tri-Star is actually a PAL release, so it shouldn't really be saying "Nintendo of America Inc." at the bottom, but "Nintendo Inc." instead.

In fact, we also notice the blank spot, where copyright year is placed.
And with that, we should take a look at the boot screen of its NTSC release - Super 8.
It says "Super 8 by Innovation", and the copyright year is changed to 1995.

Screenshot from SatoshiMatrix's review of Super 8
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIQ2Fij-W_E)
So, as it turns out, the PAL version might have been released earlier, than the NTSC version.
And the PAL version might be done directly by Tri-Star, and NTSC version is actually re-released by Innovation.
At least, that's what I see. If I am wrong, feel free to correct me on that.











In this review, I will only cover the 8-bit counterpart of this adapter, as for 16-bit one, we'll possibly talk about it later.
But, for demonstration purposes, it's worth showing off how it works and everything.

Here's the demo of a few Super Nintendo games, like Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, Jungle Book. These are all North American carts, and these are actually working at full speed, even though it's a TriStar release, and it's played on my Super Famicom.

















I currently don't have the photos of mine, where the SFC carts work on this device. The photos might be added here later.
But, you can trust me, the Super Famicom cartridges work here just fine, and in a way, for SNES games, TriStar / Super 8 would work like an adapter to play games of different regions.
Yet, it has some certain games, that possibly won't work on it, like Donkey Kong Country 2 for example.
Taking out the cartridges from SNES slot is not an easy task. You'd possibly need to put a lot of force to get them out successfully, so be careful with that, when you are done playing one game and you want to switch to another one.

Going back to the showcase of its 8-bit counterpart, hardware-wise it's basically an early version of Nintendo-on-a-chip, where the processor would be all programmed on UM6561 chip or similar ones, like on many Dendy Famiclones, released by Steepler on Russian market back in 1990s. The photos of TriStar insides will possibly be posted later.

One really important thing to discuss on this Famiclone is the controls.
It uses the regular Super Nintendo controllers, obiously. But how the buttons are mapped?
D-pad, Select and Start work the usual way, as on NES/Famicom controller.
B and A buttons for NES games are Y and B buttons on SNES controller. At first, it might be a little confusing to you, but eventually, you'd get used to this scheme. It's also pretty comfortable for your thumb finger as well.
It's a shame that there are no turbo buttons here. The X and A button would be perfect to use, if you need to use turbo buttons in games, like run-and-gun, shoot-em-up, etc., where you need the constant button mashing action.
And another shameful thing: there is no way to use the light gun with SNES. There exist a light gun, called Super Scope 6, but I doubt that it will work with games, like Duck Hunt, Wild Gunman, Hogan's Alley, To The Earth, Gotcha!, etc.. So, you may pretty much be out of luck to play them here, even if you make a converter from SNES controller input to NES controller output.
Same thing with other NES accessories that use regular 7-pin ports.

Going back to hardware stuff of TriStar.
It plays NES and Famicom games at PAL speed, but with NTSC sound pitch, just like on the most Famicom clones you'd see being released in European countries, where Nintendo might have not supplied the gaming market with its official goodies, and there were bootleg consoles and game cartridges instead.
Taking out Famicom cartridges is just as difficult as SNES ones, so take note on that, and be careful with your precious games.
The NES cartridges take out very easily here, no need to grab carts tightly and attempt to get them out of the slot.

Interesting thing of note: no matter if you use TriStar on European Super Nintendo, or North American Super Nintendo, or Japanese Super Famicom, the 8-bit games will always play at PAL speed. The 16-bit games will work fine at the intended speed. If you use the console, that's NTSC, and your device is PAL region, you just need to have the SNES/SFC cart inserted into slot in any way to get it boot up.
TriStar, played on Super Famicom. In order to get it booted up, you need to have any NTSC 16-bit cartridge to be inserted into cartridge slot. Despite the fact, that it's Super Famicom, it shows that upon trying to play 8-bit, it outputs them at PAL.
...and that's because all the NES/FC power is already in the unit. Super Famicom is required here for the power and controller input. The AV connection is even used on TriStar, and not the Super Nintendo console itself.
In case of TriStar played on PAL SNES, you don't need a SNES cartridge to be inserted. It'll play here just perfectly fine.

However, my TriStar doesn't play expansion sound chip, so the game audio, where the expanded audio is used, like Akumajou Densetsu or Gimmick, would sound inferior in comparison to official console.
But there is one good thing about this Famiclone: no swapped out audio duty cycle problem, like on many other clone systems. And you can clearly hear that, if you play games, like Super Mario Bros., or Kyatto Ninden Teyandee, or Duck Tales 2, where the audio difference is really noticeable.

The early Famicom/NES games are out of question, they will work fine without any glitches or anything else unusual you'd expect.
For the purpose of checking out how they play, I threw it some of the multicarts from my collection, like Supervision 64-in-1 or Contra Function 168-in-1.

That Contra Function 168-in-1 is actually a pretty good multicart, known to those, who live in Poland and played 8-bit games on their Pegasus Famiclones, since that cartridge was incredibly widespread there. But as for my cartridge, I have a suspicion, that judging by the title "Entertainment Computer System", it was actually sold along with NES clones, titled as "Entertainment Computer System".
And, in fact, I own one in my collection, and when I have the opportunity, I will cover that console on my blog!


However, there exists another compatibility problem with this Famiclone and similar ones to it, and that's the picture problem.
You see that in regular games, the picture is actually pretty good. It might be slightly brighter, but colors are good and aren't washed out, you can see all the text just fine.
One of the video problems is the vertical bars, that can be seen in some places, like the sky. Just by looking at Super Mario Bros. or Super Mario Bros. 3, and taking a look at the sky, you can see that problem.

Here comes the "Famiclone Tests!" video, which has all the gameplay clips mixed together and uploaded as one video on my main AlexSRMD channel!


The time codes for making this video easier to watch for you! :)
[0:36] Super Mario Bros + Duck Hunt [NES, NTSC] [3:42] Super Mario Bros. 3 [NES, PAL] [10:46] Aladdin (SuperGame) [18:20] Lion King (SuperGame) [22:07] Prince of Persia [25:23] Jungle Book [31:10] Felix the Cat [39:12] James Bond Jr. (NT6056) [43:29] Doraemon /// 4-in-1 Tetris /// [57:05] Takahashi Meijin no Bouken Jima [1:00:20] Flipull [1:02:35] Tetris (BPS) [1:05:10] Tetris (Tengen) /// Super Cartridge Twenty-In-One / 20-in-1 /// [1:07:53] Road Fighter [1:09:49] Ice Climber /// 64-in-1 Supervision /// [1:10:58] City Connection [1:13:04] Lunar Ball [1:15:05] Lode Runner [1:16:24] Mario Bros. [1:17:07] Sky Destroyer /// 150-in-1 Real Game /// [1:17:45] Zanac [1:19:55] RAF World [1:21:24] Probotector II: Return of Evil Forces [1:23:45] Dropzone [1:25:30] Fishwar (Balloon Fight hack) [1:27:24] Cardcaptor Sakura (Tower of Druaga ROM hack) [1:29:20] Supper Popo's Adventure (Pocket Monster) /// 198-in-1 Real Game /// [1:33:20] Chip to Dale no Daisakusen 2 [1:35:06] Hudson's Adventure Island 2 [1:37:51] Darkwing Duck [1:41:40] Summer Carnival '92 Recca [1:43:13] Banana Prince [1:45:20] Shatterhand [1:49:20] Kyatto Ninden Teyandee [1:54:34] New Zealand Story /// 4-in-1 Pascar (Korean) /// [1:56:20] Super Mario Bros. 2 / Mr. Mary 2 (FDS Conversion) [2:02:10] Booby Kids [2:05:40] Hi no Tori [2:08:16] Argos no Senshi /// [2:09:23] Arumana no Kiseki (FDS Conversion) [2:13:20] Akumajou Densetsu [2:19:45] Gimmick (Reproduction)

Another incompatibility problem with this Famiclone occures on certain games, released by Eurocom Entertainment Software games, and Hudson Soft's Felix the Cat.
The picture is somewhat darker than it should be. As you can see, on my clone it's a bit dark, but you can still see the gameplay. I've seen much worse result, trust me on that.

Next interesting thing conserning Famiclones is that on certain clone systems that use UM6561AF-2, a few NES titles wouldn't work correctly. More particularly, Prince of Persia for NES starts glitching up, lagging like crazy, and therefore becomes next to impossible to play.

As you can see by the gameplay footage in the above video, Prince of Persia started up here successfully and it works just like it should.
And, if you like bootleg backports from superior systems, like Super Nintendo or Sega Mega Drive to 8-bit Famicom, and you want to play some games, made by SuperGame, particularly "Super Lion King" and "Super Aladdin", you are going to have one little problem. And that's the annoying green tilt, appearing on title screen, and in Super Aladdin, it also occures during gameplay.
The problem lies in color coding for NTSC and PAL systems, and one of the necessary colors, being red, is coded differently on NTSC - because of that, it outputs in green on PAL.

Finally, if you want to play PAL NES games on TriStar, be aware of a few things:
1) The sound pitch will be higher than it should be on PAL NES unit, so the music might sound a bit unusual to you
2) There are a few titles that will be incompatible with the Famiclone, as it's basically an NTSC hardware with forced PAL speed.

The titles, that wont work here: Aladdin (NMS Software), Asterix, Battletoads (EUR), Battletoads & Double Dragon (EUR), Beauty and the Beast, Lion King (Dark Technologies), Mr.Gimmick (EUR).
The other titles, which will work, but with glitches at certain spots: Smurfs - Stage 9 Bridge, Gargomel Boss Fight ; Super Mario Bros. 3 (EUR) - map moving

Those are the titles that I personally tested out with the use of EverDrive N8 flash cart. There might be other games that won't work at all, considering that this is NTSC hardware, even though it plays games at slower speed.
If you can share me other titles from European NES games that aren't compatible with NTSC hardware, including Famiclones like this, please let me know in the comments! I'll be glad to know that, and test them out for future "Reviews" on the blog.

As I mentioned earlier, no expansion sound chip if you want to try out to play games, like Akumajou Densetsu or Gimmick! The results can be perfectly seen on these two videos.
I don't have original Gimmick! cartridge - my copy is a fully working reproduction with expansion sound chip and everything. So, it's like an original deal, but a repro cart - I can't afford too much money on official cartridge, unfortunately.

The final thing I want to bring on for discussion here about this Famiclone - is the multicarts, that were released in 2000s-2010s and contain a large number of games on that.
One of the cartridges to test out is 150-in-1 Real Games. It's one of the first cartridges, if not the first one, to contain many good later NES titles and a few early games, almost without repeats.
However, it doesn't work on official NES/Famicom or early hardware clones, unless you modify the cartridge.

As the TriStar Famiclone is not a hardware clone, but uses a custom UM6??? chip to run the whole thing (early version of Nintendo-on-a-chip), the multicart passes by and all the games are playable here.

198-in-1 Real Game, which I also decided to test out, fixes that problem with incompatibility on official hardware, and works fine there.

And, remember me talking about problems with playing PAL NES games on PAL Famiclone? Well, there are a few PAL NES titles to be found on the cartridge, so we might as well check 'em out, how they work here.

As a bonus feature, I will also throw it my FDS conversion of Arumana no Kiseki / The Miracle of Almana. It was originally released by Konami for Famicom Disk System, and featured FDS expansion sound, making it sound superior to the regular NES game sound.
When converting this game into cartridge form, this game lost its beautiful FDS expansion sound.

But, it works okay, even without FDS sound. If I was to test this game through EverDrive N8 and launched Arumana no Kiseki FDS ROM there, the same results with sound would output - no expansion audio.

There might be some slight glitches with graphics, especially on Rygar game, but other than that, it works okay.

And with that, we shall make a conclusion on the 8-bit part of TriStar. Remember that this is my copy of TriStar device for Super Nintendo / Super Famicom, and the results may vary to you.
+ Plays both NES and Famicom cartridges without the need to use an adapter
+ Uses SNES controllers with a comfortable button scheme
+ Good picture quality in the majority of games
+ Good sound quality without damaged duty cycles
+ Plays about 99% of game cartridges from my collection
+ Games, like Prince of Persia, don't make weird glitches and are working fine
- Can't use NES accessories
- Dark picture in Eurocom Entertainment Software games and Hudson's Felix the Cat
- Annoying green tilt in some bootleg games
- Can't play some PAL NES titles, or plays them with glitches
- No expansion audio

I personally like this Famiclone for what it is.
What's your opinion on it? Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Thank you for sticking around until the end and reading this review.
We'll be back soon with another Famiclone to review.

(C) AlexSRMD Productions (2019)

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8 August 2019

Famicom Pirate Label Origins #4

Another entry to this series!
Today, me and my colleague, SuperBrain1997, get a few more cartridges to take a look at. They might be not quite as interesting and as exciting as in the previous post, but they are still worth covering.

31) Tiny Toon 2 [T-T2] & Tiny Toon 3 [K1169] (& a bit of "Super Mario 6" (S-M6))

We could find the original source of two Bugs Bunny characters here, but no luck with finding the background.
So, the first Bugs Bunny on the left is taken from "Happy Birthday Bugs" cartoon poster.

And the one on the right is actually taken from Looney Tunes Curtain Calls.








And by the way, the same picture of Bugs Bunny from the Looney Tunes Curtain Calls was also used for two other pirate carts - Tiny Toon 3 copy from late 90 - early 2000s, and also for this particular Super Mario 6 pirate cart.


My comrade actually has Tiny Toon 3 that has a slightly different label on the cart, but it uses the same picture. You can watch it here: https://superbrain1997-retro-museum.herokuapp.com/cartridges/193

32-34) Aladdin (HummerTeam) [A-N7], Super Aladdin [S-L3]*, Aladdin (HummerTeam) recent copy (& extras)
A pretty standard looking pirate cart at first sight.
It's got the original Aladdin logo, and the picture that actually has relations with Aladdin movie from 1992.
But the most interesting thing about it is that it's a mixture of different Aladdin posters, labels and stuff, so let's go ahead and take a closer look at this cart, and see what's up with that.

The left part is clearly taken from one of the movie posters, which you can see here below:

And by the way, the same exact poster was also used for original Aladdin cart, that holds JY-025 ID, non-ID version and also Aladdin 2 (A-N6). Here are a few examples of such carts to be listed below. :)

But anyway, let's see the other things, related to Aladdin, that were used for the production of the A-N7 label.

EDIT (10.08.2019): As it turned out, it was much easier than I thought.
Aladdin, Abu riding the Magic Carpet, as well as Genie, and part of Jafar, were actually taken from this poster:

But before I actually stumbled across this picture, I found a few of the characters separately on other Aladdin related things, so I'll show em off below as well.

For example, Jafar, who you can see the bare part of at the bottom right, was also presented on Aladdin (1992) cartoon poster, used for VHS tapes & DVD, like the one you can see here.

Worth noting that this picture was used also for SuperGame's version of Aladdin, which is another game, and another backport, which was available to play on Famicom. Even though it started out well, it's ruined badly by ending on Rug Ride stage. If it had more stages, it would be a far better MegaDrive port than what it is. Oh well...
That was a bit of off-topic to the cartridge, since we are discussing A-N7 cart that holds HummerTeam's Aladdin, and not SuperGame's one, so let's continue with A-N7. :)

The same picture of Jafar, as we just saw earlier, can also be found on Aladdin: Special Edition from 2000s, which is this one:

And, in fact, I think it's worth noting that on newer bootlegs that have HummerTeam's Aladdin, which are again, MMC3 mapper hacks, and don't have background animation, they feature the full soundtrack, thankfully - they use this movie poster. An example below:
This cartridge says "Russian version", however, you can also find the cartridges without that string, but with this label.

So, as for A-N7, the only thing left to find out, is where Aladdin and Jasmine were taken out.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the exact spot, where Aladdin, being Ali Ababua, is riding a Magic Carpet with Jasmine. I found two sources, where they could be taken from, and here they are:



One of those being a board game, titled "Aladdin: The Magic Carpet Game". If someone can seek out for the exact spot, where Aladdin and Jasmine were taken from for this label, let us know in the comment section below - that would be really appreciated.

Other than that, I covered this A-N7 Aladdin cartridge. We found almost all the sources used for the label.
And, bad thing about this cart is that it's an MMC3 hack, which has no background animation and it's missing most of the game soundtrack. So, it's essentially like a silent Aladdin throughout the entire game. Yet, you get the music on the title screen, bonus level and boss fight.

You can check my video on that cartridge here:


33) Aladdin 3 [A-N8] & [A-N2]
Originally I planned to add this as an extra to the above topic, but I decided to separate it, since it's already a different game. Here's the cartridge of Aladdin 3, A-N8, which I accidentally came by, when I was looking for some picture sources.
I suppose that this cart would have "Magic Carpet 1001" hack, that says "Aladdin III" on the title screen, and this would be bad, because comparing to HummerTeam's Aladdin or SuperGame's Aladdin, this one is just not really that fun and exciting to play. It's a boring and slow horizontal shooter with only one soundtrack, played throughout the entire gameplay.
So, the cartridge itself:
This is just one of the versions of the cart, released on pirate carts. There exists another A-N8 ID cart, but we'll look at this one first.
EDIT (10.08.2019): As it turned out, the picture that you can see is basically a mirrored version of this poster.
You can see the same Genie, Aladdin and Abu on Magic Carpet, Sultan, Jasmine and Jafar with Iago. But, the picture actually feels a bit strunk, which you can see by looking at Sultan.
But anyway, this looks to be somewhat rare copy of Aladdin 3 under A-N8 ID. I haven't really been able to track it down for sale, but I am 99% certain that it will be nothing more than Magic Carpet 1001, with a title screen hacked to say Aladdin III.
If someone has this cartridge, confirm me that in comments below. ;)
Thanks in advance.

And this is the another version of Aladdin 3, A-N8, that was released on bootlegs. I was wrong, when I originally posted this cartridge on my blog, as I showed that it had HummerTeam game on here. But in fact, it should be Magic Carpet 1001 hack instead!!! (click here)
No problems here, as I found the cartridge, which actually had that game instead, so I changed the PCB, and now everything is correct.
Anyway, the right part of the picture with Genie, his lamp, Aladdin, Abu and Jasmine are taken from the picture that was used for VHS&DVD release.
EDIT (10.08.2019): As for Jafar, Jasmine and Sultan on the left, they were taken from the poster than I showed earlier, to the other A-N8 Aladdin 3 cartridge.


And another copy of Aladdin 3, but it's holding A-N2 ID this time. I stumbled across this cartridge about two times, and all those times it had Magic Carpet 1001 inside. A few people showed me that they had HummerTeam version of Aladdin instead, but I think that this could be a mistake, and there should be Magic Carpet 1001 instead. We already saw under which carts you could definitely find HummerTeam's Aladdin.
As for this label, surprisingly, it's not Aladdin (1992) movie label. The picture here is actually taken from its sequel: Return of Jafar (1994).


Off-topic: While I like the original Aladdin (1992) movie, I kind of like the sequel "The Return of Jafar" (1994) much more, due to a pretty obvious reason: a parrot Iago decides to get rid of Jafar and gain the trust from Aladdin and his friends to get back to Agrabah. And while he is in all that, he manages to save his new friends from Jafar, and destroys his lamp in the lava, which effectively kills Jafar. I personally started watching Aladdin not from the movie, but from the TV series (1994-1995), where Iago was kinda in the crew already, and not on the side with Jafar. But in any way, he remained my favourite character in Aladdin series, no matter what. 

So, yeah, that was a bit of off-topic, and let's get back to our business!

34) Aladdin [NT-622]
Oh, yeah. This cartridge...
There is a 50 by 50 chance to find either a proper version of HummerTeam's Aladdin on it with all the background animation stuff and full soundtrack (in order words: original, just like on JY-025), or get the mapper hacked versions, which won't have any of that.


My cartridge was a lucky find, as it had an original version of Aladdin on the board, with a proper title screen and 1995 copyright year. (however, there may also be versions, that say Aladdin II, and they would either have a proper version or cut-down, but we'll discuss that in later posts, possibly).
And the PCB is just like the original deal, which you can check out, by clicking here: http://somerussianmariodude.blogspot.com/2017/07/pickups-53-famicom-cartridges-53-super.html

So, let's take a look at the label.
It's made all by NT standards with the weird background, and direct copy of the pictures from original source, without too much editing.
In this case, the left part of the label with Genie and Aladdin with Jasmine taking a ride on Magic Carpet, was taken from this movie poster with the pretty awesome and memorable phrase: "An Adventure Beyond Your Imagination".



So, as for the little round part of the picture with Aladdin and Jasmine, we found their picture, but it's not an exact 100% source, and the background has the moon and darken sky, but in any way, here they are.


The playthrough, made on my version of NT-622 cartridge, can be watched here:


And a little note: as I mentioned earlier, some cartridge with NT-622 might contain the original version of Aladdin by HummerTeam and others may contain the cut-down version of it. For example, my friend, SuperBrain1997, has the copy which unfortunately is without most of the music and with no background animation. Here's his cartridge, which you can take a look at: https://superbrain1997-retro-museum.herokuapp.com/cartridges/569 (Russian text) .

35) Godzilla / Godzilla: Monsters of Monsters
This is actually a find by SuperBrain1997, which he wrote about in his recent post at VK group of ours. You can check it here, in case you can read Russian: https://vk.com/wall-87396586_2730


So, upon buying this cartridge, it was tested, and then put away.
The game that was on this cartridge is actually "Godzilla: Monsters of Monsters". We already covered the other bootleg copy, which you can see here: http://somerussianmariodude.blogspot.com/2019/08/famicom-pirate-label-origins-3.html
Nothing seemed wrong with it, even though there were certain problems with the picture adaptation to Famicom format.
But, when he took a closer look at it and decided to analyze the label, it turned out that this is not Godzilla at all on the label. One of the clear hints for that would be the Japanese title at the bottom of the picture, which reads as ガメラ (Gamera), and it's actually the second popular Japanese character after Godzilla, and its being actually a huge turtle.
Godzilla in Japanese reads differently, and it's ゴジラ, so this label doesn't match the game, that's actually inside. So, this raises the question: where this label was actually taken from?


The label, as it turned out, is actually taken from "Gamera - Daikai Jukuchuu Kessen" / "Gamera: Defender of the Universe" game for Nintendo Game Boy, released in 1995, with the removal of unnecessary text and adapting the art to Famicom label standards, sloppily.
The interesting thing is that not many people knew about Gamera outside of Japan in 90s, and the character is darkened, so it's not an easy talk to identify Gamera here.

And overall, pirates sold us Godzilla game by Toho, but under the label of Gamera. You can rate it as a rip to some extend.


36) Arthur Robin / Lupin Sansei: Pandora no Isan [R-B8]
Under this title, you'd always find "Lupin the Third" or "Lupin Sansei: Pandora no Isan". You won't find the game officially released under the "Arthur Robin" title on NES or Famicom.


The label, by the opinion of SuperBrain1997, is pretty dumb and somewhat interesting.
As he points out, it's a gamble in a way of if the picture is one single thing, or it's a collage of different sources put altogether.

By attempting to find separately the main character with the finger pointing at us with funny smile and the background, he managed to find out who was actually that man.


Turned out that this is actually a guy from "Cadillac Man" (1990) movie poster. And with that the question with the game title could be solved.




Robin Williams is the actor, who took part in this movie, and with that, pirates decided to use "Robin" for the title.

The background is still yet to be searched and figured out where it's actually from, but this background and Robin Williams could have some relation, and with that we would figure out what pirates meant under "Arthur Robin" title.

37) Lethal Weapon 2 [L-W5]

We shall start discussing this cartridge, by saying that on NES, there was only one Lethal Weapon game, developed by Eurocom Entertainment Software and published by Ocean Software. And it was a pretty decent beat-em-up. We had this game on pirate carts as well, and it would usually be released with the label, taken from original NES boxart.
So, where does this title come from? It says Lethal Weapon 2 on the picture.
In fact, this is actually a backport of Mega Drive game, called "Lethal Enforces", but the game title was changed to "Lethal Weapon", and this thing would possibly lead to a lot of confusion, as both the official NES game and the pirate backport share the same game title.

It's a pretty decent shooting target game, where in original game, you'd need to use a light gun for gameplay. And thankfully, the same feature was saved in this backport too, which is really awesome.
It's worth taking a look at, yet finding the ROM of this game can be a bit tricky.
Look out for "Lethal Weapon (Ch).nes" title, and under it you would possibly be lucky to find this pirate port to try out.

So, what about the actual game title used here? Even though the lable is damaged on the right side, we can actually see the full picture and what pirates were up to.


The picture was found by complete accident.
As it turned out, this is the artwork by Argentinian artist Gustavo Cabral, who signed his works as Siruello. This artwork is on the topic of Mayami Police of 1980-s, and this is a pretty good choice for the label, as the game takes place in North America and has its criminal feature, which is a perfect fit for this pirate backport.

This artwork was also later used for the book release, which was written by James Hadly, titled as Chase. It turned out pretty funny, so for our topic, this wouldn't be redundant to show off.



38) Thundercade


I actually picked up this cartridge back in March 2017, and you can check the original pickups post here: http://somerussianmariodude.blogspot.com/2017/07/pickups-52-famicom-cartridges-52-march_26.html 

This label is actually pretty interesting.
To start things off, this game was never released on Famicom officially, and it's NES-exclusive in that regard.
The picture used on the original NES boxart is completely different, and looks nothing like what you see on your bootleg cart.


With that, the question arises: what sources were used for this label and where were they taken from??
We'll start our talk with that the background is actually a picture of Hitler's Resurrection: Top Secret (ヒットラーの復活 TOP SECRET(トップシークレット) for Famicom.

This game was re-released later on for North American market as Bionic Commando, but with the removal of everything Hitler-related in it.

So, let's solve the puzzle further!
This is just the background, but we also have two bikes and helicopter put altogether on one label, which actually looks fitting for the game that we have on this cartridge.

The bikes are taken from the following two games that you already know: Mach Rider & Zippy Race.




And finally, we have the helicopter left to solve, where it is from.
It turned to be a pretty simple thing to guess - it's "Choplifter" for Famicom.



With that, we finally solved the puzzle, and we got this interesting looking label for Thundercade, which although is not taken from original label, and turned out to be an interesting mixture of many different Famicom game labels, it fits the game very well.

This will be the last iteration to this issue of "Famicom Pirate Label Origins". We didn't get to number 40, and ended on 38, but this is not the end.
In the next post of this topic, we'll be glad to show you off more interesting Famicom bootleg labels, used for different games.

Thank you for reading and your attention. See you later!

(C) AlexSRMD Productions (2019)

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