4 December 2020

Reviews: SNES Multigame Menu 102 in 1 v1.0B

Hello everyone!
Today we have a truly interesting thing that we haven't seen before on this blog.
There exist pirate cartridges for Famicom, for original Gameboy. But how about some Super Nintendo cartridges?
Well, as it turns out, we have an exhibit that one of the more recent cartridges to be found on websites, such as Aliexpress. I already reviewed some cartridges for Famicom like CoolBoy 198-in-1 Real Game, CoolBoy 400-in-1 Real Game, SuperGames 500-in-1 or PocketGames 150-in-1 that were sold over there.

As it turns out, nowadays you can also find this cartridge, which is titled as "The Best of 100 Games". The label was made up from official North American label, having the SNS-S2-USA ID that comes from Street Fighter II.
The picture that features some of the included games is quite tiny, but basically it shows such games as Earthbound, Joe & Mac, Final Fantasy II, Super Castlevania IV, Super Mario All-Stars, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and a few other games that don't have any title. 
We'll get to the actual games soon, but the picture sounds promising enough already. 

The regular cautions sticker is presented on the back, and no Nintendo logo on actual cartridge case... Speaking of which, it's all red, and it's clear, so you can actually see the curcuit board. And obviously, it's shaped after North American SNES cartridges, which differed from European SNES or Japanese SFC ones.
The cartridge doesn't use the screwbits, and is held on standard screws that you can open with practically any screwdriver, so that's a cool thing. 

If you want to play this cartridge on Super Famicom, and you have a separate cartridge shell shaped after Super Famicom carts, you can easily take apart the circuit board with multicart and place it into SFC case. This way you don't need to worry about not being able to play the cartridge by default on your Super Famicom. 
I used the SNES clone, called Super Players Entertainment System, which was also bought on Aliexpress. It has a region switch, which helps a lot with playing games from different region and with playing pirated cartridges, which although aren't quite as common as official SNES ones, but they still exist. 
So, I guess, we should insert the cartridge into the console, turn it on and get started! 


It starts fine on my Super Players Entertainment System, both on 50hz and 60hz. This photo was taken from 50hz being chosen as my TV, that you see on photo, can't output 60hz from the clone, as it converts 60hz to PAL-60, which looks to be out of support here, as the picture goes black & white.

It says "SNES Multigame Menu 102-in-1 V1.0B", and this is where the title comes for our blog entry! 
The copyright string says (C) 2014-2019 Tengu Development, from which you can easily tell that this multicart was producted not long ago. 

Before actually discovering the games that were put on this cartridge, we should address the circuit board and see how it looks inside. 
As we open up the cartridge case, and take out the PCB, we see the following:

Yes, as funny as it might sound, the EverDrive circuit board was apparently used to create this multicart, but that is not 100% certain as from what I've seen on the net just by looking in Google Images, the actual EverDrive PCB looked different. 

I turned on the brightness on my phone, when taking the pictures of circuit board, so you could see the actual text on chips much better.
Here's the closer look at those.




Those, who have a better knowledge in technical stuff, can tell which chip on the circuit board is responsible for. But I got really surprised to find out about EverDrive logo on it.

Let's get to the contents of this multicar.
In case you are interested, I captured the footage with the help of Dazzle DVC100, and used the program called Open Broadcaster Software.
It took me a bit of time to trick my capture software into thinking that the real NTSC signal is being captured, because otherwise the 60hz mode (PAL-60) would output in black & white.
Just behind the scenes stuff...


This is the game's list with 6 screens to go through.
The full game's list is provided below:
1. William's Arcade's Greatest Hits (Defender, Defender II, Joust, Robotron, Sinistar)
2. Arkanoid: Doh it Again
3. Art of Fighting
4. Batman: Revenge of the Joker
5. Battletoads & Double Dragon
6. BioMetal
7. Blues Brothers, The 
8. Bombuzal
9. Bronkie The Bronchiasaurus
10. BS Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman Zero
11. Kirby no Omochabako - Pachinko
12. BS Super Mahjong Taikai
13. Bubsy II
14. Cacoma Knight in Bizyland
15. Casper
16. Championship Pool
17. Chessmaster, The
18. Chrono Trigger
19. Contra III - The Alien Wars
20. Dennis the Menace
21. Desert Strike
22. Donkey Kong Country
23. Donkey Kong Country 2 - Diddy's Kong Quest
24. Donkey Kong Country 3 - Dixie Kong's Double Trouble
25. Double Dragon V - The Shadow Falls
26. Dragon Ball Z - Super Saiyan Densetsu
27. Dragon Quest I+II
28. Dragon Quest III
29. Dragon Quest V
30. Earthbound
31. F-Zero
32. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest
33. Final Fantasy II
34. Final Fantasy III
35. Final Fantasy IV (Japanese version of Final Fantasy II)
36. Final Fantasy VI (Japanese version of Final Fantasy III)
37. Final Fight
38. Final Fight 2
39. Final Fight 3
40. Final Fight Guy
41. Fuzzy Shooting
42. Home Alone
43. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
44. Incantation
45. International Superstar Soccer
46. Jack Nicklaus' Golf
47. Joe & Mac
48. Kirby's Avalanche
49. Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past
50. Lufia & The Fortress of Doom
51. Magical Quest, The - Starring Mickey Mouse
52. Monopoly
53. Mortal Kombat
54. Pac-Attack
55. Pocky & Rocky
56. Prince of Persia
57. Puzzle Bobble
58. Raiden Trad
59. Samurai Shodown
60. Shadowrun
61. Sim City
62. Simpsons, The - Bart's Nightmare
63. Sonic Blast Man
64. Sonic Blast Man II
65. Sunset Riders
66. Super Adventure Island
67. Super Adventure Island II
68. Super Battletank
69. Super Bomberman
70. Super Bomberman 2
71. Super Buster Bros.
72. Super Castlevania IV
73. Super Double Dragon
74. Super Ghouls'n Ghosts
75. Super Mario World
76. Super Smash TV
77. Super Star Wars: The Return of Jedi
78. Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
79. Super Star Wars
80. Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers
81. Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss
82. Super Turrican
83. Taz-Mania
84. Tecmo Super NBA Basketball
85. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
86. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
87. Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!
88. Tiny Toon Adventures: Wacky Sports Challenge
89. TKO Super Championship Boxing
90. Tom & Jerry
91. Top Gear 2
92. Top Gear
93. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
94. Ultraman: Towards the Future
95. Ultraman
96. Wild Guns
97. WWF: Super Wrestle Mania
98. X Zone
99. Yoshi's Cookie
100. YS III
101. Zombies Ate My Neighbors
102. Zoop

And here you go! As you can see, traditionally to the majority of multigame cartridges, this one has some repeats - in this game, Final Fantasy II and III were put on this cartridge, both the North American releases and Japanese releases that had different titles.
I think that it will be a good thing to show you the screenshots of title screens for each game that are included here. The additional ones with the gameplay of first stage or cutscenes in-game may be posted here as a separate post! As for the videos on YouTube, there might be some the following year, but don't get high hopes on it - there are some games included here that I actually can't play and therefore I wouldn't be able to make a proper gameplay video of every single game from here.
In any case, I will see what I can do about it. For now, here are the title screens of every game from this 102-in-1 SNES multicart.

1. William's Arcade's Greatest Hits 


2. Arkanoid: Doh it Again


3. Art of Fighting


4. Batman: Revenge of the Joker


5. Battletoads & Double Dragon


6. BioMetal


7. Blues Brothers, The 


8. Bombuzal


9. Bronkie The Bronchiasaurus


10. BS Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman Zero


11. Kirby no Omochabako - Pachinko


12. Super Mahjong Taikai


13. Bubsy II


14. Cacoma Knight in Bizyland


15. Casper


16. Championship Pool


17. Chessmaster, The


18. Chrono Trigger


19. Contra III - The Alien Wars


20. Dennis the Menace


21. Desert Strike


22. Donkey Kong Country


23. Donkey Kong Country 2 - Diddy's Kong Quest


24. Donkey Kong Country 3 - Dixie Kong's Double Trouble


25. Double Dragon V - The Shadow Falls


26. Dragon Ball Z - Super Saiyan Densetsu


27. Dragon Quest I+II


28. Dragon Quest III


29. Dragon Quest V


30. Earthbound


31. F-Zero


32. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest


33. Final Fantasy II


34. Final Fantasy III


35. Final Fantasy IV (Japanese version of Final Fantasy II)


36. Final Fantasy VI (Japanese version of Final Fantasy III)


37. Final Fight


38. Final Fight 2


39. Final Fight 3


40. Final Fight Guy


41. Fuzzy Shooting


42. Home Alone


43. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York


44. Incantation


45. International Superstar Soccer


46. Jack Nicklaus' Golf


47. Joe & Mac


48. Kirby's Avalanche


49. Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past


50. Lufia & The Fortress of Doom


51. Magical Quest, The - Starring Mickey Mouse


52. Monopoly


53. Mortal Kombat


54. Pac-Attack


55. Pocky & Rocky


56. Prince of Persia


57. Puzzle Bobble


58. Raiden Trad


59. Samurai Shodown


60. Shadowrun


61. Sim City


62. Simpsons, The - Bart's Nightmare


63. Sonic Blast Man


64. Sonic Blast Man II


65. Sunset Riders


66. Super Adventure Island


67. Super Adventure Island II


68. Super Battletank


69. Super Bomberman


70. Super Bomberman 2


71. Super Buster Bros.


72. Super Castlevania IV


73. Super Double Dragon


74. Super Ghouls'n Ghosts


75. Super Mario World


76. Super Smash TV


77. Super Star Wars: The Return of Jedi


78. Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back


79. Super Star Wars


80. Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers


81. Super Tetris 2 + Bombliss


82. Super Turrican


83. Taz-Mania


84. Tecmo Super NBA Basketball


85. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time


86. Terminator 2: Judgment Day


87. Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose!


88. Tiny Toon Adventures: Wacky Sports Challenge


89. TKO Super Championship Boxing


90. Tom & Jerry


91. Top Gear 2


92. Top Gear


93. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3


94. Ultraman: Towards the Future


95. Ultraman


96. Wild Guns


97. WWF: Super Wrestle Mania


98. X Zone


99. Yoshi's Cookie


100. YS III


101. Zombies Ate My Neighbors


102. Zoop


As you can see, there are a lot of pretty interesting titles added to this cartridge, and it features some great classics for SNES, like Super Mario World, Contra III: The Alien Wars, Super Castlevania IV, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, Mortal Kombat, Earthbound, Final Fantasy series, F-Zero, Prince of Persia, Battletoads & Double Dragon and so on!
It remains a mystery to me, why there is the EverDrive logo on the circuit board.
In any case, this cartridge works fine on my Super Players Entertainment System SNES clone, as far as I understand, the games included here are all North American or Japanese versions, in order words, NTSC releases. So, in order to play this cartridge, it's best adviced to use North American SNES console, or a clone system...
But, it's yet to be tested on how good this cartridge actually works on original hardware.
When I get my hands on Super Famicom, and manage to check this cartridge on it, I will let you know either here or on YouTube.
Got this cartridge from Aliexpress, for about 20 bucks. And for its price, it was definitely worth it. There exists other variations of SNES multicarts there with different number of games. I may look into getting those, when I feel like it!

Thanks for reading this new blog entry! And see you later with more posts here! :)
- AlexSRMD