Bootleg Games Central Forum

Pirate Discussion => Pirate Talk => Topic started by: Barver on September 19, 2018, 12:08:19 AM

Title: Remaining mysteries in bootleg gaming - share yours!
Post by: Barver on September 19, 2018, 12:08:19 AM
Hi everyone :) I rarely look at these forums much anymore these days, but I was reminiscing about how much I used to be into pirate gaming the other day and thought I'd make a small topic about some things that after all these years I still have no answer to. These are mostly small things that I'm sure not too many people would pay mind to since it's mostly unproveable or very niche stuff that only hardcore collectors would care about, of which there are only probably less than 10 in the world it feels like  ;D Anyway, let's see if any of this has ever crossed anyone else's minds.

1. Sonic 2 for SNES
Mr. Byte said that this Sparkster hack supposedly got distributed onto cartridge in Argentina. I've yet to ever see a copy show up, though. My best guess is it's been so long that he was remembering incorrectly that it ever shipped, but I'd love to be proven wrong. There's no telling what else was in it like a titlescreen, but going by the work on Sonic 4, it's probably certainly more than my simple sprite hack ROM that's out there. Here's a topic link again in case anyone in confused that the ROM for this game out there is NOT the original: http://bootleg.games/BGC_Forum/index.php?topic=276.0 (http://bootleg.games/BGC_Forum/index.php?topic=276.0)

2. SNES ports
This is another thing that can't really be proven, but I'm very curious what, if any, other SNES ports exist out there. There's been some generally completely unknown surprises that came up in recent years for pirates (i.e. Power Rangers fighter for Genesis, or Squirrel and Aladdin 2000 for SNES). Since so many Genesis ports end up appearing on SNES, it makes me think there's still gotta be more out there. This is a completely baseless mystery and more just a "what if" in this list. Always fun to imagine we can get more stuttery crap with Bonkers music, right?  8)

Not that it means much, and again is completely baseless, but I feel like Mulan, Samurai Spirits II, and Lion King 2 would be prime candidates for other things haphazardly ported to SNES. Still waiting for a surprise one day...

3. Boxes and manuals
I still remember when I first got into pirates, it was honestly because I saw potential in reselling them. But the more and more I found things, the more I realized not only are not many people really trying to collect them CIB, but there's actually (at the time, anyway) not so many pirates where it's known what the original CIB physical media looks like. This is probably one of the only things that keeps me interested in pirates these days, since it seems like most of the games themselves have been found at this point (except for GB/C/A. There's always gonna be stuff for that).

A vast majority of games have at the very least been found with their original boxes, but there's still many for which no box has been ever seen. And we don't need to get started with manuals; even finding one with a boxed game is impossible. It's easy to assume that most of them just didn't come with a box or a manual, or even had either. Let me list some examples of stuff that makes me wonder.

- I luckily got this off Ruten CIB a few years back and surprisingly, it had a manual (yes, I swear I'll finally get to scanning that someday). I think the vast majority of other Gamtec games on MD had manuals, but this game, AFAIK, is the only Gamtec game based off of someone else's IP that has a manual. Squirrel King, Bubble Bobble, and Tiny Toons 3 have never been seen with one. I'm thinking it's very likely they did, it's just a matter of if they weren't all thrown out and they're lost to time.
- Looking at the wiki, there's actually a good number of these confirmed to have existed. Off the top of my head... Digimon Adventure, Pokemon Gold Silver, Pokemon Stadium, Picachu, A Bug's Life..... But what's never been seen with a box? Well, Squirrel, Dragon Ball Final Bout, Aladdin 2000... It would be nice to get these documented, but like manuals (which not a single boxed SNES pirate has been seen with, to the best of my knowledge), they were always thrown out apparently. Most of this stuff, being distributed to rental stores in South America, were mutilated and turned into sleeves for boxes kinda like Sega Genesis ones that have an insert. It's really a shame...
- There's gotta be a box for this out there, right? Did Hummer confirm one never was made?
[/list]

4. Lost pirates
Remember the supposed Terranigma/Tenchi Souzo, aka "Tian Zhi Chuan Zao" port made by Nanjing? If you take one look at the following list you'll see how many unknown (未知) games that were listed in an old Nanjing sales list are still as-of-yet unconfirmed to even exist. I remember when their games were suddenly making wide distribution on Taobao and all over China back around 2009. The fact all of this stuff never showed up tells me they probably made a list of games they knew they could make cheap ports of, but many of them they never got around to. Still, you have to wonder...

There's also some other lost stuff like Cat King which, as far as I'm concerned, definitely didn't make it to production. But you never know with any of this stuff.


Anyone got any of their own?
Title: Re: Remaining mysteries in bootleg gaming - share yours!
Post by: Ankos on March 27, 2020, 06:34:41 PM
Some of my favorite mysteries are: What is Gowin game GS-14, are the rumored Telefang hacks "Pokemon Sapphire" and "Digimon Data" real, did SKOB ever make that sequel to "Milky Way" that they mentioned during the ending of that game, and what games did New Game Color Advance release. Truth be told, I am very interested in learning the libraries of all sorts of bootleg Gameboy companies. Especially ones that sell English (or really any language that is not Chinese) games. I am also pretty curious on how those old Gowin games got distributed (the ones with square shaped boxes, and grey cartridges). There are also quite a few bootlegs I have seen that I was never able to buy or ID. I'll attach a couple pictures of some of those unidentified games.