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Pirate Talk / Remaining mysteries in bootleg gaming - share yours!
« 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 
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
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?
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.
[/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?
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 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
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?
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.
- Lion King 2 for MD
- SNES pirates
- Kart Fighter
[/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?
