Category Archive

Broken Bootlegs

Buying GBA Games Is A Nightmare – Nintendo Is Sitting on a Goldmine of Nostalgia

Posted on February 11, 2024 by Rae Michelle Richards

rying to buy a classic GBA Pokemon game in the 2020s is a minefield of reproduction cartridges not labelled as such, severely inflated legitimate copies and multi-game cartridges on offer through various marketplaces online. If you’re looking to play Pokemon asphalted, Pokemon Ruby, Pokemon Fire Red or Pokemon Leaf Green – what is the best way to do so? 

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Broken Bootlegs- Kart Fighter

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Erika

Kart Fighter
Broken Bootlegs is a series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers an all out Mario-themed Famicom Fighter: Kart Fighter! Like World Heroes 2, Kart Fighter was one of the earlier bootleg fighting games I played when I first started getting into playing bootlegs. Even before I really knew about the bootlegging scene, I could just tell that Kart Fighter was some sort of import knockoff . That said, it’s an interesting game, especially since it was one of those all out fighters where characters from Super Mario Kart

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Before Smash Bros, there was World Heroes 2

Posted on September 8, 2016 by Erika

World Heroes 2 Header
Broken Bootlegs is a series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers possibly one of my favorite Famicom fighters: World Heroes 2. During the prime of fighting games in the 90s, there were a few game characters that I wanted to see duke it out on the screen, including Mario and Sonic. Sadly, this wouldn’t be realized to its fullest extent till Super Smash Brothers Brawl. There was one bootleg game that fulfilled some of those fantasies, though. Not to be confused with game that shares the same name

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Broken Bootlegs- Mario 4: A Space Odyssey

Posted on August 19, 2016 by Erika

Mario 4 header
Broken Bootlegs is a series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers one of the more difficult Russian-made Mario games for the Mega Drive- Mario 4: A Space Odyssey (Космическая Одиссея). After having previously covered a Super Mario World deport for the Famicom, I found somewhat interesting gem that was made for Russian Mega Drive systems. Космическая Одиссея (Kosmicheskaya Odisseya), translated to Mario 4: A Space Odyssey, feels like more of a game that would have been released by one of those awful licensed 8-bit computer system games. Mario

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Broken Bootlegs- Command and Conquer beta

Posted on July 17, 2016 by Erika

Command & Conquer Beta Title
Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers something that could have really interesting: a Command and Conquer beta for the Sega Genesis! I’ve played a few RTS games over the years, and love the heck out of em. Myth 2, and the Age of Empires series immediately comes to mind, but there’s one series that I have yet to play: Command and Conquer. While this beta is in a very incomplete state, it can give players a small look of how the original

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Broken Bootlegs- Harry Potter MD

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Erika

Harry Potter MD
Broken Bootlegs is a series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers one of the Harry Potter games for the Mega Drive. First off, I want to say , to possibly my family’s shock and horror, I’ve really never had any exposure to Harry Potter whatsoever when I was growing up. Save for this exception, I have yet to read nor see the series to this day. During my search of Mega Drive games more than a decade ago, I found a Harry Potter game, and thought to myself

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Broken Bootlegs- Rockman X3

Posted on June 2, 2016 by Erika

Rockman X3 title card
Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers a fun, but somewhat unfinished MegaDrive game, Rockman X3 While many of us are familiar with X and his escapades in destroying Sigma, only to have to destroy him again in the following game, the Mega Man X series (known originally as Rockman X in Japan), has seen many a release across various platforms. While having played several of the Mega Man and X series for the SNES and Playstation, I noticed that Sega’s 16-bit system

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Broken Bootlegs- King of Fighters Genesis/MD

Posted on May 26, 2016 by Erika

King of Fighters 99
Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s entry brings one of the more well-known fighting game series to the Sega Genesis/MegaDrive: King of Fighters! While on a neverending quest to find fighting games to play some years back, I eventually started exploring outside of the realm of Capcom and rediscovered SNK since I played Samurai Showdown IV back when it was new. From Art of Fighting, to Fatal Fury, to King of Fighters, I fell in love with the older KOF games, with ’98 being

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Broken Bootlegs: Donkey Kong 5

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Erika

Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s entry covers one of the more interesting Donkey Kong bootlegs that’s available for the Game Boy Color: Donkey Kong 5: The Journey of Over Time and Space. At first glance, it might seem like an interesting knockoff which deviates considerably from the Donkey Kong Country and Land series. After reading the Engrish introduction, I got the general idea of the game, Donkey Kong’s friend Sodoma, who takes care of all plant life, was kidnapped by someone who didn’t

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Broken Bootlegs- My Experience with Power Joy

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Erika

Power-Joy
Broken Bootlegs is a series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition is covers my experiences with my first bit of pirate hardware that originally my interest in playing around with bootleg games and hardware: the Power Joy. It what seems feels a very long time ago, which probably was a little over a decade ago, I was traveling around going to garage sales looking for anything computer or video game-related like I usually do. I eventually happened upon something very unusual: a white device in the shape of a

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Broken Bootlegs- Experiences with Wisdom Tree

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Erika

Wisdom Tree logo
Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers a few of the unlicensed games I’ve played for the NES and Game Boy that were produced by Wisdom Tree. A long, long time ago, in an early-90s era far far away, I was starting to realize how fun Game Boy and Atari 2600 games were, and my parents were mostly careful that I didn’t play anything overtly awful or violent. Being brought up in a Christian household, my mom tried to make sure I stayed

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Broken Bootlegs- Somari

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Erika

Somari title screen
Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers possibly one of the most well-known bootlegs out there: Somari! As briefly mentioned in the first entry of this series, Somari is not only is a bootleg of one game, Sonic the Hedgehog, but also redone to star Mario! Developed by Hummer Team, known as Someri or Somari Team for this release, is standard fare of their in-house conversions of 16-bit games to the Famicom. Things are similar enough, while having that A+ bootleg quality one

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Broken Bootlegs- Pocket Monster Famicom

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Erika

Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers an entry that some people may not be familiar with, but people are quite familiar with in regard to the source material: Pocket Monster! Several years back while scouring eBay for reasonable-priced bootlegs or prototype games, I happened upon a YH-4126 4 in 1 cart Super Game, advertised with Pokemon Yellow, Blue, Silver, and Red. For $25, I thought I’d try my luck and see if I could get my hands on either infamous Pokemon Red

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Broken Bootlegs- Street Fighter II

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Erika

Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition covers two different versions of one very well-known game and thus, some more well-known bootlegs: Street Fighter II: The World Warrior for the Famicom and Street Fighter II Rainbow Edition for Arcade One of the more curious games I found out there back when I was really getting into NES and Famicom games a good decade back was a game that I thought never had an 8-bit release: Street Fighter II. Having played the hell out of

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Broken Bootlegs- Windows 98 Famicom

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Erika

Windows 98 Famicom 01
Broken Bootlegs is a weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. This week’s edition is something a little bit more obscure than other bootlegs out there: an emulation of Windows 98 for the Famicom. At first glance, one might wonder how a developer might be able to replicate a 32-bit operating system onto an 8-bit system, and the sad thing is that it’s not possible to do that and have anything work. “Booting up” the cartridge will show an AwardBios startup screen from which the BIOS setup screen can be launched

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