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...
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Before Smash Bros, there was World Heroes 2
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....
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- Mario 4: A Space Odyssey
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...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- Command and Conquer beta
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:...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- 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...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- Rockman X3
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...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- King of Fighters Genesis/MD
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....
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs: Donkey Kong 5
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...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- My Experience with 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...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- Experiences with Wisdom Tree
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...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- Somari
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...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- Windows 98 Famicom
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...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- Super Mario World Famicom
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 the appearance of one of the more well-known bootlegs out there, a pirate port of Super Mario World for the Famicom! Developed by Hummer Team and released in 1995, this bootleg did something that Nintendo developers said that couldn’t be done: giving Mario a dino companion on their former flagship 8-bit system. Surprisingly,...
Continue reading...Broken Bootlegs- A Link to the Past
Broken Bootlegs is a new weekly series covering unlicensed games (also known as bootleg games) for mainly 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. For this week I’ll introduce what bootleg games are, along with a review for A Link to the Past for the Famicom. Sometimes these types of games are an unauthorized port of one game to another system, a ROM hack of existing games that were commercially distributed, or could be original games that use copyright characters...
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