My Dream Cheat Cartridge: The Vast Fame Fire Bird (and some other stuff)

[Ankos | 444]

I picked up a package today with something I have been hunting for a very long time (and some other games). It's a cheat cartridge called the Fire Bird.

It was made by a company called Vast Fame, a Taiwanese company that made some pretty good (though kinda infringing) unlicensed Gameboy games. The staff there were in the business of making unlicensed games for a very long time, and many of the games they made before Vast Fame are not infringing at all. The purple cartridge is a game programmed by people who would later work at Vast Fame, Prince Yeh Rude (1992), though this release was published by a company called Gowin. Their library has been pretty much accounted for for years now (unless someone discovers something new), but one thing that was troubling was that in old ROM collections there has been a Vast Fame product floating around for over a decade, but nobody in the West had pictures of the genuine article, the Fire Bird. I won't be sharing the ROM or linking to it here, but the fact that it is out there is historically significant to the company Vast Fame.

Out in Mainland China there have been ROM dumping groups targeting Taiwanese Gameboy games for much longer than in West, and some of their ROMs made it to the general public (though many were never publicly shared). I've seen ROMs for Vast Fame games that date back so far that they had to have been dumped within a year or two of the game being released. If my understanding is correct, the ROM for this thing probably was dumped by one of those groups.

So, is there anything special about this thing aside from the company who made it? Nope. There were many different cheat cartridges for Gameboy made in Taiwan and Mainland China, and they all are functionally pretty much the same. They use what are called Golden Finger cheat codes, something not commonly used in the West. If you ever had one of those devices that lets you play Gameboy games on a PS1 those often had Golden Finger functionality. This cart isn't even usable, not because the internals are broken, or due to dirty contacts, but due to the fact that one of the pins was bent prior to me receiving it. I wasn't really planning on using it since I'd rather not fool around with something difficult to find just to get the same results I could get with something way cheaper. I'm honestly kinda disappointed that it isn't cooler looking, most Vast Fame products look kinda stylish.

As for the other carts in the image, they're all by Gowin. These came in terrible condition, much worse than what it appeared in the seller's pictures. I cleaned them some (though I'll need to work on them more later) so the picture does not do them justice on how bad they were. Thankfully I got most of them to work, though the top left and top center ones I still haven't gotten working.

The ones on the top row with stickers are copies of Binary Monster, the only infringing Gowin game. Their first seven games they bought the rights to as opposed to developing them in-house (though pre-Gowin copies of any of those range from almost impossible to find to possibly unreleased), and once those all rolled out they needed to come up with new stuff. They outsourced one last game before developing in house, and that game had music stolen from the Megaten game "Another Bible". Honestly, I question if Gowin even realized they were handed an infringing game by whoever they outsourced to, Another Bible is really obscure, and they didn't publish any other games with infringing material. It's a monster raising game like Tamagotchi, but themed around old JRPGs, demon kings and all. It is one of the more common Gowin titles.

Since I haven't gotten the top left one to work, and it has no sticker, I can't identify it.

The left middle one I already mentioned. Gowin had multiple print runs for many of their games, and the middle ones had the same shell shape as later releases, but could come in different colors of plastic, like purple. It is sort of like Sokoban, except you stack the boxes by type, instead of fitting them into holes. The plot is kinda like Sachen's Snake Roy, and is entirely in English. I like this one, but it is a pretty simple idea, so it wouldn't shock me if other games do roughly the same thing.

The left bottom one is Binary Monster 3. After Gowin formed their in house team they tried to rebrand Binary Monster 1 into being part of a series. The first one is a monster raising game, the second one is a platformer, and the third one is a beat em up. This one is pretty solid. It also got a USA release, but that release is super rare.

Bottom right is Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. No, it is not an adaptation of the movie, this one is based on the book. It was officially licensed to Gowin by the wife of the author, Wang Dulu. Wang Dulu himself died in the 1970s, so he had no involvement in this. It is an RPG with 2D platforming as the overworld. Battles are not random encounters, you run into enemies to fight them, like in Earthbound. The battles themselves are not entirely turn based, if you go AFK the enemies will keep on hitting you. This game also got a USA release, or was at least planned to. English copies have been found, but American distributors for Gowin only listed it as coming soon, so it is possible that the English copies were only released in other parts of the World, like South East Asia. There is another release of this with alternate sticker art. This game is pretty good as well, though it is very difficult to get an English copy. I only have ones with Chinese text (I don't know how to read that), though it isn't too hard to navigate without being able to read it.

Finally the middle right one is Stone Age. A company called Waei licensed out the rights to their PC game to Gowin to have an RPG made. This would be the last game Gowin ever made. Interestingly my copy came with a Waei warranty sticker. Old Chinese/Taiwanese manufacturers for Gameboy games would put warranty stickers over the screws to their games to make sure people did not open them up and tamper with them before sending them back. Normally copies of Stone Age have Gowin warranty stickers, but I guess a few had this nice looking Waei one. I haven't played this one much.

[Ferris Bueller | 495]

@fcgamer This sounds like your kind of story.

[drxandy | 3,235]

Take a small tool and bend that pin back!

[Ankos | 444]

2 hours ago, drxandy said:

Take a small tool and bend that pin back!

I'll give that a shot later. I am pretty nervous though. These don't pop up often so I really don't want to mess up and damage it any further

[Tanooki | 4,937]

I'm utterly impressed and equally shocked.  I have to in all fairness live vicariously through yours and fcgamers stuff largely because while I get enough of it, I don't get a lot more, nor do I have a lot of it because of obscurity vs price, price usually when it comes to ebay battle royale over it.  I've always wanted many Sachen and Gowin style stuff, the MIghty 31in1 was epic in my book as it racked up so so much, as did my grab of Rocman X for famicom new too.  Gowin seems out of reach, usually see when the pop go for well in excess of $100.  I imagine if I were in the weed of where dave is, or perhaps wherever you poke about my luck could improve.  So with that, keep it coming, this stuf fis fun and fascinating to no end.

NO need to answer if it's a threat, but you said much of this is online.  So if I tried to revise the way I take potshots at google or the archive, I might be able to find some of these handheld gems?  They're most definitely not part of the traditional smokemonster/everdrive bundles from like 5 years or so ago when I combed the hell out of it for my kits.

 

Also I second what drxandy said, you already had no intention of using it anyway, it was a trophy piece.  What's the harm?  Is there a tab or something to unscrew to take a shot at fixing that pin more easily?  A small flat fine point of a safety pin or even a dental style pick should be able to get that thing uncrushed. If it can be worked out enough, just flat enough to get it into a gameboy safely it should from that pressure get you the rest of the way.

Edited March 22, 2023 by Tanooki

[Ankos | 444]

7 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I'm utterly impressed and equally shocked.  I have to in all fairness live vicariously through yours and fcgamers stuff largely because while I get enough of it, I don't get a lot more, nor do I have a lot of it because of obscurity vs price, price usually when it comes to ebay battle royale over it.  I've always wanted many Sachen and Gowin style stuff, the MIghty 31in1 was epic in my book as it racked up so so much, as did my grab of Rocman X for famicom new too.  Gowin seems out of reach, usually see when the pop go for well in excess of $100.  I imagine if I were in the weed of where dave is, or perhaps wherever you poke about my luck could improve.  So with that, keep it coming, this stuf fis fun and fascinating to no end.

NO need to answer if it's a threat, but you said much of this is online.  So if I tried to revise the way I take potshots at google or the archive, I might be able to find some of these handheld gems?  They're most definitely not part of the traditional smokemonster/everdrive bundles from like 5 years or so ago when I combed the hell out of it for my kits.

On internet archive there is stuff like nongood ROM sets that usually wind up with a lot of this stuff. It also has a ton of homebrew and non-working stuff though so it can be a pain to comb through just due to its massive size. The bootleg games central forums are a good place to ask for info on this since pretty much everyone there is interested in unlicensed stuff in addition to bootleg games. A lot of it can be found on Chinese sites, but that isn't going to pop up with English searches.

Sachen for the most part is covered in terms of game preservation, Gowin however is not. Very few of their games can be emulated without using modified ROMs, and some just straight up don't have good options for emulation at all. Also, not all emulators have support for unlicensed games in mind, and practically no flashcarts do for Gameboy. Some games get patches that add support, but many do not

If you get really into the weeds most of this stuff isn't that expensive, but it takes a while to find anything. The seven Gowin games shown above came from a listing priced at 450 RMB. Agent fees increase can costs a good deal though

[Tanooki | 4,937]

@Ankos Fair enough, and yeah 450RMB ($65 US) isn't bad, but it could have doubled easy with agent/shipping fees which still, at least to me, that's acceptable.  I did the very thing using zenmarket as a broker for yahoo japan auctions for a GB bundle of like 25 games more or less, largely for 2 titles and all the fees and more costly virus era shipping doubled the price to $150...but given that Money Idol Exchanger alone hits that, and Miracle Adventure of Esparks is about half that I wasn't going to complain and I ended up with a few more gems like Lunar Lander with it.

I'm not surprised Sachen is covered.  I mean if me using just ebay and local (between states) sources can rack up numerous sachen games in the gameboy, famicom(just1), and supervision format it's obscure but not impossible obscure so it's there.  Gowin is on another level, and largely the unique nature of various titles with the more accessible genres have appeal since they're not trashy but pretty worthy titles.  The quality is just enough it could pass for a licensed title of 30 years ago.  I'll see if I can dig up something with nongood sets, as archive allows individual downloads if you don't want the big file bomb.

[Ankos | 444]

Off the top of my head this is the emulation status of each Gowin title. You may need to try out a few emulators to get them going.

 

Works without issue: Sound of the Pipa, Magic Ball, Prince Yeh Rude, Story of Lasama

Has a pre-Gowin release that works without issue: Lost Trips (aka Top Secret)

 

Got a fanmade patch that adds emulator support: Binary Monster 3

Has a hack of unknown (probably pirate) origin that works for the most part: Prince Rainbow, Fire Dragon, Final Robot, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Stone Age, Binary Monster 2

Note: These may have bugs not present in the original release. I don't think passwords work in the patched version of Binary Monster 3.

 

Pretty much doesn't work: Amazing Robot, Journey to the West, Magic Lamp, Dinosaur Genesis, Binary Monster

 

I'm not sure if all of this is in nongood stuff yet since some of this got dumped kinda recently

[Tanooki | 4,937]

@Ankos Are you familiar with this site?  https://hhug.me/

If the link is an issue someone can remove it but I don't think it should be.

Offshoot from that was this HHUG emulator of sorts, seems to have the unique ability to work with GOWIN stuff among others that the mainstream to pet project emulators alike can not handle.  I learned of this years ago, seems now it has its own following on github.  https://github.com/tzlion/hhugboy

It has a specific by name good stretch of a list of things it was made to work with.. GOWIN,  Li Cheng, Sintax, BBD, Hitek, Liebao, New GB Color, NT, *your new find maker* VAST FAME,  and more.  MIght be worth your looks at this.  I wish I had not forgotten about this for years, but you mentioning specific stuff saying it won't work, I remember IT DOES or likely can.

 

Also check the github maker tzlion, there's a few tools I think you'll like which seems to strip the protection off sintax, vast fame, etc carts too.

Edited March 22, 2023 by Tanooki

[Ankos | 444]

3 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

@Ankos Are you familiar with this site?  https://hhug.me/

If the link is an issue someone can remove it but I don't think it should be.

Offshoot from that was this HHUG emulator of sorts, seems to have the unique ability to work with GOWIN stuff among others that the mainstream to pet project emulators alike can not handle.  I learned of this years ago, seems now it has its own following on github.  https://github.com/tzlion/hhugboy

It has a specific by name good stretch of a list of things it was made to work with.. GOWIN,  Li Cheng, Sintax, BBD, Hitek, Liebao, New GB Color, NT, *your new find maker* VAST FAME,  and more.  MIght be worth your looks at this.  I wish I had not forgotten about this for years, but you mentioning specific stuff saying it won't work, I remember IT DOES or likely can.

 

Also check the github maker tzlion, there's a few tools I think you'll like which seems to strip the protection off sintax, vast fame, etc carts too.

Yes I have seen that site. It is where most of the more recent ROM dumps for unlicensed games show up. Since it hosts ROMs I was iffy on linking it. For the same reason I did not link where I post ROMs that I dump. The Gowin stuff is fairly limited at the moment unfortunately. Fairly recently there have been many breakthroughs in emulating Vast Fame though, so hopefully something similar will happen for more companies one day

[Tanooki | 4,937]

Ahh does it now?  I didn't look beyond just a google search.  That's the only place I ever came across stuff like that.  I would have checked the archive but it seems to have been driven offline sometime today which surprised me.

[BlackVega | 583]

"My Dream Cheat Cartridge"? Aren't you aware you are not supposed to cheat in video games?

[Jeevan | 8,914]

9 minutes ago, BlackVega said:

"My Dream Cheat Cartridge"? Aren't you aware you are not supposed to cheat in video games?

Na, I remember "cheating" in GTA III for ps2, after you beat the game it's fun just to spend time seeing how long you can last against the military with all the weapons   

[Ankos | 444]

13 hours ago, BlackVega said:

"My Dream Cheat Cartridge"? Aren't you aware you are not supposed to cheat in video games?

Funny you mention that. A long time ago I used to love screwing around with Action Replay cheats on by DS games and didn't bother to actually play through them legitimately until years later just because I got so distracted by all the weird stuff I could make happen in those games. Come to think of it, I was so distracted in making wacky stuff happen that I am not even sure if I bothered to beat those games with cheats

[OmegaRod | 7]

I have seen Gowin Hotkid English Binary Monster 2 & 3. These 2 copies rarely on ebay and harder to find.

Only 3 rare copies of English Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon still exists.  

[Tanooki | 4,937]

I think Binary Monsters would be a fun one to actually own and play, but as you said...rare, ebay, and therefore toxic.  Best to find a person living in the regions this stuff came out of to find a less grubby but even harder to source alternative.

[OmegaRod | 7]

15 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I think Binary Monsters would be a fun one to actually own and play, but as you said...rare, ebay, and therefore toxic.  Best to find a person living in the regions this stuff came out of to find a less grubby but even harder to source alternative.

Hopefully, those staying in these region: HK, Taiwan, Australia, China and South East Asia. Can easily find these: Saachen, Gowin Hotkid, Vast Fame, Micro Genius TXC, Realtec etc...

I only have the chinese Binary Monsters 3 game. Well, can't get the cart to load up on gbc or gba. Is there any way to load up the chinese version game?

[Ankos | 444]

37 minutes ago, OmegaRod said:

Hopefully, those staying in these region: HK, Taiwan, Australia, China and South East Asia. Can easily find these: Saachen, Gowin Hotkid, Vast Fame, Micro Genius TXC, Realtec etc...

I only have the chinese Binary Monsters 3 game. Well, can't get the cart to load up on gbc or gba. Is there any way to load up the chinese version game?

You might be able to get it to work by masking the boot logo with a cheat cartridge. Normally that isn't necessary for making Gowin games boot on Gameboy Color machines

[Ankos | 444]

2 hours ago, OmegaRod said:

I have seen Gowin Hotkid English Binary Monster 2 & 3. These 2 copies rarely on ebay and harder to find.

Only 3 rare copies of English Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon still exists.  

English Gowin games appear on the HTG series of multicarts. Off the top of my head I've seen two listings for English Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (neither of which I was able to buy), and have seen two collectors who have the game. I suspect that the game is not as rare as it seems at the moment and that more copies will be found in the future

[Ankos | 444]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I think Binary Monsters would be a fun one to actually own and play, but as you said...rare, ebay, and therefore toxic.  Best to find a person living in the regions this stuff came out of to find a less grubby but even harder to source alternative.

The Binary Monsters games are some of the more common Gowin games. I would not recommend Binary Monsters 1  though, it is text heavy and only Chinese copies have been found, so unless you know how to read Chinese it is difficult to play

[Tanooki | 4,937]

9 hours ago, Ankos said:

The Binary Monsters games are some of the more common Gowin games. I would not recommend Binary Monsters 1  though, it is text heavy and only Chinese copies have been found, so unless you know how to read Chinese it is difficult to play

I don't, was thinking of the other two which are more straight forward to just play.  There is also this NGPC looking clone Queen Fighter 2000 that looks perfect to my interests since I gave up on my NGPC last year.

[Ankos | 444]

2 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

I don't, was thinking of the other two which are more straight forward to just play.  There is also this NGPC looking clone Queen Fighter 2000 that looks perfect to my interests since I gave up on my NGPC last year.

That game has gotten really expensive lately. Vast Fame has a very dedicated fanbase. Out of all their games I'd say that is one of the most sought after ones at the moment. I'm not super big on the Vast Fame fighting games since they are all just hacks of KOF96, and I'm not someone who plays a lot of fighting games to begin with. They have so much DNA left over from KOF96 that you can hook them up to it with a link cable and do multiplayer (though this is very prone to de-syncing. There are a few other NGPC games that got semi-ports to GBC via unofficial means. BBD did a couple fighters, and a Metal Slug 1st Mission semi-port

[Tanooki | 4,937]

8 minutes ago, Ankos said:

That game has gotten really expensive lately. Vast Fame has a very dedicated fanbase. Out of all their games I'd say that is one of the most sought after ones at the moment. I'm not super big on the Vast Fame fighting games since they are all just hacks of KOF96, and I'm not someone who plays a lot of fighting games to begin with. They have so much DNA left over from KOF96 that you can hook them up to it with a link cable and do multiplayer (though this is very prone to de-syncing. There are a few other NGPC games that got semi-ports to GBC via unofficial means. BBD did a couple fighters, and a Metal Slug 1st Mission semi-port

I had a feeling, not the point of potential link somehow working, didn't know it was that crazy about it so that's basically going to be off limits due to fools and their money getting into e-peen measuring contests with bid wars I won't take any part of.  I was familiar with the metal slug effort and was very interested in that last I saw it.  I think at this rate much of any of it unless someone finds it off a bid site for me or I find it myself just won't happen because the stupid sums that get tossed around to just have social media bragging rights is ridiculous as it hurts people with a general interest who really would just care to play more than mug for it.

[Ankos | 444]

Here is a link to @yy小龙虾's taobao page. In general I'd say he charges fair prices for this sort of stuff, though hunting stuff down yourself is going to get you better deals

[OmegaRod | 7]

14 hours ago, Ankos said:

English Gowin games appear on the HTG series of multicarts. Off the top of my head I've seen two listings for English Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (neither of which I was able to buy), and have seen two collectors who have the game. I suspect that the game is not as rare as it seems at the moment and that more copies will be found in the future

That English CTHD game since 2006-2010 nowhere to be seen until it appeared online back in 2021 or 2022.