Questions About Obscure NES Games

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

1. Does Decathlon exist? Is it licensed? I can't find anything online, not even a photo / screenshot.
2. Is Magic Jewelry a real NES game? I see it on some lists but it appears to just be included on some Taiwan pirate cartridges and doesn't appear to have gotten its own release.
3. Did Cheetahmen II ever get a retail release? My sources tell me it did not. Are there any news articles on the discovery of this game?
4. Did Sachen games ever get a retail release? Again, sources tell me no. Were they sealed in some way?
5. Did the HES games get a retail release?
6. I have a NES Smurfs game (PAL) titled Die Schlumpfe on the box. Was there ever a release with The Smurfs written in English on the front?
7. Did Myriad 6-In-1 get a retail release?
8. People say Hammerin' Harry never got a NTSC NES release because it was PAL only. Now with Limited Run Games releasing the game in NTSC format, does this mean the NES has an officially licensed version of Hammerin' Harry and it is no longer a region exclusive?

[Tulpa | 3,506]

Magic Jewelry is one of those games that I think was programmed for multicarts and bootleg consoles that ran NOACs. There's all sorts of goofy games on those that are in .nes code, from hacks and pirates to original games, so basically are NES games, but their release is all over the place.

Cheetahmen II didn't get a retail release. The games were in a warehouse, and someone clued in Mike Etler of their existence. Unfortunately the NA posts by Etler are lost, but I remember him saying that he wasn't the first to buy them and resell them; a few flea market dudes also bought a few, and that he didn't buy them all at once, but in lots of several hundred over time. He wasn't sure of the exact number, but said it was between 1200 and 1800, so people split the difference and quote 1500. Again, this is off my memory of the posts, but I distinctly remember him saying this.

Myriad was like sold through Usenet postings or something? I never got the full story about how it came to market.

Sachen - queue ultra-mega-huge can of worms regarding its release. It had a worldwide designation in the NA database because no one could agree on what region it was.

LRC releases of NES games are kind of a gray area. I mean, the licensing thing kind of died when Nintendo stopped making NES games, right. Did LRC get a license from Nintendo to make Hammerin' Harry or anything else? Plus, I think people kind of group LRC games as "aftermarket" like they do most homebrews and such.

Edited July 31, 2023 by Tulpa

[Ankos | 442]

46 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

1. Does Decathlon exist? Is it licensed? I can't find anything online, not even a photo / screenshot.

It's by C&E. They did unlicensed FC stuff and eventually went on to make an officially licensed Playstation game

[Ankos | 442]

58 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

1. Did Sachen games ever get a retail release? Again, sources tell me no. Were they sealed in some way?
2. Did the HES games get a retail release?

This says that retail locations (ex: K-Mart) bought out all remaining HES games when they exited the business of selling NES games, so that would include Sachen titles (unless you meant Sachen games being self published, in which case idk)

"HES sold
off ALL their remaining surplus of 8 bit Nintendo games, places that
bought out these are BIG W and K-Mart to name a few and sold for around
$30au and at clearance price $9.99au."

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

15 minutes ago, Ankos said:

It's by C&E. They did unlicensed FC stuff and eventually went on to make an officially licensed Playstation game

Did they release any kind of Decathlon NES game at retail anywhere?

[Ankos | 442]

4 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

Did they release any kind of Decathlon NES game at retail anywhere?

Off the top of my head I don't remember an NES-format release of it

[fcgamer | 4,725]

6 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

Did they release any kind of Decathlon NES game at retail anywhere?

This does not have a NES release though it was possibly considered for release. It has a retail Famicom release in Korea and Taiwan.

 

7 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

• Is Magic Jewelry a real NES game? I see it on some lists but it appears to just be included on some Taiwan pirate cartridges and doesn't appear to have gotten its own release.

It's on the Cartridge Story III 90 in 1 that was released in Canada. Magic Jewelry was released as a stand alone cartridge on Famicom format. I would not be surprised at all if a NES standalone version exists, though I've never seen one. 

6 hours ago, Tulpa said:

Magic Jewelry is one of those games that I think was programmed for multicarts and bootleg consoles that ran NOACs. There's all sorts of goofy games on those that are in .nes code, from hacks and pirates to original games, so basically are NES games, but their release is all over the place.

Definitely wasn't for NOAC machines, this was developed in 1988 iirc and was a standalone Famicom release in Taiwan. I would caution against calling it a bootleg or pirate as it's original programming, if this is a bootleg, then Khan's Frogger falls into the exact same category.

 

7 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

Did Sachen games ever get a retail release? Again, sources tell me no. Were they sealed in some way?

Yes, they had a retail release, not sure where you are getting your sources, but likely it's just the prejudices against Sachen since the games were added to the DP guide making people suddenly have incomplete/ non fullsets of games.

6 hours ago, Tulpa said:

Sachen - queue ultra-mega-huge can of worms regarding its release. It had a worldwide designation in the NA database because no one could agree on what region it was.

The folks over at NA tried spinning the lie that 72 pun Sachen games were sold in Taiwan and we're Taiwan region, despite the fact that no one used 72 pin cartridges here

There are some Sachen NES games in Italian boxes, therefore we know some Sachen games were sold in Italy.

There were some Finnish adds for Sachen games, also there might have been some in Scandinavia.

Some Game Boy Sachen games had German boxes, so it's possible that they also received some NES games.

A Sachen 72 pin Famiclone models the machine with a picture of Tengen's Tetris cartridge.

Sachen had an export line in their adverts (in English), and I believe they registered trademarks in both the USA and Canada.

It is my personal belief that Sachen did not really have a good distribution method for their self-published games, which is why ultimately they turned to other publishers (AVE, Color Dreams, HES, etc) to distribute their 72 pin games in these regions; however, the games definitely were released, just in small quantities. Think about Gowin's international releases on Game Boy as another example of very limited distribution.

 

 

7 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

Did the HES games get a retail release?

In Australia, most definitely.

 

7 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

I have a NES Smurfs game (PAL) titled Die Schlumpfe on the box. Was there ever a release with The Smurfs written in English on the front?

I wondered this myself, I think I've seen it years ago, but I could be wrong.

 

7 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

People say Hammerin' Harry never got a NTSC NES release because it was PAL only. Now with Limited Run Games releasing the game in NTSC format, does this mean the NES has an officially licensed version of Hammerin' Harry and it is no longer a region exclusive?

Nintendo is no longer licensing NES games, putting this into a grey area. I'd just count it as an aftermarket release.

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

9 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Yes, they had a retail release, not sure where you are getting your sources, but likely it's just the prejudices against Sachen since the games were added to the DP guide making people suddenly have incomplete/ non fullsets of games.

Which retailers carried them?

[fcgamer | 4,725]

1 minute ago, Code Monkey said:

Which retailers carried them?

Obviously the one that was advertising them for sale in Finland, for example. How in the hell am I supposed to know? If I asked you for a list of games carried at Sears, for example, it wouldn't have been every licensed game. 

[Gloves | 11,783]

4 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Obviously the one that was advertising them for sale in Finland, for example. How in the hell am I supposed to know? If I asked you for a list of games carried at Sears, for example, it wouldn't have been every licensed game. 

I get the sense that he's not looking for claims lacking evidence.

[Tulpa | 3,506]

42 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I would not be surprised at all if a NES standalone version exists, though I've never seen one. 

I've never seen a standalone Magic Jewelry for 72 pin NES either. Only on multicarts. If it exists, it's a rare bird.

42 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I would caution against calling it a bootleg or pirate as it's original programming, if this is a bootleg, then Khan's Frogger falls into the exact same category.

I didn't call it a bootleg or pirate, only that its often seen on bootleg consoles. I wasn't sure if it had a standalone release.

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Tulpa

[Tulpa | 3,506]

11 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Obviously the one that was advertising them for sale in Finland, for example. How in the hell am I supposed to know? If I asked you for a list of games carried at Sears, for example, it wouldn't have been every licensed game. 

No, but the existence of a Sears ad for any NES games would confirm they were a retailer of NES games.

Any clue where that Finland Sachen ad would be found?

Edited August 1, 2023 by Tulpa

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

13 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Obviously the one that was advertising them for sale in Finland, for example. How in the hell am I supposed to know? If I asked you for a list of games carried at Sears, for example, it wouldn't have been every licensed game. 

How do you know that for sure if you can't name one?

[fcgamer | 4,725]

3 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

No, but the existence of a Sears ad for any NES games would confirm they were a retailer of NES games.

Right, but it wouldn't help confirm if Little Samson were a retail release, for example, unless we found an ad with Little Samson. 

[Tulpa | 3,506]

1 minute ago, fcgamer said:

Right, but it wouldn't help confirm if Little Samson were a retail release, for example, unless we found an ad with Little Samson. 

But he's not asking for a specific Sachen game. He's asking whether any had a retail release. With proof.

[Ankos | 442]

Based on this image I nabbed off the internet a store called Electronic Land is listed on the box of Gameboy Sachen releases. Not sure if that is a retail location, though the name sounds like one. That wouldn't confirm the NES titles had retail releases either, though it would be strong evidence in favor of it

[Tulpa | 3,506]

Google translate sees the spilbeskrivelse indlagt as Danish. @Sumez can we confirm?

Edited August 1, 2023 by Tulpa

[Sumez | 2,959]

I'm not familiar with Electronic Land, I think it's a distributor, not a store. Like, if it were a store, it wouldn't have been a chain, and definitely wouldn't produce their own packaging, so it's probably a smaller distributor trying to get a bite of the video game market at the time. I'm sure there are other collectors around here who know more about it. A lot of major retailers will buy anything for distribution as long as they trust their distributor, I remember a major grocery store chain actually selling NOAC consoles (legal clones) with a bunch of built in bootleg games (poorly hacked versions of licensed titles) as late as the '00s. They obviously had no idea what it was, and just got it as part of a line of electronic toys.
But yeah the text is all in Danish. The label says the cartridge isn't produced, distributed or accepted by Nintendo but will work on your Game Boy.

2 hours ago, fcgamer said:

I would caution against calling it a bootleg or pirate as it's original programming, if this is a bootleg, then Khan's Frogger falls into the exact same category.

Let's not mince words. No matter how you decide to frame it, an unlicensed port of Frogger is obviously a bootleg.  So is the Donkey Kong port I made.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Sumez

[fcgamer | 4,725]

4 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

But he's not asking for a specific Sachen game. He's asking whether any had a retail release. With proof.

That's my point though, how do we know Little Samson was a  retail release? If there's no ad, we can't really make the claim that it is a retail release. The only reason he needs this "proof" is because we're talking Sachen games. 

[fcgamer | 4,725]

2 hours ago, Tulpa said:

But he's not asking for a specific Sachen game. He's asking whether any had a retail release. With proof.

Well the Famicom Sachen games were released at a retail level, as well as the GBC stuff, as I personally bought them from proper video game shops over here.

The only Sachen games that would not have had a retail release would be Huge Insect and possibly the NES multicarts, as they were released later.

[fcgamer | 4,725]

2 hours ago, Ankos said:

Based on this image I nabbed off the internet a store called Electronic Land is listed on the box of Gameboy Sachen releases. Not sure if that is a retail location, though the name sounds like one. That wouldn't confirm the NES titles had retail releases either, though it would be strong evidence in favor of it

Yeah it looks like a Danish distributor. 

[fcgamer | 4,725]

3 hours ago, Gloves said:

I get the sense that he's not looking for claims lacking evidence.

If the games were not sold at retail, where did they come from? We're birds crapping them out whilst flying over the cities?

Why isn't @Code Monkey asking if NES Crime Busters is retail? Or Mahjong, or Little Samson or...

The sources he is using are predicated on the uprising against and discrimination of the Sachens back in the early 2000s caused by the DP "fiasco". If that didn't happen, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I mean, are Gluk games retail?

 

 

 

Edited August 1, 2023 by fcgamer

[fcgamer | 4,725]

Here's a Sachen Game Boy game with a retail sticker. Sachen games were released at a retail level.

[Sumez | 2,959]

3 hours ago, fcgamer said:

That's my point though, how do we know Little Samson was a  retail release? If there's no ad, we can't really make the claim that it is a retail release.

Little Samson is one of the few NES games I remember actually seeing magazine ads for.

[fcgamer | 4,725]

59 minutes ago, Sumez said:

Little Samson is one of the few NES games I remember actually seeing magazine ads for.

Sales ads or just magazine ads? We have magazine ads for Sachen games too.