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Pokémon Yellow NES - Shenzhen


Lambda

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Hey All,

I picked this up recently for a killer price (saw copies on eBay selling for well over 100$, without the manual).

I put my daughter to bed and decided to fire it up. I know this isn’t an official game for NES, by any means, but the hack seems VERY well done.
Do any collectors out there know anything about this copy? I know this version is highly sought after by hack collectors, I just happened to get my hands on a CIB.

It says in manual that this is a reconstruct of Yellow, but pikachu doesn’t seem to follow you around, the dialogues are extremely short (while delivering the same necessary info to advance from the original), and map layout (by town at least) seems wildly different. Moreover, it says 159 mons exist in the title, while only 151 existed in the original gen1. I’m just starting out, but:

can anyone shed any light on this version at all?

can anyone give further details about what might to be expected? 
(Is the Missingno. overflow glitch still prevalent in the code? 🧐)?

so many questions...

5C14C13D-C744-40C7-9F5D-F5E8BD6E7E02.jpeg

Edited by Lambda
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there is a english translation patch for this in romhacking.net that also sheds some light to the differences between this and the real pokemon yellow game. It appears that this is basically a mixed version of some gen1/gen2 stuff while still for some reason being called pokemon yellow.

I've played this a while with the patch and have to say it's fairly well made for what it is (and even has post-game content!)

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@Mugi

great! Thank you! I’ll have to do some searching on romhacking site to see what else I can uncover. I had no idea this game was mentioned over there. I only know that the people who seek out this game (physically for CIB) are usually big rom hackers and are passionate about it. Some items of gameplay are definitely altered (NPCs dialogue is cut shorter, and there is a multitude of items/tiles that could be interacted with in the original that are not possible to interact with in this version... but that being said, this game is VERY well crafted from my first hour of playthrough. 
 

I also noticed early on that items like TMs, Rare Candies, etc can be dropped by wild Pokémon after defeating them (at least in the wild grasses you encounter close to Indogo Plateau).  The game also seems to stick to the Manga storyline much like Yellow tried to. 
 

excited to keep playing this one, and any other info (on the programmer/hacker team, or gameplay/production in general), would be graciously appreciated!

 

** I included a few extra pics here for anyone who’s never seen this game before in CIB form. The production value is stellar... the manual is 50 pages!

D45582E5-32D8-4ED6-B781-74E952DB98CA.jpeg

9F6396DA-23B0-41C9-B132-9F643D3DEE3F.jpeg

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it really saddens me to see that some people just profit off of the patch like that though, considering that it was released for free and explicitly not to be sold.

that said, seeing the thing on a cart is definitely cool. I've been meaning to make one for personal use for a while now.

 

I used to have a more comprehensive list of differences of this and the gameboy pokemon yellow at one point in time, I'll see if i can find that again and let you know.

IIRC, there's quite a bit that actually differs (ways of getting legendary pokemons, items, gyms etc etc.)

Edited by Mugi
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@Mugi

I would definitely agree with you on the fact that profiteering on this title is taking place (and I didn’t know that the hackers specifically requested against that). This is partly why I never shelled out the cash for a CIB copy from what I had seen on eBay. But I can also say that for the price I paid, the money seems to have simply gone towards cost of materials and time spent assembling... and quite literally nothing more. I got it for a steal. I’d have to liken this scenario I entered to possibly paying a friend to assemble it all, and simply compensating him for time and materials, bar the IP. With that, I can put my head on the pillow comfortably 🙂

thanks so much for the info, again, and if you dig up that differences list, I’d be grateful to read through!

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I tend to take those kinda things to heart a little more as I do create translation patches myself (though my choice of platform is non-bootleggable, so Im safe 😛)

but yeah, with NES, it practically always happens so not much people really can do about it sans simply not buying such things (I know, not happening.)

all things said, atleast it's better that it goes that way instead of selling for some stupid amounts of money 🙂

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@ninjistar

yessir, this is definitely the same game.
 

I’ve never really played past gen1/2, which is why I think this game appealed to me. (After gen 3, I started to get lost, and the process seemed to lose a lot of appeal). Those were my favorites, and I have a CIB red that I received as a birthday gift many moons ago... I thought this would make a cool addition to that set. I think the simplicity (but ingenuity) of gen 1 was perfect, for me personally. 

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It's been out for sometime now. Probably since 2014-15. I got mine off AliExpress for like $10 and got gifted the box, manual and label. I gave it a play through in 2016 and thought it was ok. Definitely a fan hack as it's not the exact same as Pokemon yellow. For some reason I think some of the typing was wrong? Like fairy moves weren't fairy? They were normal. Idk I could be wrong I haven't played it since. 

Yep just checked, AliExpress still has em for $15 shipped. Anyone paying eBay price for Chinese knock offs is insane.

I'm pretty sure the box, manual are designed by the host of the website http://thisroomisanillusion.com John Miller. He was a member of NA but I can't remember his user name. His website has his most recent work of ninja gadian. 

Edited by RegularGuyGamer
Price check
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5 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

 

I'm pretty sure the box, manual are designed by the host of the website http://thisroomisanillusion.com John Miller. He was a member of NA but I can't remember his user name. His website has his most recent work of ninja gadian. 

Great info!! Thank you! And you are 100% correct about the designer, as it would appear. I went back to the box this morning and noticed (for the first time), the website you mentioned labeled on the side of the box. I visited the website, but it won’t seem to load properly on mobile. I’ll have to give it a shot on PC when I get a chance.

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5 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

It's been out for sometime now. Probably since 2014-15. I got mine off AliExpress for like $10 and got gifted the box, manual and label. I gave it a play through in 2016 and thought it was ok. Definitely a fan hack as it's not the exact same as Pokemon yellow. For some reason I think some of the typing was wrong? Like fairy moves weren't fairy? They were normal. Idk I could be wrong I haven't played it since. 

Yep just checked, AliExpress still has em for $15 shipped. Anyone paying eBay price for Chinese knock offs is insane.

I'm pretty sure the box, manual are designed by the host of the website http://thisroomisanillusion.com John Miller. He was a member of NA but I can't remember his user name. His website has his most recent work of ninja gadian. 

I don't know if they explicitly updated the ROM to include Fairy-type, but Fairy Type didn't exist until Generation 6 (X and Y) for 3DS. Before that, a lot of Pokemon like Jigglypuff, Clefairy, and Snubbul were all Normal type.

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6 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

It's been out for sometime now. Probably since 2014-15. I got mine off AliExpress for like $10 and got gifted the box, manual and label. I gave it a play through in 2016 and thought it was ok. Definitely a fan hack as it's not the exact same as Pokemon yellow. For some reason I think some of the typing was wrong? Like fairy moves weren't fairy? They were normal. Idk I could be wrong I haven't played it since. 

Yep just checked, AliExpress still has em for $15 shipped. Anyone paying eBay price for Chinese knock offs is insane.

I'm pretty sure the box, manual are designed by the host of the website http://thisroomisanillusion.com John Miller. He was a member of NA but I can't remember his user name. His website has his most recent work of ninja gadian. 

Shit I can’t remember his username either and he is the one that sold me black box challenge and I got that Ninja Gaiden Deadpool as well 

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4 hours ago, KokiriChild said:

I don't know if they explicitly updated the ROM to include Fairy-type, but Fairy Type didn't exist until Generation 6 (X and Y) for 3DS. Before that, a lot of Pokemon like Jigglypuff, Clefairy, and Snubbul were all Normal type.

I thought that there were fair moves but just not a fair typed Pokemon 🤔🤔 

Nope, you're right. Bulbapedia has no fairy moves listed. It's amazing how quickly I got used to fairy typing. Now they're nixing it from the TCG!

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3 hours ago, a3quit4s said:

Shit I can’t remember his username either and he is the one that sold me black box challenge and I got that Ninja Gaiden Deadpool as well 

I tried to get to one of the threads through Google but my browser said gocollect is trying to steal my data and passwords *shrugs*. I feel like it started with an M. Muller?

 

@lambda the premium on the game is definitely in that packaging. He did top quality work. Did you buy it on eBay or here? Any way of tracking down the last owner?

Edited by RegularGuyGamer
Mo info
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18 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

I tried to get to one of the threads through Google but my browser said gocollect is trying to steal my data and passwords *shrugs*. I feel like it started with an M. Muller?

 

@lambda the premium on the game is definitely in that packaging. He did top quality work. Did you buy it on eBay or here? Any way of tracking down the last owner?

Millerjm2 found him back in the new GC forums. Good call on the M!

 

@RegularGuyGamer got a link to aliexpress?

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@RegularGuyGamer

1) if you can provide a link to that AliExpress sale I’d love to see it also (piggyback off @a3quit4s request).

2) I actually got it at a local retro game shop. There’s a shop in town (Game-On in Smithtown NY) that actually gave me shelf space for my homebrew Atari game. After seeing how awesome the people there were, and being genuine collectors themselves, I frequent the shop now quite often. I noticed on their Instagram page that they had a CIB sitting on the shelf in the background of a posted photo in their sister store. I contacted the owner and he reserved it for me. When I picked it up, the top flaps had slight wear, and the manual has a very minor tear at the top binding (nothing to get upset about). He offered it to me for a great price and I took it. 
Based on what I’ve seen, the game looked to be a trade in that he simply acquired. Definitely not brand new. But the provenance at that point is lost. I had seen copies listed for 100+ on eBay, and was unwilling to spend the $ when I know full well I have the materials/know-how to build my own copy if I wanted to. When I got the ask for the game from Game-On, it made perfect sense. The cost wouldve  covered build materials and time alone. I got it for a steal... WAY below any ebay asks I've seen. They simply saved me cartridge ink and build time to buy it from them.

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@RegularGuyGamer

the box and manual refer to the work of “Lugia” for this hack.

is there any way to tie “Lugia” to Miller, or are they different people? Maybe Lugia is Miller and did all of it? Or maybe Lugia ran the hack work and Miller simply did the box and design work for the manual?

i have no way of knowing myself...

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18 minutes ago, Lambda said:

@RegularGuyGamer

1) if you can provide a link to that AliExpress sale I’d love to see it also (piggyback off @a3quit4s request).

2) I actually got it at a local retro game shop. There’s a shop in town (Game-On in Smithtown NY) that actually gave me shelf space for my homebrew Atari game. After seeing how awesome the people there were, and being genuine collectors themselves, I frequent the shop now quite often. I noticed on their Instagram page that they had a CIB sitting on the shelf in the background of a posted photo in their sister store. I contacted the owner and he reserved it for me. When I picked it up, the top flaps had slight wear, and the manual has a very minor tear at the top binding (nothing to get upset about). He offered it to me for a great price and I took it. 
Based on what I’ve seen, the game looked to be a trade in that he simply acquired. Definitely not brand new. But the provenance at that point is lost. I had seen copies listed for 100+ on eBay, and was unwilling to spend the $ when I know full well I have the materials/know-how to build my own copy if I wanted to. When I got the ask for the game from Game-On, it made perfect sense. The cost wouldve  covered build materials and time alone. I got it for a steal... WAY below any ebay asks I've seen. They simply saved me cartridge ink and build time to buy it from them.

I was at GameOn a few weeks ago - hiked to both locations. Got great deals at both lol

edit: not literally hiked I mean drove

Edited by a3quit4s
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17 minutes ago, Lambda said:

@RegularGuyGamer

the box and manual refer to the work of “Lugia” for this hack.

is there any way to tie “Lugia” to Miller, or are they different people? Maybe Lugia is Miller and did all of it? Or maybe Lugia ran the hack work and Miller simply did the box and design work for the manual?

i have no way of knowing myself...

Lugia is the hacker. Miller was just the one to design the box material. Miller once has a nice selection of high quality boxes and custom manuals for rom hacks and translations. I feel like lugia was working on the Rom hack of the Chinese version to make it what it finally came to market as. The ROM hacker went by lugia2009 on NA and the other forums. 

 

Found a thread about it 

Right here

Edited by RegularGuyGamer
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I think between this and Final Fantasy VII demake they really set the bar for shady official game conversion to NES/FC.  Out of curiosity I went looking through the smokemonster package I've got from just before it turned into being script only and it's not part of the package.  I did read up on a list of details about it on bootleg games wiki and it's solid alright.

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