Links
Three different types of games presented today, all together aboard on this very blog post. The chosen title? It's explained in the upcoming paragraphs.
悪魔城 Dracula (Kaiser)
This is one of two known cartridge conversions of the original Famicom Disk System version, named 悪魔城ドラキュラ, of Castlevania.
This conversion by Kaiser only removes the copyright notice from the title screen, and until the ending, seems to run flawlessly.
Unfortunately, the ending loops endlessly, preventing players from seeing the second run of the game with its unique bonus items.
What makes this conversion interesting from a technical point of view is that the mapper's bankswitching facilities are triggered entirely by reads from magic CPU addresses, which is otherwise almost unheard-of in the NES/Famicom world.
Anyway, that was the Good part, let's switch to a totally different subject.
Thousands and thousands of cartridge compilations exist. Some made history thanks to the variety of games they offered, like the Golden Game series or more recently, the CoolBoy 400-in-1 Real Game. Some others made it due to their menu (such as the Powerful 250 by NTDEC) or simply because they contained some exclusive games (Asder 20-in-1).
And of course, conversely, there happen to be an large quantity of immemorial compilations of games. These usually features the same set of games. In the early days of Famicom piracy, these cartridge would have typically featured Wild Gunman, Galaxian, Duck Hunt and Battle City. Years passed and these games would eventually be used to fill up the selection of games as more ambitious titles were occupying the podium of the menus.
However, around mid 1997, really cheap multicarts were overturning the market all around the world. VT cartridges were coming from Ka Sheng and another unknown company, the King series was starting. Waixing had seemingly stopped their EW line at around that time. Smaller business like J.Y. also switched to cheaper products and slowly put an end to their line of quality products at the same period. Realtec was seemingly gone too (or at least, had completly changed strategy).
So, how does one cut cost on products that were thought to be already more than cheap and where the seller's margin was already low? Easy. Pick any of these bullet points and you're in for some serious cost cutting:
• Use the exact same printed circuit board for a large lot of cartridge (10+)
• Rely on another manufacturer that has cheaper technology readily available. Such as the ASICs which we know as mapper 45, 52, 176 and possibles variants.
• Have a fixed selection of advanced games that are readily compatible with the mapper and each cartridges are just a slightly different selection every time.
A combination of these factors lead to what we'll present today: multicarts from seemingly different manufacturers and years that all offer just the same set of games.
Here are some examples that fall in the Bad category.
1997 Super 7 in 1 (JY-201)
1997 Super 6 in 1 (JY-202)
1997 Super 7 in 1 (JY-203)
1997 龍珠武鬥會 7 in 1 (JY-204)
1997 SUPER 7 in 1 (JY-205)
1997 SUPER 7 in 1 (JY-206)
超强小新2＋瑪莉家族 7 in 1 (JY-215)
1998 97格鬥天王 激鬥篇 6 in 1 (JY-222)
1998 97格鬥天王 激鬥篇 7 in 1 (JY-224)
1998 97格鬥天王 激戰篇 6 in 1 (JY-225)
SUPER 8 IN 1 (JY-301)
SUPER 8 IN 1 98格鬥天王＋熱血 (JY-302)
絡克家族大集合 - Rockman 16-in-1 (SD01)
And lastly, the Ugly. These cartridges are just like their counterparts discussed in the previous paragraph. But what makes them different? The game selection menu.
These multicarts were seemingly cheap alternatives frequently sold in Mainland China and Thailand in the late 90s. They were sold under various ID: JB, 4Y, JY and possibly others. It's not known at this time if these may have been related or not to the actual Jing Tay in a way or another. These all uses mapper 52, yet they don't appear to be related to Realtec either... but hey, they did use some similar fonts and some similar games to the SPC002 multicart. The Samurai Spirits port by Rex Soft was seemingly considered as a hit back then.
1996 Super HiK 2-in-1 - 新系列超武鬥會 2.3 代組合強卡 (2B31)
1997 Super HiK 3-in-1 - 新系列眞侍魂・蝙蝠俠・ 天使之翼II代 組合強卡 (3D166)
1996 4-in-1 Super HiK Gold Card (JY-412)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列超霸眞人快打组合卡 (4Y21)
1996 超级新卡 新系列眞人ⅡⅢ代上尉空魂組合強卡 - Super HiK 4-in-1 (4Y26)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列眞人II,III代 足3 龍2 組合強卡 (4Y27)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列武鬥2.3 12人 古巴 組合強卡 (4Y48)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列眞人2.3 人間忍3 組合強卡 (4Y52)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列12人古巴斧4脫2 組合強卡 (4Y55)
1997 Super HiK 新系列 武鬥會、激龜、蝙蝠俠 組合強卡 (4Y257)
The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.
⇨Download the ROMs⇦
Credits to NewRisingSun for the emulation and Kevtris for dumping Akumajō Dracula.
悪魔城 Dracula (Kaiser)
This is one of two known cartridge conversions of the original Famicom Disk System version, named 悪魔城ドラキュラ, of Castlevania.
This conversion by Kaiser only removes the copyright notice from the title screen, and until the ending, seems to run flawlessly.
Unfortunately, the ending loops endlessly, preventing players from seeing the second run of the game with its unique bonus items.
What makes this conversion interesting from a technical point of view is that the mapper's bankswitching facilities are triggered entirely by reads from magic CPU addresses, which is otherwise almost unheard-of in the NES/Famicom world.
Anyway, that was the Good part, let's switch to a totally different subject.
Thousands and thousands of cartridge compilations exist. Some made history thanks to the variety of games they offered, like the Golden Game series or more recently, the CoolBoy 400-in-1 Real Game. Some others made it due to their menu (such as the Powerful 250 by NTDEC) or simply because they contained some exclusive games (Asder 20-in-1).
And of course, conversely, there happen to be an large quantity of immemorial compilations of games. These usually features the same set of games. In the early days of Famicom piracy, these cartridge would have typically featured Wild Gunman, Galaxian, Duck Hunt and Battle City. Years passed and these games would eventually be used to fill up the selection of games as more ambitious titles were occupying the podium of the menus.
However, around mid 1997, really cheap multicarts were overturning the market all around the world. VT cartridges were coming from Ka Sheng and another unknown company, the King series was starting. Waixing had seemingly stopped their EW line at around that time. Smaller business like J.Y. also switched to cheaper products and slowly put an end to their line of quality products at the same period. Realtec was seemingly gone too (or at least, had completly changed strategy).
So, how does one cut cost on products that were thought to be already more than cheap and where the seller's margin was already low? Easy. Pick any of these bullet points and you're in for some serious cost cutting:
• Use the exact same printed circuit board for a large lot of cartridge (10+)
• Rely on another manufacturer that has cheaper technology readily available. Such as the ASICs which we know as mapper 45, 52, 176 and possibles variants.
• Have a fixed selection of advanced games that are readily compatible with the mapper and each cartridges are just a slightly different selection every time.
A combination of these factors lead to what we'll present today: multicarts from seemingly different manufacturers and years that all offer just the same set of games.
Here are some examples that fall in the Bad category.
1997 Super 7 in 1 (JY-201)
1997 Super 6 in 1 (JY-202)
1997 Super 7 in 1 (JY-203)
1997 龍珠武鬥會 7 in 1 (JY-204)
1997 SUPER 7 in 1 (JY-205)
1997 SUPER 7 in 1 (JY-206)
超强小新2＋瑪莉家族 7 in 1 (JY-215)
1998 97格鬥天王 激鬥篇 6 in 1 (JY-222)
1998 97格鬥天王 激鬥篇 7 in 1 (JY-224)
1998 97格鬥天王 激戰篇 6 in 1 (JY-225)
SUPER 8 IN 1 (JY-301)
SUPER 8 IN 1 98格鬥天王＋熱血 (JY-302)
絡克家族大集合 - Rockman 16-in-1 (SD01)
And lastly, the Ugly. These cartridges are just like their counterparts discussed in the previous paragraph. But what makes them different? The game selection menu.
These multicarts were seemingly cheap alternatives frequently sold in Mainland China and Thailand in the late 90s. They were sold under various ID: JB, 4Y, JY and possibly others. It's not known at this time if these may have been related or not to the actual Jing Tay in a way or another. These all uses mapper 52, yet they don't appear to be related to Realtec either... but hey, they did use some similar fonts and some similar games to the SPC002 multicart. The Samurai Spirits port by Rex Soft was seemingly considered as a hit back then.
1996 Super HiK 2-in-1 - 新系列超武鬥會 2.3 代組合強卡 (2B31)
1997 Super HiK 3-in-1 - 新系列眞侍魂・蝙蝠俠・ 天使之翼II代 組合強卡 (3D166)
1996 4-in-1 Super HiK Gold Card (JY-412)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列超霸眞人快打组合卡 (4Y21)
1996 超级新卡 新系列眞人ⅡⅢ代上尉空魂組合強卡 - Super HiK 4-in-1 (4Y26)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列眞人II,III代 足3 龍2 組合強卡 (4Y27)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列武鬥2.3 12人 古巴 組合強卡 (4Y48)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列眞人2.3 人間忍3 組合強卡 (4Y52)
1996 Super HiK 4-in-1 - 新系列12人古巴斧4脫2 組合強卡 (4Y55)
1997 Super HiK 新系列 武鬥會、激龜、蝙蝠俠 組合強卡 (4Y257)
The latest version of NintendulatorNRS (binary and source) can be downloaded from its dedicated page in the blog sidebar.
⇨Download the ROMs⇦
Credits to NewRisingSun for the emulation and Kevtris for dumping Akumajō Dracula.
Comments
Add Comment
Comments are not available for this entry.