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 . That said, it’s an interesting game, especially since it was one of those all out fighters where characters from Super Mario Kart could duke it out.Read More
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. There was one bootleg game that fulfilled some of those fantasies, though. Not to be confused with game that shares the same name released by AES and SNK, World Heroes 2 by Cony Soft pits 12 playable fighters against each other in all it’s bootleg glory!Read More
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: Command and Conquer. While this beta is in a very incomplete state, it can give players a small look of how the original game plays. Developed with the Tomsoft MegaDrive SDK, Command and Conquer was an attempt to backport the original DOS game to the Genesis. The reasons why development stopped are currently unknown, and is probably lost to time.Read More
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 day. During my search of Mega Drive games more than a decade ago, I found a Harry Potter game, and thought to myself that this game might be a pirate or a bootleg. After starting up the game, I was greeted with the title Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen, which made me think it was possibly a German release. Unfortunately, it was followed by a bunch of Cryllic text, so I honestly have no idea where this game came from. Off to a great start already, I delved into the game.
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 the general idea of the game, Donkey Kong’s friend Sodoma, who takes care of all plant life, was kidnapped by someone who didn’t like what she did. Because there was now no bananas, Donkey Kong lost weight and turned into a monkey and now goes in search for her. Sounds fun, right? It would be if it didn’t have bad control response that other bootlegs are known for.Read More
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!
Due to poor jumping physics, expect this to happen quite a bit
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, the development team did a somewhat decent job in recreating the experience of playing the game so that it’s actually playable. Surprisingly, features and items like Yoshi, Fire Flower, and Cape Feather all work just about as they did on the original game. The music is mostly faithful to the original tunes, though some of the instrument choices can be a bit hard on the ears. Unfortunately, but understandably, the level layouts that were put into the game were either partially or completely redone, and enemies were either not included or replaced with another to help with system slowdown due to too many objects on the screen at the time. One such enemy replaced is the giant Bullet Bill replaced with a series of three Podoboos. As for system slowdown, this is most noticeable while playing though the Ghost Houses, as at times, the screens are quite populated with Boos.Read More
