Zelda: A Link to the Past Famicom

Zelda: A Link to the Past Famicom is one of the most interesting Famicom pirates I have ever come across. It is certainly the most faithful to the game from which it borrows (ie: rips-off). You wouldn’t know to look at the anime-flavored artwork, but this is indeed a complete 8-bit remake of the famed SNES Zelda title the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Referred to often as “Chinese originals” because of their country of origin, there are many pirates similar to this floating around. I myself also own a Chinese original Famicom remake (demake?) of the Game Bot Advance game The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, although the game play is much more dissimilar to it’s source content than this game. The Minish Cap is actually a pretty terrible game, but this; this is solid gold.

Zelda: A Link to the Past Famicom was of course created by none-other-than the famed Chinese pirate company Waixing Science and Technology, who are also renowned for their 8-bit rendition of Final Fantasy 7, among many others. This is certainly an interesting pirate, and it actually plays pretty well. I haven’t been all the way through the game myself, but from what I understand the game ends where the dark world begins on the SNES title; which is understandable, considering that this is only a Famicom cart here.

From what I have played the game is pretty close to the SNES game, understandable limitations not with standing. I ked up on Ebay for around $60 about a year ago. The seller had multiple copies for BIN’s within the auction, but it was shut down by Ebay shorty after I payed for my copy. Since then, I have several copies crop up now and again on the Racket Boy sale forum and especially Famicom World. This is certainly a pirate that is actually worth the hype it gets. Highly recommended for Zelda fans of all ages.

Famicom Pirate Monday #7

Today I am covering a really cool pirate called Dragon Quest 7. This little dandy was created by the legendary Waixing Science and Technology, whom created (amongst many others) the infamous Final Fantasy 7 pirate. This effort, however, is somewhat less epic. In fact, it’s pretty underwhelming.

Now I haven’t played the entire game (as the language barrier is pretty suffocating), but from what I can tell this is just Dragon Quest IV with a  different title screen. Disappointing, I know. But at least the packaging is pretty cool… right?

I suppose it is also pretty impressive that they had to hack the entire game in order to allow for the absolutely ENORMOUS Chinese characters to be inserted. Check out the comparisons below. On the right side of each image is the official Japanese Dragon Quest IV, and on the left is the Waixing’s Chinese “original” Dragon Quest 7.

None-the-less, this is a prized possession for me, not because it’s rare, or even particularly interesting or playable, but more because I am huge Dragon Quest fan.

I mean, the least they could have done was at least used the art from DQ7 in the pirate’s packaging. No, they dropped the ball on that one too, using instead the artwork from Dragon Quest 5.

That’s okay Waixing, I still love you… I am just not all that happy with you right now.

Famicom Pirate Monday #6

What do we have here? Could this be a pirated version of the greatest Super Nintendo RPG ever made? Why yes, I think it is.

That cart is shaped kind of funny… almost as if it’s a Famicom cartridge. That would be impossible, right?

Wrong. Those lunatics over at Shenzhen Nanjing Technology Co. Ltd. have struck yet again, this time tackling another beloved Square RPG. This time it’s the ultra classic Super NES time travel epic Chrono Trigger.

Is nothing sacred? Will they ever learn? Why is this so awesome?

The sheer fact that this exists is a huge leap forward for the human race as a whole. Most of the original game has been recreated faithfully here. Sure the battle system is of the  random encounter variety and the game mechanics as a whole are pretty clunky, and the music is off by a couple million fathoms, but they seriously had me at the title screen.

What will they do next?