Places to get PAL SNES games

[Yukima]

Does anyone know of any online shops that sell PAL SNES games for reasonable prices? I don't have a PAL SNES to play them on, but I mainly want them for a crazy experiment I want to try.

I'll be getting a Super Famicom soon, and I have a lot of US games that I want to play on it, and I also have a gamebit I can use to take cartridges apart. I was thinking that if I can find the PAL versions of some of my US games, take the carts apart and swap the PCBs and cartridge shells, I can have a US game that I can just plug into the SFC. You might say "why not just get a converter or mod a SNES" but I really do want to play these games on a SFC, and I'd like my games to have a consistent look (and I like the SFC cart design). I could also do the same thing by swapping US SNES and SFC cartridge shells, but then a few games will have Japanese-text labels instead of English.

So... crazy experiment or not, hopefully there's a way to get PAL cartridges without spending too much. I'd especially want the PAL versions of the well-known (and hopefully cheap) games like the Mario games and such. And a PAL copy of Illusion of Gaia/Illusion of Time.

[bacteria]

How much do you call "reasonable prices"? I have quite a good collection of PAL games for the SNES, may have some spare, not sure yet.

[Yukima]

How much do you call "reasonable prices"? I have quite a good collection of PAL games for the SNES, may have some spare, not sure yet.

Anything under $20 or the equivalent in pounds/euros/etc. The game shops in my area sell SNES games for that much - very common games for up to $3, some popular ones from $6-12, uncommon for up to $20, and rare games for $30 and over, whenever I see them. I don't know what the going rate is for PAL games, but hopefully it's similar, and if I have to import them from the UK or other parts of Europe, hopefully shipping won't be murderous like from Japan.

[emwearz]

From living in a PAL territory I can tell you something close to instantly 9/10 PAL games sell for more than there NTSC counterparts. It sounds like a costly practice, not one really worth the outcome. International shipping is a bitch no matter where its from.

[Yukima]

From living in a PAL territory I can tell you something close to instantly 9/10 PAL games sell for more than there NTSC counterparts. It sounds like a costly practice, not one really worth the outcome. International shipping is a bitch no matter where its from.

Ah... okay. I guess if I wanted to do any cartridge swapping, I'd probably do it for just one or two games, just for fun and just because I can! Or maybe do it with SFC carts since many of them can be pretty cheap. And now that I think about it, it would be pretty funny to have a game that looks Japanese and have it start up in English!

[MaliceValentine]

Yeah cheap PAL SNES games that's a hilarious its like Mario being on the Xbox 360...

Any who just browse ebay.co.uk or ebay.com.au you'll find some there but Mario in Australia a good 40 dollars.

[Hobie-wan]

Does anyone know of any online shops that sell PAL SNES games for reasonable prices? I don't have a PAL SNES to play them on, but I mainly want them for a crazy experiment I want to try...

Nice idea, but I'm not sure how cost effective that's going to be since you'll still be buying each game twice plus international shipping. If you're really desparate to try, I have an Aussie PAL copy of Axelay in a rounded case that I'll trade.

[Yukima]

Nice idea, but I'm not sure how cost effective that's going to be since you'll still be buying each game twice plus international shipping. If you're really desparate to try, I have an Aussie PAL copy of Axelay in a rounded case that I'll trade.

Sadly, Axelay isn't one of the games I already have. I heard it was good, though, and I was planning to get a SFC cart of it anyway...

I'm actually most concerned about swapping cartridge cases for the US version RPGs that I have, since I play them a lot and they're pretty text-heavy, and the SFC carts for most of them have English-text labels, so it would be cool to play them on a SFC system! I'm already planning to do this with Chrono Trigger, Mystic Quest and Super Mario RPG, since I was going to get the SFC versions anyway (rabid collector that I am) and they have nice English-text labels. I was actually inspired to try doing this because I have carts for Star Ocean and Bahamut Lagoon that I was thinking of getting repro-translated... and the carts had English labels! It'd be awesome to have my entire SNES RPG collection blend in together that nicely, both US release and fan-translated!

The only games I think I'd really be worried about are RPGs that were released in all regions, but the Japanese versions have labels that are in kanji (Secret of Mana, Illusion of Gaia, etc.) or RPGs that were released only in the US, Europe or Australia (Secret of Evermore) and have no SFC equivalent. In these cases, having PAL copies to swap would be nice... if expensive... I knew this experiment was crazy...

[Hobie-wan]

Buying Pal RPGs will probably be hella expensive, for the ones they even got.

[bacteria]

You could always buy the cheapest PAL games you can get your hands on, remove the labels, make new ones, swap the boards out and do it that way?