Reproductions: What is our community ok with?

[Hobie-wan]

speaking of reproductions I was wondering on thoughts of taking Japanese RPG's and reflashing the chip with an english translation? I have a Japanese Crusader of Centy that is really cheap to get is it possible to solder a new chip inside it with the english rom?

If there's already an English version, that's generally pointless. The cost of buying, flashing, and assembling is going to eat into the savings of buying the Japanese one in the first place and you might have a manual you can't read to boot. you can't 'reflash' retail carts. The chips in there are made with the data for the game and can't be altered. Special EEPROMS are often used by people making repros that can be rewritten, though there are also some 'burn once' type chips that are a little cheaper.

Also how the heck to you open Japanese Megadrive carts, I see no screw holes on it.

They're underneath the rear label, so you'd have to destroy that too and have ugly holes, leave it naked, or print up a replacement. Unless you're really careful you'd end up with a crease where the front label crosses the seam on the top of the cart too.

Also was thinking of putting the romhack that restores the healthbar in the Genesis version of Contra which was present in the Japanese version making it a much more playable game. Same with my cart of Streets of Rage 3 that has a re translated version with the easier difficulty of the Japanese version.

Is this a simple task?

As has been stated elsewhere, unless you just really want to have a cart for each sitting on your shelf, a handful of repros can add up to where a flashcart is a cheaper option.See Ziggy's thread.

[MyNameIsVince]

it's an identical process as i understand it except that instead of a typical US SNES donor, you'd use the original JP SFC Cart and put the patch or mod onto that board. So you've got the original product with a modification instead of destroying one game to create another. it tends to be a bit more pricey, but in terms of legality there is probably a lot more ground to stand on.

Exactly.

It's only more pricey if the SFC costs you more than what a donor cart would. But if you're collecting games, you were likely to spend the money on that cart anyway.

OK here's a scenario. Say I want an English language patch on a SFC cart of Front Mission: Gun Hazard. I buy the SFC cart on Amazon for about 15 bucks. How much would it cost then to get the English language patch onto the SFC cart?

[Ziggy]

it's an identical process as i understand it except that instead of a typical US SNES donor, you'd use the original JP SFC Cart and put the patch or mod onto that board. So you've got the original product with a modification instead of destroying one game to create another. it tends to be a bit more pricey, but in terms of legality there is probably a lot more ground to stand on.

Exactly.

It's only more pricey if the SFC costs you more than what a donor cart would. But if you're collecting games, you were likely to spend the money on that cart anyway.

OK here's a scenario. Say I want an English language patch on a SFC cart of Front Mission: Gun Hazard. I buy the SFC cart on Amazon for about 15 bucks. How much would it cost then to get the English language patch onto the SFC cart?

Are you doing it yourself or paying some one to do it? If you were doing it yourself, and already owned all the equipment and tools required, it'd be really cheap. Depending on what type of memory you're using, and how many of them you need, maybe something like $10-20. Could be more or less, all depends on what you're using, how much of it you need, and also the variance in prices (some times you can get good deals, other times you can't). If you're paying some one to do it for you, then figure it's that price for materials plus whatever they wanna charge you for labor. But figure if a SNES repro typically costs $60, and you're asking some one to do essentially the same amount of work minus the label, and a donor cart is usually $5, then modifying a SFC should be something like $45 or $50. You'd figure that's what some one would charge you, total cost, for modifying a SFC cart (that you provided) for you.

Also depends on the specific game in question. Some carts require more work. More work means more money.

[MyNameIsVince]

Are you doing it yourself or paying some one to do it? If you were doing it yourself, and already owned all the equipment and tools required, it'd be really cheap. Depending on what type of memory you're using, and how many of them you need, maybe something like $10-20. Could be more or less, all depends on what you're using, how much of it you need, and also the variance in prices (some times you can get good deals, other times you can't). If you're paying some one to do it for you, then figure it's that price for materials plus whatever they wanna charge you for labor. But figure if a SNES repro typically costs $60, and you're asking some one to do essentially the same amount of work minus the label, and a donor cart is usually $5, then modifying a SFC should be something like $45 or $50. You'd figure that's what some one would charge you, total cost, for modifying a SFC cart (that you provided) for you.

Also depends on the specific game in question. Some carts require more work. More work means more money.

I'm not doing it myself because I don't know how to do anything with the inside of a video game cartridge. I had the battery to my original Donkey Kong Land cart die on me and I threw the cart away because I thought, shit, I can't solder, it's useless to me now so that's what I did. Sure it was idiotic, but I didn't know better back then. I have a copy of Final Fantasy Adventure that doesn't work because the gold contacts on the back of the rom board are so roughed up no system can't read the game at all, but I still hold onto it because I think that somebody would know how to fix the gold contacts on the back of the rom board, because I sure as hell don't.

[mjmjr25]

Well, this is disgusting:
NSFW

[Ziggy]

^ What's really funny is that "Nintendo" is removed from everything on the cart... Except the seal of quality?

[TEKTORO]

And there is like 946 available, that is disgusting Mj agree. I really like the homebrew stuff and would like to get a copy of Sweet Home English but besides that I'm not to thrilled for other categories and most certainly should clearly be marked reproduction with a significant price drop.

[bryan_65]

This is too far. How could we let the proper people know about this. I knew it would come to this and they will probably get a way with it too.

[JoeAwesome]

Don't know what's worse, those, or the flashcarts

[bryan_65]

Don't know what's worse, those, or the flashcarts

What would be wrong with the flashcarts? That seems almost to cheap to me? I always thought they were more than double that price.