'Repro' Cartridges - Unofficial English Released SNES Games

[Anonymous No.2516734]

Apparently, there are some companies that make game cartridges that are translations of Japanese games that were never released in the US, and then they're sold on ebay and other sites. Pic related.

Has anyone here tried buying and playing one of these games? What has your luck been with them? Did everything work right? I'm thinking of buying some of these games so I can play games I've only played in emulators on an actual SNES. I ordered one today, it should arrive later this month.

[Anonymous No.2516741]

>Fan translation cartridge
>The artwork isn't Americanized in anyway

This is why they fail and I'll never buy one of those repro carts.

[Anonymous No.2516775]

Buy a programmer and a sack of eeproms and make all the repros you want. That's what these guys do and it doesn't make it any more authentic.

Some people have a complete aversion to flash carts, but they are by far the best option if you insist on playing on a real console.

[Anonymous No.2516779]

>>2516741
How's this?

[Anonymous No.2516795]

>>2516775
>flash carts
This guy said it.

You can buy a repro for $50 and it's only one game
You can buy a flash cart for $80 (china, unsure quality), ~$150 (everdrive), ~$200 (sd2snes) and have varying degrees of "every" SNES game ever

[Anonymous No.2516797]

Why doesn't nintendo start making these again? Surely they could economically justify one small factory

[Anonymous No.2516801]

Are these things getting shilled or what?
There's no reason to buy that shit. You're not supporting the original creator, you're not supporting the translators, you're not getting a legitimate copy, some game gets destroyed along the way. Get a flash cartridge or similar if you want to play mods and translations as well as anything else.

[Anonymous No.2516818]

>>2516775
>>2516795
>>2516801
Thanks, I'll look into this.

Does it happen that people somehow ruin their other games because of these copies? Are there any horror stories I should know about? I especially don't want to ruin any of my games. I think I vaguely remember something like copy protection that some games have where they wont play if they think they're in a game copier, and I can't remember if the system remembers it and self-ruins over it or refuses to play it or something if it detects a bootleg game or what.

[Anonymous No.2516825]

>>2516801
Oh get off your high horse. Some people just want to play games a certain way.

[Anonymous No.2516826]

>>2516825
With their wife on a Retron 5?

[Anonymous No.2516840]

>>2516818
Reproduction cartridges have been known to brick SNES consoles outright or wreak havoc to legit cartridges. What would happen is the address lines of the repro cart would cross with the lines that draw current which would end up wiping the data on the cartridge, but not all of it and not all at once. This means the data on any cartridges plugged in after that would be slowly and randomly erased. The worst part is that affected games would play normally for a while, before permanently breaking. Legit SNES games aren't reprogrammable so they can't be fixed either.

Things like that used to be much more common, but it's supposed to be better these days, but it still happens from time to time. It only happens with repros though, flash carts usually have CIC clones to prevent that from happening.

There used to be a thread somewhere that explained all this in more detail, but I can't find the link.

>>2516795
The SNES Everdrive is $80 + shipping. I think the China versions are somewhere in the region of $60.

[Anonymous No.2516843]

>>2516840
yeesh. i'll stick with ZSNES

[Anonymous No.2516858]

>>2516840
>things that don't happen

[Anonymous No.2516859]

>>2516858
>Repro shill console bricker

[Anonymous No.2516879]

>>2516840
Eep. I think I'll refrain from possibly ruining my games and wasting money on repro carts, and I definitely want to look into the flash carts. Thanks for warning me.

[Anonymous No.2517039]

>>2516801
>some game gets destroyed along the way

The Chinese print their own lacklustre carts, but even if they didn't, the upshot is a copy of FIFA you couldn't give away has been given new life and "rare" games get less rare.

[Anonymous No.2517042]

There's no excuse for buying a Repro over a Chinese everdrive.

They cost $45 on Aliexpress and despite what Krikzz fanboy morons love to chant over and over, the components are the same or comparable.

>The China version is a v1 everdrive and will not accept firmware updates, don't try. Morons who cry about their card breaking likely did just this.
>Krikzz doesn't make the v1 cards anymore and I've no need for the premium model with fast forward, savestates and the like, I want the basic one which I can only get for a slight discount at resellers who happen to have them left.
>The guy doesn't make everdrives for the benefit of gamers everywhere. It's a business like any other. Forums regularly getting together to do group buys of his inventory tells me he's doing fine.

tl;dr - Buy a China flashcart. They're just as good, only downside is the original creator gets none of the money, but he's a businessman and needs to deal with it.

[Anonymous No.2517045]

>>2517042
>Krikzz can't keep up with demand
>Krikzz licenses Everdrives to a Chinese businessman
>The deal when you buy from his Chinaman is it's assembled in China, and the seller deals with all warranty, rather than send it to Ukraine for Krik himself to fix it.
>Chinese partner either sells his schematics on or gets chinked out of them somehow
>Market is flooded with Chinese clones
>OMG BUY THE ORIGINAL THE CHINA ONES BREAK 100% OF THE TIME AFTER 4 DAYS, ALL MY FRIENDS BOUGHT THEM AND THEY ALL BROKE EVERY TIME OMG

[Anonymous No.2517047]

>>2517045

[Anonymous No.2517059]

>>2517042
No matter where you get them they will be assembled by hand and fuckups do happen on occasion. I'd imagine if you buy a Super UFO 8 or one of the China EDs you're pretty much on your own if something goes wrong. I have noticed Krikzz offering to fix people's carts if they end up damaged somehow, so good for him I suppose.

[Anonymous No.2517060]

>>2516734
Thanks you for supporting commercial piracy, Mr Scumbag Reseller appreciates your business.
An eeprom only had a life expectancy of 10-15 years, after which it begins to forget the data written to the chip. What you bought is a disposable commodity, with a limited shelf life and limited resell value. Hope it was worth it, just to own a physical cart. Next time buy a flashcart buddy.

>>2516797
...the legal issues would be no different from Virtual Console releases, meaning a large number of titles would never be 'reproduced' because the companies are gone, parted out, bought out, etc. Not to mention games with licensing connections to comics, movies, etc with expired licenses would still require a new licensing agreement to use those properties.

[Anonymous No.2517073]

>>2517059
I appreciate his policy, but I've been fooled too many times to pay extra for something claiming to last my whole life. While it's great I could return it for repair, that involves shipping the cart across the world to be fixed.

The carts I have are solid state items that live permanently in the system so it's hard to see how they'll go wrong. For $45, if it lasts me even a couple of years I'm happy.

[Anonymous No.2517075]

Repro, flashcart, chinese clone, who gives a shit if you get a fair price for something that works and you get to play the game.

[Anonymous No.2517120]

>>2517039
You may not care about them but they are still authentic artefacts and shouldn't be used as a basis for forgery.

[Anonymous No.2517191]

Why is it that every time someone tries to start a reproduction thread all the flash cart makers come in and start advertising their garbage? The worst part is they are even starting to tell straight up lies to scare people into buying their overpriced junk like >>2516840

[Anonymous No.2517214]

>>2517191
Please explain why you think reproduction carts are a better option for playing games than a flash cart.

Because I sure as hell can't figure it out.

[Anonymous No.2517271]

>>2516775
/Thread
Why are we having a conversation when the thread has been answered? There is objectively no reason to waste money on repro of a non-us release when you can spend a little more and play almost ANY game excepting those that use super fx chips.

[Anonymous No.2517286]

>>2517039
>rare game gets less rare
Uh, no. That's not how it works. It just means that collectors are getting scalped for knock-off shit because for every white knight repro-cart maker who makes and sells a non-us repro fake for 30-50$ (which is still ridiculously inflated considering) and says 'it's not real just for entertainment purposes', there's re-seller scum charging even more or just creating outright fakes of 1st run titles. All you're doing is flooding the market with fakes and ripping ignorant people off. Further you can't say it's the fault of the buyer for not knowing, it's hard enough to find these games outside of e-bay; we shouldn't be worried about the authenticity of what we're buying.

[Anonymous No.2517297]

>>2517191
>man shilling translation-patched roms flashed to a fifa cart sure is hard when it's one game forever instead of all the games you could want.
I wonder why.

[Anonymous No.2517306]

>>2517286
Oh yeah, there was a guy here a couple of years back showing all the effort he made getting his repros of Earthbound just right so he could pass them off as the real thing. Stuff like a very specific type of adhesive so the label wouldn't start coming off after a few months, etc. The amount of effort he put into it would almost be commendable if it weren't for the money he made doing it.

[Anonymous No.2517319]

>>2517306
Iirc yeah. The average buyer will be too glassy-eyed about finally having that rare game that by the time they're corrected, they find out the seller had a no-refund no-return policy. Then they're out the money and have a fake for their trouble.

[Anonymous No.2517332]

>>2517297
The things collectors will do to justify their stupid decisions.

[Anonymous No.2517346]

>>2517120
>authentic artefacts
There you go again. These were products and are now simply objects. They are molded plastics and circuitry designed as part of an entertainment product. You can give too much of a shit about plastics.

[Anonymous No.2517352]

>>2517191
Would you prefer emulation instead? Higan Balanced is perfect for all but one games and Higan Accuracy handles that.

[Anonymous No.2517356]

>>2517346
Go to a museum and tell them that their items are just products and can be used for whatever whim you have with them.

[Anonymous No.2517372]

>>2517286
I understand the very default position you're taking, I understand all the implications because I have a functioning brain and what I'm saying is: it's not a problem. Nobody is being ripped off, because it's very easy to check.

If you collect and are willing to spend great amounts of money on something that can be opened, you open to verify the contents are genuine.

Repro makers sell it as such and print alternate labels that subtly point out its status as a repro.
Scammers exist. That's life. Your position is basically "assholes are lame".

Say you're just a poor idiot with $300 to spend on an Earthbound and you buy it online and play it. If you don't open it and it works, who loses?

[Anonymous No.2517375]

>>2517319
>they find out the seller had a no-refund no-return policy. Then they're out the money and have a fake for their trouble.

You can't just state you have a no-refund, no-return policy. The consumer has rights that can't be overwritten. If you sign a contract for a job that says your boss might need to borrow some of your wages from time to time to buy donuts and coffee, that doesn't make it legal.

[Anonymous No.2517390]

>>2517356
You're purposefully making the argument ridiculous and it does not help your case.

Likening videogame cartridges from 20 years ago to museum pieces- even mundane objects only noteworthy because of their completeness or rarity- is a stretch.

We can't say that this or that use of an existing object is off-limits, because it just places needless restrictions for the totally assumed benefit of future generations.

As long as ONE cartridge remains, where's the damage? These games sold in their millions. They will not be lost to time.

[Anonymous No.2517410]

>>2517375
>people operate within legal standards
>people don't find ways to use consumer ignorance to their advantage
I like your naivety.

Ask people who bought something from e-bay that was non-functioning and god jewed out of a refund because the seller didn't explicitly state it was working. By saying something innocuous like
>got this in a recent lot untested atm
paypal/ebay is going to have to side with the seller saying
>well, he didn't say it worked.
>>2517372
If this weren't a question of assigning value to things that to any uninitiated buyer would be the same across the board I would agree. I.e. Earthbound = Fifa price wise it wouldn't matter.

However we don't. For a collector who doesn't care about rarity, just learn moonrunes and get the fds/import it will be cheaper because it's not part of a re-seller influenced market. You understand because you know what items to look for on a repro down to checking the actual cart under the shell for the appropriate info. Someone buying eb should know this too, I agree. It's just a harsh lesson to ask someone to learn. Further there's going to be a point where the existence of fakes drives up the cost of legit copies rises because of the mentality it creates. Basically, it's so rare there are fakes out there better capitalize on that. It may not be the case (the game might have a whole warehouse of unsold copies) and it doesn't matter as long as an incomplete idea of distribution is maintained. I.e. it's rare and valuable so collectors foot the bill.

So the market gets hurt because we're still under the thumb of re-sellers pretending that quietly edging the prices up over the years is an acceptable business practice if no one notices. So more to the point I'm saying assholes exist and doing nothing will only make things worse in time to where you can't play a triple-a title without it being on vc, flashcart, or emu.

[Anonymous No.2517416]

>>2516840
>Reproduction cartridges have been known to brick SNES consoles outright or wreak havoc to legit cartridges. What would happen is the address lines of the repro cart would cross with the lines that draw current which would end up wiping the data on the cartridge, but not all of it and not all at once. This means the data on any cartridges plugged in after that would be slowly and randomly erased. The worst part is that affected games would play normally for a while, before permanently breaking. Legit SNES games aren't reprogrammable so they can't be fixed either.

COOL STORY BRO!

[Anonymous No.2517427]

>>2516734
this thread comes up regularly...

>>2516775
desoldering and soldering EPROMs is not really a good use of my time. I'd rather pay someone else $30 to do it for me.

you're right though that a flash cart is a better use of your money. repros are generally fucking stupid except in cases where you cannot play it on a flash cart (starfox 2, lagrange point, etc.)

>>2516840
...are you making this shit up lmao

>>2516879
that shit doesn't happen, he's trolling.

>>2517045
the bootleg Chinese carts do have issues, but mostly work.

>>2517060
>The carts I have are solid state items that live permanently in the system so it's hard to see how they'll go wrong. For $45, if it lasts me even a couple of years I'm happy.

this is true, but it isn't hard to re-burn the ROM.

[Anonymous No.2517441]

>>2517427
>this is true, but it isn't hard to re-burn the ROM.
If it were about that, then the buyer would just flash their own stuff, no?

[Anonymous No.2517456]

>>2516825
Anyone who spends money on a repro cart when they have a flashcart sitting right there that plays it is a fool who shouldn't be allowed to have money.

[Anonymous No.2517465]

>>2517214
Super FX games etc.

[Anonymous No.2517489]

>>2517465
that's it though and that's a list of less than 10 games. star fox, paper/super mario rpg, and harvest moon are the only triple-a us releases that fit the bill though.