I’ve mentioned reproduction cartridges a few times, and I’ve gotten a flood of e-mail asking me what they are and if it’s something that’s safe to buy. I’ve bought a few throughout the years and I want to shed some light on them and show you what you can expect when buying a reproduction cartridge.
I mostly got into the NES reproduction scene, then expanded out into SNES and Genesis. I’m a collector of retro games. More importantly, I’m a player of them as well. Reproductions piqued my interest when I found some translated versions of games only released in Japan. You’ll also find reproductions of ROM hacks, like The Legend of Zelda: Outlands or Castlevania: Blood Moon and original homebrew games. Don’t expect to see anyone trying to pass off a reproduction as an original game, nor should you expect to see a reproduction of an obtainable game.
The first one I ever bought was Tower of Radia, otherwise known as Chronicle of the Radia War or Radia Senki: Reimmeihen. It’s an RPG with battles fought in real-time, similar to Secret of Mana. It was directed by Hideo Yoshizawa, who also directed Ninja Gaiden and Klonoa. It’s a fantastic game, and I’m glad to have it in my collection. Most of the time, you’re going to get a guarantee as well as the guys that make these generally see it as a service to the community and will stand behind their work.
Tower of Radia was the working title for the NA version. This is a repro of the prototype.
Most reproductions involves using a donor cartridge. Unfortunately, that Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt cart isn’t going to turn into an English translated Final Fantasy III. It needs to be the right mapper. These mappers tell your NES or Famicom where to find certain information in the game. It’s far more complicated than that, but let’s just leave it simple for now. Once a compatible game is found, the donor is disassembled, the MROM chips are de-soldered and new or recycled EPROMS are flashed with the new game and soldered to the board. The use of donor cartridges is sometimes looked down upon because it is destroying another game. Some people see a problem with because there’s a finite number of them left, though a lot of the games that are used are games that are not sought after and sometimes would otherwise be thrown away.
Some reproduction sites will want you to provide your own donor cartridge. They’ll have a list of what games will work best for your reproduction cart. When it comes to getting an English translation of an RPG, sometimes the simplest way is to use the Famicom version as a donor. I bought the Famicom cart of Fire Emblem a few years ago and I plan on using it as a donor so I can have a translated version. My cartridge was damaged during shipping, so it’ll work much better afterwards as well. They’ll use an adaptor, typically found inside Gyromite, and put my Fire Emblem board inside an NES cartridge shell after flashing the English translated ROM to my Japanese cartridge.
It’s a shame it got broken during shipping. The insides are fine, making it a perfect donor.
Since most reproductions are made using recycled parts you can expect to get a cleaned up, mostly blemish free cartridge shell with a brand new sticker. Usually it’s a month long wait for you to get a reproduction cartridge. Each and every one is done by hand. Quality will vary depending on where you you buy from. Most reputable places will give you a good guarantee. Make sure you’re patient, as well. Turnaround time can be 4-6 weeks. Don’t expect to have something show up at your door in a few days. It’s not going to happen.
Timewalk Games is one of my favorite places to pick up reproduction cartridges. Most of their games come with die-cut boxes and instruction manuals to give you that special nostalgic feel when you get your game. They specialize in NES and SNES games. You pay a bit of a premium if you want the full package, but they sell games cart only as well for about half the price depending on the game. I bought Sweet Home from them a while back and the quality blew me away. Sweet Home came shrink wrapped and looked like it was torn straight from 1993. The box is the same purple as the later Capcom titles, maybe with a bit more shine than the originals. The cartridge is painted purple and adorn with a foil label. It even came with a map! I’ve seen their Earthbound, which was very nice as well. Their work is very impressive and everything is guaranteed for life. I highly recommend checking out what they have to offer. They do only have a few people working for them so they get backed up from time to time. They’re worth the wait.
If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think it’s an official release.
Another great site I came across is RetroZone. I found them when I was looking for some USB kits to mod some of my stockpile of old controllers. While poking at their site, I came across a reproduction of VS Super Mario Bros. along with some other treasures like Nintendo World Championship 1990. These are one kind of reproduction cartridges. They’re made using a brand new parts instead of donor cartridges. They even make and sell parts for you to make your own reproduction or homebrew cartridge using their ReproPak and new plastic shells. The equipment to flash EPROMS is a little bit of an investment and you’re going to want to make sure you know your way around a soldering gun. Their stock rotates a bit, and bear in mind that it’s one guy that makes all of these carts by hand. Everything they sell is original too, all of the USB kits are designed by them, all of the plastic shells, even the boards for the ReproPak. You can’t get it anywhere else. They have plenty of nifty development tools as well, with more stuff coming down the pipeline. Also, their Fridge Levels magnets are awesome.
Now you can own it without spending $15,000! Image courtesy of RetroZone.
Reproductions and homebrew games aren’t exactly a new thing, and they’re made for consoles as far back as Atari 2600. There are many other sites that deal with them, too. I just wanted to share a couple that stood out among the rest to me. Reproductions can be little bit taboo, mostly because it’s considered to be legally gray. It makes certain games more accessible and it gives the ability to make fresh new takes on games. It also helps with restoration as I’ve had a few cartridges that got damaged through the years. Because of places like RetroZone who are making new parts, I was able to buy new shells and have new labels printed to make them whole again. Between reproductions and new games, such as the epic Pier Solar and Beggar Prince for the Genesis and Gunlord for Neo Geo and Dreamcast, I feel like new life is being put into some of my older consoles. It also reminds me how vast the libraries of the older system are. They’re still growing, constantly. You just need to know where to look.
Seen it? Dreamt of owning it? Want to brag about your collection? I’d love to hear. Comment below or hit me up on Twitter or Facebook.