And Sega of America blocked and altered nearly 100% of all the original Japanese created artworks as well as imposed censorship but they pushed Eternal Champions which featured torture porn fatalities worldwide.
@CoffeeMan Most of the sun faded spines can be attributed to used game shops keeping them under UV emitting CFL lighting, or being in sunny windows all day long. Genesis, and (sadly), Neo•Geo AES boxes too. They are just a bit easier to spot with the solid red/green MD logo, with green often turning to a blue tint.
I had a few of those cheap repros from Aliexpress with that large empty plastic piece attached to the pcb and the non-beveled connectors. Some of them I only played once or twice, then for no reason at all they stopped booting up. On the other hand, all of my multicarts and Everdrive clones that I also got from Aliexpress still work fine.
Sound like you got some pretty awful repros. But yeah, anything made in China that wasn't overseen by a western or Japanese / Korean company will be a crap shoot. They just have no quality control for domestic made products.
Stellar video! I live in Japan as well, and there are now a ton of repros on the various auction sites and online marketplaces. Most sellers are pretty honest, but always good to be educated. Would love for you to do this for other systems as well, especially Neo Geo!
I report every repro on Yahoo Auctions if it doesn't state its a repro or "Chinese version" . Yahoo love their ban hammer. I've had two accounts band because I tried to sell ever drives. Both for Nintendo consoles. Nintendo are real dicks and go after anyone selling anything that "harms them" . Sega don't care, sold a few Sega ever drives no problem. All the Ever Drives I sold are the legit ones too. Not the Chinese knock offs. Basically "Chinese version" in Japan = Knock Off. So if you ever see those words on an auction you know it's not original. By the way, which part of Japan do you live in?
If you can't tell the difference between the official and the repro then it doesn't really matter. Just enjoy the game :) I personally ordered my first repros a few months ago and so far I'm limiting my buys to Japanese exclusives that have translation patches so I got Rudora, Live a Live and Star Ocean.
Love this vid thanks Mark, my days of collecting those awesome MD games are long gone so watching you tinker with originals and repros makes for compelling viewing. You just can't repro the smell of the original products.
As much as I enjoyed your video - I follow you for ages and you earned my endless respect as a retrogamer and collector - I really believe these repros are gonna be THE cancer in retrocollecting, sooner than we expect. Even by just sticking to MD games, it happened to me I bought (through a good friend and collector himself) a Vampire Killer from Yahoo Auctions, last year, and I'm still 99,99% sure it had at least a repro manual... Such a good repro, in case, that I even wondered if it mattered at all, but you know what I mean. I paid a 'genuine' retro price for that game, and so I ended up giving it back to the same friend, who btw thought I was wrong and sold it again to another person (and I bought it again too, a month or so ago, from a reputable Japanese collector). A decade down the line, we'll be possibly paying grands for an Eliminate Down coming with a repro cover, or manual, or cartridge sticker, without even knowing it, and I don't like this scenario one bit. I'm all in for reproductions and reprints that also come with their own package/manual design and differentiate from the originals (like your prototype), but these life-like copies... I wish they weren't so well accepted everywhere. When they will be generally made of a better quality, it may be too late to take countermeasures.
The repros from China are cheap crap and easy to tell but the Castlevania sounds like a one off professional copy if it looks that good. What makes you think it is a repro? Does it have a chemical smell to it? Is the paper too thick? They are two 100% signs of a repro manual or cover.
@@RetroCore Exactly. I bought brand new MD games even in the recent years, and they all had the typical 'I've been stored somewhere for some decades, now' kinda smell to them. That Vampire Killer's manual smelled like a blueprint, honestly. Professionally printed for sure, if I was right and that was a repro, to the point it made me wonder if it even mattered... It did, in the end. I wasn't so sure about the cover sheet either, as it was so white and pristine, and the colors looked a tiny bit too dark, and again, it didn't smell like storage. Cart and regcard seemed fine. The new one I've got recently is a whole different story and it's surely legit, I just can tell that.
@@nattila7713 Wouldn't look that legit, if it was old. :D Seriously, I still trust in the community and fellow collectors, I have no doubt this time around.
@@Galdelico ok but I saw repro from the 90s and it looked VERY legit. it smelled legit. it even had value just for being an old repro!!! 😀 (was a loose cart only and wasn't a copy of an expensive game!! what a waste :) )
Thanks for the very well made and detailed video my friend, it's been a while but I really missed your great comparative videos as it seems the RUclips algorithm is not showing or pushing your videos on the main page like before, anyways hope your all doing well in the pandemic and thanks for the great content.
A few years ago I got some repros for my Sega Saturn so I could try Panzer Dragoon Saga, Policenauts and a few others that I could never afford. I've recently upgraded to a satiator but without the repro's I wouldnt have had the chance to try these amazing games.
No they don't. They're just normal CDR discs. They won't run on a stock Saturn though without doing the disc swap trick or having a mod chip. Unless he means the classic Hong Kong silvers which were actual pressed discs. But again they wouldn't run like an official game.
I buy Japanese Mega Drive games from EBay from time to time as they're often very cheap and usually in great condition. The full colour manuals and maps included with RPGs are worth it for me. Looking over some of them after watching your video, looks like I got originals!
I found where to buy them and ordered one of everything. It’s great to anyone having lost a collection and being able to rebuild it very cheaply and share it with my kids on a reproduction system. I don’t have to worry about damage as it’s all insanely cheap
That is one way to look at it. For the kids it wouldn't really matter that they are repros but it does matter that they are able to relive your experiences as a kid.
ive been collecting repro games for a year now. I have 15 of the best Snes games in my collection (all replicas). I run them on a SNES HDMI clone from China. I don't know how it runs on an original console. I had 0 issues so far with the following Graphics Performance Sound Battery Life Console damage if you are like me and want to relive your childhood, give them a try.
You can bevel the edges yourself. I did so with my repro copy of Grind Stormer (V-V) It also does not use a flash chip so it is the correct voltage. I also stuck the PCB into a authentic cart and printed a new label.
From what I've heard from various sources is that the damage would occur to the cart itself when using the wrong voltage. Extra heat would build up on the mechanisms inside the cart itself, not the system. So at worst you might end up damaging the actual repro cart, but there is little risk to the system itself. I am really not sure if this is the case or not as there has been plenty of debate over this, that's just what I have heard.
It's all a mess when it comes to info on this subject. All I can say is that as a kid I had a few multi game carts that were played a lot. They never damaged my system.
I wish eBay , Amazon, and Etsy would ban this crap. Nothing worse than having to wade through tons of this to find authentic copies. The market is saturated with fake carts, inserts, labels. I've never seen the point of these when you can just play the SMS/GEN/32X roms on a single $30 EverDrive. (Or go old school with a Magic Drive, and play them from floppy disks!) 😀
As long it's works I fine with it, but with advance of flashcart like Everdrive pro and MegaSD I don't think repro worth that much now (except for few titles) but again if you want something to display and try to fool your friend who visit your game rooms to make them think you have super duper expensive game ? I think that worth it.
I own hundreds of very rare and expensive games but even I will buy a repro just to have a boxed game. Thing is, if someone asked if it was legit I'd be ashamed to say it was. I've no issues telling someone that one of my games is a repro 😁
I plan a wall of Atari 2600 games, all 3D printed cases and all with that STM32 homebrew flash cart inside. It will clear as day that these are repros. But i won't mind as all the games are long out of print and i won't harm anyone, besides some shady "collectors", with this. Will they be fun to play nonetheless? Of course!
I got cartridge-only repro editions of the more expensive games among those you showed, and got the sleeves printed separately. I think they all come from the same files on the Internet, so I had to edit colours and borders to get good prints. Also the scans can show a moiré effect for example in the blue background of Twinkle Tale, so I added a bit of blur in some areas. Haven't got the manuals, but can you find the same titles at Pocket Games?
I don't know if its said before, but the back of the cartridge has also the Sega logo stamped on it. Capcom, Taito and Namco have even their own logo on the back.
I love seeing these classics after many years of not playing the physicals since the 1998. Very informative as usual and thank you again. Taito Egret 2 mini announced and is looking like a bigger and nicer improvement over the SEGA Astro City Mini check it out. Capcom Tron Retro Station is gorgeous and only in Japan (lucky guy) hope to see a future review wink wink on any of these 3 named devices (2 of which are available).
Pretty cool. The frosted cases make a world of difference even if it means you have to source them separately (I imagine plenty of sports games are going to lose their case..) (edit: I previously used FIFA Soccer as an example but apparently that game in Japan is about 25 dollars CIB -_-;)
I've ordered from both of those places and others (on Aliexpress) and the "quality" varies from order to order and product to product. Always a gamble.
Well those snobs stating repros as skank really despise peeps like me....without emulation all my childhood and beyond would of been lost. Dont worry Mark- you are far from a snob. Just someone who appreciates quality. Had I of still carried on collecting- for sure I would of swapped out those cases. As it stands my entire collection of 1000s of roms from many a platform sits on 1 teeny-tiny sd card. Gotta love technology on that front right?
If I wasn't fortunate I'd have loads of repros for personal use just so I can see the complete game on the shelf. Back in the mid 90s I had over a hundred Saturn Hong Kong silver discs. I was a poor teenager then. Now I own the originals but those silvers still made me very happy back in the mid 90s.
eBay is rife with knock off Vampire Killers being passed off as original. Thankfully most of them are easily spotted because like you noted, they use the front cover for the label. So if it has a squashed Konami label in the bottom right it’s a knock off! I hadn’t clocked that original MD PCBs are brownish, I knew to look for the bevel but often eBay images are so blurry (possibly deliberately) you can’t always see the PCB edge, but I doubt there’s much an unscrupulous seller can do about the PCB colour (other than use an image nicked from somewhere else).
Man I learned my lesson on "repros" (bad quality repros might as well just be called shitty bootlegs) for JP MD games a few years ago when I bought what I thought was a legit copy of TMNT Return of the Shredder on eBay. Not only was the case and cart label wrong (squashed front cover) but when I put the game in and turned it on, it skipped the SEGA and KONAMI logo screens and went straight to the intro, worse yet, the cartridge had the US ROM on it (Hyperstone Heist). Thankfully I got my money back, but that experience opened my eyes. It might have burned my eyes too because the case smelled like chlorine.
@@RetroCore oh the item matched the pictures in the listing. The box and cart label were akin to the cheaper repros you showed in the video. It just had a shitty pirated rom which are known to bypass the Sega logo and security checks.
Great vid, Mark. I was waiting for it. About these MD repros, I don't think there's much sense in collecting them, except for one or other title to put on the gaming place shelf. Flashcarts are here to stay. Where did you get these genuine MD boxes? "Cannibalized" other games? And what about Famicom repros? Did you ever find any w/ quality worth buying?
In the US we have Genesis games that have white PCB edges that are authentic... EA and Accolade games are like this. Not manufactured by Sega but I consider them to be authentic because they are.
There are those who will try to sell you a knock-off because they never saw the authentic game cart/movie, CD or DVD. Where I live, only reproduction... ok, knock-offs were available for Sega Mega Drive. In a nutshell, they don't know what they're selling. Many of them will just put the title "Game for Sale" or will misspell the game's/movie's title. They have the game in their possession, with the title visible and still spelled the game's (or the movie, again) title wrong. :-))) They just don't care.
Why do both Battle Mania repro carts feature a distorted, "squished" version of the box art? It's one thing if only one of the two looked like that, but it's just weird they both look like that. There wasn't even an attempt to make those look official. The one with the blank background and dull red font especially looks like they didn't even try.
I sometimes knowingly buy repros of rare Atari 2600 games, all from AtariAge. They identify them as repros and monitor sites like eBay to ensure that they aren't being resold. They're easy to spot anyway. As for myself I never sell my repros.
@@bigpopparand1 I know. In fact I have 5 more orders of homebrew titles from them being processed for the 2600 and ColecoVision, plus two more orders that have shipped.
I only own 1 repro, Wily Wars, bought from a person in the US who used to do them years ago. Of course that repro won't ever be for sale, it is for my entertainment purpose only. I buy nothing from China. I was looking up Castlevania Legends Game Boy values on Ebay for shits and giggles, 3 repros stood out. Not only for their too cheap to be true prices, but the label on the GB carts had artwork that was far too dark. The sellers didn't even have the games labeled as bootlegs or reproduction carts.
Now that is what I'm talking about when I say scum or arse hole. Selling a repro with it marked as a repro is fair but selling a repro to deceive people is not acceptable.
What seller did you go thru to order just the PCB for that Megadrive repro? Would be very interested in this for myself for some select fan translations and such.
I have nothing against repros, as long as they are well made I think they are a good substitute for games that are impossible to get (because of their price and/or rarity), only true purists hate them, but that kind of collector doesn't play their games, they don't want them for anything else but to display them in a vitrine, and for that an empty box is better.
You're not wrong about that. You should see how hilariously indignant Pat the NES Punk and his brown-noser buddy Ian get about repros. I can get the problem with them being passed off as OEM, which IS scummy, but for the most part, collectors like them are the ones who drove the prices to the insane heights that necessitate repros and flash carts in the first place.
For the most part, I don’t buy repros especially for cartridge systems. I have a flash cart for Mega SD from TerraOnion, SD2SNES, 2 EverDrives on my GBC and GBA and a 2 DS flash cartridges, so there is no need for me to purchase a repro for a cartridge based console. As for me, I store a bunch of roms onto a micro SD card, so it makes it pretty much pointless for me as I don’t plan on buying a whole collection of games (for any console) because all I need is one for consoles and maybe two on handheld cartridge based systems for multiplayer purposes. I own only 2 reproduction discs on my Saturn with being Radiant Silvergun and Panzer Dragoon Saga.
I have all the flash carts too but I just like opening a box and plugging in an actual cartridge. The repros in this video were all bought just for the sake of making this video but I can understand the appealing nature of them. For many it's the closest they'll get to seeing what the original is like. Kind of like seeing a reprint of an old art piece I guess.
Honestly I probably wouldnt want to buy repro game carts. I see why people would want to though. If they were dirt cheap i would, but 100 bucks or more for 5 repro games isnt worth it. I could spend that 100 on one real game that has resale value. I will, however, buy repro boxes for expensive games i already own. Primarily the cardboard boxes for snes games. Not so much clamshell sega games.
I don't get repros... If you are a hardcore collector these are not desirable, if you are not a collector then an Everdrive makes more sense. For me, these make no sense as they will only add storage space on a shelf and you'll ALWAYS know they are not "original" so why bother?
Because they look nice? I don't know really. It all depends upon the person. Someone may desire the original but can't afford the crazy prices yet they yearn to plug in a cart to play rather than loading a rom. I guess that's who they appeal to.
@@RetroCore why would you think that? I was just saying that there are scalpers selling pokemon games for 200$ nowadays and they trash talk the fakes for doing what they are meant to do. Thats where you come in, you make these videos and it shows people that the games aren’t all that bad. You just misunderstood me, sorry. Keep doing you.
@@RetroCore Multiple games even. There were alot of 4 in 1 carts, especially of the earlier games. As a young boy, I didn't know better. I'm kinda wanting to buy an official cart for some of the old megadrive games now though.
Thanks, you should try « future store », they’re the best. The super Famicom are just 100% the same as the original, megadrive games are very good as well.
I'm not gonna pay sixty dollars for Mario cart for my 64 I get repros for 18.99 they aren't perfect but I can play the games I want I've had good luck with multicart and repros I have snow bros for NES and genesis real game is 300 which is nutso
Anyway, thanks for the thorough information. Reminds me to pay close attention to exactly what I'm buying if I get any. I'm not at all opposed to repros for my own personal use, and might snag a select title or two here and there when I get extra hungry for another cart. Unfortunately getting a proper case isn't going to be easy and it'll stick out like a sore thumb, only bothering me personally I'm sure but hey, that's who my collection is for after all.
Repros are fine, the assholes are the ones who want to sell them as originals. Many years ago i sold some Battletech Repros of so called lost mechs, mainly the old pre-lawsuit Marauder, on eBay Germany. Clearly marked them as such and nobody minded.
Repro is one way to beat chip and disc rot. I see no issues with them. So long as they aren't being passed off as original copies.
the packaging of the japanese megadrive cartridges is the best in the history of video games: sturdy, durable and with outstanding artwork.
Absolutely Agree!
You're not wrong there 👍
The more I look up Japanese Mega Drive games, the more I wish the U.S. stuck with them compared to the "meh" Genesis versions
And Sega of America blocked and altered nearly 100% of all the original Japanese created artworks as well as imposed censorship but they pushed Eternal Champions which featured torture porn fatalities worldwide.
@@apollosungod2819 In fairness most Western publishers were guilty of using new artwork/altering content they felt appealed to their own territories.
The American Genesis releases also had the hang tags on the cases.
Cheers. Looks like only the Japanese games didn't have them.
@@RetroCore Japanese Mega Drive games had hang tags from 1994 onwards. Stuff like Puyo 2, Pengo, Madō monogatari I, etc etc.
@CoffeeMan Most of the sun faded spines can be attributed to used game shops keeping them under UV emitting CFL lighting, or being in sunny windows all day long. Genesis, and (sadly), Neo•Geo AES boxes too. They are just a bit easier to spot with the solid red/green MD logo, with green often turning to a blue tint.
I had a few of those cheap repros from Aliexpress with that large empty plastic piece attached to the pcb and the non-beveled connectors. Some of them I only played once or twice, then for no reason at all they stopped booting up. On the other hand, all of my multicarts and Everdrive clones that I also got from Aliexpress still work fine.
Sound like you got some pretty awful repros. But yeah, anything made in China that wasn't overseen by a western or Japanese / Korean company will be a crap shoot. They just have no quality control for domestic made products.
Stellar video! I live in Japan as well, and there are now a ton of repros on the various auction sites and online marketplaces. Most sellers are pretty honest, but always good to be educated. Would love for you to do this for other systems as well, especially Neo Geo!
I report every repro on Yahoo Auctions if it doesn't state its a repro or "Chinese version" . Yahoo love their ban hammer. I've had two accounts band because I tried to sell ever drives. Both for Nintendo consoles. Nintendo are real dicks and go after anyone selling anything that "harms them" . Sega don't care, sold a few Sega ever drives no problem. All the Ever Drives I sold are the legit ones too. Not the Chinese knock offs.
Basically "Chinese version" in Japan = Knock Off. So if you ever see those words on an auction you know it's not original.
By the way, which part of Japan do you live in?
If you can't tell the difference between the official and the repro then it doesn't really matter. Just enjoy the game :)
I personally ordered my first repros a few months ago and so far I'm limiting my buys to Japanese exclusives that have translation patches so I got Rudora, Live a Live and Star Ocean.
Love this vid thanks Mark, my days of collecting those awesome MD games are long gone so watching you tinker with originals and repros makes for compelling viewing. You just can't repro the smell of the original products.
Ah, the smell of an original is surely something they'll never be able to copy.
12:24 office carts run at 5 volts.
Thanks retro dude, now I know what to do should I ever pick up an office cart in staples!
It said office? Oh, bloody typos 😢
6:22 happy to see i'm not the only one that sniffs stuff 🤣
Lol, nothing wrong with a little sniff here and there 😁
As much as I enjoyed your video - I follow you for ages and you earned my endless respect as a retrogamer and collector - I really believe these repros are gonna be THE cancer in retrocollecting, sooner than we expect. Even by just sticking to MD games, it happened to me I bought (through a good friend and collector himself) a Vampire Killer from Yahoo Auctions, last year, and I'm still 99,99% sure it had at least a repro manual... Such a good repro, in case, that I even wondered if it mattered at all, but you know what I mean. I paid a 'genuine' retro price for that game, and so I ended up giving it back to the same friend, who btw thought I was wrong and sold it again to another person (and I bought it again too, a month or so ago, from a reputable Japanese collector).
A decade down the line, we'll be possibly paying grands for an Eliminate Down coming with a repro cover, or manual, or cartridge sticker, without even knowing it, and I don't like this scenario one bit.
I'm all in for reproductions and reprints that also come with their own package/manual design and differentiate from the originals (like your prototype), but these life-like copies... I wish they weren't so well accepted everywhere. When they will be generally made of a better quality, it may be too late to take countermeasures.
The repros from China are cheap crap and easy to tell but the Castlevania sounds like a one off professional copy if it looks that good. What makes you think it is a repro? Does it have a chemical smell to it? Is the paper too thick? They are two 100% signs of a repro manual or cover.
@@RetroCore Exactly. I bought brand new MD games even in the recent years, and they all had the typical 'I've been stored somewhere for some decades, now' kinda smell to them. That Vampire Killer's manual smelled like a blueprint, honestly. Professionally printed for sure, if I was right and that was a repro, to the point it made me wonder if it even mattered... It did, in the end. I wasn't so sure about the cover sheet either, as it was so white and pristine, and the colors looked a tiny bit too dark, and again, it didn't smell like storage. Cart and regcard seemed fine.
The new one I've got recently is a whole different story and it's surely legit, I just can tell that.
@@Galdelico legit or old repro? ;)
@@nattila7713 Wouldn't look that legit, if it was old. :D
Seriously, I still trust in the community and fellow collectors, I have no doubt this time around.
@@Galdelico ok but I saw repro from the 90s and it looked VERY legit. it smelled legit. it even had value just for being an old repro!!! 😀 (was a loose cart only and wasn't a copy of an expensive game!! what a waste :) )
Thanks for the very well made and detailed video my friend, it's been a while but I really missed your great comparative videos as it seems the RUclips algorithm is not showing or pushing your videos on the main page like before, anyways hope your all doing well in the pandemic and thanks for the great content.
Thank, Terry. Sadly there's not much I can do about RUclips and its Algorithm 😭. How can I push my channel?
Just stay true to your great format and spice things up maybe by doing old vs new reviews for classic re-released games.
A few years ago I got some repros for my Sega Saturn so I could try Panzer Dragoon Saga, Policenauts and a few others that I could never afford. I've recently upgraded to a satiator but without the repro's I wouldnt have had the chance to try these amazing games.
Repros are great for personal use. I have no issues at all with that :)
No they don't. They're just normal CDR discs. They won't run on a stock Saturn though without doing the disc swap trick or having a mod chip.
Unless he means the classic Hong Kong silvers which were actual pressed discs. But again they wouldn't run like an official game.
Genuine Sega cart PCB edge always been that 'brown' colour since beginning, a simple but great indicator of a genuine product ✌️
Lesson learnt, the Best repros come from your place
Lol, compared to those from China, I'd say so.
Very useful! Thanks!
I always loved the japanese artwork of 16 bit cartdriges in general.
I buy Japanese Mega Drive games from EBay from time to time as they're often very cheap and usually in great condition. The full colour manuals and maps included with RPGs are worth it for me. Looking over some of them after watching your video, looks like I got originals!
Good to hear.
I found where to buy them and ordered one of everything. It’s great to anyone having lost a collection and being able to rebuild it very cheaply and share it with my kids on a reproduction system. I don’t have to worry about damage as it’s all insanely cheap
That is one way to look at it. For the kids it wouldn't really matter that they are repros but it does matter that they are able to relive your experiences as a kid.
ive been collecting repro games for a year now.
I have 15 of the best Snes games in my collection (all replicas). I run them on a SNES HDMI clone from China. I don't know how it runs on an original console.
I had 0 issues so far with the following
Graphics
Performance
Sound
Battery Life
Console damage
if you are like me and want to relive your childhood, give them a try.
SERIOUS, in Brasil most snes, ps1 and ps2 NEVER saw an original game and survive a long time!
You can bevel the edges yourself. I did so with my repro copy of Grind Stormer (V-V) It also does not use a flash chip so it is the correct voltage. I also stuck the PCB into a authentic cart and printed a new label.
Sounds like that was an older repro.
From what I've heard from various sources is that the damage would occur to the cart itself when using the wrong voltage. Extra heat would build up on the mechanisms inside the cart itself, not the system. So at worst you might end up damaging the actual repro cart, but there is little risk to the system itself. I am really not sure if this is the case or not as there has been plenty of debate over this, that's just what I have heard.
It's all a mess when it comes to info on this subject. All I can say is that as a kid I had a few multi game carts that were played a lot. They never damaged my system.
I wish eBay , Amazon, and Etsy would ban this crap. Nothing worse than having to wade through tons of this to find authentic copies. The market is saturated with fake carts, inserts, labels. I've never seen the point of these when you can just play the SMS/GEN/32X roms on a single $30 EverDrive. (Or go old school with a Magic Drive, and play them from floppy disks!) 😀
As long it's works I fine with it, but with advance of flashcart like Everdrive pro and MegaSD I don't think repro worth that much now (except for few titles) but again if you want something to display and try to fool your friend who visit your game rooms to make them think you have super duper expensive game ? I think that worth it.
I own hundreds of very rare and expensive games but even I will buy a repro just to have a boxed game. Thing is, if someone asked if it was legit I'd be ashamed to say it was. I've no issues telling someone that one of my games is a repro 😁
LOL! I just wrote something similar I just noticed after I posted my comment I scrolled down and read this... Too late for me!
I plan a wall of Atari 2600 games, all 3D printed cases and all with that STM32 homebrew flash cart inside. It will clear as day that these are repros. But i won't mind as all the games are long out of print and i won't harm anyone, besides some shady "collectors", with this.
Will they be fun to play nonetheless? Of course!
Yes American Genesis cases have the Retail tag.
Thanks. I wasn't sure about that.
I got cartridge-only repro editions of the more expensive games among those you showed, and got the sleeves printed separately. I think they all come from the same files on the Internet, so I had to edit colours and borders to get good prints. Also the scans can show a moiré effect for example in the blue background of Twinkle Tale, so I added a bit of blur in some areas. Haven't got the manuals, but can you find the same titles at Pocket Games?
I haven't really looked too deeply at what titles they stock.
I always loved the Japanese Mega Drive cartridges vs the US and EU ones.
Honestly, they seem a bit unnecessarily bulky on the sides. The US/EU design is super sleek, without those unsightly bulges on the sides.
I really like (proper) repro carts. I like using real hardware but don't like paying 500€+ for an old game.
I'm with you there. Some of the prices now are crazy.
I don't know if its said before, but the back of the cartridge has also the Sega logo stamped on it. Capcom, Taito and Namco have even their own logo on the back.
Very true. And SunSoft games had their very own cartridge design. Or at least in Japan they did.
I love seeing these classics after many years of not playing the physicals since the 1998. Very informative as usual and thank you again. Taito Egret 2 mini announced and is looking like a bigger and nicer improvement over the SEGA Astro City Mini check it out. Capcom Tron Retro Station is gorgeous and only in Japan (lucky guy) hope to see a future review wink wink on any of these 3 named devices (2 of which are available).
The Taito Egret 2 looks very cool, especially the rotating screen for vertical shooters. Shame its not out until next year.
A flame war to start if it's on Neo-Geo with repros Mark. 8^)
Anthony..
I ain't going there 😁
Nice video, thank you !
Just one remark though, hook on the box actually exists with some late japanese MD games like Alien Soldier or Ristar.
Interesting the voltage question, but is it possible to change some component in the PCB to make it become 5 volts?
I guess that is possible but I wouldn't know how.
Pretty cool. The frosted cases make a world of difference even if it means you have to source them separately (I imagine plenty of sports games are going to lose their case..) (edit: I previously used FIFA Soccer as an example but apparently that game in Japan is about 25 dollars CIB -_-;)
Lol, yep. Those cases came from shitty sports games and strategy games by Koei. Or so I was told.
I've ordered from both of those places and others (on Aliexpress) and the "quality" varies from order to order and product to product. Always a gamble.
Best just to by the raw PCB if possible then buy some crappy cheap original game and make your own covers. Much better results.
Well those snobs stating repros as skank really despise peeps like me....without emulation all my childhood and beyond would of been lost. Dont worry Mark- you are far from a snob. Just someone who appreciates quality. Had I of still carried on collecting- for sure I would of swapped out those cases. As it stands my entire collection of 1000s of roms from many a platform sits on 1 teeny-tiny sd card. Gotta love technology on that front right?
If I wasn't fortunate I'd have loads of repros for personal use just so I can see the complete game on the shelf. Back in the mid 90s I had over a hundred Saturn Hong Kong silver discs. I was a poor teenager then. Now I own the originals but those silvers still made me very happy back in the mid 90s.
eBay is rife with knock off Vampire Killers being passed off as original. Thankfully most of them are easily spotted because like you noted, they use the front cover for the label. So if it has a squashed Konami label in the bottom right it’s a knock off!
I hadn’t clocked that original MD PCBs are brownish, I knew to look for the bevel but often eBay images are so blurry (possibly deliberately) you can’t always see the PCB edge, but I doubt there’s much an unscrupulous seller can do about the PCB colour (other than use an image nicked from somewhere else).
Man I learned my lesson on "repros" (bad quality repros might as well just be called shitty bootlegs) for JP MD games a few years ago when I bought what I thought was a legit copy of TMNT Return of the Shredder on eBay. Not only was the case and cart label wrong (squashed front cover) but when I put the game in and turned it on, it skipped the SEGA and KONAMI logo screens and went straight to the intro, worse yet, the cartridge had the US ROM on it (Hyperstone Heist). Thankfully I got my money back, but that experience opened my eyes. It might have burned my eyes too because the case smelled like chlorine.
Sounds like they sent you a different item than what they pictured.
@@RetroCore oh the item matched the pictures in the listing. The box and cart label were akin to the cheaper repros you showed in the video. It just had a shitty pirated rom which are known to bypass the Sega logo and security checks.
Oh, I see what you mean. I actually have a repro that starts with a Magical Crackers boot screen intro. It's really funny seeing this on a cartridge.
Great vid, Mark. I was waiting for it. About these MD repros, I don't think there's much sense in collecting them, except for one or other title to put on the gaming place shelf. Flashcarts are here to stay. Where did you get these genuine MD boxes? "Cannibalized" other games? And what about Famicom repros? Did you ever find any w/ quality worth buying?
I bought a load from Yahoo Auctions. They originally belonged to crappy sport and strategy games by Koei according to the seller.
Hello again keep up the great work I enjoyed your episodes on repro games it would be nice in my country if I could send away for some of those
I think you can but from the links in the video description. Chinese store will ship anywhere in the world.
Fantastic video!
Thanks
In the US we have Genesis games that have white PCB edges that are authentic... EA and Accolade games are like this. Not manufactured by Sega but I consider them to be authentic because they are.
Still easy to tell because real EA and Accolade card are a different shape 👍. Repros never use those card shapes.
I see Tokai and I think great Japanese replica fenders and Gibsons 👍
There are those who will try to sell you a knock-off because they never saw the authentic game cart/movie, CD or DVD. Where I live, only reproduction... ok, knock-offs were available for Sega Mega Drive. In a nutshell, they don't know what they're selling. Many of them will just put the title "Game for Sale" or will misspell the game's/movie's title. They have the game in their possession, with the title visible and still spelled the game's (or the movie, again) title wrong. :-)))
They just don't care.
Ah, but that's a different thing. They don't know better. Sellers on Ebay and those Chinese site do know better.
@@RetroCore but it's strange. For SNES: All carts were genuine. Real deal.
Sega Mega Drive 90%+: bootlegs!
I wonder why? 🤔
Why do both Battle Mania repro carts feature a distorted, "squished" version of the box art? It's one thing if only one of the two looked like that, but it's just weird they both look like that. There wasn't even an attempt to make those look official. The one with the blank background and dull red font especially looks like they didn't even try.
All repros from that store look like that. Better manuals but rubbish looking carts.
I sometimes knowingly buy repros of rare Atari 2600 games, all from AtariAge. They identify them as repros and monitor sites like eBay to ensure that they aren't being resold. They're easy to spot anyway. As for myself I never sell my repros.
Atariage makes Good new games for the 2600 also
@@bigpopparand1 I know. In fact I have 5 more orders of homebrew titles from them being processed for the 2600 and ColecoVision, plus two more orders that have shipped.
Of the reproduction some are of high quality builds
Yes but which ones isn't easy to tell.
I only own 1 repro, Wily Wars, bought from a person in the US who used to do them years ago. Of course that repro won't ever be for sale, it is for my entertainment purpose only. I buy nothing from China. I was looking up Castlevania Legends Game Boy values on Ebay for shits and giggles, 3 repros stood out. Not only for their too cheap to be true prices, but the label on the GB carts had artwork that was far too dark. The sellers didn't even have the games labeled as bootlegs or reproduction carts.
Now that is what I'm talking about when I say scum or arse hole. Selling a repro with it marked as a repro is fair but selling a repro to deceive people is not acceptable.
What seller did you go thru to order just the PCB for that Megadrive repro? Would be very interested in this for myself for some select fan translations and such.
Sadly I don't remember. I made that Junkers High about 5 or more years ago.
I have nothing against repros, as long as they are well made I think they are a good substitute for games that are impossible to get (because of their price and/or rarity), only true purists hate them, but that kind of collector doesn't play their games, they don't want them for anything else but to display them in a vitrine, and for that an empty box is better.
You're not wrong about that. You should see how hilariously indignant Pat the NES Punk and his brown-noser buddy Ian get about repros. I can get the problem with them being passed off as OEM, which IS scummy, but for the most part, collectors like them are the ones who drove the prices to the insane heights that necessitate repros and flash carts in the first place.
@@jesuszamora6949 It was Pat Contri I was thinking of when I mentioned the purists, it's people like him who keep the price of retro games too high.
White is shite, brown is sound
For the most part, I don’t buy repros especially for cartridge systems. I have a flash cart for Mega SD from TerraOnion, SD2SNES, 2 EverDrives on my GBC and GBA and a 2 DS flash cartridges, so there is no need for me to purchase a repro for a cartridge based console. As for me, I store a bunch of roms onto a micro SD card, so it makes it pretty much pointless for me as I don’t plan on buying a whole collection of games (for any console) because all I need is one for consoles and maybe two on handheld cartridge based systems for multiplayer purposes. I own only 2 reproduction discs on my Saturn with being Radiant Silvergun and Panzer Dragoon Saga.
After owning a mister i have no use for flashcarts
I have all the flash carts too but I just like opening a box and plugging in an actual cartridge.
The repros in this video were all bought just for the sake of making this video but I can understand the appealing nature of them. For many it's the closest they'll get to seeing what the original is like. Kind of like seeing a reprint of an old art piece I guess.
What about using repro carts on clone consoles? Could they also potentially damage them as well?
Yep
@@RetroCore thank you for answering
No problem.
Honestly I probably wouldnt want to buy repro game carts. I see why people would want to though. If they were dirt cheap i would, but 100 bucks or more for 5 repro games isnt worth it. I could spend that 100 on one real game that has resale value. I will, however, buy repro boxes for expensive games i already own. Primarily the cardboard boxes for snes games. Not so much clamshell sega games.
i read that even alot of flashcarts suffer from poor voltage translation too, bad design etc, :( makes me scared to use them even though i own them.
The earlier ones did but stuff from the past two years is fine. Well, as long as they are legit ones and not the Chinese knock offs.
I don't get repros... If you are a hardcore collector these are not desirable, if you are not a collector then an Everdrive makes more sense. For me, these make no sense as they will only add storage space on a shelf and you'll ALWAYS know they are not "original" so why bother?
Because they look nice? I don't know really. It all depends upon the person. Someone may desire the original but can't afford the crazy prices yet they yearn to plug in a cart to play rather than loading a rom. I guess that's who they appeal to.
@@RetroCore Like pr0n? lol!
“Fake games are evil” ~ Scalper man selling all the games for 200 dollars each.
Hope you are not referring to me as selling fake games.
@@RetroCore why would you think that? I was just saying that there are scalpers selling pokemon games for 200$ nowadays and they trash talk the fakes for doing what they are meant to do.
Thats where you come in, you make these videos and it shows people that the games aren’t all that bad.
You just misunderstood me, sorry.
Keep doing you.
Sorry, when I read the comment I wasn't paying attention. All is cool👍
No official carts where I'm from. No manuals, no inserts. Just the cart.
That's a bummer but at leat you still get to play the game.
@@RetroCore Multiple games even. There were alot of 4 in 1 carts, especially of the earlier games. As a young boy, I didn't know better. I'm kinda wanting to buy an official cart for some of the old megadrive games now though.
Thanks, you should try « future store », they’re the best. The super Famicom are just 100% the same as the original, megadrive games are very good as well.
I'll take a look. Thanks.
Repros are money thrown away.
The real problem is DATA RETENTION on flash memory.
A real cart uses maskrom, and this makes the money spent worth.
I'm not gonna pay sixty dollars for Mario cart for my 64 I get repros for 18.99 they aren't perfect but I can play the games I want I've had good luck with multicart and repros I have snow bros for NES and genesis real game is 300 which is nutso
Oof... that repro case is really a turn off, right off the bat!
Anyway, thanks for the thorough information. Reminds me to pay close attention to exactly what I'm buying if I get any. I'm not at all opposed to repros for my own personal use, and might snag a select title or two here and there when I get extra hungry for another cart. Unfortunately getting a proper case isn't going to be easy and it'll stick out like a sore thumb, only bothering me personally I'm sure but hey, that's who my collection is for after all.
Yeah, those repro cases are horrible and they're always scratched too.
I think those EA sports games (with the yellow do-dad) are "white" boards. Least here in America they are.
EA, even back then the were cost cutting nobs.
Ah, but they are easy to tell apart due to the odd cartridge Shape. No repros use those shells.
👍👍👍👍 video
Repros are fine, the assholes are the ones who want to sell them as originals. Many years ago i sold some Battletech Repros of so called lost mechs, mainly the old pre-lawsuit Marauder, on eBay Germany. Clearly marked them as such and nobody minded.
That is perfectly fine IMO. As long as it is clear they are repros then all is cool.