TGS post #2: Super Bros. World 1
So, D4. I don't know much about them, and I hardly understand Japanese so it's difficult to find out. But old games seem to be at the heart of their business. I have their brochure open in front of me right now, and it's mostly tiny screenshots of old games, sorted by format, I think. Obscure formats, too -- the MSX is the only one I've heard of. So maybe they re-release old games, through emulation or something? That's my guess. Here, look:

http://www.d4e.co.jp/
http://www.amusement-center.com/project/egg/

Anyway. Like I already wrote, they have this MSX clone called the 1chipMSX, and that's what they were showing off at TGS. So later on Saturday afternoon, I found myself back at the D4 booth again, part of a small group of strangers gathered around a particular old game, and this nerdy guy comes up and pulls a weird MSX game out of his bag. I don't know why he was carrying it around with him. But this was it:



Super Bros. World 1. Some sort of Mario bootleg from fuck knows where, featuring slightly unsettling cover art and the fruitiest Mario I've ever seen.

Now, maybe this particular bootleg is common knowledge, or maybe this LJ post is the first the internet has heard about it -- I don't know. But it was new to everyone there at the time, so of course someone plugged it in and we all had a look. And I took some photos. And here they are.



A closer look at the cover art. I love that lopsided Toad. And what's that expression on Mario's face? "Ah'm a EAT CHOO!"



Back cover. Note the Korean. And the logo: Clover. Does that mean anything to anyone?



A better look at those two characters, who have nothing to do with anything, surely.



So! The actual game. I'm not sure exactly which Mario it's based on, but I think Mario 3? It did have a 'map screen' that looked like the Mario 3 one, but I didn't get a photo of that, unfortunately. But this screen here looks... sort of Mario 3-ish, but sort of Mario World-ish too, don't you think? Maybe it's a mish-mash.



Sorry about the blur. But you can see that Mario seems to be wearing a hat. And see those pink flowers? There were a few things like that: Most of the graphics are straight copies, but there were a few background things, like those pink flowers, that the bootleggers added in. I don't know why. Maybe just for fun? It's kind of fun to make graphics?







The cartridge, obviously.





Title screen!

And that's it, I'm afraid. We didn't have long with the game. But yeah, there you have it: An old, Korean Mario bootleg, played on a clone of a system no-one's heard of, and I took more photos of it than any other game at the show. I think that says more about me, though, than it does about TGS.

Anyway, I hope someone finds it interesting.

Man. It'll be next year's TGS by the time I finish writing about this year's. Oh well!

NEXT TIME: Something. I dunno. Maybe the Sony party? Whatever; we'll see.