Lagrange Point on Famicom: Konami’s 1991 FM-Sound RPG, Its Code RC851, and How to Tell It From English NES Reproductions

Lagrange Point went on sale in Japan on 26 April 1991 as a Konami Famicom cartridge, at 8,500円 before tax. Its label spells the title in Latin letters, LAGRANGE POINT™, with ラグランジュポイント underneath. It is a science-fiction role-playing game set on a space colony in the 22nd century, and it is the only released game that used the FM sound built into Konami’s VRC7 chip.

This is an entry in a series about games that never got a second part. We found no sequel, side story, remake or port from Konami, and no statement from anyone who made it explaining why. What it left behind is its music, which has been reissued on CD and vinyl, and an English fan translation.

• Japanese title: ラグランジュポイント, published by Konami. The label, box and manual print the logo LAGRANGE POINT™ in Latin letters, but the game has no English edition
• Famicom cartridge: 26 April 1991 · 8,500円 before tax
• Catalogue number: RC851, no hyphen, printed on the front label under “© KONAMI 1991”
• Sound: the only released game to use the FM synthesis in Konami’s VRC7 chip
• Japan only: “FOR SALE and USE IN JAPAN ONLY” is printed on the box and the manual
• No second part: no sequel, side story, remake or port. Why is not on record
• Buying it: search RC851 at Suruga-ya. A cartridge shaped for the NES, or one with English text, is a reproduction

What is Lagrange Point, and how does it play?

The back of the box sets it up. In the 22nd century a biological disaster breaks out on the space colony イシス (Isis), mutants take over the whole colony almost at once, and a long human resistance begins; the story follows a boy, Jin, and his companions as they fight the Bio army that now rules it. The box’s headline is 感動は宇宙を貫く！コナミの放つSF-RPG超大作 — roughly, “emotion that pierces space: Konami’s epic sci-fi RPG” — and it promises a system for combining weapons and anime-style cutscenes. The word the box uses for the disaster is バイオハザード, five years before Capcom made it the Japanese title of Resident Evil.

The box also prints its staff. The character art is by the manga artist Fujihiko Hosono, and the music is by Noriyuki Takahashi and Akio Dobashi, credited as “EX. REBECCA”, with Konami Kukeiha Club, Konami’s in-house sound team. Production cooperation is credited to Family Computer Magazine’s 芸夢工房. One more line on the box is worth knowing: シャープのC1ではご使用になれません — it will not run on Sharp’s C1, a television with a Famicom built in.

What made Lagrange Point sound different?

The cartridge carries a Konami chip, the VRC7, which adds FM synthesis to the Famicom’s own sound. The box says so itself: 新LSI「VRC7」がファミコン初のFM音源を実現 — “a new LSI, the VRC7, brings FM sound to the Famicom for the first time”. Konami said the same on its official X account on the game’s anniversary in 2017: ファミコン初のFM音源を実現させています. Note what Konami claims: the first. It does not say the only.

That it also stayed the only one comes from other sources, and they agree. The NESdev Wiki, a technical wiki run by Famicom and NES programmers, says VRC7 audio “was only used in one game, Lagrange Point”. Hardcore Gaming 101 calls it “the only title to take advantage” of the chip. Japanese Wikipedia says it is the only Famicom game to implement FM sound. The VRC7 chip itself also turns up in Tiny Toon Adventures 2, but NESdev notes that that cartridge does not use the audio. NESdev also describes the FM part as a cut-down derivative of Yamaha’s YM2413 (OPLL), with six FM channels where the YM2413 has nine; that detail rests on NESdev.

Was Lagrange Point ever released outside Japan?

No. The back of the box and the back cover of the manual both carry the printed line “FOR SALE and USE IN JAPAN ONLY”, and the box adds 本品の輸出、使用営業及び賃貸を禁じます (“export, commercial use and rental of this product are prohibited”). English Wikipedia says the game was released only in Japan and never localized. We found no record of a Western version being announced.

Do not let the Latin letters mislead you. The logo on the label, the box and the manual reads LAGRANGE POINT™, but that is the logo, not an English edition. Apart from it, the only English on the box is that export line, “MADE IN JAPAN” and the staff credit “EX. REBECCA”. There is no English title line and no English tagline.

Why it stayed in Japan is not on record either. One source offers a reason: RetroCollect, a retro-gaming news site, wrote in 2014 that the VRC7 “vastly increased the cost of production, which is possibly the reason” the game was never localized. That is the only source we found for it, and it says “possibly”. Japanese Wikipedia repeats it, citing RetroCollect.

Which release is the Japanese cartridge, and what is its code?

The Media Arts Database has the cartridge as row M727043: title LAGRANGE POINT, taken from the cartridge label, with ラグランジュポイント as its other name; Famicom; published 1991-04-26 by コナミ株式会社; product ID RC851; 8,500円 (税抜).

Two other places agree on the code. The NES Cart Database gives RC851 as the front-label ID, and Suruga-ya returns this game and nothing else for RC851. The code on the Japanese cartridge is RC851, with no hyphen. On the cartridge it is printed in the top-right corner of the front label, directly under “© KONAMI 1991”. It also appears in the top-right corner of the manual cover and on the box’s end flaps, but not on the box’s spine. We checked the label on the NES Cart Database’s scans and on a Japanese seller’s photos.

The list price is 8,500円 before tax. That is the Media Arts Database figure, and Suruga-ya shows 定価：￥9,350, which is that price with today’s 10% consumption tax added: 8,500 × 1.1 = 9,350.

Why was there never a Lagrange Point 2?

We do not know, and we looked. We found no sequel, side story, remake or other game that Konami built on this one, and no interview or post in which anyone who worked on it explains why there was no second game.

What you will read instead comes from wikis and fans. ゲームカタログ@Wiki, a Japanese wiki, lists possible reasons — staff who have left Konami, development files whose whereabouts are unknown, a poor internal reputation after weak sales, and rights that may be hard to handle because many elements, including the title, came from reader submissions. It says these are reasons “that can be inferred from statements by people involved”, but it does not say who said what, and it states without a source that Konami judged the game a failure. Other fan pages guess that it simply did not sell. Treat all of it as guesswork.

Nor has the game come back. We found no port, compilation or download: it does not appear in Wikipedia’s lists of Virtual Console, Nintendo Switch Online, Console Archives, Classic Mini or Project EGG titles. Treat that as “none found”, not as proof. The music is another matter. EGG MUSIC reissued the soundtrack on CD in 2015 as LAGRANGE POINT SOUNDTRACKS RETURNS, and Universal Music released it on vinyl in 2024, paired with Falsion, in its ミュージック フロム コナミアンティークス series.

What English versions exist?

An English fan translation exists. Romhacking.net, a fan-run database, lists it as released by the fan group Aeon Genesis: fully playable, version 1.01, dated 5 November 2014. According to the same page, the project began with another group, J2E Translations, and passed to Aeon Genesis around 2007. RetroCollect reported the translation on 23 October 2014.

Reproduction cartridges are sold too, and they are shaped for the NES. On 25 September 2026 the top eBay result for Lagrange Point was a new NES-shaped cartridge listed as “Lagrange Point - Nintendo NES - GAME ONLY”, with more than ten in stock, and an online shop, n-bro8, lists “Lagrange Point For Nintendo NES” as a 72-pin cartridge at $17.99. Neither page says which version of the game is on it. Other shops list English versions by name — search results show titles such as “Lagrange Point (English Version)” — but we could not open those pages. These are shop listings. Konami never made an NES cartridge of this game.

How do you tell an original cartridge from a reproduction?

As far as any source we found records, Konami released Lagrange Point only as a Japanese Famicom cartridge. Any Lagrange Point cartridge that is shaped for the NES, or whose game text is in English, is a reproduction.

• The code: the original has RC851 in the top-right corner of the front label, under “© KONAMI 1991”. The reproduction at the top of eBay’s results has “© KONAMI 1991” but no RC851
• The seal: that reproduction’s label also carries a black band with “Nintendo Entertainment System” and an “Official Nintendo Seal”. Nintendo never approved an NES release of this game, so the seal is not genuine
• The shape: a Famicom cartridge has 60 pins and does not fit a North American or European NES without an adapter. A cartridge that slots straight into an NES is not the 1991 release
• The game text: the original’s messages and dialogue are in Japanese. English dialogue means the fan translation
• The listing words: do not count on the seller to say “repro”. The eBay listing above does not

There is also the sound. Two community-run technical wikis, NESdev and ConsoleMods, note that the NES’s 72-pin cartridge connector lacks the Famicom’s audio pins, so a Famicom game’s extra sound chip is not heard on an unmodified NES. That is a general point about the hardware, not a test of any reproduction; we have not played one. If you want the VRC7’s FM sound, the safe choice is the original cartridge in a Famicom.

If you are buying in person in Japan, you can show this line to the staff: これは1991年のオリジナル版ですか？ — “Is this the original 1991 version?”

How do you search each shop for it?

Suruga-ya: the code, in the game category. RC851 gives results: 1 in the default view and 5 with sold-out items shown, all of them this cartridge. RC-851 with a hyphen returns the same listings plus an AV selector. The Japanese title gives results: 2 in the default view and 14 with sold-out shown, also all of them this game, including the box and the manual sold on their own. Across the whole store the title also picks up the strategy guide and merchandise from the band Sukima Switch’s 2010 tour, so keep the game category on. Lagrange Point in Latin letters returns only items from MARGINAL#4, a media franchise with a group called LAGRANGE POINT.

Buyee: the title with the console. ラグランジュポイント ファミコン returned 42 listings, of which 28 were this game (cartridges: 26; manuals on their own: 2). The rest were soundtrack CDs, strategy guides, 1991 flyers and mixed lots. The title alone returned 74, of which the same 28 were the game; the others added the Sukima Switch tour, “LAGRANGIAN POINT”, MARGINAL#4 goods and more soundtracks. RC-851 returned two listings, both this game, but two is too few to rely on, and RC851 without the hyphen returned 412, almost all car and radio-control parts.

eBay: the English title with “famicom”. Lagrange Point famicom returned exact matches: 19 (this cartridge: 16; mixed lot: 1; strategy guide: 1; listing titled only “Lagrange Point”: 1). It also kept the NES reproduction out. Lagrange Point alone returned 205, led by that reproduction and crowded with baseball cards of a player named Carlos Lagrange, a MARGINAL#4 CD and a vinyl soundtrack. Lagrange Point NES returned 12, the reproduction among them. The code does not work on eBay, and the Japanese title returns things from places called La Grange.

What gets mixed in, and how to spot it: soundtracks say CD, LP or サウンドトラック, and include SOUNDTRACKS RETURNS and the Konami Antiques series; Sukima Switch items say “LAGRANGIAN POINT” and “TOUR 2010”; the strategy guide is 完全攻略本; flyers are チラシ; MARGINAL#4 items name that franchise or its characters. A game listing says ファミコン, FC or Famicom, and often RC851.

Why search Kataban for this one?

Because the Latin title finds the wrong things at most shops, and the code only works at some. Kataban puts the code and the Japanese title side by side. Search RC851, Lagrange Point or ラグランジュポイント and you get this cartridge. In second-hand game shops in Japan, such as Book-Off, Famicom games are often shelved in Japanese syllabary order, so the section to look in is ラ.

Lagrange Point · ラグランジュポイント · Famicom, 26 April 1991 (RC851) · Konami

Where to buy: Suruga-ya.jp — the code (RC851) · Buyee — the title with the console (ラグランジュポイント ファミコン) · eBay — Lagrange Point famicom
See it on Kataban →

On 25 September 2026 Suruga-ya’s main entry for the cartridge was ￥5,800, with a one-day sale taking it to ￥5,510, while the separate entry marked 箱説なし — no box, no manual — was ￥8,520. The loose cartridge cost more than the main entry that day. Prices like these move from day to day; read the condition of each copy, not just the number.

A game that did something no other Famicom game did, and then had nothing after it. Lagrange Point stayed in Japan, never got a second part, and never came back except as music and a fan translation. If you want the one from 1991, look for RC851 under “© KONAMI 1991” on the label, and play it on a Famicom to hear the FM sound.