Jaleco's Saiyuki World (Famicom, 11 November 1988, product code NMK-KW) is Wonder Boy in Monster Land retold with Journey to the West characters, and the cartridge never left Japan. How it relates to Wonder Boy, why a Jaleco game carries an NMK code, the MNK-KW misprint, and how to find the cartridge.
Rainbow Parasol Collection arrives 8 October with Rainbow Islands CS, Parasol Stars and Spica Adventure. Rainbow Islands CS is six home conversions, one of them a Genesis build cancelled in 1994; Parasol Stars never had an arcade version; and Spica began as a 2003 mobile phone app. Only the Mega Drive Rainbow Islands EXTRA carries a product code, and measured Suruga-ya hit counts are below.
Shops overwrote Famicom Disk System disks for 500 yen, so the first Castlevania that actually circulates today is Konami's 1993 ROM cartridge, RV003. The Japanese Castlevania III cartridge also carries a VRC6 sound chip the NES could not use.
Capcom's Ghosts 'n Goblins reached the Famicom on June 13, 1986, ported by Micronics and widely considered harder than the arcade original. What the cartridge is, and the product code (CAP-MK) that finds it.
Terra Cresta hit the Famicom on September 27, 1986 — forty years ago this month. Most Western fans know only the 1990 NES port. Here's what the original cartridge has, and the product code (NBF-TC) that finds it.
Before Street Fighter II, there was a doodle at a dull meeting, a bug that made fireballs nearly impossible to throw, and a warehouse of unsold cabinets. How the 1987 arcade original was made.
The original 1987 Street Fighter arcade game had pressure-sensitive punch pads that hurt players' hands. Its replacement six-button layout, and Ryu's name, still shape the series today.
Capcom announced Mega Man: Dual Override for 2027, with both Mega Man and Proto Man playable. Here's what was revealed, and where the series started on the Famicom in 1987.
HAMSTER's Console Archives series brings BUBBLE BOBBLE to Switch 2 and PS5. The 1987 Famicom original was a Disk System release, not a cartridge — here's what that means for collectors.
City Connection has announced Jajamaru no Hyakki Yakouden, a new dungeon-crawling action game in the 40-year-old Ninja JaJaMaru-kun series. Here's what was revealed, and where to find the original 1985 Famicom game.
Four-player co-op lands August 25. Japan's game database tells a stranger story about what came before — and the closest thing you can actually buy isn't officially Aliens at all.
Five regional releases, one myth about censorship that keeps getting repeated — and the product codes for the versions that never left Japan.
Type a Western title. Get the Japanese name, the cartridge code printed on the spine, and links to the shops that have it.
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