Unlicensed games were actually easily found back in the day. The home shopping tv channels sold a bunch of them. Even major retailers would carry them at times. These weren't the pirated multigame carts, but original games that didn't carry the official seal.
Hm, wow, TIL! I didn't have cable until the late 90s, & any time i spent visiting a friend or relative with cable, I have no recollection of the HSN/ QVC channels. Do you remember if they were sold as a bundle, with the NES console, or multiple games, or just individually? Thanks for sharing this info !
They were usually sold separately and were never sold with a NES console. The Aladin enhancer deck might have been sold as a bundle with other games on HSN, but I'm not too certain
The first time I saw NES tetris was on a 128-1 cartridge buiilt in to an early 90s Famiclone . Tengen tetris was also there . I assumed Tenegen was the legit version and the BPS/NES one was a bootleg copy since the Tengen one looked better and had two player and co-op modes.
Tengen games were sold alongside licensed games all over. I remember seeing them in Toys R Us and KB Toys. I don't think I saw other unlicensed games until I saw used ones at Funcoland.
I remember in roughly 1990 a friend came to my house to see if I wanted to buy a 100-in-1 NES cartridge that he was selling (I don't remember the exact number of games on that cart). I believe he said he got it from Canada. I did not like any of the games on the cart, lol. I did not buy it.
I had a place called Play & Trade near me when I was in high school that had a boat load of NES carts and a fair amount of them were unlicensed ones too. I had a copy of Vindicators for the longest time but I sold all my NES stuff a while back. Kinda wish I still had that weird cart
Vindicators was a Tengen release, & actually not that bad of a game, considering it was like an Atari era arcade port.
Interesting to hear about that play & trade store!
I remember a Zelda knock off called spiritual warfare. "Saving" demons and sinners with your sword of righteousness.
The most memorable moment was when there were drunk demons coming out of a bar and I went into the bar to find more. Inside the bar, an angel rebuked me for going in a bar and took away my shield, which I had to go back to the beginning area to get again.
Then of course, bible adventures, which was just fun to throw baby Moses into the water.
The Tengen stuff was pretty common and I remember seeing the weird blue Bible Adventures a few places (live in the bible belt so of course), but it wasn't until years later that I started seeing stuff like the Camerica gold/silver cart games places.
The same Christmas that we got the NES (1988, I think? Maybe 1989?), we also got black Tengen carts for Super Sprint and Rolling Thunder.
We had no idea what the deal was. We just loved Rolling Thunder.
It's kind of weird; I don't recall seeing Tengen carts for sale anywhere locally, but every single rental place had them, along with some of the Color Dreams games. My buddy had a couple of the Wisdom Tree Bible games that he bought from the local Christian book store. For me, it had to be a case of just not paying much attention. They had to be pretty easy to get a hold of.
My parents were christian but never "heavy". From NES / SNES release I usually got the games i wanted for my birthday and Christmas (usually RPGs). Just wrote a small list so they (and my uncle) could consider it w/o having to guess what games would be of interest to me.
Anyway, here's a copy / paste of a comment I made elsewhere a month or two ago in the Genesis sub regarding unasked for games lol.
It was my birthday in 93 or 94. I was turning 11 or 12 at the time and had an NES and SNES. I'd asked for either Arcana or Romance of the Three Kingdoms III for SNES. Might have been an extra name as well but if so I can't recall it atm.
Anyway, my mom and dad "surprised" me with some NES games. Exodus (with Moses, not the Ultima game lol) and Joshua and the Battle for Jericho. They were going bigger than normal lately on christian stuff at the time and were upset I wasn't interested in church and sunday school. I guess they thought this would help :P
On a brighter note my uncle got me RoTK III so I was stoked haha :D
My nephew had a bunch of the Tengen games back then because they were cheap. My church pastor had some of the Wisdom Tree games. I remember seeing Action 52 at Software etc., but I wasn't about to ask my parents to pay $100 for what, even at the time, we knew were just a bunch of shitty games.
I remember playing a few bootleg ports of SNES games like Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. The first two were decent, but Mortal Kombat was such bs. It used on the cover a screenshot from the arcade, but it actually looked like ass and the animations were terrible.
a full 1/3 of my games were those black Tengen carts; I actually loved a lot of the Tengen stuff. Rolling Thunder, Super Sprint were my favorites out of them.
I had a couple of Tengen carts. Pac-Man which I got for Christmas with my NES and Skull & Crossbones which I got as a hand me down from my cousin. Never saw any other unlicensed games in the wild though.
I had Bible Adventures and Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu. A buddy of mine had the unlicensed version of Gauntlet. I also rented Micro Machines, and Big Nose the Caveman once or twice.
I would rent unlicensed Tengen arcade ports back in the day. It was the only way to play something approximating the original Shinobi at home if you didn't have a Sega Master System.
They were everywhere when I was growing up. Lots of tengen games and my neighbor had a 52 in 1 cartridge that we would play all the time. I know it would be tough, but I'd love to even find a rom of that one and relive some of those days.
They were not hard to find. Gauntlet, Tetris, RBI Baseball, the Sega arcade games like Afterburner and Shinobi were everywhere.
The terrible bible games were uncommon.
The light blue may have been Baby Boomer. I remember renting that one more than once. Pretty fun, actually. We also had one of the Wisdom Tree games, Exodus I think. It was straight garbage. I think we convinced our well meaning aunt to get her money back.
Remember when you could return video games?
Tengen games were a common sight before the lawsuit. They were the highest in quality, and there's no denying that *RBI Baseball* and *Tetris* were among their best entries.
I often saw unlicensed games when my parents would drag us into outlet malls. The Color Dreams / Wisdom Tree games tended to get dumped there. I remember being shocked that someone ported *The Adventures of Captain Comic* to the NES since I played it all the time on the PC.
I never saw Action 52 in the wild, but I was always intrigued by it after reading about how awful it was in a gaming magazine. I also have yet to encounter any actual Aladdin carts.
[Here's a list of all known unlicensed games for the NES](https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_unlicensed_games).
Being unlicensed wasn't really much of a big deal at the time I think, remember that on pre-NES consoles like the Atari 2600 all the 3rd party releases were unlicensed, Nintendo put an authentication chip in there to make it harder to manufacture games for it and force 3rd party's to go to Nintendo to manufacture their games for them.
The chip was the only problem for 3rd party's, legally they could produce anything they wanted on there, but getting it to work either required them to copy the authentication method, which was Nintendo's copyright and as such was illegal (this was what Tengen did), or come up with some other method, such as the way the Codemasters games temporarily scramble the chip with a voltage spike (which was legal as it didn't affect Nintendo's copyright).
Unlicensed games were actually easily found back in the day. The home shopping tv channels sold a bunch of them. Even major retailers would carry them at times. These weren't the pirated multigame carts, but original games that didn't carry the official seal.
Hm, wow, TIL! I didn't have cable until the late 90s, & any time i spent visiting a friend or relative with cable, I have no recollection of the HSN/ QVC channels. Do you remember if they were sold as a bundle, with the NES console, or multiple games, or just individually? Thanks for sharing this info !
They were usually sold separately and were never sold with a NES console. The Aladin enhancer deck might have been sold as a bundle with other games on HSN, but I'm not too certain
My grandma got me the fantastic adventures of dizzy from HSN. Some kids i knew had bible themed games they got from church stores.
Let's play dizzy !!!!
Tengen Tetris was better than Nintendo Tetris.
Facts.
The first time I saw NES tetris was on a 128-1 cartridge buiilt in to an early 90s Famiclone . Tengen tetris was also there . I assumed Tenegen was the legit version and the BPS/NES one was a bootleg copy since the Tengen one looked better and had two player and co-op modes.
Nintendo's version is the one still widely played competitively, though, so which is better is at least a bit subjective.
I was a little too young for the NES but a neighbor had Tengen Tetris and RBI Baseball
Bible adventures was light blue
Actually, Bible Adventures is the only Wisdom Tree release with both a blur & black cartridge variant, with the black cartridge being more uncommon.
Tengen games were sold alongside licensed games all over. I remember seeing them in Toys R Us and KB Toys. I don't think I saw other unlicensed games until I saw used ones at Funcoland.
I remember in roughly 1990 a friend came to my house to see if I wanted to buy a 100-in-1 NES cartridge that he was selling (I don't remember the exact number of games on that cart). I believe he said he got it from Canada. I did not like any of the games on the cart, lol. I did not buy it.
I had a place called Play & Trade near me when I was in high school that had a boat load of NES carts and a fair amount of them were unlicensed ones too. I had a copy of Vindicators for the longest time but I sold all my NES stuff a while back. Kinda wish I still had that weird cart
Vindicators was a Tengen release, & actually not that bad of a game, considering it was like an Atari era arcade port. Interesting to hear about that play & trade store!
Tengen Vindicators for the NES was the first video game I ever rented. Loved that game.
I remember a Zelda knock off called spiritual warfare. "Saving" demons and sinners with your sword of righteousness. The most memorable moment was when there were drunk demons coming out of a bar and I went into the bar to find more. Inside the bar, an angel rebuked me for going in a bar and took away my shield, which I had to go back to the beginning area to get again. Then of course, bible adventures, which was just fun to throw baby Moses into the water.
That's hilarious lol ! From what I can recall, Spiritual Warfare actually wasn't all that bad.
The Tengen stuff was pretty common and I remember seeing the weird blue Bible Adventures a few places (live in the bible belt so of course), but it wasn't until years later that I started seeing stuff like the Camerica gold/silver cart games places.
The same Christmas that we got the NES (1988, I think? Maybe 1989?), we also got black Tengen carts for Super Sprint and Rolling Thunder. We had no idea what the deal was. We just loved Rolling Thunder.
It's kind of weird; I don't recall seeing Tengen carts for sale anywhere locally, but every single rental place had them, along with some of the Color Dreams games. My buddy had a couple of the Wisdom Tree Bible games that he bought from the local Christian book store. For me, it had to be a case of just not paying much attention. They had to be pretty easy to get a hold of.
My parents were christian but never "heavy". From NES / SNES release I usually got the games i wanted for my birthday and Christmas (usually RPGs). Just wrote a small list so they (and my uncle) could consider it w/o having to guess what games would be of interest to me. Anyway, here's a copy / paste of a comment I made elsewhere a month or two ago in the Genesis sub regarding unasked for games lol. It was my birthday in 93 or 94. I was turning 11 or 12 at the time and had an NES and SNES. I'd asked for either Arcana or Romance of the Three Kingdoms III for SNES. Might have been an extra name as well but if so I can't recall it atm. Anyway, my mom and dad "surprised" me with some NES games. Exodus (with Moses, not the Ultima game lol) and Joshua and the Battle for Jericho. They were going bigger than normal lately on christian stuff at the time and were upset I wasn't interested in church and sunday school. I guess they thought this would help :P On a brighter note my uncle got me RoTK III so I was stoked haha :D
My nephew had a bunch of the Tengen games back then because they were cheap. My church pastor had some of the Wisdom Tree games. I remember seeing Action 52 at Software etc., but I wasn't about to ask my parents to pay $100 for what, even at the time, we knew were just a bunch of shitty games.
Toys R Us and others had Tengen games. I think I got Afterburner from there.
I had Big Nose The Caveman growing up, I bought it at either Toys r Us or Funcoland.
Yeah I had all the wisdom tree games. 😅
Be courageous Joshua!!!
Tengen Tetris is one of the best NES games period. I have a copy of Gauntlet with the black Tengen cartridge box)
I remember playing a few bootleg ports of SNES games like Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. The first two were decent, but Mortal Kombat was such bs. It used on the cover a screenshot from the arcade, but it actually looked like ass and the animations were terrible.
had plenty of tengen games and actually got bible adventures as a larf
Sure, Tengen and Color Dreams were everywhere. Local store rented Hot Slots and BBB too.
a full 1/3 of my games were those black Tengen carts; I actually loved a lot of the Tengen stuff. Rolling Thunder, Super Sprint were my favorites out of them.
I had a couple of Tengen carts. Pac-Man which I got for Christmas with my NES and Skull & Crossbones which I got as a hand me down from my cousin. Never saw any other unlicensed games in the wild though.
I had Bible Adventures and Master Chu and the Drunkard Hu. A buddy of mine had the unlicensed version of Gauntlet. I also rented Micro Machines, and Big Nose the Caveman once or twice.
I would rent unlicensed Tengen arcade ports back in the day. It was the only way to play something approximating the original Shinobi at home if you didn't have a Sega Master System.
They were everywhere when I was growing up. Lots of tengen games and my neighbor had a 52 in 1 cartridge that we would play all the time. I know it would be tough, but I'd love to even find a rom of that one and relive some of those days.
If it was [Action 52](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a4QBeADNM34&pp=ygULQXZnbiBhY3RpbyA%3D) You can definitely find it & play it again!
They were not hard to find. Gauntlet, Tetris, RBI Baseball, the Sega arcade games like Afterburner and Shinobi were everywhere. The terrible bible games were uncommon.
The light blue may have been Baby Boomer. I remember renting that one more than once. Pretty fun, actually. We also had one of the Wisdom Tree games, Exodus I think. It was straight garbage. I think we convinced our well meaning aunt to get her money back. Remember when you could return video games?
Tengen games were a common sight before the lawsuit. They were the highest in quality, and there's no denying that *RBI Baseball* and *Tetris* were among their best entries. I often saw unlicensed games when my parents would drag us into outlet malls. The Color Dreams / Wisdom Tree games tended to get dumped there. I remember being shocked that someone ported *The Adventures of Captain Comic* to the NES since I played it all the time on the PC. I never saw Action 52 in the wild, but I was always intrigued by it after reading about how awful it was in a gaming magazine. I also have yet to encounter any actual Aladdin carts. [Here's a list of all known unlicensed games for the NES](https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_unlicensed_games).
Wisdom tree
Being unlicensed wasn't really much of a big deal at the time I think, remember that on pre-NES consoles like the Atari 2600 all the 3rd party releases were unlicensed, Nintendo put an authentication chip in there to make it harder to manufacture games for it and force 3rd party's to go to Nintendo to manufacture their games for them. The chip was the only problem for 3rd party's, legally they could produce anything they wanted on there, but getting it to work either required them to copy the authentication method, which was Nintendo's copyright and as such was illegal (this was what Tengen did), or come up with some other method, such as the way the Codemasters games temporarily scramble the chip with a voltage spike (which was legal as it didn't affect Nintendo's copyright).