Famicom 198 in 1 & 218 in 1 multicarts

Multicarts! For the Famicom! If you have any experience with these things, you no doubt know the perils of high stated game counts, where just about anything above a 50 in 1 is likely to contain repeats, and anything above 10 frankly could still be suspicious. But not anymore! A welcome trend coming out of China recently has been to release Famicom multicarts with game counts running up to the 100s that actually have the stated number of games on them! (more or less) And I have a couple of them here - let's start with this 198 in 1:

This one was released under the CoolBoy brand (酷孩); some previous carts (including other high-capacity multicarts and reissues of Waixing games) were released by a company called Fuzhou Coolboy Electronics Co., Ltd (福州酷哥电子有限公司) but the Chinese name is different (酷哥 kù gē rather than 酷孩 kù hái) and seemingly this is not the same outfit, because when you turn it on you see:

The menu credits "深圳市仁顺科技", Shenzhen Renshun Technology - a different company doing very similar things under a very similar brand. Presumably either they're connected somehow or one ripped off the other.

A piece of paper was included with the game list in Chinese, which is nice, if you can understand it:

for those of you who can't, here's the full game list in English, as it appears in the menu:

1. CONTRA 1
2. CONTRA 2
3. CONTRA 3
4. CONTRA 6
5. CONTRA 7
6. CONTRA 8
7. KAGE
8. FINAL MISSION
9. DOUBLE DRAGON 1
10. DOUBLE DRAGON 2
11. DOUBLE DRAGON 3
12. DOUBLE DRAGON 4
13. CHIP & DALE 1
14. CHIP & DALE 2
15. CHIP & DALE 3
16. ROBOCOP 1
17. ROBOCOP 2
18. ROBOCOP 3
19. ROBOCOP 4
20. TINY TOON 1
21. TINY TOON 2
22. TINY TOON 3
23. NINJA GAIDEM 1
24. NINJA GAIDEM 2
25. NINJA GAIDEM 3
26. HOT BLOOD WRESTLE
27. HOT BLOOD STORY
28. HOT BLOOD SOCCER 1
29. HOT BLOOD MARCH
30. ADVENTURE ISLAND
31. ADVENTURE ISLAND 2
32. ADVENTURE ISLAND 3
33. ADVENTURE ISLAND 4
34. NINJA TURTLES 1
35. NINJA TURTLES 4
36. STREET FIGHTER 201
37. KICK MASTER
38. MIGHTY FINAL FIGHT
39. STREET FIGHTER
40. MORTAL COMBAT 4
41. ASTYANAX
42. THREE EYES BOY
43. SNOW BROS
44. SPIDERMAN
45. BATMAN
46. KYUUKYOKU TIGER
47. POWER RANGER
48. GULF WAR
49. BUBBLE BOBBLE 2
50. DARKWING DUCK
51. KERO KERO KEROPPI
52. ARABIAN
53. GUERILLA WAR
54. DEAD FOX
55. POWER BLADE 1
56. ZIPPY RACE
57. LUNAR BALL
58. GALAXIAN
59. MAHJONG 2
60. TETRIS 2
61. NAITOU
62. TANK 90
63. F1 RACE
64. CHINESE CHESS
65. SOCCER
66. LODER RUNNER
67. CIRCUS CHARLIE
68. MACROSS
69. SUPER MARIO
70. EXCITE BIKE
71. MACH RIDER
72. ARKANOID
73. LEGEND OF KAGE
74. DR. MARIO
75. TENNIS
76. STAR FORCE
77. 1942
78. PINBALL
79. SKY DESTROYER
80. POPEYE
81. MIGHTY BOMB JACK
82. ROAD FIGHTER
83. MUSCLE
84. GALAGA
85. ALADDIN 3
86. ICE CLIMBER
87. BOMBERMAN
88. MAPPY
89. HARRY POTTER
90. TWIN BEE
91. SPARTAN X
92. PIKA CHU
93. GRADIUS
94. DONKEY KONG 1
95. DONKEY KONG 2
96. DONKEY KONG 3
97. DONKEY KONG 4
98. AQUARIUM
99. ARENA
100. AIR ALERT
101. AWFUL RUSHING
102. AIMLESS
103. BURBLES
104. BURROW EXPLORER
105. BUG'S WAR
106. BOMB KING
107. BASEBALL NEW
108. BUBBLE
109. CANNONADE
110. HITMOUSE
111. COAST GUARD
112. CUB ADVENTURE
113. DEPTH BOMB
114. DEVILDOM DOOM
115. DIAMOND
116. DUNE WAR
117. FIREBASE
118. FIRST DEFENDER
119. FIVE DAYS
120. FRANTIC MOUSE
121. FRUIT DISH
122. GALLAGANT
123. GARDEN WAR
124. GATE
125. HALLIHOO
126. HEXAPOD NEW
127. HEXAPOD WAR
128. LABYRINTH
129. LUNARIAN
130. MAD XMAS
131. MOTOBOAT
132. PANZER ATTACK
133. POBBLE
134. POLAR BAT
135. RURALGOBLIN
136. ROBOT
137. SEASON GARDEN
138. SHREW MOUSE
139. SNOWBALL
140. STAR FIGHTER
141. STRAFE
142. SMALL DINOSAUR
143. SILENT HUNTER
144. THE ARCHER
145. TWIN CARDS
146. UNDERSEA ARENA
147. WARRIOR
148. ABSCONDEE
149. AETHER CRUISER
150. AIM CRUISE
151. P.O.W
152. JUNGLE BOOK
153. ABARENB
154. ZOOM
155. TOM AND JERRY
156. AIR WOLF
157. ALIEN 3
158. SUPER SPY HUNTER
159. SUPERMAN
160. SWORD MASTER
161. TAITO BASKETBALL
162. ALL-PRO BASKETBAL
163. SUMMER CARNIVAL'9
164. INDIANA JONES
165. RACE AMERICA
166. BRUCE LEE 2
167. BANANA PRINCE
168. SHATTERHAND
169. SAINT
170. ROCKIN KATS
171. JUUOUKI
172. NINJA CAT
173. GUNNAC
174. IKARI 3
175. PANIC RESTAURANT
176. WHOMP'EM
177. WOLVERINE
178. THE LEGEND OF PRI
179. TOP GUN
180. TALESPIN
181. SQUASHED
182. NEWZEALAND STORY
183. MISSION IMPOSSIBL
184. MONSTER IN MY POC
185. GUN DEC
186. CONQUEST OF THE C
187. MARIO 10
188. MARIO 12
189. MARIO 14
190. WAR WOLF
191. HOT BLOOD BASKETB
192. HOT BLOOD ICE HOC
193. HOT BLOOD NEW REC
194. HOT BLOOD SOCCER
195. HOT BLOOD VOLLEYB
196. JACKAL
197. LIFE FORCE
198. RUSH'N ATTACK

The games listed in italics above are Chinese originals by the developer Nice Code Software; they're mostly fairly simple (their later games are better but sadly far less common) and I think most of them are dumped by now, but a couple of the more interesting ones that aren't (as far as I know) dumped are Season Garden and Zoom:

Season Garden is mostly your typical whack-a-mole game, Nice Code have certainly covered this territory before, but (as the name possibly implies) the seasons change and there are some cute touches like how the dude in the top left changes along with them.

Zoom is basically a fly-upwards-avoid-the-obstacles type of deal which later received a graphical overhaul and an extra "ing" in this VT03 version.

A few other things that aren't immediately obvious:

• "Street Fighter" is inevitably the "Fighter Street VI 12 Peoples" version, which is one of the worse Street Fighter ports out there, but also the most common on multicarts :(
• Super Mario Bros runs waaayy fast, I think too fast to even be the PAL version; it might be hacked somehow
• Donkey Kong 4 is actually Donkey Kong Jr. Math; don't get your hopes up about it being the Hummer Team one or anything
• "Pika Chu" is the Pokemon-themed Tetris game by Nice Code, also known as "Poke Tetris"
• Harry Potter is the hack of Magic Carpet 1001 with really really really bad music
• Gulf War is just the regular version of Silkworm
• and Superman has had his copyright screwed around with:

(If there are any others listed you aren't sure about, post a comment!)

All in all, it's a pretty great compilation, really. Almost every Kunio game! Recca! Banana Prince (the German version, no less)! A nice combination of popular games and obscure stuff, plus a selection of Chinese originals (which, okay, is probably of more interest to me than most people). One thing I could fault it on is that they saw fit to include a bunch of Mario hacks but not Super Mario Bros 2 (either version) or 3, but still. It's a good cart!

Could it be improved, though? Someone certainly thought it could, because here we have:

The JF2181 218 in 1 Super Game! Basically the same cart again, but with twenty more games added to it. The manufacturers in this case are unknown - there's a big space where Renshun Technology's name used to be in the menu, so presumably it wasn't them, but other than that it's mysterious. And blue. And made of cheaper plastic.

I won't bother with a full game list this time as it's so similar to the cart above; a few have been rearranged as well as new games added, so the first 10 now looks like this:

1. CONTRA 1
2. JACKAL
3. LIFE FORCE
4. RUSH'N ATTACK
5. TOP GUN
6. WHOMP'EM
7. KERO KERO KEROPPI 2
8. PLEASANT GOAT
9. ANGRY BIRDS 2
10. SAINT

The new games here are all pretty interesting: we have Kero Kero Keroppi 2, actually the English fan translation (version 0.9, no less) of that game, "Angry Birds 2", an Angry Birds-themed hack of New Zealand Story, and... Pleasant Goat!

Yep, it's a hack of the German version of Banana Prince featuring the popular Chinese cartoon character. Of course it is. The new sprites are actually pretty cute; unfortunately they have slightly ruined the game by attempting to pull the standard hacker tactic of making it start on level 2-1 (to make it look less obviously like the original game), because it actually sends you back to level 2-1 every time you die, meaning you effectively have to complete the whole game in one life or reset and go back to the password screen each time. Which is a shame :( If it's ever dumped I'd quite like to hack the hack and try to fix it. Still, at least the original Banana Prince is on here too.

Everything from there on is the same as the 198 in 1 (aside from those games that were plucked out and moved to the first page), until you reach no. 202, where we find the remaining 17 extra games tacked onto the end:

202. SILK WORM
203. SD FIGHTER
204. CHASE H.Q 2
205. FERRARI
206. TEMCO WORLD CUP S
207. MARIO 16
208. MARIO MISSING
209. HOME ALONE 2
210. MICKEY MOUSE 5
211. DISNEY 2
212. GOLF
213. PACMAN
214. JOUST
215. NUTS AND MILK
216. POOYAN
217. BALLOON FIGHT
218. KUNG FU

"Silk Worm" here is actually the untitled 2003 Iraq War-themed hack of that game (featuring George W. Bush, naturally); SD Fighter is just Mighty Final Fight again, Mickey Mouse 5 is Mickey's Adventures in Numberland, Disney 2 is Doki Doki Yuuenchi and everything else is what it says it is.