Actually good bootleg./unlicensed console games?

[Sonic Angel Knight]

This is a simple question to any of those brave individual players out there. Are there actually any good bootleg or unlicensed games worth playing?

Not to be confused with rom hacks, which basically modify existing "Source Code" of a game to alter a already established structure. No, these are different. Bootleg are games that are usually made to copy existing material with its own unique game coding. Somari is probably the most popular example, a game that struggles to make a Sonic The Hedgehog game playable on NES but has Super Mario instead. Which you know is just silly.

I guess to add a example of a unlicense game, is basically any game that doesn't have "Seal of approval" on the game case. Back in the day, some of the games weren't exactly bootleg, the publisher just didn't get approval from the company's console owner. Games released by Tengen was notorious for this. But some games was actually homebrew, made entirely new games like Battle Kid or Pier Solar and the Great Architects.

Just wanted to make sure that people know the difference. So if you came across any Bootleg or Unlicensed games that aren't rom hacks, share your thoughts on them. I was curious if there is any good ones, because there is so many bad ones. There has to be some good in that bad.

 

[TangentingTangerines]

While I haven't played any of these extensively myself, the Hummer Team Aladdin bootleg on the nes is pretty fantastic. It looks and plays very similarly to the Capcom Snes version, and is ten times better than the officially released Aladdin NES port by Virgin. Same goes for the Lion King by Super Game on the NES. Kart Fighter on the NES is also surprisingly good, and I'd argue it's probably the best Fighting game on the NES (Granted it doesn't have much competition). Somari and Super Mario World Bootlegs are both interesting and very ambitious, however not neccesarily good. However, there is a Game Genie code out there that fixes the wonky controls and physics in Mario World, as well as fan patches for Somari that improve just about everything. Finally there are also bootlegs of Pokemon Emerald and Final Fantasy 4 on the NES, which are also very ambitious, but they're both entirely in Chinese so unless you can read Mandarin, they're impossible to decipher. There's a few other decent bootlegs out there, but I can't remember them at the moment.

If you're interested in Bootleg games, I highly recommend checking out the Bootleg Games Wiki. (https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/BootlegGames_Wiki) as well as a documentary series called the Dendy Chronicles made by Kinamania () Dendy Chronicles audio is all in Russian, however it has captions in English, and it gives excellent insight into the 1990's Russian/Eastern European Video Gaming Market, which was comprised entirely of Bootleg games and consoles from China and Taiwan.

 

[Ryccardo]

Hong Kong 97 may not be something you'd play for more than a couple of hours, but it's fairly entertaining - especially if you know the (development) story behind it

Where do you draw the line of "not a hack"? Dian Shi Ma Li is a fairly entertaining game (or at least "video toy"), but the commonly available rom of it is in fact a hack (removed title screen credits) of the knockoff original

 

[GayCoonie]

Pokemon Yellow for the NES seems playable. There's a good English translation patch and everything.

 

[kuwanger]

Thanks to the rise of repo carts, there are now people taking homebrew games and making actual carts out of them. So, look on Amazon and you can find rather nice games like "Blade Buster". I won't link to actual repo sites because too many of them are repoing commercial games--and admittedly even repoing "Blade Buster" is at best a gray area.

 

[Noafretab]

Not sure if anyone will read this but there are some good bootleg games that haven't been mentioned here. Vast Fame on the GBC made a very good mega man ripoff call Zook Hero Z, some decent Pokemon and Digimon take-off, and some ok KoF based games. In terms of ports, Hummer Team's DKC4 and Final Fight 3 ports were excellent. Shenzen Nanjing also made an impressive version of FF7 and Resi 1. Gamtec's Squirrel King (chip and dale) is ok too

 

[JaNDeRPeiCH]

You should go to handheld underground site its good start to look some weird good looking bootlegs reviews.