I've been selling off a number of Famicom games and I did get asked by a few people for games they were after, one that popped up 4 times was Magical Doropie, most gave a price of around 500 to 2000 yen that they wanted it for. With most being around the maximum of the $10 to $15 mark (about 1200 yen).
I know it is not that common, since I also wanted a copy and since I have been in japan, I have been to a lot of stores, probably gone through about 12,000 odd cartridges and have seen it twice, one an boxed copy with no instructions for 7000 yen and a complete copy for 10500 yen. I did ask a number of places how much an unboxed copy might sell for an the average answer I got was about 3000 yen (just under $40...).
I did ask the people that requested it, why they expected it to turn up at that low a figure although none of them answered that question.
So my question is why do people expect it so cheaply when it is quite hard to find and basically not a cheap game?
They're probably just shooting you a low price and hoping that you don't know what it's actually worth.
Maybe, but the other games that have asked for like including Over Horizon, Snow Bros and Salamander have been close to what the prices are.
Hmm...well I picked my copy up on ebay several years ago for $32 cart only so.......if that's not a typical price then I guess I got a good deal on it. Regardless, the NES version is very common with a price range of around 6-8 bucks. It's the same game (only the story and a few cutscenes are removed) so if you want to play this really cool Megaman clone, the NES cart is the way to go.
Several years ago $32 would have been around Y3200 yen so about the right price. Damn the strong yen.
Ive generally seen it sell on ebay, usually in yamatoku lots sell for $20-44.00. Ive seen a loose single copy once on ebay and it went for $27
as well as when its on yahoo japan auctions it is usually set in the 1200-4000 Yen region for cart only in decent condition...
I actually do not even like this game at all, had "The Krion Conquest" as a kid and thought it was a sucky Rockman rip-off....I mainly want it since I am an anal collector and want it all...
Picked up a CIB copy a while back for about $120 USD to my door (middleman fees, double shipping, etc).
As far as a "megaman-like" game on famicom I prefer Three Eyes Story.
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There are always ups and downs in game prices.
When I first visited Japan a cart only Dragon Quest III cost me 1500 Yen. A few years back I saw a lot of them for 50-100 Yen in Fukuoka. Now they're often between 100 and 500 Yen.
(That's only one example...)
A lot of games were quite cheap about 5 years back, now prices generally seem to have gone up a bit. The strong Yen isn't helping either when buying from abroad.