Famicom in Korea

[JC]

I had a conversation recently with a Korean friend and member of this forum. Someday we'll have a page on the site about Famicom gaming in various countries. I found this interesting about Korea:

The story behind that Korean developers is that in those days Korea and Japan had banned each others for import-export to each other so mostly Korean developers did never get oppurtunity to get license from Nintendo. BUT that is also reason why the NES in Korea was called Hyundai comboy since they could never allow a Japanese company to sell videogames in Korea, but they did, undercover as you understand...Also with the Sega Saturn was named Samsung Saturn and so on...Samsung Game Gear, super comboy and so on.

So there is pretty many unlicensed games that probably would have been licensed if the situation between the countries were in other ways. Actually well we did get all the consoles that was released in Japan but with other companys logo on them and the first console ever to be called by its original name is the Nintendo DS...so usually in the rest of the world the "Nintendo" is a nick for the 8-bit machine but in Korea the "Nintendo" is the DS. =)

Pretty messed up actually but its all about politics...the ones who brought the biggest imports of the Famicom that were in Korea before the Hyundai comboy was imported in big quantity by Korean Yakuza who did not care about the laws and also many imported privatley, so there is pretty much stories about the Korean videogame history indeed i think.

The usual "Comboy" is the Super Comboy (Super NES) because back in the days as i told you the biggest 8-bit console was the famicom and when the NES was released nobody did actually care about it since it was much more expensive and the games were much fewer than for the famicom...

To be honest i dont know why Nintendo wanted to sell the NES in Korea...it makes no sense i think since they must knew how the situation was.

And of course there was some famiclones but we did have the Famicom in Korea but it was not officially released but the stores sold it anyways since the authoritys could never check who was responsible for the import about them...or they knew but could do nothing about it...

And also Japan is just 30 minutes away shortest route by boat so many did just take a trip to japan and buy it over there.

[PatMan33]

That is fascinating. Do people in Korea have the same appreciation for Nintendo that other may have or is their love dedicated to the companies that released the rebranded machines?

[FamicomFreak]

Wow what great info. Amazing all the stuff we can learn about Famicom from other countries.

[nintendodork]

BUMP

I didn't know whether to put it here or in the auction thread...so...here ya go
http://cgi.ebay.com/Wrecking-Crew-ROM-PACK-for-COMBOY-Korean-NES-system_W0QQitemZ200310372060QQcmdZViewItemQQptZVideo_Games_Games?hash=item200310372060&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234

[manuel]

I hope JC can add to this thread when he comes back.

Seems very interesting.

[FamicomFreak]

I'm pretty sure he'll be back with some interesting info that'll help us understand more about this subject. JC come back soon....

[nintendodork]

His email auto reply says around February 22nd he'll come back...
So...there ya go

[Agent X]

My question is, were there any ORIGINAL Korean Famicom games that were worth a damn?  Something that would work with a JPN AV FAMICOM?  I love oddities of this sort, but I'm guessing if anything like this does exist I'm assuming that it would either be hacks of existing NCL 1st Party titles and/or "other" 3rd Party titles, or bootlegs in general.

[JC]

There are about four or five unlicensed originals I've seen and at least two companies making them. I don't know if they're worth a damn, but they look kinda cool. I picked up two while in Korea last week, so when I have time to play them I'll report back.

Finding Famicom stuff in Korea proved difficult. I didn't run across a single video game store. There was this one place called an "electronics arcade" in the Yongsan district of Seoul. It was two five or six story buildings housing a bunch of electronics shops, from cameras and computers to video games and mobile phones. There were only two sellers on the video game floor that had Famicom games. One had a box of about 20 games, with two Korean originals I bought and then some other originals and pirates of licensed games. The other seller had only one Famicom game -- a boxed multicart.

[nintendodork]

How much were the carts priced?

[Agent X]

There are about four or five unlicensed originals I've seen and at least two companies making them. I don't know if they're worth a damn, but they look kinda cool. I picked up two while in Korea last week, so when I have time to play them I'll report back.

Finding Famicom stuff in Korea proved difficult. I didn't run across a single video game store. There was this one place called an "electronics arcade" in the Yongsan district of Seoul. It was two five or six story buildings housing a bunch of electronics shops, from cameras and computers to video games and mobile phones. There were only two sellers on the video game floor that had Famicom games. One had a box of about 20 games, with two Korean originals I bought and then some other originals and pirates of licensed games. The other seller had only one Famicom game -- a boxed multicart.

Interesting.

Please do let us know what is what with those games sir.  Are they platformers by any chance in a Mario-esque vein?  Usually things I've seen of the like are the basic "Puzzle" game or a badly programmed RGS (Run & Gun  Shooter). Strangely enough, I'd love to be able to play that UK hack of Super Mario Bros. called The Great Giana Sisters on the Famicom if such a bootleg/unofficial cart existed.  I guess I'm kind of hoping that the Korean market had some sort of home grown Super Mario Bros type game at least.

*me envies you went to Korea*

[YamiMario]

Oh, interesting.

[JC]

Are they platformers by any chance in a Mario-esque vein?

These are three Korean platformers I still really want:

http://www.er.uqam.ca/merlin/fd491499/nintendo/nes/funfunclub/dooly/
http://www.er.uqam.ca/merlin/fd491499/nintendo/nes/opencorp/buzzwalrog/
http://www.er.uqam.ca/merlin/fd491499/nintendo/nes/opencorp/metalforce/

[jbholio]

[http://www.er.uqam.ca/merlin/fd491499/nintendo/nes/opencorp/metalforce/

This one is awesome! Better than 95% of all NES games

[Agent X]

[http://www.er.uqam.ca/merlin/fd491499/nintendo/nes/opencorp/metalforce/

This one is awesome! Better than 95% of all NES games

The question is... how does it fare to ROCKMAN, that it apparently is
either a "hack" of or an original creation based on the same concept.
It looks pretty cool though indeed.