Reproduction Carts

[Princess Rescuer]

I recently acquired a reproduction cart of Umihara Kawase for the Super Nintendo (not Super Famicom!) It is pretty much as close as you'll get to having an official physical release of the game in the West.

The cartridge works great. It's pretty much Satsu's English translation rom hack from 2000 (pretty formative as far as fan translations go). All the menu options (that I never use) are in English. The Game Over screen says "The End" instead of "Owari". (In an earlier version, it said "Fin".) The credits are still in Japanese though. Funny, that's a large portion of the game's text right there.

I just question how necessary this reproduction cart is. It seems too little, too late in an age where we have the PC version, the Vita version, Flash carts, and the like. I suppose if you were absolutely attached to your old consoles (which you would have valid reasons to be) then you could view this as an alternative that doesn't require a Super Famicom. And maybe costs less sometimes. I appreciate the menu options (which, again, I never use) in the English Umihara font, but the options in the main menu were in English to begin with and that's all most people needed. Even for a big fan like me (big fan meaning I actually stuck with the game and bothered to get good at it beyond beating the shortest path), it's hard to justify buying this when I already have the Super Famicom version to get my old-school fix (which doesn't require an adapter that lets me play Super Nintendo cartridges).

Still, though, if you have a Super Nintendo, don't have a Super Famicom, and don't have a Vita TV, I do recommend this. It just has to come with that many asterisks.

[KawaseFan]

You've covered the reasons why people would want to buy a reproduction cart, so I have nothing to add there.

What I don't like is when a cart isn't actually advertised as a reproduction, which happens occasionally.  Sure, you and I know that there wasn't an official Western physical release, but it's possible that someone could buy the game without knowing that and think they're getting an official cart when they're not.

[Princess Rescuer]

Doesn't matter to me!