TIGSource: Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart

Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart

Derek Yu — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:38:00 +0000

Created by a shady Chinese tech company in the year 20XX, this unlicensed demake of Final Fantasy VII was actually released as a cartridge at some point (when, though?)! A play-by-play copy of the Playstation original in terms of plot, FF7 NES is apparently NOT a hack of another FF game, and is, on a technical level, somewhat of a marvel. Chinese hackers are amazing, aren’t they?

Head over here for a full write-up of the game, including nearly 150 screenshots.

And I’m guessing some of you are probably interested in playing the ROM. Well, follow the “Baidu” link in the article and you’ll get to it eventually, although apparently only “an extremely hacked-up version of VirtuaNESex supports the game through an ugly bank-switching mapper driver.” You have been warned.

Alternatively, you can just watch this YouTube video that shows some (pretty boring) gameplay from the demake.

(Source: Luke Plunkett, via Kotaku)

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Tim

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:39:26 +0000

hahaha

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Derek

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 14:03:31 +0000

Well, I certainly meant no offense to Chinese people, since I am one. I called the company “shady” because they are one of many Chinese software houses that have tried to illegally sell bootleg NES cartridges over the years. Let’s face it, as much as I love China, there’s not much regulation of piracy over there…

And the term “demake” certainly isn’t a derogatory one. DoomRL is a demake, too.

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Andy

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:50:02 +0000

How come when it’s in Chinese it’s a “shady” and a “demake” where something like DoomRL, which is essentially a demake as well is praised?

Double standards.

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Melly

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 10:05:45 +0000

I like how some games can be demade without loosing much, if anything, of the original game’s feel, showing that polygon crunching and orchestral soundtracks are rarely the meat of what makes a game enjoyable.

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Blueberry_pie

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:18:36 +0000

Demakes are awesome. I once remade (very small) parts of Half-Life 2 and Portal in the engine of the first Half-Life. That was pretty cool.

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Tiktaalik

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:59:19 +0000

Gahh… that 2nd link doesn’t work either.

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Eudaimon

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:24:27 +0000

There’s something like this out there for FFX also. I never played it, and don’t remember where to find it, but I think I’ve got the patch lying around here somewhere. It has a sphere grid and everything.

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Anonymous

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:36:15 +0000

For those without IE / ActiveX, see here.

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by David

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:09:10 +0000

I remember hearing news of this a couple of years ago, but it was being made by some Chinese programmer for fun. No one could find a copy of the game though, it was just screenshots on a webpage. This is basically a hack of the FF3 NES game, though with music borrowed from FF2. The dialog windows with portraits are new though. This guy knows his stuff.

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Stij

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:04:16 +0000

If someone turned a game into a comic (printed on dead trees), would that be a treemake?

I’LL BE HERE ALL EVENING FOLKS

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Melly

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:30:23 +0000

Ah, damnit, they stole my chinese bootleg demake idea! The bastards!

Also, since GDC is over we should have another compo soon, right Derek? ^_^

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by trunxkam45@gmail.com

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:43:18 +0000

Just like all the other pirates out there, this one has really skewed music.

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by oranda

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:23:26 +0000

So if somebody did this to Metroid Prime would that be a screeeeemake?

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Jonathan

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:08:07 +0000

I saw this reported elsewhere as a “premake” – I prefer that term ;)

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Kornel

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 08:02:17 +0000

Nah, it can be also a backport to a inferior graphics display (DoomRL ^_^)

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by Al King

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 07:52:12 +0000

Yep, exactly, though it needn’t be an inferior platform, it might just use inferior technology, like Goldeneye 2D

"Final Fantasy VII NES Pirate Cart" by muku

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 05:53:54 +0000

So, is a “demake” a backport of a game to a technically inferior platform?