Some of the later carts did have a lock-out on them but since OP's game is a pirate cart it won't have a region lock on it. If the game had a region lock it would have just given you a screen saying that you can't play the game on your regions system. Then if you used a cheat device like a Game-Genie you'd still get the lock-out screen unless you input a code to bypass it. Sounds like the OP's game is just one of those picky pirate carts that acts weird on certain region consoles.