Got a Zelda II Sample cart, not too sure what this is?

[starsoldier1]

If anyone would know more info on these Sample/Demo carts I figure it would be the dudes and dudettes at Digitalpress here. Anyway this is the vid:

http://youtu.be/I8tuK5lzNI8

[fairyland]

Your best bet is to open it up and take photos of the insides or people will say it's just a faked up copy. If the insides are insanely different than what a normal Zelda II is like, then you probably have a prototype cart. You can look around and find details about others but here is one such example. http://www.nintendoplayer.com/prototype/super-mario-bros-2/

[Satoshi_Matrix]

What you have there is a finished prototype that would have been given to game journalists or shown at trade shows to promote the game prior to its release.

The CHR and PRG are written on EPROMs, making it essentially the same as what people do nowadays with NES reproductions. The windows are covered with stickers that date them, but essentially, what you have is a Nintendo produced Zelda 2 cart for media coverage. That's the best way to think about it.

I'm just curious, what did you pay for that? While it is rare, it is nothing special. Finished prototypes are far more boring than earlier builds, and you'd need to go to Japan to try and find a beta build of Zelda 2 for FDS.

[starsoldier1]

Your best bet is to open it up and take photos of the insides or people will say it's just a faked up copy. If the insides are insanely different than what a normal Zelda II is like, then you probably have a prototype cart. You can look around and find details about others but here is one such example. http://www.nintendoplayer.com/prototype/super-mario-bros-2/

Thanks for the link. It looks like I have a media cart then.

[Niku-Sama]

Still cool. Buy up all the missing label carts from now on and see

[Blitzwing256]

Zelda 2 had a very extensive localization where many many things were changed between the fds version and the us version, it'd be worth dumping it to see if it is in a transition between the two versions.

[SparTonberry]

What you have there is a finished prototype that would have been given to game journalists or shown at trade shows to promote the game prior to its release.

The CHR and PRG are written on EPROMs, making it essentially the same as what people do nowadays with NES reproductions. The windows are covered with stickers that date them, but essentially, what you have is a Nintendo produced Zelda 2 cart for media coverage. That's the best way to think about it.

I'm just curious, what did you pay for that? While it is rare, it is nothing special. Finished prototypes are far more boring than earlier builds, and you'd need to go to Japan to try and find a beta build of Zelda 2 for FDS.

Since Zelda II had to be ported to cart for the west, there's still a chance a NES proto could have in-transition content.
Like the SMB2 proto that had, among other things, a SMB underground remix that wasn't used in any released version.

[starsoldier1]

Since Zelda II had to be ported to cart for the west, there's still a chance a NES proto could have in-transition content.
Like the SMB2 proto that had, among other things, a SMB underground remix that wasn't used in any released version.

Hopefully one day I can dump it to check it out in more detail.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

You should contact Frank Cifaldi who runs http://www.lostlevels.org/ which is entirely dedicated to the history and preservation of unreleased games and prototypes.

The finished prototype you have is written on EPROMs, which are erasable and rewritable, and also don't have the life of mask roms. There will come a day in the relatively not too distant future when one or both of those eproms will die, and when that happens the data on that cart will be lost, and if it isn't preserved, that data could just be gone forever.

Frank's email is theredeye@lostlevels.org
You should contact him, explain what you have and see what happens from there. I bet he'd be interested in helping dump it for you, and might even pay you to do have it done. Even if he doesn't though, its the right thing to do not only for the sake of the retro gaming community and history, but for the game's. That might be the only existing copy, and if there are any alterations, that cart could be the only surviving record of them.