Recommend some decent bootleg/unlicensed games.

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

And I dont mean those that are sprite replacements for other games.
The most decent ones i have in mind are Desert Storm and the Final Fantasy VII nes demake and Shui Hu Shuan by chuanpu for the sega genesis, even though i mentioned a demake i dont want the thread to be just about them.

 

[Miles Miles]

Sonic NES Improvement is interesting. I'm not sure if it's decent though.

 

[Bakuma1997]

Magic Jewelry II is a vast improvement over the one you find in most Famiclones, for one you get a title screen and a menu akin to Columns

If you count Unofficial Third parties, you can play what Top Gun NES must be

 

[Nelson2001 Nelson2001]

Tengen's Tetris (1989) and Tengen's Ms. Pac-Man (1990) from the NES are good versions of the arcade despite being different.

 

[nobitakun]

I can't recommend it enough, Bloodborne demake. Also, Elden Ring.

 

[Glimbo]

Super Lion King is better than the official NES port.

Super Lion King

Super Lion King is a Famicom port of Disney's The Lion King, originally made by Westwood for the Sega Mega Drive, created by Super Game and published by Realtec at an unknown date (1995 or early 1996). It's also known to be Super Game's first port to be released in public (with BomberBoy, a port...

bootleggames.fandom.com

Ice Age is a Klonoa clone.

Ice Age (Game Boy Color)

This article is about the Game Boy Color game by Sintax. For other uses, see Ice Age. Ice Age (also known as Ice Age II) is an unlicensed game for the Game Boy Color released in 2002. The gameplay is similar to the Klonoa series of platform games. The game is loosely based on the movie Ice Age...

bootleggames.fandom.com

Zook Hero Z is a decent enough Mega Man game.

Zook Hero Z

Zook Hero Z (Chinese: 路克英雄Z) is a platform game developed for the Game Boy Color by Vast Fame based on Capcom's Rockman / Mega Man series. It is the first title in the Zook series and was released in 1999. The following is a summarized translation of the intro in-game and the back of the box...

bootleggames.fandom.com

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

There's a version of Pokemon Yellow for NES that's often debated as being the definitive way of playing the game, but it has broken XP values that make it almost impossible to enjoy if you are there ONLY for playing Pokemon.

 

[ColonelKurtz]

somari the goat

 

[Sonic Boomer]

OK so to clarify I am not plugging my channel but since this is part of what I cover sometimes since this stuff was sold in my country as legit games, you guys know I do this for no profit

Bubble Bobble for Sega Mega Drive is a very interesting albeit flawed game

IMO the best and most impressive bootleg is the SNES to NES Port of Aladdin

What's interesting is that SNES Aladdin got a Mega Drive/Genesis port too and it has a very unique atmosphere, it is almost good

Final fight 3 SNES to NES port is phenomenal IMO

Tiny Toons 6 for Famiclone/NES is a very impressive Gameboy to NES/Famicom port of the first GB game, it has a bunch of stuff missing but visually it's such a nice, clean looking game

Here's a very interesting one, I played this as a kid too, Mario for Mega Drive/Genesis but it's actually a bootleg of a "homebrew" unlicensed game called Squirrel King
https://youtu.be/jG5jMbC894g

I purposely filmed this from a CRT as opposed to emulation, sadly I didn't have a better setup then but it should show you what they ACTUALLY look like in real life
both of the following are very impressive ports

Super Mario World SNES to NES - this one controls terribly but is actually a huge and very impressive port, I feel they needed more time tho
https://youtu.be/35wFoBNBlq8

DKC SNES to NES, is insanely good looking much much better than the official GBC versions
Now the music is the "Improvement" version, which I didn't realize when filming the video, so get that one and your NES will look and sound better than it should
https://youtu.be/3as06hwoYf4

EDIT: I forgot the Lion King II, I actually loved this as a kid

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

youtu.be

 

[Toast Rider]

The sheer audacity of the Lord of the Rings GBA bootleg is inspiring. My favorite part of the book that was sadly cut from the film adaptation was that time Granda fought a giant scorpion.

 

[DrunkGecko]

That Russian Felix the cat bootleg on Sega Genesis is actually pretty fun to speedrun

 

[job32]

Could never understand the nes demakes. I could understand demakes of games from consoles not currently emulatable to emulatable console formats. That's just me.

EDIT - In saying that, for games that struggle to emulate like Champions of Norrath and others, if there were demakes back to PSX emulators, that might be worthwhile. A lot of work, I'd imagine.

 

[Sonic Boomer]

Could never understand the nes demakes. I could understand demakes of games from consoles not currently emulatable to emulatable console formats. That's just me.

EDIT - In saying that, for games that struggle to emulate like Champions of Norrath and others, if there were demakes back to PSX emulators, that might be worthwhile. A lot of work, I'd imagine.

making games for a system with strict limitations is actually a very big challenge and when those games end up pushing the system to or beyond its limits it's truly something special.
It's the same as how many developers choose to make modern games for retro consoles nowadays.

In the NES Bootleg department tho, the famiclone was more popular than the actual NES in the general, more people had famiclone systems than actual NES systems overall. It was popular across the developing world and even in many well developed European countries too. So demaking SNES games was very profitable for bootleg developers like Hummer Team

 

[job32]

Thanks, you made it make sense.

 

[Megarockman _1987]

Tekken 2 for NES

 

[Bakuma1997]

This game is surprinsigly complete for a infamous shovelware crafter, obviously not as polished as a AAA game, it has a charm Somari would kill to get

 

[Moreno909]

Water Margin for the Megadrive
Tawainese medieval beat em up with some sprites from Capcom games

 

[reakain]

I didn't see it mentioned yet, so can I recommend Bio Hazard (Resident Evil) for the NES:

Bio Hazard (Famicom)

Bio Hazard (also called 生化危机 or "Resident Evil" in Chinese) is an unlicensed Famicom game based on the first Resident Evil game for the PlayStation. It was developed by Mars Production for Waixing, who would publish the game in 2003. This game impresses because of the small details. The...

bootleggames.fandom.com

It plays kind of like Resident Evil Gaiden