The games were pirated, but the joy wasn’t

I’m 27 years old, and I grew up in a small town in China. When I was a kid, information didn’t travel very fast. By the time kids in big cities were already playing PS2 or even PS3, I hadn’t even heard of those consoles.

Back then, China had a ban on game consoles, so official consoles were hard to come by. Most players could only get their hands on gray-market imports or clone machines. Many parents also worried that gaming would hurt their kids’ studies. That’s partly why devices like the 小霸王学习机 / Subor Learning Machine became so popular: they were sold as “learning machines” to reassure parents, even though many kids mainly used them to play games. My parents were relatively open-minded, though—they even played with me sometimes. In a way, I was lucky.

The story starts with a repaired clone FC console.

(Image from the internet. Copyright belongs to the original author.)

A Clone FC Console Made Me Popular in My Class

When I was in primary school, my older brother’s clone FC console broke. My dad fixed it and brought it home. The games were in color, and I could swap cartridges to play different titles. That felt amazing to me. My dad was into audio and video gear, so he also had a VCD player and a DVD player. Some of them could even run FC games.

There was a VCD disc that wasn’t an official Nintendo product. We called it “VCD 300 in 1.” I learned about it from a female classmate. Her family had one, and for a while, she became quite popular in class because of it. Later, I asked my dad to buy one too. If I remember correctly, it cost less than 50 CNY, or about 7 USD, and came with two controllers. The games on it were mostly mediocre.

To become the most popular kid in class, I used my pocket money to buy some pirated FC cartridges. It worked. My friends started coming to my house to play. Even if kids in the city were already playing PS3, our old machine still brought everyone together.

That female classmate often came over to play with me too. She had a console at home, but she still played very nervously.

Some Shared Memories

There was something called the “Subor Learning Machine.” It was basically an FC clone with a keyboard attached. It was a product of the 1990s. By that time, the FC was already near the end of its life, and Nintendo found it very hard to fight cross-border lawsuits, so this kind of device existed because of China’s special market situation. The advertising was everywhere. Duan Yongping hired Jackie Chan as the spokesperson, and the ads ran on CCTV. The slogan was “learning machine.” Parents saw it and thought, “Jackie Chan endorses it, it’s on national TV, it must be good.” After they bought it home, the kids used it to play Contra, while the parents thought they were learning programming.

To be fair, some players really did learn basic coding from the BASIC programming feature built into these learning machines. Later, when they got computers, they naturally moved toward programming careers. Accidental success.

We played a lot of “4-in-1” and “99-in-1” cartridges. The 4-in-1 ones usually had good games. The 99-in-1 ones had many repeated titles and some low-quality filler. I was definitely fooled by those as a kid. They were pirated anyway, usually no more than 10 CNY, or about 1.40 USD, each. The cartridges were yellow, not gray, and they had no manuals or proper boxes. Many things that overseas players took for granted as basic game knowledge, we only learned online after growing up. We had plenty of misunderstandings and got scammed more than once.

Back then, we didn’t have the chance to play complete versions, and we didn’t even know what the official releases looked like.

I’m not very knowledgeable about hardware, so the following is based on online explanations:

When we opened cartridges as kids, some had a neat square black chip block inside, while others had an irregular blob of black epoxy. The square block was a separate SOP/DIP chip with pins. It could be soldered and replaced, so broken cartridges could sometimes be repaired. The black blob was a COB “chip-on-board” package. The bare chip die was directly bonded to the circuit board and covered with black epoxy resin. It was cheaper and smaller, but sensitive to moisture, heat, and vibration. Once it broke, it basically couldn’t be repaired by replacing a single chip.

Pirate publishers loved riding on the fame of Contra and Super Mario Bros. the most.

Contra was so popular that as long as a game had characters with guns and supported two players, pirate publishers would label it as Contra. A game set on water became “Water Contra.” One set in the sky became “Air Contra.” A sci-fi themed one became “Star Contra.” Sometimes the same game just started at a different stage and got labeled “Contra 7” or “Contra 8.” When I grew up, I learned that those so-called Contra sequels were actually different games. The water one was The Last Mission, the sky one was Final Mission, and the sci-fi one was Raf World. They had nothing to do with the real Contra.

The pirate publishers were even more ridiculous with Super Mario Bros. A game where the character shot energy waves was called “Mario 10.” A platformer where the hero carried a staff was “Mario 14.” A game that started with riding a dragon and receiving items was “Mario 11.” Even a racing game got reskinned into Mario riding a motorcycle. Later I learned the real titles were Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu, Ganbare Goemon Gaiden 3, Takahashi Meijin no Bōken Jima III, and Top Racer. None of them had anything to do with the plumber.

I thought I would get to play many different Contra games, but in the end I only really had one.

There was a pirated cartridge that claimed to contain many “Contra” games. In reality, it only had Contra 1 or Contra 2 for the FC. The rest just changed stages, bullets, and the number of lives. It cost about the same as a 4-in-1 cartridge, sometimes a bit more. Some versions even cut content, removing Stage 2 and Stage 4 from Contra 1. I guess it was to save costs. That kind of thing was common on cheaper cartridges.

Contra 1’s “Underwater Eight Stages.”

This was a well-known urban legend among Chinese players. Some people said that in Stage 6, if you jumped into an enemy that looked like a frog’s mouth, you could enter a hidden area. Others said that falling down in Stage 7 wouldn’t kill you, but would instead send you into a blue ocean stage. The internet wasn’t widespread back then, so many kids firmly believed it was real. In truth, it was mostly a graphical glitch or bug, not an actual hidden stage.

In 2016, a Chinese video creator found that the closest thing to this “Underwater Eight Stages” was actually the MSX2 version of Contra. It had 19 stages, and after defeating the Stage 8 boss, you entered an underground or underwater area. But that was not part of the FC version.

Looking back, I treat it as a simple childhood memory. I don’t regret trying to find a stage that didn’t exist. Later, Konami recreated the “Underwater Eight Stages” map in the mobile game Contra: Return, and some fans also made their own ROM hacks based on what they imagined the underwater stages would be like. It turned into a pretty interesting story.

The Rise and Fall of Foreign Technology

During the FC era, there were very few Chinese-made games. Foreign Technology was like an enlightenment for many Chinese players. It wasn’t Nintendo, and it wasn’t a console maker like Subor. It was more like a strange presence in China’s 1990s FC Chinese-game market.

It made locally themed games such as Tunnel Warfare, Lin Zexu’s Opium Ban, and Legend of the Twin Moons. It also made rarer types like Chu-Han Contention and Jia-A Chinese Football Club Manager. But most of the time, it modified existing games: turning Contra into Super War Soul, shrinking Phantasy Star IV into Alien Warrior, and even trying to cram PC games like Resident Evil, Commandos, and Heroes of Might and Magic into the FC.

As kids, we didn’t really understand copyright. The cartridge covers just looked impressive. Later I realized it once called itself “China’s Nintendo,” but never became Nintendo. Many of its games were rough, yet they still brought many children into stories and adventures. Due to copyright issues and market changes, Foreign Technology, which once had real strength, eventually shifted to other fields. It’s a bit regrettable.

When the Arcade Hit King of Fighters Met Pirated FC Publishers

During the arcade era, King of Fighters was a major IP. I couldn’t remember the inputs as a kid, so I just mashed buttons. One day, I saw a very “special” pirated FC cartridge with King of Fighters characters on the label. I thought I could finally play a game at that level at home, but the result shocked me in a different way.

The character sprites were poor, often using only one color. The saturation looked off. The controls felt bad, and the game had no depth. My opponent and I moved in exaggerated ways, and it became visually tiring. Street Fighter also got pirated, but those versions were better than the fake King of Fighters. At least they could be played as actual games, even if the sound effects were terrible.

There are still many more pirated FC stories, such as pirated arcade machines, the Xin Tian Li VCD, and how I later encountered official consoles. I’ll continue writing later.

Did you buy any especially bad or memorable game cartridges as a kid? Were there any game rumors you firmly believed as a child, only to realize later they were misunderstandings? Feel free to share.

While writing this, I looked up some information and found an interesting contrast: the pirated FC cartridges that felt cheap, rough,

Spyro in 1998 had no precision jump and no memorable villain. It had 12,000 gems and a glide that forgave almost everything. Is that what puts it above many “serious” 3D platformers?

My first taste of F1 gaming was 1991s Microprose Grand Prix by Geoff Crammond on the Amiga, howver being 10 at the time, sim racing wasn't really my thing. When I got a Megadrive I remember renting Domark's F1 from my local Ritz Video Rental (in the UK this became Blockbuster). I rented it so many times my parents got me it for the following Christmas. I was already a fan of F1 after watching it on TV in the early 90s. It had the real drivers names and tracks and cars. It felt so fun to play. It was like Outrun on steroids. Having 3D graphical elements in a game like this also blew me away.

Link is to a recent video review (not mine)!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e9P5hxgIRtc

Of all the games I expected to see ported to the Dreamcast in 2026, Hotel Mario just wasn't one of them! I've written a little article about developer MoneyShift64's kinda unusual project, which brings the infamous 1994 Philips CD-i game to Sega's final console, complete with the original campaign, two-player support, VMU saving and, of course, those weird, weird animated cutscenes.

Hotel Mario has a reputation, and not the best one, but I find it really interesting that people are still finding new ways to preserve and revisit these corners of gaming history. There's something really funny to me about seeing Mario and Luigi running around on a Dreamcast, especially considering Nintendo and Sega's old rivalry. I've included some screenshots and links to the developer's project for anyone curious enough to give it a try!

I've just published my not-quite-a-review, not-quite-an-impressions-piece, but something closer to a good old-fashioned feature article about the AYN Odin 3 Portal. I wanted to approach this one a little differently from your typical handheld review.

I interviewed several developers behind the software people are most likely to use on hardware this powerful, including jpolo (ARMSX3), Camille LaVey (Eden), Utkarsh (GameNative) and Json (DroidDeck). Their insights into the Dragonwing Q8, the challenges of modern emulation and where things are heading form a big part of the article, alongside my own testing of everything from PS2 and GameCube to PS3, Xbox 360 and PC gaming.

It's also a rather long read, much closer to those enormous feature articles gaming websites used to publish years ago. I've always loved that sort of writing, and I suspect it'll appeal to a certain kind of retro gaming enthusiast who enjoys digging into the technology and the people behind it. Or I hope so, anyway. It is a long read.

As for the Portal itself? I think it's about as close to the perfect larger Android gaming handheld as you can get, provided you can afford it. The OLED is gorgeous, the controls are wonderful, performance is extraordinary, and that infamous high-pitched fan whine from the Odin 3 is completely gone. Not everything runs perfectly, especially some demanding PS3 games, but gaming on this thing has been an absolute pleasure.

Hope you enjoy the read!

First Encounter with the V10: An Unexpected Surprise During Hospitalization

Just to be clear: this isn’t a 2026 “must-buy.” It’s a $20 surplus-unit experience.

The real value is GBA pixel-perfect display, not strong performance for every console.

ArkOS is no longer updated on this device, so it only handles basic emulation well.

The $20 price on Xianyu may not be replicable for buyers outside China.

I recently bought a surplus unit. The price-to-performance ratio is still very high, but it may not be suitable for everyone.

Last summer, I was sick and spent a month in the hospital. The internet connection there was quite poor. I thought about buying an open-source handheld to play games, and I stumbled upon the PowKiddy V10. It was cheap, and the gaming experience was decent. This handheld left a deep impression on me. It supports 2x pixel-perfect scaling for GBA games, which looks very different from playing on a phone emulator.

Although this technology is common now, for me personally, the open-source handhelds I bought before the V10 were not suitable for playing GBA games. This device gave me a different experience.

The Awkward Positioning of Being Born Too Late

Recently, I found surplus stock on Xianyu, a Chinese second-hand marketplace owned by Alibaba, priced at only 138 CNY (about $20 USD). It was brand new, a great deal, so I bought a second one.

Its biggest problem is that it was released quite late. The PowKiddy V10 launched in China in July 2024 with a starting price of 198 CNY. However, there are already too many handhelds that can play GBA games with pixel-perfect scaling, such as the Miyoo Mini Plus and the Anbernic RG35XX (2024 version), which have already matured this kind of experience. It has an obvious product positioning problem: players who demand high performance won't choose it, and players who want a hassle-free experience might buy more expensive handhelds.

Hardware Review: A GBA Beast, PS1 is Passable

The specifications of this handheld are as follows. Its biggest feature is that it plays GBA games very well.

There is a habit among Chinese handheld reviewers to test using the GBA game Dragon Ball Advance Adventure. The reason is that this game has vibrant graphics, making it easy to see the display quality of a screen. There is an interesting meme circulating among players: "Did you hit pixel-perfect today?" Many veteran GBA players care about this. The display effect is shown in the picture. Of course, you can use it for testing, and the game itself is quite fun.

Secondly, playing PS1 games is also not bad. Although it is not as suitable as playing GBA games, most games run relatively smoothly. Some games with higher hardware requirements may suffer from frame rate drops. I have no complaints about the hardware, especially since it is quite cheap.

Software Shortcomings: Discontinued System and Pain Points

However, the software aspect is quite average.

First, it does not support independent volume and brightness adjustment buttons; you can only achieve this using button combinations. Also, it defaults to maximum brightness and volume upon reboot. Second, the system updates have stopped. The ArkOS system uses EmulationStation as the default frontend, with RetroArch as the emulator backend. It can only meet basic functional needs. Finally, the DS gaming experience is very poor. It lacks a touchscreen, the screen aspect ratio is uncomfortable, and gameplay isn't very smooth.

Quick ArkOS Hotkeys

If you are new to ArkOS, these common hotkeys may help. On many ArkOS devices, Select + Start exits a game and returns to EmulationStation. Select + R1 saves a state, and Select + L1 loads a state. Select + X usually opens the in-game RetroArch menu. Brightness and volume are often controlled through combination keys rather than dedicated buttons, but the exact mapping can vary by device and firmware version. For the PowKiddy V10, it is best to check the current ArkOS build or test the hotkeys directly.

I flashed the newest dArkOS on my V10 (grab the RGB10 build from GitHub). Battery reporting is spot on! I've tried a bunch of firmwares, but dArkOS is definitely the best—it's perfect. I have lots of devices that can run GBA, so I got a 64GB card and loaded up a ton of Pokémon GBA ROM hacks. It feels better than any system I've tried before.

Buying Advice: Is the $20 Surplus Unit Worth It?

I believe that in today’s open-source handheld market, the system experience takes priority over the hardware itself. It is very suitable for playing GBA games, but that is about it. I hope you truly need the PowKiddy V10, rather than choosing it just because it is cheap. It is best to apply a tempered glass screen protector, otherwise, it easily collects fingerprints.

If you have a budget of $20 USD, would you choose to buy this handheld? Or would you spend a bit more for a safer choice?

Today's super little article is about a nice new development for the Panasonic 3DO. Developer Todd Gill has released 3DO ODE Menu, a replacement interface for several popular optical drive emulators that makes browsing and managing games stored on SD cards easier.

It introduces cover artwork, favorites, recently played games, faster navigation, customizable themes and some useful improvements for multidisc games like Wing Commander III. Gill has also created a companion Cover Maker utility that can automatically find and prepare game artwork, which is a particularly nice touch. I've included plenty of screenshots showing the new interface and how it all works.

I love seeing developers continue to improve the experience of using original hardware, especially for consoles like the 3DO that don't always receive as much attention as Nintendo and Sega's machines. It's not a new emulator or a replacement console, just a nice, useful quality-of-life improvement for people still enjoying their 3DOs more than thirty years later!

I came across this on heise.de: it's an app that lets you play games from Steam, Gog, Epic and elsewhere on many Android phones (Pixels excepted, apparently). I've tried a few that run fine and others that do not, but I think the idea is amazing, especially for older, less demanding games. I'm finding the controls the biggest challenge, but I'm sure this can be tweaked.

What zone is this shard supposed to be at?

Today's mini article is about Dolphin Depot, a new project from developer Webhdx that essentially gives the original Nintendo GameCube its own homebrew app store.

Publicly announced a little earlier this week, Dolphin Depot allows everyone to browse, download and install homebrew applications directly on their GameCube, rather than having to track everything down individually and transfer files from a pc. There's also a website where you can explore the catalogue, which includes emulators, utilities and homebrew games.

You still need a homebrew-capable GameCube and a network connection, of course, but I think it's a fun addition to the console's homebrew scene. Feels and looks like a true hack! I like how it makes older projects easier to discover, like for people who are only just getting into GameCube homebrew. It's just ...nice seeing these sorts of modern things arrive on hardware that's now twenty-five years old :)

Yet again, this is one of those 'niche-within-a-niche' projects I find and write about!

The 3dfx Voodoo wasn’t the first 3D card, or the most complete. It was the first that made games feel smooth. Four years later, Nvidia bought what was left of the company. What went wrong? #Voodoo #Gaming

If anyone's taking the dust of their Super Metroid, but has since lost the manuals, Nintendo officially hosts it as PDF

#SNES #GBA #retrogaming #metroid

They host both JP & USA versions, by the way.

Also, I do not know the path within their site, but they were indexed on DuckDuckGo:

• USA: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clvs/manuals/common/pdf/CLV-P-SAAHE.pdf
• JP: https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clvs/manuals/ja/pdf/CLV-P-VAAHJ.pdf

Thought it would be of interest given the recent port. Also why the GBA hashtag at the beginning.

Also worth noting and reiterating, you need a legal copy of the game if you want to try the port. What counts as legal depends on your country (looking at you, DMCA), so do your research.

Here's an exciting little piece of Sega history that's recently come to light! Former Sega Technical Institute programmer Ken Rose kept a collection of floppy disks from his time at the studio in the early 1990s, and thanks to the preservation efforts of Hidden Palace and DevStash, their contents have now been recovered and documented.

Among the discoveries are prototypes, original source code and development documents from six projects, including Treasure Tails, a cancelled isometric puzzle adventure starring Sonic's sidekick, as well as Jester, B-Bomb, Dark Empires and Segapede. There's even an early build of Kid Chameleon. Some of these games were never released, while others survive in playable forms.

What I love most is how much of the development history has survived alongside the games themselves, including the reasons certain projects were cancelled and the people who worked on them. It's amazing that we're still uncovering new pieces of Mega Drive history more than thirty years later. I've included some of the recovered artwork and prototype screenshots in the article, along with links to Hidden Palace's original preservation work.

As ever, who knows if this is even worth mentioning, this is just the daily little article for my NeoCities experiment :)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53918978

For anyone unfamiliar with it, DroidDeck is a relatively new, open-source Android application that aims to bring the full Steam client and PC gaming experience to Android devices (phones, tablets, retro handhelds), without requiring users to root their phones or replace Android with another operating system. It's a big project, particularly for those interested in handheld gaming and the possibilities of running Linux software on Android hardware.

I've been chatting with the people behind DroidDeck over the last few weeks, and what began as a feature article about the project turned into a rather extensive interview with five of its developers: The412Banner, Max, xXJSONDeruloXx, Kimchi and Astro Sky. We discussed everything: from their earliest experiments with Linux, Steam and Gamescope to the technical challenges involved, automated testing, open-source development and where they hope to take DroidDeck in the future.

I've now published the complete interview on my NeoCity/Handheld Hideout site, with all 87 questions and their individual answers, organized into linked sections so you can jump straight to the topics that interest you. There's a lot of technical detail in there, but also some personal stories about how the developers met, their early breakthroughs and what keeps them working on the project.

And to be transparent about their work, DroidDeck does make use of AI-assisted development. They discuss that openly in the interview when asked, including how the developers use AI tools, automated testing and code reviews as part of their workflow.

I've just published a new interview with Moth, lnkd and Anti, the three developers behind Cocoon, an Android gaming frontend designed to give retro handhelds a more cohesive, console-like experience. It's super interesting on dual-screen devices like the AYN Thor and Retroid Pocket Duo, where it makes use of both displays for browsing game libraries, managing applications and navigating a customizable interface inspired in part by the Nintendo 3DS.

Their latest 3.1 update introduces some substantial improvements, including the ability to suspend, resume and close games without leaving Cocoon, alongside smarter dual-screen behavior and a redesigned interface. I spoke with all three about how these features came together, the considerable optimization work needed to get Cocoon running smoothly on more modest hardware like the Anbernic RG DS, and the music and sound design that helps give the whole thing its personality.

There's quite a bit about the challenges they've encountered along the way too, including some unexpected performance discoveries and the difficulties of maintaining compatibility with different emulators. Really enjoyed catching up with the team, and I've included plenty of GIFs demonstrating the new features (thanks to them!)

Hope some here enjoy the article from our interviews and find something of interest in here!

Finally got a shelf for my back-room gaming setup!

Don't go onto Amazon and order a random cheap ac adapter for any console that you have. They create a bunch of noise on the screen and it leaves a trail of flickering pixels going up the screen.

Halloween article time!!!

I've written a little article about Ningyo no Rakuin, an obscure Japanese PS1 horror RPG from 2000 that's finally receiving an English fan translation under the title The Curse of Ogaeritō.

Interestingly (to me, at least), the original Japanese name roughly translates to Brand of the Merfolk, although it's not really a game about mermaids. Instead, it's heavily inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, particularly The Shadow over Innsmouth, with mysterious cults, disturbing creatures and plenty of cosmic horror. I've always found these forgotten Japanese games fascinating, especially when dedicated fans put so much effort into making them accessible to English-speaking players. With the translation arriving just in time for Halloween, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to cover a little of the game's history and the people responsible for bringing it back into the spotlight!

Hope some here enjoy this one :)

• Invidious, a privacy respecting frontend for YouTube: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=dtYJhy01jNI
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/dtYJhy01jNI

Video description (the relevant parts):

---

Analysis of Mario's walking, running, acceleration, jumping, swimming, and more.

#NES #Programming #supermariobros

This morning’s little article is about Shining Wind X, a kinda obscure Sega RPG from 2008 that was released exclusively for Japanese mobile phones and has recently been recovered by preservationist YuviApp. It’s a follow-up to the PS2 game Shining Wind, but takes a different angle: turn-based tactical combat, and it’s one of those games I think plenty of Sega fans might never have known existed.

What I find super interesting is how much gaming history is effectively trapped in Japan’s oddball old mobile phone ecosystem. There were some pretty ambitious games released for these devices, like spin-offs from major franchises, and many of them became inaccessible when the original download services shut down.

I tend to think about preservation in terms of old cartridges and discs, but there’s this entire library of mobile games that could easily disappear without people putting in the effort to recover them. I thought this was a lovely little example of why that work matters, and really enjoyed learning more about it!

This is for my NeoCities site experiment, not my usual site!

Time to imaginary crush some imaginary invaders!

I've been chatting with Geekstrada, one of the two developers behind Leaf (alongside Helaas, who does a huge amount of the work) and the creator of TortOS. For those unfamiliar, these are custom firmware projects for retro gaming handhelds. Leaf provides a customisable interface, emulation features and other improvements for the Miniloong Pocket 1, while TortOS is a more minimalist alternative for handhelds like the TrimUI Brick and Brick Hammer, focusing on quickly getting into games, with music and audiobook playback too.

Anyway, Geekstrada also has a kinda ridiculous obsession with the original NES Contra, and that's what my latest article is about! Using Claude, he's created artnoC, a completely mirrored version of Contra where you play the entire game backwards, from right to left, and Contractor, a browser-based level editor that lets you create and modify stages and export them to play yourself. He's also released Contrarian, custom firmware for the TrimUI Brick Hammer that literally refuses to play anything that isn't sufficiently Contra!

We got into how all three projects came together, the role AI played in developing them, and some lovely childhood memories involving his old family television and countless hours playing Contra. It's a wonderfully strange little collection of projects, and I really enjoyed hearing the stories behind them. I also sent artnoC to Russ (Retro Game Corps) about a week ago to ruin his brain with a backwards version of one of his favourite games, so keep an eye out midway through the article for his reaction!

One important thing I want to highlight: these projects make use of AI, particularly Claude, which handled the vast majority of the programming for artnoC and Contractor. I appreciate that AI-assisted development is a divisive subject, and I think many of the concerns surrounding it are entirely justified. As a gaming journalist, though, I feel it's better to cover the interesting, unusual and sometimes controversial things people are creating, while being completely transparent about how they're made. I'd rather give readers that information, both here and in the article itself, so they can make up their own minds than simply avoid covering these projects because AI was involved. I don't think reporting on something necessarily means endorsing every aspect of how it was created.