Fucking FAKE Nintendo games

This is a thing that’s been bugging me a lot lately, and I thought I’d share my experiences so far… I’m still very new to gaming, and until about two weeks ago I didn’t even know this could happen. I mean, I knew about those crazy Asian bootleg games that doesn’t even resemble real games, but I wasn’t aware that there’s a huge production of fake games that are passed off as genuine. Some look very much like the original, and you have to know what you’re looking for to tell it’s a fake, while others are more obvious. I’ve just recently found out that I have one of each, and it really pisses me off.

Originally posted on my game blog on Tumblr:

Perhaps this is really obvious and old news to some, but I’m very new to this and kinda confused, so a little input would be nice if you know anything about this stuff 🙂

First of all, I’m in Norway and have a European 3ds and mostly European games. First I looked at this video, where the guy talks about US games, and then I found this post about European games. Other than Pokemon I only have like two US games, so I don’t have much to compare my supposedly fake US games to. But I’ve tried.

1: the boxes

Apparently US and EU boxes are different. Again, I don’t have a lot of games to compare, but this is the difference between US Pokemon Black and EU Pokemon White. US boxes are black and thin, EU boxes are thick and clear/white:

And this is what my Diamond and Platinum look like:

EU boxes. They are genuine boxes as far as I can tell, but both games are US and so the boxes should be black. The cover/sleeve on Platinum is printed on thick, glossy paper that sparkles, while Diamond is printed on thinner paper with almost no shine. Also the print on Diamond is pretty fuzzy, especially on the back.

Last night I came across another copy of Diamond on eBay (a US version), and the cover of that one looked very sparkly, like my Platinum. Does anyone know if that is how it’s actually supposed to look like, or has there been like different editions of the game with and without the sparkly effect?

2: the booklet

With EU games there is supposed to be a code/serial number thingy printed on the top right corner on the front of the booklet, which will match the code printed on the cartridge if the game is genuine. With US game there is now such code on the booklet that I can find, so that’s not really anything to go by in this case. Again, Pokemon White (EU) and Black (US):

These are the booklets of my Diamond and Platinum:

No code on the front, and the two aren’t even the same size. Platinum is the same size as other booklets, but Diamond is both taller and narrower than Platinum.

It’s printed on very thick paper (like what the sleeve should be printed on), and it doesn’t even fold right. Since the booklet is so fat, the print of the first few pages has been cut off. Also the print is pretty fuzzy, like it’s been scanned and reprinted.

3: the cartridge

They both look pretty okay on the front. The print is clear and fully readable, and the sticker is pretty well placed and nice and flat. You see the codes on the front, with numbers and characters divided by two hyphens. The four letters in the middle (ADAE and CPUE) should match the first four characters that are printed (with ink) on the back of the cartridge.

Diamond on the left, Platinum on the right:

The codes don’t match at all 😦 And according to the dude in the video, this is a sure way to tell if a cartridge is fake.

You can also see that the metal “teeth” are not the same length and shape. Platinum (right) looks just like every other game I have, but Diamond is different. If you look closely you might be able to see the characters that are printed on the green circuitboard between the metal and the cartridge. Apparently if it says “nintendo”, the game is probably fake. Diamond says nintendo, Platinum has a bunch of seemingly random characters like the others. And finally, you’re not supposed to see any green below the teeth. On fake games, there is a little bit of the board sticking out, while on genuine games this will be a brown color. Again, on Diamond (left) you can see green, on Platinum (right) there is nothing. The board ends with the teeth. Plus, on Diamond you can see that the placement of the print on the back is all wrong, and the letters of the imprint are thicker than normal.

4: logos

I think this point of criteria is mostly meant for other types of bootlegs, and not games that actually try pass as real games. Like some weird Chinese Pokemon games that have a weird-looking Pikachu jumping around in a sort of Mario world? I don’t know. But it’s good to know that there are differences between the logos and rate markings of US and EU games. If you look at the boxes of Black and White (first photo) you see that the US version has a black E and the EU version has a green square that says PEGI. They are just different age rating companies. On the cartridges you will see two major differences:

The gold Nintendo seal is a flat oval shape on US games and completely round on EU versions. And where US games have the black E marking, EU games have the rounded CE letters.

And that’s it, I think. Let me know if you have anything else 🙂

So, to conclude: Diamond is quite obviously fake. It’s a good copy, but there are some things that are off. Platinum is just weird. The codes on the cartridge don’t match, but that’s the only thing wrong with it. Except for the thing with the boxes, which still seems a bit inconclusive to me… So if Platinum is fake as well, whoever made it has done a pretty damn good job! (Edit: after looking at some pictures on this blog, it seems that my Platinum is clearly a fake as well. The colors on the cartridge label are just wrong.)

Platinum is yet unplayed, but it loads fine… I have played Diamond a little bit, got the first badge, and so far I haven’t had any issues with the game play. But earlier I tried the wifi thing, and that wouldn’t work. I tried to configure the wifi from the startup menu of the game, but then I got this message:

And when I tried setting it up by going down in the basement of the pokemon center, but they gave me this:

Does that mean that wifi just doesn’t work, and is that because it’s fake? Or can you still have this issue because it’s an old game? Or could it be because it’s a different region, even though it’s not supposed to be region locked? Please help. If I can’t transfer my pokemon from this game, then it’s pretty much useless to me 😦 (What if I find a bunch of shinies that will forever be stuck in that game?!)

(Note that some of my photos might be a little fuzzy because I had to crop them for size.)

 

Edit: I’ve been told that the wifi doesn’t work because the Nintendo servers for these old games have been taken down, so that function apparently won’t work with genuine games either.

So again, if you have any more input here, I’d be really happy to hear from you 🙂

Hey…

So yeah, I’ve been gone again, I know. I suppose this blog is more or less dead now, it doesn’t look like there have been visitors in ages. But whatever, it’s my blog, and I cry if I want to.

A lot has happened since last time … I think my last post was in June last year? Well, I won’t bore you with lots of details, but there are a few reasons why I haven’t been around for a while. First, I’ve practically been living on Tumblr the past year. I have a personal blog there that I won’t give to anyone (so don’t bother asking), and it basically contains all the shit I can find to complain about, which is too whiny to be on Twitter and too fragmented to put on a “proper” blog. And some really personal stuff I wouldn’t tell anyone even if my life depended on it. So there’s that. Tumblr just makes it so easy to make spontaneous posts. Kinda like Twitter, but with no character limit. Second reason is that WordPress updated their Android app to a version that makes it really fucking annoying to switch between accounts. And I’ve posted mostly on my craft blog, which is on a different account than this one, so I just haven’t bothered switching back. Not sure how to solve that problem, except having two phones or something. Bleh. I don’t know.

So… Pokemon 🙂 The new games were released in October last year, and so that has kept me pretty busy. I’ve never been into the franchise, I’d seen an episode on TV and thought it looked really silly, so I never bothered. Also I was never much of a gamer when I was little. I mostly enjoyed watching my friends play. I tried Mario and things like that a couple of times, but I didn’t quite have the dexterity to get through an entire level without losing all my lives. But the new Pokemon games looked cool and I thought I’d try them, and wow… Never had so much fun! Basically my hoarding instinct kicked in and I just had to catch ’em all 🙂 And when I finished the new games (yes, both of them, even though they’re pretty much identical) I’ve been on a shopping spree to try and get most of the older games as well. I’ve even gone so far as to get my hands on a Game Boy so I can play the original games if I want to. This is getting serious. Hooked on Pokemon at 30 years old…

And I finally passed my math exam with a decent grade! Last semester I only took a single course (two less than I should, but whatever) so that I could put all my energy into the math thing. I did pretty well, too, for a while. Not sure what happened, but I guess the time between the end of classes and the final exam was a bit too long, and I basically had a three-week break before the exam. Answering the questions took too long and I only finished about half of the exam before the time was up. I was hoping for a D, but I ended up getting an E, which is as low as it gets (and still passing). So I passed, but I was really mad and discouraged by the whole thing. But I signed up for a new exam (my third and last possible attempt) in February, and somehow that went well. I didn’t think so based on the number of questions I was able to answer, and considering I only studied the day before the exam… But I got a C! I’m so fucking happy that I’m finally done with that stupid bloody course. It’s taken me three years, but I finally did it 🙂

Yeah. Long post, all text. I think I’ll stop now. Will hopefully be back in not too long 🙂