Strider Famicom Prototype

A fierce bidding war ended a few days ago over yet another unreleased Famicom game, Capcom’s Strider. It wasn’t the first occurrence of a Strider Famicom prototype hitting Yahoo Japan Auctions, although this time around the price more than doubled, reaching 253,000 yen (or $3,307).

Shine on, you crazy Japanese.

Chris Covell of Lost Levels made a valiant attempt to come out on top in order to back-up and preserve the game, but in the end, “famicom_2008,” the same Yahoo high roller who paid $6,000 for the Monster Party prototype back in May, now adds another unreleased Famicom game to his growing collection of expensive software plastic.

Pictured: Snazzy floral prints, white Strider sample cartridge.

Not pictured: The blue-lettered Capcom stickers on each side of the cart.

For reasons unknown, Capcom never released their manga-based NES classic, Strider, in Japan, so these samples are the only known survivors of the cancelled Famicom version. The most pronounced difference found within these highly sought-after carts appears to be the addition of Japanese text.

(Famicom Prototype)

(NES Release)

The Famicom prototype title screen shows a copyright of 1988 instead of 1989, the year when both the NES version and the unrelated arcade game debuted. Also, “Strider” is written in Japanese, and “PASSWORD” is broken up into two words.

(Famicom Prototype)

(NES Release)

Matic’s character sprite at the Blue Dragon console is moved up, and the dialogue, bumped down into the smaller window below.

(Famicom Prototype)

(NES Release)

The dialogue text here displays within a vertical banner, rather than taking up the whole screen in the final NES version.

(Famicom Prototype)

(NES Release)

Some environmental differences can be seen in this screenshot, alluding to the possibility of there being even more changes from the final NES game.

(Famicom Prototype)

(NES Release)

The seller made sure to put in bold that they make no guarantee that you can play through to the end. I’m relying on iffy Japanese-to-English translation, but in particular, it seems that the seller had a problem with crossing the water in Egypt. (In the NES version, you can walk on the water after finding the Aqua-boots, which are found in the same level.)

Before the Famicom game was canned, a TV commercial teased Japanese gamers. Today, that commercial teases us all.

(Link: http://www.archive.org/details/strider-famicom)

Well, except for the guy who spent $9,000 on two old video games–his teasing comes from an entirely different source.

Me.