Wario’s Woods Prototype

This Wario’s Woods prototype comes from a game collector who wishes to remain anonymous.

The front cover label reads:

* USA VERSION ROM *

WARIO’S WOODS

*NES-W8 : (FINAL/NTSC)

Here’s a shot of the back of the cartridge.

Wario’s Woods is on an official Nintendo NES-TKEPROM-02 prototype PCB.

Even though the word “Final” is clearly printed on the front cover, there are a few differences in the game code.

Although the specific in-game changes are currently unknown, the following comes from a file comparison using HxD Hex Editor. These are the only lines that are different from the released version (excluding the ROM header).

Prototype:

US Retail:

Prototype:

US Retail:

And this comes from a 6502d disassembler output comparison: