Keep Circulating the Tapes/Video Games: Difference between revisions

* Every ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' game before [[Fire Emblem Elibe|the seventh]] is virtually impossible to get outside of Japan, being that the entire franchise before the seventh instalment was a case of [[No Export for You]]. Unsurprisingly, the series is very frequently pirated and subjected to [[Fan Translation]].

* [[Doug Ten Napel]]'s [[The Neverhood]], an ingenious point-and-click adventure game made entirely in claymation, has been MIA since the mid-Ninties and copies are quite scarce. When it's easier to get the soundtrack CD to a computer game than the game itself, there is no hope for humanity. Or so it seemed, but [http://www.facebook.com/NeverhoodMobile this statement] has mentioned that a rerelease on mobile platforms is in the works.

* Virtually every [[Licensed Game]], due to the publishers and/or developers either no longer existing or no longer having the licenses. Thankfully, there's been some aversions to this in recent years, in particular when it comes to still-existing major publishers:

** [[Ubisoft]] rereleased (and in [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtles in Time|one case]], remade) some of [[Konami]]'s ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' games on the XBLA and the Virtual Console, despite not having anything to do with them besides currently holding the ''TMNT'' video game license. Unfortunately, we're back to square one as of January 26, 2012. The TMNT NES game is no longer available on Virtual Console.

** [[Konami]] wrangled with [[Activision]] for a deal to port the ''[[X-Men (video game)|X-Men]]'' arcade game to XBLA and PSN.

* The ''[[Lunar]]'' games, remakes, and extra [[Feelies]]. The first two games were released on the [[Sega CD]], which made them tough to come by in the first place. ''[[Lunar: The Silver Star]]'', is actually not too difficult to find, but ''[[Lunar 2 Eternal Blue]]'' certainly is (it doesn't help that ''Eternal Blue'' had low sales). The remake of ''Eternal Blue'' is also a hard find because it was released during the twilight of the [[PlayStation]] era. ''Silver Star Story'' and all subsquent remakes of ''The Silver Star'' are not hard to acquire, though.

* ''[[Conker's Bad Fur Day]]'', natch. Given its mature rating in a cutesy setting and zero promotion (and it was released during the Nintendo64 twilight-in fact, it was released the same year the [[Game Cube]] would debut), it was hard to get then, and it sure as hell is even harder to get now.

** Note that if one does obtain a copy of ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver|Gold/Silver/Crystal]]'', there's a good chance that the game will be unable to retain its save data, due to the fact that the backup RAM and the real-time clock share a battery, which the latter eats up within about six years.<ref>(Since they were released in the early 2000s, this means that copies have already started to end up with dead batteries.)</ref> This also applies to ''[[Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire|Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald]]'' to a lesser extent, especially if the bug that causes the battery to die prematurely isn't fixed by ''[[Video Game Remake|FireRed]]'' and ''[[Video Game Remake|LeafGreen]]'' or the [[Game Cube]] games. The games store their data on flash memory (which doesn't require power to retain its data), so they can still be played without the save feature failing to work properly, but the cartridge still uses a battery to power the real-time clock, so difficulties can ensue (though certainly not insurmountable ones if one has enough patience). Note that the clock problems do not exist in every generation after III, as they can only be played on systems that have a clock built into the system itself, which the games make use of instead. (Of course, the main problem mentioned above will likely be an issue in the future, but at least gameplay will function normally.)

** It is possible to replace the batteries in at least ''Gold'' and ''Silver'' versions without destroying the cartridge, so the playability can be restored... for another six years at a time.

*** This led to a bizaare situation in which Yellow's most famous feature, Pikachu following the Player, was added into [[Pokémon Gold and Silver|HeartGold and SoulSilver]], along with Crystal's additions to the game's plot. It was expanded- now any Pokémon could follow the Player, not just Pikachu.

* Much of Rare's game library predating the Microsoft buyout, such as ''[[GoldenEye 007 (1997 video game)|Golden Eye 1997]]'', ''[[Battletoads]]'', the ''[[Killer Instinct]]'' games, and the original version of ''[[Diddy Kong Racing]]'', which may also have copyright issues regarding the T.T. theme (which is based somewhat on the Celebration song), and the characters [[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo]] and [[Conker's Bad Fur Day|Conker]] (who now belong to Microsoft and thus did not appear in the DS remake; the latter has also been shifted into a [[Dead Baby Comedy]] character). They can only get a XBLA [[Updated Rerelease]] rather than a VC release since, save for ''Diddy Kong Racing'' and ''GoldenEye'' (which is also entangled by the [[James Bond]] game license being currently held by the [http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=128252 controversially greedy] [[Activision]] on top of all that [[Console Wars]] hooplah), they are now all Microsoft properties. On the plus side, this did allow for the implementation of Stop 'n Swop after the constant teasing for years...

* The arcade version of ''[[Double Dragon]]'' was rereleased on [[Xbox Live Arcade]] for a while, until Empire Interactive went bankrupt, also erasing hopes of a rerelease of the second game. Good luck finding the arcade machines, or you can illegally play them on MAME. Similarly, all of Midway's XBLA rereleases were delisted when they folded and were purchased by Warner Bros.

** This applies to many other old-school arcade games, especially those that were equipped with [[Copy Protection|suicide batteries]] or [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup|whose source code has been lost]] (i.e., no chance of a legal downloadable rerelease).

* If you're a fan of old-style text adventures (from Infocom and other companies), you're pretty much limited to downloading it from the internet these days, as most games (especially less-popular ones) haven't been available for sale for at least 10-15 years. Worse yet, many of Infocom's games (such as Zork Zero) included "feelies" to prevent piracy (extra material, such as a guidebook, that was needed to solve the game's puzzles) — even if you could find a rare used copy, it's doubtful you could find the "feelies" (although we suggest looking around eBay). Hence, internet downloads. The legality of this is questionable (it depends on whether you accept "abandonware" as a valid excuse), but it's pretty much the only way to get them anymore. This goes double for even older games. Luckily, most new games are released for free, as there really aren't any companies commercially producing text adventures anymore.

* Now that Sega has released ''[[Thunder Force]] VI'', it's exceedingly hard to find the opening movie from Tecnosoft's [[What Could Have Been|original Dreamcast version]], or the promotional movie from Factory Noise + AG's [[Doujin Game|doujin]] attempt ''[[Broken Thunder]]''. There's only '''one''' site on the Internet [http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=34&title=Forgotten%20Franchises:%20Thunder%20Force that still has the Tecnosoft TF6 intro] (scroll down to the teaser video link). As for the ''[[Broken Thunder]]'' opening video, it ''used'' to be available for download on Factory Noise's website, but their site is dead now. [http://www.segagagadomain.com/Bbrokenthunder.htm Segagaga Domain] has a low-quality version of the video on Google Video, but there is absolutely no place to download the original high-quality version of the video anymore. It's a real shame, because both videos — the ''Broken Thunder'' video especially — are well-done pieces of CG.

*** Which makes no sense, as the VC is simply an emulator, so they'd just need a game ROM.

*** Tell that to SEGA. ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog CD|Sonic CD]]'' was originally supposed to be on ''Sonic Mega Collection'', but due to emulation problems (I.E. tossing out the original schematics and design documents for the Mega CD/Sega CD as well as somehow losing the original game's source code) ultimately, it was not included. The version on ''Gems Collection'' is a hack of the PC version, made to run on consoles under a PC emulator, if memory serves me correctly (This is noticeable in how the debug menu works, and the water in Tidal Tempest being clear; PCs of the era had issues emulating the water effects, so it was scrapped.), and the 2011 rerelease was completely recoded from scratch.

* ''[[Shantae]],'' a very-late-release (2001!) [[Game Boy Color]] game by [[Way Forward Technologies]]. It sold less than 100k copies during its release (only about 77k, if numbers are to be believed), but word of mouth (and reviews) spread stories of the game's excellent quality. Copies routinely go for ''over $100'' on eBay! To add insult to injury, if you attempt to play the game through [[Digital Piracy Is Evil|slightly cheaper methods,]] the most common Game Boy emulator doesn't even ''run'' it correctly.

** Lampshaded on [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STfLWs6XGkM official Risky's Revenge soundtrack release video]. WFT has apparently been working on getting the game on [[DSiWare]] / 3DS Virtual Console though.