The Klax Conundrum

[intvgene]

Okay... I need some help.

 

I've finally got my hands on what seems to be the only Lynx game that was changed for the Japanese market. Everything else that was released there seems to have new manuals, but same old games and carts.

 

Here are some pics:

 

 

Now... the cart, as you can see is different. I don't know why. When you load up the game, there is no intro. It goes straight to the wave select screen instead. Some of the voices and the clapping are also absent from the game. I am not sure what they added, if anything. Does anyone have any history behind this?

 

The back of the cart is ridged as you can see, and there is no Atari sign. The label and box art is new, and there is also a new Japanese manual.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Agent X]

That is very cool!

 

Is it possible this could be a pirate cartridge? There are three things that bother me about this:

 

[*]I've never seen a Lynx cartridge that was shaped like that.

[*]The missing sounds indicate that a smaller ROM size might have been used, which sounds like something a pirate would do to cut costs in production.

[*]This game was released in late 1990. Why has it taken over 12 years to finally learn that the Japanese version is radically different?

 

Whatever it is, it is definitely interesting.

[intvgene]

Here are some more pics: (sorry, the one is pretty big)

 

 

 

You can see that Atari Japan made these games in co-operation with Mumin (who? ). Anyway, Mumin was responsible for the manuals for the other games that were released in Japan, but it seems like Klax is the only one that they actually changed the cart.

 

I don't know the details of the original Klax cart... so maybe they edited it to reduce the size of the memory... but would it really be feasible for them to do all that, rather than just use the excess stock that Atari already had printed?!?

[Callipygous]

What? The word "conundrum" on an Atari Age forum? It may be an anathema here. Or at least an enigma :wink: