My New Sqoon: Missing those Lovely Irem LEDs

One of these things is not like the other....

Actually wait, both of these things are unlike the other.

Yesterday I got a copy of Sqoon in the mail.  I already had a copy of Sqoon, which is a really cool game, but the copy I got yesterday was missing the little red LED. This actually pleased me.

When Irem released its first series of games for the Famicom - including Sqoon, Spelunker, Spelunker 2, 10 Yard Fight, Zippy Race and Mashou - they included a little red LED on the cart that would illuminate when the Famicom was turned on.  This was a pretty neat innovation given that on an original red and white Famicom it isn`t always obvious if the console is turned on or off from a distance.  These may have been the only cartridges in video game history to have such a feature.

Unfortunately they also cost money to include on the carts and didn`t really influence people`s decision of whether to buy them or not (a decision most people make based on the game`s quality rather than whether or not it has a red light on it), so when they later released a second run of some of the games they eliminated the LEDs from them.

As you can see from my new copy of Sqoon, while they eliminated the LED they kept the rest of the cart exactly the same, including the very conspicuous triangle where the LED was supposed to go.  So the carts without LEDs look a bit awkward.

Despite their awkward appearance, the versions of these carts without the LEDs are worth way more than the ones with LEDs.  Apparently by the time they re-released them these games were already yesterday`s news so not many people bought them.  They are pretty rare today, much like the `Kung Fu` version of Spartan X. They were even featured in that Famicom antiques road show/ price is right TV show I posted about last month, which used the Spelunker version as an example of a rare and valuable variation of a Famicom cart:

Not all of the games have both versions.  Spelunker 2 and Mashou apparently weren`t popular enough to begin with so they never got no-LED versions of themselves.  As far as I can tell only four - Sqoon, Spelunker, Zippy Race and 10 Yard Fight - exist in both versions (see here for pics of them).

Interestingly one cart exists in only non-LED form, Yan chan Maru (visible in the above photo, back row far left).

That game was apparently a sort of transition cart.  The design is basically identical to the Irem carts which had LEDs, except that it is missing the LED and doesn`t have the little triangular space for them carved out of the front label.  After that, Irem started issuing games in carts that looked more like the standard Famicom carts.

Anyway, there you have it.  Another little piece of Famicom collecting lore explained through the power of Sqoon.

Box Art Battle: 10 Yard Fight vs. Tecmo Super Bowl

What better time than the middle of baseball season to dedicate a post to the two best Football games on the Famicom?

10 Yard Fight and Tecmo Super Bowl are probably the two best American football games for the Famicom (and the NES for that matter). I never played 10 Yard Fight back in the day, but I do remember playing Tecmo Super Bowl a lot with friends back in high school. It was the only game that had the actual teams and actual players from the NFL.

I always got my ass kicked at it because I sucked at strategy and I was always playing it at my friend Mike's house. He owned the game and I didn't, so he probably practiced a lot on his own. Wasn't that always the worst thing about playing Nintendo games back in the day? Facing someone who owned a game that you didn't. So unfair.

Anyway. In turns of game play, I would say that Super Tecmo Bowl has aged much better, though both are fun. In terms of Famicom box art though? 10 Yard Fight dominates the gridiron on that count. God, what an awful use of the word "gridiron", I do apologize.

Take a look at that box though:
This is a really great box. Colorful, action packed, beautiful. The art itself is done in a kind of retro 50s way, with the cheerleaders and ref looking like old-school cartoon characters. The players are more realistically done in a heroic looking action scene. The game title is great too, in bold yellow and red characters.

All of these early Famicom Irem games, like Sqoon and Spelunker, have similar box designs. They kind of mimic the look of the cart with the LED light in roughly the same position on the box as it is on the cart.

The back of the box is pretty cool too, basically just continuing the design on the front:
One peculiarity of these is that the plastic insert which holds the cart is orange rather than the standard clear plastic most Famicom games used:The instruction manual is also pretty cool:
Super Tecmo Bowl, on the other hand, doesn't have anywhere near as inspiring a box. Its a great game, but look at this dud:
No color. No action. Just some dirty guy looking at you through his helmet.

I've always wondered who this guy is. Phil Simms? I couldn't remember what Phil Simms looks like, but a Google image search convinced me that this is not Phil Simms. Lawrence Taylor? Don't need an image search to convince me that this isn't Lawrence Taylor.

Who else played for the Giants in the early 90s? Jeff Hostetler? No.....anybody know who this guy is?

Anyway, the back of the box is also pretty boring:
And the manual....oh crap its that guy again:
What is his name? Argh.

Related Posts
- Box Art Battle: Lode Runner vs Raid on Bungling Bay