Father’s Day used to mean a neck tie, a steak dinner and some quality time with the old man. Today’s dad grew up not wearing a necktie and swears off too much red meat. So that leaves quality time. For those Dad’s who grew up playing the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), we have the ultimate Techlife 8-bit gift this Father’s Day; never released Nintendo Games ready to play on Dad’s NES. Often called ROMS, these games for many reasons were never published or in the case of my personal favorite Super Tecmo Bowl, have a loyal fan following that has updated the ROM with new player rosters and stats and even a few more teams.
Meet Leon Kiriluk of NES Reproductions. Leon was kind of enough to sit down for an interview and this will only add to the gift for dad; the backstory.
Techlife: What is NES Reproductions?
Leon Kiriluk: As a collector and gamer, I love playing NES games on the real system, rather than the artificial constraints found on a PC game emulators. Through sheer luck, I discovered a community of game hackers that took these game dumps and put them back on original NES carts. Being proficient with electronics, I decided to experiment with making my own NES games as well. After I successfully reproduced a few of these never released NES games, I posted my creations to a popular video game forum. To my surprise, many collectors, less electronic savvy than me, messaged me pleading me to make these games for them. NES Reproductions was born.
TL: When and why did you start this hobby?
LK: I grew up with Nintendo (the original) in the late 80’s. As with most kids, my Nintendo was eventually sold off in a garage sale as the family upgraded to better and newer video game systems. Sometime around 1998, my brother brought home an NES system with a handful of games which he purchased at a flea-market. I was hooked. We played for hours on that system, bringing back all my childhood memories.
For the next 5 years I made it a personal mission to collect as many NES games as I could; I completed my NES collection a few years later. In the process, I discovered that there were many NES games in development that were never released for one reason or another (mostly due to marketing pulling the plug in the last minute). These game prototypes went home with the engineers and eventually made it into the hands of game collectors, such as myself. These collectors proceeded to dump the games from these prototype boards and provide them for free on the Internet. Gamers are now able to play these games on their computers using NES emulators.
Over the next decade, it grew to not only reproduce never before released games, but also game hacks, such as the community based hack to Tecmo Superbowl.
TL: What is your background?
LK: From a very young age I was interested more in how toys worked rather than play with them. Every new toy I ever got, I proceeded to disassemble it, learn what made it function, and then put it back together. Over the years, as my interest in electronics grew, the tools of the trade naturally grew with it: soldering stations, desoldering stations, memory chip programmers and erasers.
TL: How did you figure out what hardware you needed?
LK: There’s a big community out there (thanks to the Internet) that can help anyone do what I do. Someone just has to be driven enough, and invest enough time/money in this hobby. It’s also not that expensive to get started. I started with a cheap 40$ programmer and 5$ soldering iron. These tools will suffice for half a dozen reproduction carts, but for any significant volume, investing in professional equipment is a must as with any “hobby”.
I use the word hobby because that’s what NES reproduction is for me. A hobby that fills my time most evenings when my kids are asleep. I’m fortunate enough to have a very good full time job where I don’t need to supplement my income with making these games – I consider it a way of giving back to the community, for gamers such as myself. This is the main reason why I never raised my prices for reproductions in a decade.
TL: How long does it take to create a cartridge?
LK: On average, about 30-45 minutes per cart. Surprising, the finishing touches on a cart (making the label, cleaning the cart, installing the cart, and testing it) take a lot more time than the actual electronic desoldering/soldering of new memory chips process.
TL: Of the 52 titles listed on your site what’s the most popular title?
LK: Earthbound followed by Super Mario Brothers 2 (Japan) by far; both made by Nintendo, and both killed for silly reasons.
Earthbound courtesy of NES Reproductions
Earthbound only came out in Japan. Nintendo did have a full english translation completed, but for some reason never released it. It wasn’t until the SNES release of Earthbound did North Americans got access to this wonderful RPG game. But in reality, Earthbound on the SNES is actually Earthbound 2.
Super Mario Bros. 2 courtesy of NES Reproductions
The other game, Super Mario Brother 2 – Japan, looks and plays the same as the original super mario bros, except it’s a lot more difficult. It wasn’t released in North America because Nintendo felt the game was too difficult for us. Instead, they took a different game, hacked mario characters into it and released it as SMB2. Nintendo fans aren’t stupid – anyone can see how different SMB2 is from every Mario game that came before it, and after. Simply put, it’s because it’s not a real Mario game.
TL: Have you seen requests steady since you began?
LK: For the most part, yes. I have also taken breaks (4 month breaks when both my children were born, as my families’ needs took precedence.)
TL: What’s the most unusual request to date?
LK: Oh .. that’s a tough one (for the most part, game reproductions boil down to the same process) I think special or custom game hacks. I’ve had customers request special one off reproductions and requested of me not to share the games with anyone else, which I complied with their wishes. I actually did have a couple of customers request a special NES game made for them, which they can use to ask their girlfriend to get married. Unfortunately, I’m not that good at actually programming a new NES game.
TL: Have you had any companies or individual game makers approach you? Any interest or even legal hassle?
Truthfully, for any game hacks, such as Gamepad Hero 1 & 2, I e-mailed the game developer first, and attained permission to offer a game reproduction of their games. In most cases, the company that made the game is long gone, or simply doesn’t care anymore as there really is little to no money in these old titles.
Even Nintendo itself lost the patent on the NES a few years ago due to the original Nintendo patent expiring – this is why there’s so many NES clones on eBay these days – and there’s a lot more money to be made selling NES clones than game reproductions.
TL: What is the best game in your opinion that was ever released?
The Goonies courtesty of NES Reproductions
LK: That’s a hard one. It depends on the gamer. The best RPG game is Earthbound (because it’s so different from any other RPG on the NES), for shooters nothing can touch Recca (I can’t believe this is an NES game! It really pushes the NES to its limits). I personally love playing The Goonies – what a great puzzle game. And the soundtrack is awesome too!
TL: What’s are some things you are requested to do that are not possible?
LK: I get a lot of requests for games that only came out in Japan or Hong Kong pirates that simply can’t be reproduced. They use special circuit boards that were only released in that part of the world, and as such I can’t reuse any of the game carts that came out in North America in reproducing these games. This is a shame as some of those games are actually really good .. many of these games were created long after the last NES game was shipped.
TL: What’s the most interesting story to come from this hobby?
LK: For me personally, I can’t believe how long it lasted. I initially created it just to help a few people on a popular chat board which I was an active member of. Over the last decade, it grew to so much more. I’ve had happy customers from all over the world, places that I never thought I’d ship a video game to. It really shows how international the NES has become.
TL: Do you have any future plans for your hobby?
LK: Truthfully, so much has changed in my life in the past decade. Getting married, having kids. Priorities in life have changed, and hobbies always tend to be the first to suffer. Can I see myself still making NES reproductions a decade from now? Probably not. Heck, even hobbies change! About 5 years ago my wife and I purchased our first home (a century old home) and my hobbies have moved away from working with electronics to doing home renovations.
TL Bonus question: We met when I found out you had Tecmo Super Bowl updated rosters. For the updated teams and rosters, how did you determine things such as “speed” or “quickness” or any other stat that has a no single statistics associated with it?
Tecmo Super Bowl 2K11 courtesy of NES Reproductions
LK: The Tecmo Superbowl updated NES game is developed by a team of developers on the Tecmo Superbowl repository web site. I only provide the service of putting their game on a cart. I’ve contacted the web site owner a few times, and sent him free reproductions as a ‘thank you’ for all the great work he does for the Tecmo community.
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