I just can't remember how I got this game on the first place... during my childhood PS1 was popular and the favorite choice of every kid, but there were so many kids (like me) who came from families that just couldn't afford a new system. We, unlucky boys with no PS1, used to lend between us game carts... and that's how I lost almost the totality of my SNES games. But I also got some games I didn't originally buy, like Battletoads in Battlemaniacs. UBER-hard game, that goddamn race level... anyway, as I grew up I noticed something both interesting and strange about not-so-mine cartridge. Please, take a look at these. The first one is, obviously, NTSC-U version. The two at the center are PAL version (different colors = different region, I think). And the last one is the Super Famicom version. Then, why my cartridge has always been like THIS? The artwork on the label it's entirely different, and instead of Battletoads in Battlemaniacs... it clearly sports the logo "Battlemaniacs" with "in Battlemaniacs" below. Actually, the ingame logo says "Battlemaniacs" rather than "Battletoads", still... no cover art uses it, except the Tectoy Brazilian game. And that's not the strangest thing: the retro clearly says Super Famicom cassette, but it always worked on a PAL SNES, without any modification at all. This thing has been puzzling me for years: what is it? Is it a pirate cartridge? EDIT: I forgot to say that the game itself is the same. No differences at all...
Yes, it's definitely a bootleg, no official Super Famicom/PAL shaped cart has the notches on the back which allow it to fit inside a USA SNES. It was probably made in South America if they used the Tectoy artwork.
Rather than using the Tectoy artwork logo (it's slightly different), it really seems ripped from the game. Maybe it's not clear if you watch the photo, but looking at it closely I noticed it's very... "raster-y". Like a zoomed bitmap file. The character, Rash, instead, seems based on the official Battletoads NES artwork. Now that I think about it, I never noticed that the game, besides different artwork and different label layout (no black stripes, there's no "Super Nintendo" written on it), it's also missing the Nintendo Seal of Quality. Also, I didn't know about the notches, so I checked out my other games; it looks like even my Lion King cart is a pirate! But this one is so messed up, it's even missing the label.
Hmm. I have at least 4 official SFC carts which have those notches - all have chips and PCBs with Nintendo logos and case and PCB quality is too good for bootlegs. But this one is definitely a bootleg - label quality, and SNS P instead of SHVC-xx. Also most of SFC carts have "Nintendo Super Famicom cassette" on the back, not just Nintendo logo.
