A Pokémon fan has shared a hilarious video showing the strange way the Nintendo company name was printed inside a pirated cartridge. However, there’s a good reason this Game Boy Advance game has these bugs, and it’s not the only Pokémon game to have a fake company name hidden inside it.
The Serie Pokemon it debuted in the mid-’90s as a couple of games for the original Nintendo Game Boy. Since then, it has grown into the popular franchise that Pokémon fans love today, with the Pokémon anime series and a collection of beloved Pokémon games for the Game Boy, Nintendo DS, and Switch, among other platforms. Pokémon has become one of the best-selling game franchises of all time.
Now, a fan has shared a video showing the inside of a cartridge of the game “Pokémon Light Platinum”. Once opened, it is clear that something is not right; the Nintendo company name is printed on the PCB as “nihlendoIn response to the thread, a reader stated that he had worked at a retro game store and had come across many fake Nintendo names on cartridges, his favorite being “Niltondo”.
This game cartridge Pokemon, like many that circulate in the second-hand market, is completely false. The cartridge itself was not produced or endorsed by Nintendo, and Pokémon Light Platinum was never an official release for the Game Boy Advance.
Rather, the game is what’s known as a “ROM hack” in which creative fans modify an existing Pokémon game into something new. However, Nintendo has been known to crack down on unofficial Pokémon projects that draw attention. Despite this stance by Nintendo, Rom hacks are easily accessible online and are sometimes sold in physical cartridges by pirate game manufacturers.