Common approaches:
In the pantheon of retro gaming, few artifacts evoke as much raw, unadulterated nostalgia as the humble "multi-cart." Before the era of digital downloads and subscription services, if you were a child in the 90s, owning a single game cartridge was the norm. Owning ten was a luxury. But owning a ? That was the stuff of playground legends.
Furthermore, the aesthetic of the multi-cart menu has influenced modern indie games. Games like UFO 50 (a collection of 50 fake retro games) and Pico-8 cartridges explicitly mimic the feeling of scrolling through a 300-in-1 menu.
Leo’s collection was small. He had Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , and a battered copy of Gyromite that barely loaded. He wanted more, but his allowance didn't stretch to the pricey cartridges at the local video rental store.
"I barely scratched the surface," Leo admitted. "But I found out most of them are fake."
During the height of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and its Japanese counterpart, the Famicom, official game cartridges were expensive. In developing markets across Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America, purchasing individual, licensed games was financially out of reach for most families.
Early titles from Namco, Konami, and Capcom were staple inclusions. These games offered high replayability through score-chasing mechanics: Contra (often heavily modified with cheat menus) Pac-Man / Ms. Pac-Man Galaxian / Galaga Yie Ar Kung-Fu Bomberman Dig Dug 3. Obscure Homebrew and Glitchy Hacks
: Many enthusiasts load these onto a physical cartridge with an SD card slot to play on original hardware.
The year was 1997. The Nintendo Entertainment System was already considered "retro" technology, overshadowed by the shiny discs of the PlayStation and the polygons of the N64. But for ten-year-old Leo, the NES was still the king of the castle.
