Video Game Den

PC GAME logo

The Card is very thick, about five times the thickness of a standard HuCard. The top-left corner says PC GAME. Four Kanjis can clearly be seen on the side of the card, but we will talk about those later. The main picture curiously represents a scene of Kabuki (traditional Japanese drama theater).

Odd Pirate PC-ENGINE HuCard
KABUKI
HYPERDINE SIDE ARMS

This must easily be the oddest HuCard I have ever seen and found for the PC Engine system. This HuCard is most certainly a pirate (obviously). Let's talk about the most interesting part : What game is on it ? Well, when inserted in a PC Engine system, the game Hyperdyne Side Arms seems to be the winner, which confirms the pirate origin of the cartridge. As far as I know, the game is identical to the original Capcom release.

There is another interesting feature to this cartridge. The top of the card slides and can be removed. Doing so reveals the connections. As you can see on the picture to the right, the black area is far from being as smooth as a real HuCard ( this feature seems to be common to other pirate HuCards, especially the PC Game series ) and is also pocked with tinny holes. The Rom is actually located at the back (probably an EPROM). Here is certainly the reason why the card is so thick. Also, there is a tinny hole on the side and the electronic inside can be clearly seen.

The Kanjis on the bottom side of the cart say something like "perfectly compatible" ( thanks Miko-san for helping me to translate this one ). The last Kanji is definitively Chinese as Japanese would never write it this way. So this game is most probably a Chinese pirate.
It is not the fist time I encounter a PC Engine game with the logo PC GAME on it, but this kind of indicate me they probably originated from China, and not from Japan as I initially thought.

The Kabuki scene from the main label.

The cartridge in action.