Rare 'Final Fantasy II' cartridge selling for $50,000 on eBay

Gaming fanatics with $50,000 (P2.111 million) to burn can get their hands on an extremely rare 21-year-old American cartridge of the popular game "Final Fantasy II."

 

Making the cartridge even rarer —at least in North America— is that the original Japanese "Final Fantasy II" never made it to stores there, Kotaku.com said.

 

"As most of you are no doubt aware, the original version of Final Fantasy II was never released in the United States. This particular cartridge was put together by the fine folks at Square Soft USA (a very small company at the time) to display at the 1991 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The plan was to release the game later that year, but instead, Square scrapped its 8-bit NES plans to focus on the new 16-bit Super Nintendo," said video game historian/journalist Frank Cifaldi, who is selling it.

 

The pre-production sample cartridge is being sold on eBay, in very good condition, noted Kotaku.com.

 

Kotaku.com said that while a pre-production sample cartridge for any video game from this era is rare, it is a virtual miracle to see one survive for a game that was never actually released.

 

Cifaldi said he had owned this cartridge for over nine years now, and this is the only legitimate copy of the game that exists, as far as he knows.

 

"Any other copies you have seen of Final Fantasy II for the NES have been bootlegs, this is the real deal," he said.

 

He added the cartridge has been stored securely since it was originally bought in 2003, and had not touched a console since then.

 

Kotaku.com said the English script is "clunky and erroneous to the point that players may find the dialogue between characters quite comical."

 

"It can be very hard not to snicker when a character declares, 'We are all in here because of that old man's Xtal Rod!!'" it said.

 

Still, it said the game was completed to the point that it can be played from start to finish.

 

It is just that the dialogue remains in a constant state of mangled English throughout, it added. As of the afternoon of August 23, Cifaldi's price has not been met, although almost a hundred other separate undisclosed price offers have been posted. The auction ends on August 29. — TJD, GMA News