Rare Unreleased Nintendo Power Glove Games Surfaces On eBay

Two unreleased NES games have just surfaced on eBay, and one, in particular, should be of great interest to fans of Nintendo Power Glove, and/or Donkey Kong Country developers Rare. The Video Game History Foundation's Frank Cifaldi discovered and shared the first game called Battlefields of Napoleon. Additionally, it comes in the form of a prototype cartridge for the game as well as its original packaging design as it would have been sent to Nintendo for printing on game boxes. Furthermore, even though this specific version of the game—localized into English and published by Broberbund—did not ever launch, at least we are aware of what it is. Originally released in Japan as Napoleon Senki, an incredibly ambitious real-time strategy game for the Famicom that, despite how difficult it appears to play, also has some wonderful static visuals. However, the actual enigma is the second game. Additionally, this simple cartridge tagged as "CES SAMPLE" (before E3 took off, the Consumer Electronics Show was the huge annual event for games as well) and having come from Rare, is for a demo of a game with support for the Nintendo Power Glove. Moreover, there weren't many of those as only two games were ever released with dedicated Power Glove support (one of them, Super Glove Ball, also developed by Rare). So, this would have been the third of them. Most importantly, no physical or digital copies of this game made it into the public domain and no one has ever seen or played it.

?Attention video game preservation fans with money to spare? There are currently TWO unreleased, one-of-a-kind, never-digitized games for the original NES on eBay right now. This has literally never happened before. Our resources are stretched thin, and we could use help. pic.twitter.com/54ym603mHM

— Frank Cifaldi (Haunted).nes (@frankcifaldi) October 11, 2022

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Fortunately, there are some hints as to what it was about. Former programmer Paul Byford responded to Rare's James Thomas' call earlier today for information on the demo, stating that, from what he can recollect, it "was a puzzle game where the cursor was a disembodied hand and you made different gestures to complete tasks. Punching rocks or turning keys etc.” Therefore, because of this, it is crucial to preserve the game, which is why the Video Game History Foundation is working to raise the money needed to acquire the cartridge. And although this is exactly the kind of item the organization would typically buy, Cifaldi noted on Twitter earlier today that at the moment they have very less resources and thus "could use help." So, if you want to provide a helping hand, you can DM Cifaldi on Twitter, and while you're at it, you can "discuss tax-deductible options if you’re in the U.S." Also, More- Hori’s Redesigned Joy-Con Controllers Similar To Nintendo Switch Lastly, he claimed they received about $4,000 in pledges so far. But, given the scarcity of both games, and the insane demand for such products in these difficult economic times, there is no assurance that this amount will be sufficient.