Most people know Maniac Mansion from the PC or the 1990 NES cartridge. This isn't that game.
In 1988, two years before the American NES release, Jaleco made its own Maniac Mansion for the Famicom. It was built in Japan, for Japan only, and it doesn't run on SCUMM. The art was redrawn and nothing scrolls: every room is one screen. This cartridge was never released in the US or anywhere outside Japan. When Lucasfilm brought Maniac Mansion to the NES in America, they remade it from scratch instead of localizing this one.
So for 38 years this version only existed in Japanese. Someone translated the verb panel back in 2008, and that was the furthest anyone got. Now the whole game is in English: title, intro, every line of dialogue, menus, names and the ending.
What our version adds:
- Battery save. The Japanese cartridge has no battery, and the only way to keep your progress was a 104-character password. Now pressing SELECT also saves the game, and CONTINUE on the team screen puts you right back where you were. Passwords still work too. (The patched game runs on an MMC1 SUROM board, the same as Dragon Warrior IV, so use an emulator or flash cart that supports it.)
- A reorganized command panel. The 12 verbs now sit in pairs, one above the other: OPEN/CLOSE, PUSH/PULL, TURN ON/TURN OFF.
- The title screen reads JAPAN VERSION 1988, so you always know which Maniac Mansion you're playing.
Three bugs from the original cartridge, fixed
- If all three kids die, the game now goes to the GAME OVER screen. In the original it just sat there until you pressed RESET.
- People in the house no longer take items they have no use for. In the original they accepted almost anything, and the item was gone for good. Now they refuse and your kid keeps it.
- A stray red symbol no longer shows up in the corner of the password screens.
A few things this version has that the NES one doesn't:
- What Nintendo of America made LucasArts cut in 1990 is still here: the nude statue in the hall, the nude calendar, the pin-up mummy poster.
- Its own Game Over screen, where the kids turn into angels.
- Puzzles reworked for Japan: a 100-yen coin, a publisher with a Tokyo address, a Japanese mailbox outside the front door.
Full longplay of one of the good endings (Bernard calls the Meteor Police, Dr. Fred snaps out of it and stops the self-destruct):
https://youtu.be/uWDeuLYCW4E
Download the patch (English v1.1):
https://zmmxzjmhpxyqwvhqdfyw.supabase.co/functions/v1/baixar?p=maniac-mansion-en
Apply it to the Japanese cartridge dump: Maniac Mansion (Japan).nes, MD5 5835600abb0a8de98d905da545350160. Patch only, we never distribute ROMs. This is a fan translation, not connected to Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Jaleco or Nintendo.
More at www.patchclan.com
