I remember seeing a picture of this a while back.

Does anybody know what the status is on it? Or if others were found?

I absolutely adore the game and the PAL one is on my "to buy" list but I know it actually has a few issues running on an NTSC machine.

There are certainly a few Mr. Gimmick NTSC prototypes floating around. I know DreamTR owns one for sure. Why this game never saw a North American release is beyond me.

I don't know if one's ever been dumped, but that's definitely a repro I wouldn't mind playing on actual hardware.

Well, it's probably the same as so many others.. it was probably just too late for more NES games.

I've got hard cash on both donations for getting one dumped and for my repro cart if the chance ever comes up.

^2n'd

Yes I too would love to see this dumped as well, unfortunately the PAL version doesn't run quite right on an NTSC system.

It wasn't released in Europe until 1993, that's really late in NES terms, esp for a non-franchise game. The only game that was released in 94 that wasn't officially endorsed or part of a franchise was Alfred Chicken. And I think that was their water-testing game to see if the NES had any steam left in it...they gave it a big Nintendo Power review and everything, but it just sold poorly and the 8-bit coffin was nailed shut.

I don't know why Alfred was chosen over Gimmick...they're both VERY similar stylistically (quirky platformers with original characters), probably just tested better in a focus group. Or more likely, Mindscape was a leg up on Sunsoft and got the nod. Mindscape had a TON more releases, esp later in the system's lifespan, so they just made more money for Nintendo.

The Famicom version has definitely been dumped, and plays quite well on a Powerpak. Some of the extra sound is missing (which must be true for the proto as well since the NTSC NES lacks those capabilites without a mod), but otherwise it's dandy and plays at normal speed, no glitched graphics.

Most games with extra sound hardware in Japan had their sounds reprogrammed for NES hardware. I believe the PAL Mr. Gimmick is like this, which leads me to believe the NTSC would be as well. It'll be different, but not missing, for the most part (at least I think that's the case).

I would love to have a copy that runs fine on an NTSC system, but I'm all set when it comes to community dumps.  I'll just have to find one and release it myself .

I knew it was a late release title, but I didn't realize it was THAT late.  I can see why it never saw the light of day in the states.

A more likely reason is that Sunsoft of America was starting to have troubles by 1994. There are a bunch of unreleased SNES games that never made it out of the door because Sunsoft was done sometime in 1995.

You can solder a resistor in your nes to bring it back.

AS far as I know the NTSC proto sounds the same as the European PAL version when run on a PAL system but doesn't have any of the graphical glitches, the normals sounds are all there, and the sound test runs fine....

I wouldn't want a community dump on this one, I would just have repros made on cart if someone knew how to do it, but that game probably requires crazy donor carts.....

Also, Sunsoft wasn't "done" in 1995 or 96, they made games for Nintendo 64 and PS1 later on still and kept in business until the early 2000s. I know this because we were still dealing with them and I was there when their US office was actually being closed down...

and they were at ECTS (European Consumer Trade Show) in 2000 displaying a few GBC games, I went to their booth and saw a Wideboy64 in action for the first time :-)

They made stuff like Moomin's Quest, Sunsoft Grand Prix, Blaster Master Blasting Again, I think they even did Chameleon Twist!

Although that may be true, the producer at Sunsoft that the time, as well as a European development studio making games for Sunsoft at the time both state that Sunsoft USA went bankrupt in 1994/1995, and led to many canceled games.

For example, Road Runner 2 and Daze before Christmas.

badinsults: Don't know what to tell you, they were in Cypress, CA for years and years and years...they may have run out of money to publish a few games, but they never left, that much I know....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suns...

So what are the graphical problems when running the PAL version of this game on an NTSC console.

The wiki reinforces what Dream says.  They restructured in the face of bankruptcy in 1995, they didn't declare bankruptcy.  Would explain why a game as impressive as Gimmick didn't see a US release.

from what I noticed, it was lots of graphical glitches - sprites in the wrong place, almost garbled in areas. I only played it for a few minutes until I got bored, so there are quite possibly other problems as well that I didn't noticed.

Besides the obvious sound speed changes on the processor, there are a significant amount of glitches at the bottom of the screen...It's not Beauty and the Beast bad, but it's there...

Just because a company declares bankruptcy doesn't mean they disappear. I've had at least two former Sunsoft employees tell me that the company declaring bankruptcy is the reason why several of their games were canceled, and I am inclined to believe them. From my research (the memory of the Internet is patchy for the time), it happened in March 1995. If you look at some of the 1994 Sunsoft releases (ie Aero the Acrobat 2, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, Acme Animation Factory), they had very limited distribution, and in all likelihood, poor sales, despite their quality. Some of Sunsoft's later 16-bit games were picked up for release by Acclaim (ie Speedy Gonzales, Looney Toons B-Ball), but obviously many got the axe. Regardless of whether or not Sunsoft actually declared bankruptcy, they obviously had some severe financial problems in late 1994 and 1995 that led to a lot of canceled games.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that the only source you used to "support" your argument supported Dream's instead. They very well may have declared some sort of bankruptcy, I don't know much about their financial situation during that time period, I was referring specifically to that one link. Sorry man.