As I live in the UK, most of my Game Boy (original) games are PAL and come from within Europe. I've noticed that some of them have codes on their stickers which end in -UKV (meaning it was packaged in the UK, presumably), but others end in -EUR, which is more general for all of Europe. I've also had a few which had things like -FAH on them which probably means Finland or something.

This doesn't seem to happen with newer Game Boy games, only the older ones. I have two copies of Wario Land, one has UKV and the other has EUR. My Wario Land II is EUR and I'd rather it was UKV to match my CIB version of the first Wario Land, so that got me thinking about rarity/value differences between them.

So, anyone have any info about this stuff?

Region codes exist for all Nintendo games from NES and Game Boy all the way through to Wii U and 3DS (with the exception of the very earliest black box releases). While other regions often managed well enough with just USA, JPN or AUS codes, Europe has several different variations because many of the small countries had their own regional importers with their own codes, and sometimes with games translated to their own language. As you've noticed, the trend stopped around the last few years of the SNES' and Game Boy's life cycles, and with N64, GBC and forward pretty much all regions would simply have the general EUR code on almost all carts and discs. Today you usually only see the specific country code on games that have country-specific translations, though they still appear regularly on boxes and manuals.

These are all the specific European codes for NES, Game Boy and SNES that I'm aware of and my best guesses as to what they stand for:
ESP - Spain
FAH - France and Holland
FRA - France
FRG - Germany
GPS - Greece, Portugal, Spain?
HOL - Holland
ITA - Italy
NOE - Germany (Nintendo of Europe)
SCN - Scandinavia
SWE - Sweden
UKV - United Kingdom

Also, on NES you may come across EEC (European Economic Community), which is basically an earlier version of EUR.

Don't quote me on this, but I believe Wario Land II was such a late release that EUR is unfortunately the only one you're going to find. If you desperately want a matching pair, the original Wario Land was reprinted with a EUR code, probably the Player's Choice version.

EDIT: Caught now that you do already have and are aware of the EUR Wario Land, sorry.

Fearnavigatr pretty much answered your question, I think, but just as a bit more information for the curious, parts of Asia had different game codes too, to include China, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, etc.

Regarding rarity and value, they do indeed differ, but mainly in the way of games from a specific region being more valuable within that region. At least here in Sweden, games with SCN codes can often go for double the value compared to the more abundant NOE-carts that German-based resellers are flooding the market with. The value depends a lot on the collector culture of the country in question.

Personally, on PAL consoles I try to get all my games in SCN, UKV or EUR versions. UKV is a lot more common than SCN overall, and if it's a particularly sought after game it'll often be cheaper to import UKVs from British eBay than to scour the Swedish market for the local variety. But despite being cheaper and more common, UKV is definitely more desirable than most other regions, especially for the fact that you often risk ending up with German translations if you settle for NOE copies.

Thanks for the info, that helps a lot.

I was wondering about Wario Land II because I saw this on eBay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wario-L...

He mentions UKV in the title, but the picture is too small to actually see the cart... I might send him a PM asking him to clarify that. He might just be referring to some code on the box, which I noticed on my Wario Land II box said UKV despite the cart saying EUR.

And yeah, for the first Wario Land, I already have both variants. My EUR copy isn't a player's choice one either. I also noticed that the ink looks less thick and more faded on EUR carts than it does on UKV/FAH/etc. carts, almost as if they were more cheaply-produced. Oh well.

There are two different serial systems used on the Game Boy b/w.

old one: DMG-XX-YYY (XX=game identifier, YYY=region)
new one: DMG-XXXZ-YYY (XXXZ=game identifier with Z as country identifier, YYY=region the game was released in)

The newer code-system is the same as used for GBC, GBA, SNES, N64 and all newer consoles and handhelds. The one significant difference between the systems is the country identifier (Z) which the old system does not show on the cart but buries on the ROM chip instead. This means you don't know what you have if you see for instance a DMG-XX-FRA release. It might be french or generic. You need to open the cart to be sure. On the chip you will find the part DMG-XX seen on the label plus country identifier (called Z in the new system) and ROM version. So the ROM id might be DMG-XXF-0 (french) or generic DMG-XXX-0 (or maybe also Y-0 or E-0 - X and Y usually are european codes, E is an "imported" US ROM). A unique french release on the newer system would look like DMG-XXXF-FRA instead. A generic one would end on P. The region part that follows might vary but it has no meaning in regards to the game's content. Different to the old system where you might have a different version without knowing. So yes - it really means soemthing on the original gameboy. In regards to rarity and possibly also content.

I see. Thanks for all the info so far! This is really interesting.

I took a look at my Wario Land II box, and although the cart clearly says EUR in its code, the top of the box says "Scandinavia: imported by, Bergsala AB, Kungsbacka, Sweden". So I guess even though the cart has a general code, this is actually a Scandinavian copy.

My Wario Land copies, one of which is UKV and the other is EUR, actually have some other differences in the stickers that I noticed. Here's a picture:



As you can see, the entire graphic is higher up on the UKV one, and a little more to the right as well. The Nintendo seal is also lower down and the "Original Game Boy Pak" logo is bigger on UKV.

This kind of stuff is really interesting to me. Does anyone have any more info on this, or maybe any theories about why something like that would get changed?

Who knows. Its JPN graphic was lower and to the left, cutting out much of the flag and mast.

You actually can see the entire flag in its USA Player's Choice reprint. Since they replaced that "original game boy game pak" icon with a gold ribbon and ESRB logo near the bottom.

Thanks for sharing this info.  You mention a link between the new system's country identifier and game content -- are you referring to the in-game language of the game? 

To the OP:  if you're looking specifically for English games, you'd probably want to avoid any games that have "/XXX" added onto their part number as this implies that the in-game language is not English.  Also, some region codes are only found on boxes/manuals and not on carts/discs (i.e. FAH for NES), so in those cases it's not possible to find matching codes. 

Usually the game is translated, yes. But it means it is a release specifically modified for that country. In some cases it's also a censored version or a title change. An example would be the GBC game Gift:

Gift CGB-BGFP-EUR
Gifty CGB-BGFD-NOE

because of the bad association Gift=poison