Just discovered Surf Ninjas European Game Gear release 24 years late

[sharp]

This week I received a copy of Surf Ninjas for the Game Gear. Not that shocking and not the best game ever. The strange thing is that it's a European copy. Until I showed the pictures the game was only rumoured to exist, with only a mention from 9 years ago about a spotted cart only which looked to be European.

The inside of the cart and tranlations of the manual suggest it's the real deal. But that bring up the question, how can a game be missing for almost 24 years. As my copy was bought in Hong Kong and the cart-only copy 9 ears ao was from seller in Taiwan, I wouldn't be surprised if the game was made but the shipping to Europe was cancelled after the movie bombed at the box office (even Super Mario Bros : The Movie made more then 4 times the money Surf Ninjas did) and Sega shipped the copies to some Asian markets instead. But that is speculation.

The images are currently pending http://www.rfgeneration.c...nfo.pl?ID=E-045-S-01620-A more pics are available at www.smspower.org.

What do you think that made it possible that this game hadn't been discovered earlier?

[nupoile]

Being hard to find is one of the primary attributes of a ninja?

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Likely, it was produced but never released, like a few other releases. Whether it was a final payment missed, or maybe it was meant to be destroyed but a shipment was missed, or something along those lines... always interesting to find a release that shouldn't exist.

How'd you come across it? Just random in a lot ordering Neo Geo stuff?

[sharp]

It was on the site for a long time and just wanted to buy a new aes cart, so ordered it along. Ended up with a unique item.

Sadly Sega Europe doesn't know anymore about those days.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Don't suppose they have more?

[sharp]

Only one, but we are the only site with scans