NationalGameDepot wrote on 29. Sep 2006 at 17:39:
I have a few questions then. Why is the HES version being used in Epyx/SEI box? My only thoughts would be because the HES stuff is already PAL format and not NTSC.
And, why is the label on upside down. All the other images of this game I can find have the label on correctly except for this auction, thoughts?
~~NGD
Well, the upside down label is consistent with all of the other German IM2's that I've seen (my copy + 2 others excluding this one). The odd thing is that the sticker mentions that the game is from SEI, and not HES, yet they use a HES cart, which still makes no sense since it's still PAL-A and not PAL-B (I tested it on a PAL-B machine). Also, my cart does not have a backlabel, so I assume this one also doesn't. The manual could differ from the normal HES release as it is multilingual (including German)...we just need someone who owns a HES copy from Australia to check their manual and see if it's also multilingual.
Also, going back to the box, HES used some boxes from NTSC releases (i.e. Pyramid) for their HES games in Australia, so chances are this could still be a HES release with SEI box, but marketed for European consumers who had a converter device (although the odd thing is still that the sticker mentions SEI and not HES). I could even make a real wild speculation and say that maybe SEI wanted to release the game in Europe and didn't know there were two PAL formats at the time, thus buying stock from HES in Australia and adding it to the game to be released in Europe.