Hissatsu Shigotonin Famicom Nintendo 1213 Fc

Hissatsu Shigotonin for the Famicom is a boxed action game adaptation of the long-running Japanese TV drama about Edo-period assassins for hire, published in the early 1990s for Nintendo's 8-bit Family Computer hardware. The drama ran for decades on Japanese television, building a devoted audience around its period-setting revenge plots, and this cart is one of the few times that world made it into an interactive format.

The Famicom's Japanese-exclusive library in the early 1990s is full of licensed game tie-ins that never crossed the Pacific, and Hissatsu Shigotonin sits firmly in that tradition. While the West was consuming its own 8-bit licensed fare, Japan's Famicom catalog was pulling from samurai dramas, tokusatsu serials, and period television that had no Western equivalent. The drama itself, sometimes translated as "Sure Death" in English-language discussion, dates back to the early 1970s as a manga and spawned multiple television seasons running well into the 1990s, which explains why a Famicom adaptation existed at this stage of the hardware's life. By the early 1990s, the Famicom was aging out in Japan with the Super Famicom already dominant, but licensed tie-ins for established IP were still moving units. A title like this one was made for a narrow domestic market and stayed there. No NTSC-U release, no PAL release. Japan only.

This copy comes boxed, which matters for any Famicom deep cut from this period. Famicom boxes were printed on thinner stock than their Western counterparts, and survival rates for clean boxed copies of late-library licensed titles are lower than people expect. The artwork on this box features the period illustration style typical of the drama's promotional materials, heavy on samurai aesthetics and kanji title text. The cart itself is the standard Famicom form factor with the 60-pin edge connector. If you are buying this to play on original hardware, you will need a Japanese Famicom or an adapter. Run your eye along the cart connector pins before anything else.

OWNER VERIFY: Confirm publisher credit on the cartridge label or box spine (Banpresto is cited in the prior description; verify it matches the physical label).