Does anyone else have this bootleg copy of crystal?

[kevansevans]

I've owned this thing for about ten years now, and I can't remember how I came by it, I'm thinking a friend gave it to me or something. It's clearly a bootleg copy, and I've known this for awhile now, but it just dawned on me that I should look it up, but I can't find any info on it. Everything about it is wrong except the game itself. The cartridge isn't the clear blue sparkle, no nintendo seal of approval on cover sticker, it says "game" on top and doesn't stick out like a legit copy of crystal. Even the circuit board is different. I've provided some photos here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f6b6lvpscyjqsp3/2014-11-28 21.09.56.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/obn5tbcq9haz2jh/2014-11-28 21.10.24.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tp5ijd1rddax20g/2014-11-28 21.12.07.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a9x50cwb4kq2ab1/2014-11-28 21.22.33.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lb6gew1qtz0r8ne/2014-11-28 21.22.52.jpg?dl=0

Funny thing is though, it runs identical to crystal version. I am in no longer possession of my gba at the moment, so I used my retron 5 to show that it runs just fine.

I'm wondering if anyone knows where this came from or if anyone else has the same thing I do.

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

My copy of Crystal is a legally bought copy with the sparkly light-blue cartridge, but if it plays like the normal game, then I cannot really say. I have seen countless fake GB cartridges with just "Game" on the top as opposed to "Game Boy" or "Game Boy Color", and all of them were bootlegs as far as I have seen, unless there was a region where legal GB carts of games were actually sold like that, but I highly doubt it, especially since the ESRB rating is listed, and the ESRB is only used in the US, Canada and Mexico, so it's definitely not a legal cartridge.

As for the origin of the cartridge and how it has the regular game in it, someone must have dumped it into it and distributed it without Nintendo knowing of it. This is nothing surprising as these kinds of cartridges turn up everywhere and are nothing unusual, but still pretty illegal no matter what.