I seriously watched a whole video about bullet proof and bullet-proof. I enjoyed it. Good find! I can also find joy in Nintendo stuff like this. And only when I try to explain why it interests me I notice how weird it must sound.
Keep in mind that any one of those unsealed boxes or their contents could be mixtures of actual complete sets. "I need a box for this, so I'll buy a box", or "Oh, I found a manual for this game, now it's complete".
As somebody who goes down the rabbit holes of micro niches. I love this. There should almost be a channel that just does one very specific micro niche aspect of fringe hobbies.
I think this video is telling me that I should work for a box making company and purposefully make a handful of mistakes and then use some saved ones to retire.
The numbers on the cartridges indicate the manufacturing location, as well as the revision. This is the same on N64 carts as well, and revisions can change over time. For instance, v1.0 of Zelda Ocarina of Time shows, for instance, a "3", but v1.2 would say "3B". So most Tetris carts are really Tetris v1.1, and the Minuet version would be v1.0.
Thanks to Elliot I bought 2 minuet versions off of him and I genuinely play one of them every day. Knowing the history and Elliots chapter in it makes it so fun to boot up every day. Check out Gaming Historian's history of Tetris it's a licensing nightmare!
Was an car mechanic. Changed a fuel tank on a car. The fumes ruined a new paint job in the adjacent auto body repair shop. Gas (petrol) fumes can F stuff up.
The manual that credits ELORG Tetris instead of bullet-proof is interesting as ELORG is the name of the USSR state owned company that originally released Tetris. I wonder if there is a back story with that one. Edit: Actually, this might explain it "It (as in ELORG) was controlled by the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR from 1971 to 1989." Maybe by the end of 1989 they didn't own the rights to Tetris internationally software wise anymore. Wikipedia says they were privitized at some point and held just the name trademark until 2005.
I recommend watching the "Tetris: From Russia With Love" documentary. It explains the fight Atari had with Nintendo over Tetris. Russia's laws at the time made it very tough for either to get the license to sell the game originally made in Russia as something to pass the time at a research and computing/development center in Moscow. It will explain what ELORG's involvement with the game was.
Okay so i am confused now, i have a boxed Japanese copy that is not Minuet but on the back and the manual it does not reference Bullet Proof at all just the Tetris Company and Elorg, but on the load screen for the game is Bullet-Proof. Is this just an even later version?
I’m enthralled, I can’t afford to collect cool things but I used to collect Digivices and Digimon vpets, and this is the exact feeling I used to chase.
This is a really interesting rabbit hole. Why did they change to the hyphenated version? Did bullet-proof complain, and nintendo had to revise it? Because that means they had to revise all their packaging, manuals, sticker printing, ect over just a teeny-tiny hyphen. Clearly there was some level of effort put in to change things, and all that effort over a hyphen??? I feel like there's more to this story...
The song most people know is called Korobeiniki, which is a Russian folk tune. While Minuet may be rare, because Alexei Pajitnov, who is Russian, created the game during his time at the Elorg Group, Korobeiniki is more culturally correct.
The gameboy version of Tetris was the first to use Korobeiniki. Previous versions used all sorts of different music, most of it also Russian in origin. Pajitnov’s original version had no music at all.
My US version of Tetris also has a 20A on the label, though it is obviously way different, showing the stacking blocks. It also looks like your manuals have different part numbers on them as well between the Minuet version and the 1.1 version.
6:05 "And I think you know where I'm getting at with all of this" Oh yes, totally. It's obvious. But please say it anyway just so I can check that you stayed on track.
Elliot! Curious, is there any documentation or internet archive stuff around how many copies were printed of the non-hyphen version of Tetris? I just got my hands on one today!!!
very interesting it reminds me of my story of only playing ocarina of time 1.0 as a kid and being mindblown when someone lent me a 1.2 version that the religious chanting in the fire temple was gone and that ganondorfs blood was now green i legit thought my friend has a buggy copy
Something I noticed in the video is in the top-right of the manual you had that was different from the rest says “DMG-TRA-2” all the others I saw showed “DMG-TRA”
Looks like the manual has the version marked on the front cover - "DMG-TRA" vs "DMG-TRA-2", looking online there also seems to be a "DMG-TRA-1" manual. Maybe something else to check if you have one, or look for to complete the set?
So why would there be some of the game labels with "bullet proof" if almost all of the box labels say "bullet-proof," like they corrected the error of the non-hyphenated version, but somehow had that much time between the printing of the game labels and the boxes for those earlier games before shipping?
This is like me collecting the Hot Wheels Star Wars character cars. So many variations on packages from different waves of cars, even if they're the same car, but then I've collected variants of some of them and even got my hands on some international variants of packages where the only difference is (for example) it doesn't list the name of the movie/show the character appears in :D
One of the biggest fandoms for variant collecting, if not the biggest outside maybe comic books…My Little Pony. There are soooo many variants of old ponies in different countries. I didn’t know about the SW cars. I collect 3.75 and a slew of 12 inch but am not familiar with the cars.
@@ChicagoMel23 Yep, one of the few collections I decided to actually work to complete. It's also pretty cheap compared to other collections. Hot Wheels has been doing collabs with a lot of different companies (mostly Disney) for the character cars. They're all designed after the actual characters in interesting ways. The one that started it was the Darth Vader car, it was a real car built back in the early 2000's and from there it spawned an entire sub-genre of Hot Wheels.
Also with these they could have been jumbled up a cart from one in a box from another with a manual from another. Frankenstein Tetris. Now go find a sealed one and prove it 100% 🤣
This was a really fun and nerdy video…especially for the nerds that have been following along. Really need to find a copy of minuet Tetris! Maybe when i go to japan! So much fun to learn about these early quirks! “Science isn’t about why, its about why not!”
ive got a gba sp that doesnt turn on or get a light when plugged in charge ive done extensive looking into it cant find a water damage sticker cant see any thing wrong with solders anywhere have gone mental on it with iso to clean it still nothing any advice??
OMG a few years ago I found a Minuet version in box and I was very worried about that box with a link cable ! I couldn’t find any info saying the Minuet has a bigger box, so I thought it was maybe a fake. And now, thanks to you, I know mine is official 🔥
You're like a Transformers friend of mine who has a ton of G1 (from the 80's) Optimus Prime's which look identical to most people, but have different numbers on the trailer! Not my style of collecting (I've got the Takara book box reissue from the early 2000's and I'm happy with that!) but whatever gets you through the day! That said, this was interesting and now I'm going to be on the lookout at the next toy fair I go to to see if I can find one of these. So, cheers, I guess... 😜
What price should one expect to pay for a cartridge only minuet copy? And I know some Tetris copies have black blobs so how can you tell if it's legit?
Cool video, Elliot 😀 You can try Farécla G3 cream on the back of those carts. It is very lightly abrasive, but I use it all the time on my car when I get the paint surface scratched. It gets rid of every dirt spot and even the smallest scratches.
Love the video. I thought i had the first version of the game, by the old familiar melody. Now i need to get this version as well, since i'm collecting GB games.
Just today I finally found a minuet copy in a Japan thrift store for ¥440. Bargain... I have been here 3 months so far and been to hundreds of stores across the country so I'm not going to pretend I found it easily. I wouldn't have known about it had I not seen you talk about this a long time back, so thanks for that!!
2 things. 1. Have you thought about selling any of your Minuet copies? 2. WHY did you have to unbox the rarest version? Surely it'd be better if you'd kept it in the packaging?
I bought one, thanks to this video, that is a first revision. For all intents and purposes should be a minuet copy, it is not. I will not continue down this rabbit hole of guessing. I will just find a buyer selling it as a minuet copy. Then I’ll have one non-minuet and one minuet Tetris copy.
I seriously watched a whole video about bullet proof and bullet-proof.
I enjoyed it.
Good find! I can also find joy in Nintendo stuff like this. And only when I try to explain why it interests me I notice how weird it must sound.
With a brief cameo by old man ELORG.
This is wonderful just watching someone geek out over something so niche as this! Thank you for showing these variants off!
I was gonna come down here and comment something really similar. We love you Elliot!
Keep in mind that any one of those unsealed boxes or their contents could be mixtures of actual complete sets.
"I need a box for this, so I'll buy a box", or "Oh, I found a manual for this game, now it's complete".
This is the nerdiest video I've seen from you in a long time. Good work!
As somebody who goes down the rabbit holes of micro niches. I love this. There should almost be a channel that just does one very specific micro niche aspect of fringe hobbies.
I think this video is telling me that I should work for a box making company and purposefully make a handful of mistakes and then use some saved ones to retire.
The numbers on the cartridges indicate the manufacturing location, as well as the revision. This is the same on N64 carts as well, and revisions can change over time. For instance, v1.0 of Zelda Ocarina of Time shows, for instance, a "3", but v1.2 would say "3B". So most Tetris carts are really Tetris v1.1, and the Minuet version would be v1.0.
Glad you can keep track of which papers and games went where, cause i sure lost track😅
thanks for the original video on these tetris variants! i managed to get one of these for my own collection thanks to your video :)
Have you noticed the manual that had a different layout is labeled "DMG-TRA 2" instead of the usual "DMG-TRA"?
From anyone else this could have been a boring video but hearing your excitement and joy in what you're doing makes this awesome.
Thanks to Elliot I bought 2 minuet versions off of him and I genuinely play one of them every day. Knowing the history and Elliots chapter in it makes it so fun to boot up every day. Check out Gaming Historian's history of Tetris it's a licensing nightmare!
I want to buy one off him. Where did you get it?
I'm getting war flashbacks from the messed up carts
the manual in the smaller box w/o the hyphen has DMG-TRA -2 on the top right, the manual in the big box w/o the hyphen says DMG-TRA on the top right.
Was an car mechanic. Changed a fuel tank on a car. The fumes ruined a new paint job in the adjacent auto body repair shop. Gas (petrol) fumes can F stuff up.
If you look at the manuals some of them also have dmg-tra-2. I think that was the one with the fixed errors.
The manual that credits ELORG Tetris instead of bullet-proof is interesting as ELORG is the name of the USSR state owned company that originally released Tetris. I wonder if there is a back story with that one.
Edit: Actually, this might explain it "It (as in ELORG) was controlled by the Ministry of Foreign Trade of the USSR from 1971 to 1989." Maybe by the end of 1989 they didn't own the rights to Tetris internationally software wise anymore. Wikipedia says they were privitized at some point and held just the name trademark until 2005.
I recommend watching the "Tetris: From Russia With Love" documentary. It explains the fight Atari had with Nintendo over Tetris. Russia's laws at the time made it very tough for either to get the license to sell the game originally made in Russia as something to pass the time at a research and computing/development center in Moscow. It will explain what ELORG's involvement with the game was.
I love your passion for Tetris! It's my favorite puzzle game and I was geeking out over this video!
May search for the meaing of life instead of bullet proof tetris. But truly the amazingst find of all time.
Okay so i am confused now, i have a boxed Japanese copy that is not Minuet but on the back and the manual it does not reference Bullet Proof at all just the Tetris Company and Elorg, but on the load screen for the game is Bullet-Proof. Is this just an even later version?
Did you notice the DMG-TRA-2 on the cover of the completely different manual? The others just say DMG-TRA
I can't believe I watched a 10 minute video about a slightly different version of Tetris for the GameBoy. Good work, that was interesting.
Joy comes where you find it. I’m glad you’re having fun with these.
I’m enthralled, I can’t afford to collect cool things but I used to collect Digivices and Digimon vpets, and this is the exact feeling I used to chase.
Has anyone from bulletproof software ever explained why they changed the music?
instructions unclear, I shot my Bullet proof tetris box and game, both were not bullet proof
This time baby I'll be bullet-proof
"They're not impossible to find..."
Right, we can see that, since you found at least one.
This is a really interesting rabbit hole.
Why did they change to the hyphenated version?
Did bullet-proof complain, and nintendo had to revise it? Because that means they had to revise all their packaging, manuals, sticker printing, ect over just a teeny-tiny hyphen.
Clearly there was some level of effort put in to change things, and all that effort over a hyphen???
I feel like there's more to this story...
The Tetris rabbit hole goes DEEP! 🤣
That format was perfect, excellent stuff! I enjoyed nerding out with you in real time as you discovered it all.
The song most people know is called Korobeiniki, which is a Russian folk tune. While Minuet may be rare, because Alexei Pajitnov, who is Russian, created the game during his time at the Elorg Group, Korobeiniki is more culturally correct.
The gameboy version of Tetris was the first to use Korobeiniki. Previous versions used all sorts of different music, most of it also Russian in origin. Pajitnov’s original version had no music at all.
BULLET PROOF
i have never heard anyone be so excited over a hyphen
"This is a rare and expensive game" then proceeds to drop it on the table...
We have niche collectors and then we have you @Elliot :).
Love your videos!
My US version of Tetris also has a 20A on the label, though it is obviously way different, showing the stacking blocks. It also looks like your manuals have different part numbers on them as well between the Minuet version and the 1.1 version.
i'm pretty sure that both of my UKV (PAL UK/Ireland) copies also have 20A on their labels
I love how nerdy this all is, you’re a god damn treasure Elliot.
6:05 "And I think you know where I'm getting at with all of this"
Oh yes, totally. It's obvious. But please say it anyway just so I can check that you stayed on track.
Also one of them says DMG-TRA on the front of the manual, while another says DMG-TRA-2.
Elliot! Curious, is there any documentation or internet archive stuff around how many copies were printed of the non-hyphen version of Tetris? I just got my hands on one today!!!
very interesting it reminds me of my story of only playing ocarina of time 1.0 as a kid and being mindblown when someone lent me a 1.2 version that the religious chanting in the fire temple was gone and that ganondorfs blood was now green i legit thought my friend has a buggy copy
There's no hyphen!! *audibly gasps
I love how excited minute details like this can get us
Wait until you find out that there is a big box with bullet proof on the back with no -.
"DMG-TRA-2" on the manual which had the completely different last page!
My dad collects coins and stamps and gets about as excited over limited-production units such as this.
Something I noticed in the video is in the top-right of the manual you had that was different from the rest says “DMG-TRA-2” all the others I saw showed “DMG-TRA”
Loved this one man. You get so excited and it makes me excited haha
Looks like the manual has the version marked on the front cover - "DMG-TRA" vs "DMG-TRA-2", looking online there also seems to be a "DMG-TRA-1" manual. Maybe something else to check if you have one, or look for to complete the set?
So why would there be some of the game labels with "bullet proof" if almost all of the box labels say "bullet-proof," like they corrected the error of the non-hyphenated version, but somehow had that much time between the printing of the game labels and the boxes for those earlier games before shipping?
The colors were also different on the manuals One of them was blue and the other was black
Looks like the front of the manual are slightly differnt. The top right one manual had DMG-TRA-2 the other manual only had DMG-TRA.
The colors on the small-box no-hyphen art (for both the box and the manual) seem to be more muted, too. I wonder if this is a sign as well.
this was a good video i like these often more than the main channel content.
i saw a few of those XL box tetris' in japan last week. i might try to locate a mini minuet while im here
I've never seen someone so awestruck by hyphens (or by the lack of hyphens) in my life.
This is like me collecting the Hot Wheels Star Wars character cars. So many variations on packages from different waves of cars, even if they're the same car, but then I've collected variants of some of them and even got my hands on some international variants of packages where the only difference is (for example) it doesn't list the name of the movie/show the character appears in :D
One of the biggest fandoms for variant collecting, if not the biggest outside maybe comic books…My Little Pony. There are soooo many variants of old ponies in different countries.
I didn’t know about the SW cars. I collect 3.75 and a slew of 12 inch but am not familiar with the cars.
@@ChicagoMel23 Yep, one of the few collections I decided to actually work to complete. It's also pretty cheap compared to other collections.
Hot Wheels has been doing collabs with a lot of different companies (mostly Disney) for the character cars. They're all designed after the actual characters in interesting ways. The one that started it was the Darth Vader car, it was a real car built back in the early 2000's and from there it spawned an entire sub-genre of Hot Wheels.
Also with these they could have been jumbled up a cart from one in a box from another with a manual from another. Frankenstein Tetris. Now go find a sealed one and prove it 100% 🤣
can some one PLEASE explain to me what i'm looking for at 1:08? I see that it's circled, but i guess in not nerdy enough to understand 😕
Its the graphic beneath the word all, the white blob is in a slightly different place.
@@hekcis cool thanks! 😎
Bought my first Gameboy game which is jp version of Tetris not knowing it was the minuet version
some of the manuals have different numbers on them from the box
This was a really fun and nerdy video…especially for the nerds that have been following along. Really need to find a copy of minuet Tetris! Maybe when i go to japan! So much fun to learn about these early quirks! “Science isn’t about why, its about why not!”
ive got a gba sp that doesnt turn on or get a light when plugged in charge ive done extensive looking into it cant find a water damage sticker cant see any thing wrong with solders anywhere have gone mental on it with iso to clean it still nothing any advice??
OMG a few years ago I found a Minuet version in box and I was very worried about that box with a link cable ! I couldn’t find any info saying the Minuet has a bigger box, so I thought it was maybe a fake.
And now, thanks to you, I know mine is official 🔥
I’m wondering if the ROM would have any subtle differences between each version?
You're like a Transformers friend of mine who has a ton of G1 (from the 80's) Optimus Prime's which look identical to most people, but have different numbers on the trailer! Not my style of collecting (I've got the Takara book box reissue from the early 2000's and I'm happy with that!) but whatever gets you through the day!
That said, this was interesting and now I'm going to be on the lookout at the next toy fair I go to to see if I can find one of these. So, cheers, I guess... 😜
On the top right side of the manual on your special one its shows "DMG-TRA" on the others it shows "DMG-TRA-2"
do you have any broken gameboys i can have id love to try and save them :) been watching your vids for years!
I hope you managed to put the correct things back together!? I found that very stressful.
What price should one expect to pay for a cartridge only minuet copy? And I know some Tetris copies have black blobs so how can you tell if it's legit?
Thats the kind of video why i subscribed the channel - nice to see you in full nerdmode again - keep it up💯
This channel is bullet proof
There is one secret level on the rarest Tetris that has the blueprints for a secret Russian spy plane.
Cool video, Elliot 😀
You can try Farécla G3 cream on the back of those carts. It is very lightly abrasive, but I use it all the time on my car when I get the paint surface scratched. It gets rid of every dirt spot and even the smallest scratches.
Reissue manuals appear to have DMG-TRA-2 on the front upper corner.
Here in AMERICA we'd be pissed if we DIDN'T get the hyphen we paid for!
(Neat video! I always enjoy seeing these rare and niche Game Boy things.)
Love the video. I thought i had the first version of the game, by the old familiar melody. Now i need to get this version as well, since i'm collecting GB games.
I have that rare box variant with the minuet cartridge.
Brilliant! please consider doing a pokemon one! Never been able to find any information on TH-cam
Have you done a snes gameboy player chip swap with a dmg yet?
When all has been said and done, Bullet-Proof was Bullet Proof.
Did you know there was a minuet tetris is stamped 05? 22 is a goner in the US.
Just today I finally found a minuet copy in a Japan thrift store for ¥440.
Bargain... I have been here 3 months so far and been to hundreds of stores across the country so I'm not going to pretend I found it easily.
I wouldn't have known about it had I not seen you talk about this a long time back, so thanks for that!!
Is there a rare one that was a pack-in bundle with the gameboy
I wonder if anyone has uploaded the full soundtrack songs from the Minuet version
Should of opened the games to see the motherboards 😳🤔
What is the difference between DMG-TRA and DMG-TRA-2?
The Minuet soundtrack reminds me of the Gen 1 Pokémon soundtracks.
Certainly the very first one was out before the Gameboy came out, wasn't it? It came out on an arcade machine before we got it on the NES or this.
Well, it looks like the manuals are labelled different on the front "DMG-TRA" and "DMG-TRA-2"
With it being possible to AI generate art now. I wonder if it'll become that much harder to spot counterfeits of cartridge games?
2 things.
1. Have you thought about selling any of your Minuet copies?
2. WHY did you have to unbox the rarest version? Surely it'd be better if you'd kept it in the packaging?
I got one of these off Sendico thanks to your first video. Great to have in the collection
The obligatory like is bullet proof.
I bought one, thanks to this video, that is a first revision. For all intents and purposes should be a minuet copy, it is not. I will not continue down this rabbit hole of guessing. I will just find a buyer selling it as a minuet copy. Then I’ll have one non-minuet and one minuet Tetris copy.
You should have been listening to Bulletproof by La Roux while making this... fascinating stuff.
When he said 09 he said no number but he meant to say no letter
How did he not notice the box colour difference of the non hyphen bullet proof box
Would appreciate if you told us how much you bought them for and how much they are going for 👍
Very interesting... would love to find a copy...