Physical, Forever: The Most Beautiful Cartridge Ever Made

Physical, Forever: The Most Beautiful Cartridge Ever Made

Behold the splendor of Salamander.

Konami’s classic shooter Life Force has an interesting history. Americans probably know it best from the NES release in 1988, which served as a de facto sequel to Gradius (since we didn’t actually see the NES version of the actual Gradius II over here). The game certainly played enough like Gradius—all the way down to the inclusion of the famous Vic Viper space fighter—that Konami even stuck it on the recent Gradius Origins collection. But the NES game was deliberately rebuilt to play more like Gradius than the arcade original, which featured a more limited and linear upgrade system than the customizable Gradius capsule format.

The transformation of Life Force from “shooter with some Gradius-like vibes” to “two-player Gradius with extras” was part of a general overhaul that Konami applied to the game in bringing it home. Life Force for NES didn’t just include a new, overhauled power-up system that would become a mainstay of future Gradius sequels, it also included several stages that didn’t appear in the arcade version. And it still retained the memorably varied stage themes (inside a weird alien body! flying between giant stars! blasting through a fortress filled with Moai heads!) from the coin-op game as well as the cooperative multiplayer element—a huge draw for the game.

It took some doing to make that happen, though. As in, creating entirely new technology. The Japanese version of Life Force—which shipped under the name Salamander—included a custom add-on chip that appeared only in this game’s cartridge. Konami’s VRC3 chip added more memory and more sophisticated display options to the basic Famicom hardware that made the demands of Salamander/Life Force possible. It was an ambitious game! Adding a second player to the Gradius mix pushed the console way beyond its capabilities: two fighters zipping around, launching forward attacks and bombs, dealing with enemies and incoming projectiles, while moving at a smooth and stable framerate was a lot to ask of the poor NES. And because Life Force was Gradius-adjacent, that meant the system also had to provide players with the series’ iconic Options: small glowing spheres that trail behind the player’s ship and mirror its attacks.

The VRC3 contained additional RAM to help boost the console’s built-in memory allocation, making it possible for the system to track two players, up to three Options apiece, all the associated projectiles they had in play at any given moment, AND all the bad guys flying around and shooting in an attempt to take down the good guys, PLUS any dynamic environmental elements like the self-healing destructible blocks in the first stage. When you think about it, the fact that the Famicom version of Salamander could even run on a system literally designed to just play Donkey Kong, it’s a miracle. When you think about how well it runs, that’s a flex by Konami. And in Japan, the VRC3 made it possible.

Add-on memory management chips are nothing new in the world of cartridges, and the VRC3 didn’t make Life Force—or rather, Salamander—unique. (Well... it’s a little unique; the VRC3 was created specifically for and exclusive to this game, like Nintendo’s famous MMC2 chip was for Punch-Out!!) What makes Salamander for Famicom truly special is the cartridge itself, the shell of the thing. In Japan, Salamander shipped in a beautiful translucent blue shell unlike any other Famicom release (and prefiguring the iMac-inspired transparent color trend for tech by a good decade).

The bold greens and oranges of the label art (which adheres to the shell on a label sticker that is likewise transparent) stand out brilliantly against the blue. The specific shade of blue that Konami used feels very much of its era but also, simultaneously, futuristic... probably because it allowed you to see the cartridge’s printed circuit board inside the shell, something that manufacturers did their best to hide. Not only can you see the PCB, but you can very specifically spot the VRC3 chip beneath the label. Although the average consumer didn’t know about the VRC3, you get the impression that Konami’s designers took a ton of pride in what they accomplished with this cartridge and wanted to really show it off. The result is a gorgeous-looking memento of video game history that belongs on every collector’s shelf... and better yet, the game inside is as exquisite as the shell that contains it.

It’s funny, because Nintendo had a much looser cartridge manufacturing policy in Japan than in America or Europe, which allowed several key licensees to build their own shells, PCBs, and add-on chips. There were some pretty weird Famicom carts, including some that were double height in order to contain extra memory or even powerful coprocessors to handle shogi calculations. But no other publisher looked at Salamander and said, “We should do that, too.” In the Famicom library of more than 1000 cartridges, all produced in a spectrum of different colors, Salamander stands alone.

But if Nintendo didn’t allow Konami to roll its own carts and use a VRC3 in America and enable those special gameplay features, what happened to the NES release of Life Force? Well, believe it or not, Konami managed to coax nearly equal performance from the standard cartridge tech available here. The U.S. version only allows players to activate two Options instead of three, and it drops some of the visually elaborate extra scenes (the NES ending is much simpler). But otherwise, it’s almost as impressive as the Famicom version... well, except the cartridge. Our was just the standard grey. But hey, that label art is still iconic.