Unlicensed does not equal fake.
Agreed- nor does it equal unofficial in my opinion. It was released by the company that produced it- pretty official in my books. If Rover and company put out Mysterious Song while I breath- I'd say it's "officially released"- self released doesn't make it any less official. If it was stolen- copied- downloaded, etc., and spread about for free or pirated then I'd say that's unofficial. This is the actual pressing of the game.
Well...OK, but an "official" game, traditionally, is one where the publisher pays a fee to the console maker, which Games Express never did. There isn't any such thing as an official/unofficial Windows game, vinyl record, book, etc because there is no fee to pay, but in the realm of (%99 of all) consoles there most certainly is such a thing as official/unofficial, whether you want to believe it or not. There are large checks and contracts and lawyers and all sorts of shit to prove it. Almost every dollar Sony has made off video games has come from these fees.
I'm not referring to any sort of morality or ethics anything, I'm just telling it like it is. Someone who wants a complete Neo Geo collection doesn't have to waste $600 on Last Hope...thank God. Someone who wants a complete PC Engine collection doesn't have to buy anything after Dead of the Brain. When Mysterious Song is released (just after Duke Nukem Forever I think) they can sell you an official copy of Mysterious Song, but they can't sell you an official PC Engine or Turbografx 16 game because NEC doesn't license them anymore.
I guess I sort of phrase shit incorrectly. Strip Fighter II feels like a pirate release because...well, back in the day they did actually get referred to as pirate releases. Its actually
worse than a pirate release though, really, because usually a pirate cart is a facsimile of something that's actually worth playing. In the case of Strip Fighter II the low-grade HuCard and logo-less packaging are actually better than the code stored in the ROM.