There's a region lockout chip, but it only distinguishes between NTSC and PAL systems. However, Japanese and North American systems expect "cutouts" at different places on the back-bottom of the cartridge. There are workarounds for both, like using a region bypass accessory to run a Japanese game on a UK/European/Australian system, or region-free cartridge tray to run a Japanese game on a non-Japanese NTSC-based system. The games themselves will be in Japanese, though. I know from experience that some of the games in Mario Party 3 need you to be able to quickly read some instructions ("pick the third one from the left" and such).
