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NES/Famicom Appreciation Thread

I think in terms of NES games I am almost done with my collecting. All I need is Mighty Final Fight, Little Samson and maybe Bubble Bobble 2. Famicom wise though I have a few more that I need to get, like the rest of the Rockman games <1,3,6> Ninja Ryukenden III, Recca <good luck>, Gimmick <gooood luck> and a few others.
 
Nice condition on all of those. Good luck on finding a boxed Stack-Up. She's a bitch.

Is that copy of Zelda in a baggy? Otherwise the seal looks... odd.

Someday... it's only like $500 range for stackup.

It's sealed and then inside of one of those acid free comic book bags.
 

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
I think in terms of NES games I am almost done with my collecting. All I need is Mighty Final Fight, Little Samson and maybe Bubble Bobble 2. Famicom wise though I have a few more that I need to get, like the rest of the Rockman games <1,3,6> Ninja Ryukenden III, Recca <good luck>, Gimmick <gooood luck> and a few others.

Yeah, you're never gonna find Recca for cheap, so I made my own:

Recca_Repro_3.jpg
Recca_Repro_Inside.jpg

It's not the real thing, but there's something about playing a NES game on a real console rather than emulated (even though emulation provides savestates for games I don't really have the time anymore to beat normally).
 

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
Help Me!
Member
(Today, 07:16 PM)

cv3_help_me2.gif


Gets 10 lives per continue in Castlevania III - Dracula's Curse

I'll never forget entering this code in the game while my aunt looked on and asking me "Why are you naming your guy "Joel" (my uncle's name)"?

Favorite obscure NES games:
Kick Master - Taito in the late-day NES era was awesome, though those games are pretty rare (especially the 2nd Flintstones game)
Power Blade
Faria
Ghost Lion (actually, this game kinda sucks... but NES RPGs in the US were such a rarity and it's got such an 80's boxart: http://pics.mobygames.com/images/covers/large/1094342874-00.jpg )
Conquest of the Crystal Palace
Desert Commander
Magic of Scherezade
Battle of Olympus
Guardian Legend
Crystalis
Gargoyle's Quest 2
Golgo 13
 
First off, good job in terms of the thread OP. Second, some of my most favorite games from this were SMB, SMB3 and Kirby's Adventure. All excellent games. This was the first videogame console I played on...not the first one I owned but the first one I played and it's still a fantastic machine.
 

Linkhero1

Member
I really don't think the game is as bad as people make it out to be. I had a friend who was obsessed with it and watching him play and explain the mechanics was actually pretty enjoyable. It's no Sweet Home of course but for an NES horror game it was pretty serviceable.

It's really not but AVGN pointed out most of the games flaws. I think the majority doesn't really appreciate the game for what it's worth but I love it. Everything about it is great. The setting is perfect, the music is eerie, and Jason knows how to operate a boat.
 

-KRS-

Member
Oh so you finally made the NES thread? Awesome! I can already tell that I'll have many posts in this thread. :D

I was born in '88 (actually the same day that Contra came out in Japan!), but the NES was still my first console because my father had bought one for himself a few years prior. The funny thing is that everyone I knew back then also only had NESes for some reason. So it was like I got to live the NES era anyway, only later. Borrowed a lot of games from my friends and vice versa. Sadly when I eventually started renting games they had stopped renting out NES games and it was only Mega Drive and SNES.

I've never had a lot of money to spend on games, so I've never had a ton of games for any system. But the NES/FC is the one I have the most for currently. Around 85 games at the moment. Mostly carts. I'll try to get photos sometime this week. Some highlights in my collection are Hammerin' Harry, Devil World, Ufouria: The Saga and Mr. Gimmick. All of them were released in Europe but not in the states. Mr. Gimmick is the most expensive game I've ever bought for any console.


I have some Famicom-only games to recommend as well! These games should seriously be considered for any collector:

  • The Goonies
  • King Kong 2
  • Wai Wai World
  • Wai Wai World 2
  • Kid Dracula
  • Twinbee
  • Famicom Wars

...huh, most of them are Konami games. Now that I think of it, most of the FC games in my collection are Konami games.

The Wai Wai World games are really great. They're like Konami's all-stars games, having characters, stages and gameplay from a bunch of popular Konami games. The first one is a bit difficult to play because there's some Japanese in it, but nothing you can't get by with a FAQ or something. The second one is much more straight-forward and can be played easily without knowing any Japanese at all. The second one is also much easier. A warning to PAL gamers though; the second game has graphics glitches on PAL machines. It doesn't draw the whole play area so it's kind of impossible to play on PAL machines.

The Goonies is a great early platformer that was oddly never released in the west except for on those Playchoice-10 arcade machines.

King Kong 2 is an odd but fun top-down action game. Surprisingly deep. Well maybe deep is the wrong word, but it has a lot of areas to explore and bosses to defeat etc. It's pretty cheap as well.

Kid Dracula has already been mentioned here, but it needs to be repeated again. It's a great game. Getting a bit pricey though, but not too bad. I guess a lot of people have heard about it and want it. I still haven't bought it yet though... should do that soon. I think this one also has some graphics glitches on PAL machines, although it's still playable.

Twinbee is a fun and cute shoot 'em up, but the cute graphics are a bit deceiving because it's REALLY hard! lol. At least I think that game was never released in the west.

Famicom Wars is the first game in the Wars series from Intelligent Systems. Holds up surprisingly well, although some things are not as good as in the later games. Still, it's a fantastic game that me and my friends have spent hours playing. It has Japanese text but it's actually pretty easy to figure out.


Some other FC-only that are fun:
Hi no Tori - Platformer. The graphics look pretty dull but it's actually pretty fun to play. Some decent music too.

Tetris 2 + Bombliss - It's downright criminal that this was not released in the west. If you like Tetris games you should have this.

Super Xevious - The FC-only sequel to Xevious. Need I say more? :)

Magical Taturuuto-kun: Fantastic World!! - Pretty fun platformer that is a little remeniscent of SMB3, although not THAT good lol. But still good.

Other than that I have bought a couple of Namco games in those hard cases simply because of the cases. They're just so cool and look great together. Most of the games are actually pretty fun too, like Super Xevious, Family Pinball (which was released in the west under another name I think but the FC version features Namco characters like Pacman etc.), and Wagyan Land (which is kind of hard to play without knowing Japanese because of the boss battles unfortunately).

I've probably forgot some games. If anyone knows other FC-only games worth owning please recommend them! :)

Regarding FC -> NES converters, I have one from NTDEC that has worked with all the carts I have so far without any problems. There's also the Honeybee adapter which is probably good, but also probably overpriced since it's a known brand of converters. I think in general any converter will work fine because the FC/NES is not as complicated as the SNES for example. So I think any converter will work with most games.

Edit: Oh and if you want to play FC games on your NES, you NEED to remove the region protection in the NES by cutting one of the legs on that lockout chip. I think most collectiors have done that already but it's worth mentioning. If you haven't it's really easy to do. Even I could do it!

Edit²: Thought of another FC-only game! Gradius 2. I'll never understand why that wasn't released in the west. I guess it's because it uses one of those VRC chips that Konami had and they couldn't be bothered to reprogram it to Nintendo's MMC chips. It's really fucking awesome. Much better than the first one in every way.
 

gblues

Banned
So, bsnes has morphed into hagan, a multi-system emulator that supports SNES, NES/Famicom, and others now. That means you can play NES games with that sweet CRT shader and relive the 1989 glory days.
 

Joqu

Member

Most people who came from Earthbound were probably pretty disappointed with this game, but I really enjoyed Mother/Earthbound Zero. Sure, it's your typical NES RPG in a lot of ways, but it's got a quite unique atmosphere and the writing, while not as good as Earthbound's, is just as quirky as you would expect.

So yeah, I really like the first Mother game. ...But I suppose that the gba version's fan translation is the better way to play the game.
 

baphomet

Member
When I lived in Knoxville, I had a friend named Jason that goes by National Games Depot. He has the entire officially released NES games all complete in box. You can search google and there's some really amazing pictures of his collection. He actually owns the rights to Color Dreams as I understand, which you guys probably know released a bunch of unlicensed games. He also has released a ton of unreleased prototypes over the years. Very interesting guy.

http://www.nationalgamedepot.zoomshare.com/7.shtml/Nes Collection

I'm on my phone and can't get the image location to copy and paste, but that links directly to his collection pictures. In person it's one of the most mind blowing things I've ever seen.
 

RetroGreg

Member
I’ve been waiting for this thread! This was my favorite era of gaming. I loved the NES so much and my parents really had no choice in the matter in getting one for me because I wouldn’t shut up about it. Especially after spending the last few years playing the same 2600 and Intellivision games that we had forever. The NES looked like a dream come true in the one advertisement pamphlet I managed to have somehow.

I don’t think I really played too many obscure GAF favorites, but I did play anything and everything I could get my hands on which was mostly what I had or what I could rent at the time. I must have had a lot more tolerance for hard games because I know I beat most of the games I played back then. I doubt I would ever have that type of patience now.

One of my favorite memories is meeting friends in the schoolyard just because we were both playing the original Zelda. One of my friends and I would spend hours on the phone while we both played Zelda, going from screen to screen together to find all the secrets and items. We were both lucky enough to have small tv’s in our rooms and on an occasional sleepover we would bring our tv and NES over to the other’s house and hook them up side by side and play all night. I remember beating the Adventure of Link that way too.

One other thing that I’d like to bring up about that period was how there just wasn’t any information or news about gaming really until Nintendo Power came along. I remember picking out games based on the box arts at Toys R Us. I think eventually I started to learn that most Capcom and Konami games were going to be pretty good so I started picking games based on Publisher.

My NES collection is small and I’m missing a lot of games now. I should get back into collecting them again as I wish I still had Contra. When I was a kid I could beat it without the code and without any continues I liked it so much.
 

-KRS-

Member
I still don't have Contra... I want to get the Japanese release because it has more animations in the background graphics and even has a little intro and a map you see between levels.

Same with Bayou Billy. I want the Japanese release (Mad City) because the enemies only take like 2-3 hits to kill instead of 8 or something which makes it more playable, and some levels aren't as frustratingly designed, and the driving sections aren't so damn long. Also that name (Mad City) is just cool.
 

Asparagus

Member
PCBxROc.jpg


Ninja Gaiden (Shadow Warrior in the UK) was my favorite action game but this came close for me. Hard though but I loved attacking enemies with my hair.

And I swear I used to own a grey cart version of Micro Machines. I loved that game yet have NO recollection of owning a funky looking cart. I'm not sure how I never noticed, I was surprised when I read up on it in the late 90s and I'd only been without a NES for a few years at that time.
 

IrishNinja

Member
I would love a PC Engine thread.

I would also love a 3DO thread, but I know I'm alone there.

we should do tryouts for a PCE thread! i wonder if CW or any others here would be good for it.
and id rubberneck the shit out of a 3DO (or any other system i never had) thread, like Neo Geo for instance

@irishninja, As far as I'm concerned the "dogbone" is one of the most comfortable controllers I've ever had the joy of holding onto. I have one, and a slew of the original style. I reach for the dogbone every time though. It's pretty much perfect.

it does look that way, i gotta mess with one someday!

It eliminates the blank screen/resetting issue

About a month ago a got a big NES lot at a yard sale. One of the carts was a 5-screw Gyromite with the Famicom converter inside.
Kinda tempted to start buying Famicom games now.

wait can you elaborate on both things you said here? didn't know about any of this
also yeah, Mega Man going up in value means hold onto your butts for popular NES stuff i'd imagine

I never beat this game:

tumblr_lx303eU5jo1qm88llo1_1280.jpg

it was balls-hard man, from later underwater missions to getting lost in the mazes. i wanna say i tag-teamed it, didn't finish Mafat Conspiracy though sadly
 

therapist

Member
Hnngghhh thats it im playing Castlevania 3 when i get home , i never really played that one much.

1 is awesome. 2 i did not like , 3 looks a lot like 1.

My fave is prolly the WiiWare one , SO GOOD.

Some obscure games listed in here i will have to try.
 
Friday the 13th is actually a mostly decent game, its big black spot is that the mix of counselors sucks. The fast ones are good, the rest are bad.

Stuff like Friday the 13th and Jaws just makes me love the sheer breadth of game ideas running around in the NES area, even for games that were clearly made as cash grabs. Such games on the SNES would have been a generic platformer or a clumsy beat 'em up.

I assume it has notoriety as a terrible game from the people that only know about twenty or thirty games from the NES library. Or it was probably featured on some YouTube video of some guy with a nasally voice yelling a litany of swear words over a video of him playing NES ROMs.

Anyway.

Speaking of Little Nemo, the last boss music is crazy good.

It has some sweet audio effects that I don't think I've heard in other NES soundtracks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWZcjHNJhog
 
Friday the 13th is actually a mostly decent game, its big black spot is that the mix of counselors sucks. The fast ones are good, the rest are bad.

Stuff like Friday the 13th and Jaws just makes me love the sheer breadth of game ideas running around in the NES area, even for games that were clearly made as cash grabs. Such games on the SNES would have been a generic platformer or a clumsy beat 'em up.

I assume it has notoriety as a terrible game from the people that only know about twenty or thirty games from the NES library. Or it was probably featured on some YouTube video of some white guy with a nasally voice yelling a litany of swear words over a video of him playing NES ROMs.

Anyway.

Speaking of Little Nemo, the last boss music is crazy good.

It has some sweet audio effects that I don't think I've heard in other NES soundtracks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWZcjHNJhog

Yeah, Friday the 13th isn't too bad.

I just hate those moments when you're literally hopeless to defend yourself, like when Jason randomly zooms by in the lake.
 

Jhriad

Member
O
I have some Famicom-only games to recommend as well! These games should seriously be considered for any collector:

  • The Goonies

Really want a copy of that CIB but I haven't seen one on eBay that I felt was reasonably priced & in nm/mint condition when I looked.
 
Yeah, Friday the 13th isn't too bad.

I just hate those moments when you're literally hopeless to defend yourself, like when Jason randomly zooms by in the lake.
Yeah, that is annoying.

I mostly like that it's such an inventive game, licensed stuff after the NES stuck to very safe ideas.

Really want a copy of that CIB but I haven't seen one on eBay that I felt was reasonably priced & in nm/mint condition when I looked.
I made my own Goonies NES cart using a Duck Hunt with a 72 to 60 pin adapter.

Actually I was just playing it last weekend, great game.

A few other games I've done this with are Gradius II, Crisis Force, The Tower of Druaga, Layla and Dragon Buster.

I intend to convert Dig Dug and Mappy in this way too. Eventually.

Speaking on this, does anybody have any other Famicom game suggestions that either have no text or all English text?
 
Yeah, that is annoying.

I mostly like that it's such an inventive game, licensed stuff after the NES stuck to very safe ideas.

Another example of an inventive licensed game is 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'. I think it's one of the most underrated titles in the library. I can't think of another game like it. And I like how the item locations change every time you play the game, adding replay value.
 

VARIA

Member
Yeah, you're never gonna find Recca for cheap, so I made my own:

It's not the real thing, but there's something about playing a NES game on a real console rather than emulated (even though emulation provides savestates for games I don't really have the time anymore to beat normally).

This is awesome. I look forward to doing this in the near future (EEPROM Burning/soldering etc.)

Just one question for you. Do I need an old PC to use an EPROM programmer on? The interface/ports on them look antiquated. Or would I just need an adaptor?
 
Another example of an inventive licensed game is 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'. I think it's one of the most underrated titles in the library. I can't think of another game like it. And I like how the item locations change every time you play the game, adding replay value.
Somebody was telling me last weekend that the 900 (or 800?) number in that game was still running until like 2007.

Crazy if true.
 
Same with Bayou Billy. I want the Japanese release (Mad City) because the enemies only take like 2-3 hits to kill instead of 8 or something which makes it more playable, and some levels aren't as frustratingly designed, and the driving sections aren't so damn long. Also that name (Mad City) is just cool.
The title, (The Adventures of) Bayou Billy, is one of the few things that's cool about this game! Mad City is sort of generic IMO.

I kinda felt bad back in the day as I highly recommended the game to my friend based purely on the graphics I saw in Flash Puissance (French version of Power Flash/Fun Club News). I was a Konami graphics whore back in those days, lol, and thought the graphics looked great. But you're right about this: it's just too difficult to be fun.

P.S. To this day, I still enjoy that first stage music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7wxrf3ODVI
 

-KRS-

Member
The title, (The Adventures of) Bayou Billy, is one of the few things that's cool about this game! Mad City is sort of generic IMO.

I kinda felt bad back in the day as I highly recommended the game to my friend based purely on the graphics I saw in Flash Puissance (French version of Power Flash/Fun Club News). I was a Konami graphics whore back in those days, lol, and thought the graphics looked great. But you're right about this: it's just too difficult to be fun.

P.S. To this day, I still enjoy that first stage music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7wxrf3ODVI

Alright I'll have to agree. The Adventures of Bayou Billy does sound pretty rad. And "cool" might have been the wrong word for Mad City lol. It's just that it sounds so odd and weird. "Mad City"? What does it even mean? A city full of mad men? A city that's angry? It's just a so typical Japanese game name. That's what I like about it.

And yes, the music is fucking ace. Kyouhei Sada was a genious when it came to the NES sound chip. He's the one who set the standard for Konami music during that time.
 
And yes, the music is fucking ace. Kyouhei Sada was a genious when it came to the NES sound chip. He's the one who set the standard for Konami music during that time.
What other games did he do? I am a huge fan of 8 and 16 bit era music but I never bothered learning the name of the composers because a) their names are hard to memorize and b) there is not exactly a wealth of information readily available from that era. Konami & Capcom, and to a lesser extent Sunsoft (especially Batman and Journey to Silius) and Tecmo games (especially the three Ninja Gaiden games and Rygar) featured amazingly catchy soundtracks time and again. (I can't be bothered to enjoy so-called "orchestral" scores...)
 

-KRS-

Member
I think the most famous one is Contra. And I believe he helped with the Castlevania 2 soundtrack as well. He also did Blades of Steel. He didn't do a ton of soundtracks but he basically created that well-known Konami NES sound.

Naoki Kodaka is the guy responsible for a lot of Sunsofts soundtracks.

Edit: Oh hey, here's a wiki page: http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php?title=Kiyohiro_Sada
 
I think the most famous one is Contra. And I believe he helped with the Castlevania 2 soundtrack as well. He also did Blades of Steel. He didn't do a ton of soundtracks but he basically created that well-known Konami NES sound.
Crazy, but everybody reading this thread will totally understand what you mean, it's so unique. It sounded really dry yet bassy at the same time... totally awesome. Capcom also had a very distinctive sound. What a great era that was.
 
In regards to Friday the 13th, I really didnt know what to make of it at the time. The game just dropped u in a world to just walk around and kill zombies until Jason showed up at random locations. Pretty cool idea but I had no sense of what the hell to do in the game.

On the other hand, A Nightmare On Elm Street was pretty damn good. It was an exploration like platformer where you can transform into different styles like a Wizard, Ninja and Acrobat. Had a cool Silent Hill/Dream World concept and some pretty cool boss battles. Freddy also shows up if you are in the Dream World. 4 Player coop to boot too. I had lots of fun with this title as a kid.
 

Seik

Banned
Wow...so I checked out the Mega Man (the first one) prices.

Holy shit, I feel lucky, got it for 25$ 4 years ago.
 

Tempy

don't ask me for codes
Just one question for you. Do I need an old PC to use an EPROM programmer on? The interface/ports on them look antiquated. Or would I just need an adaptor?

The EPROM flash programs I tried back then didn't seem to work on Vista, so I used a Netbook with XP on it. Of course I did manage to kill my Netbook's battery by having the EPROM the wrong way in the EPROM Programmer. Netbook still worked as long as it's connect to a power adapter luckily.
 

meppi

Member
Not many people liked this game, but I fucking loved it. I was never able to finish it as a kid and revisited a few years ago via emulator and still couldn't manage to finish it. This game bullied me as a kid and still can't get my revenge

Festers-Quest-boxart.jpg

Loved this game back in the day.
My favourite memory of it is playing when I was home sick and running quite a high fever.
The fever, combined with this game sure made for some trippy and surreal memories. :)
 
What was it about Sunsoft games? I mean really, just amazing. Parallax scrolling was such a groundbreaking thing on the NES. Sunsoft's music drivers were so amazing too, I think it was that company's music that I had the bulk of recorded to audio cassette back in the day.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Here's my little piece of 8-bit Nintendo..

plz ignore the hints of SNES... I'm sure you won't mind.

NES/Famicom corner
IMG_3695.jpg

An official NES cart they used to sell in Canada. I had one as a kid, but I let parents give it away. Found one again a few years ago.

It used to come with decals of the Nintendo brand and a really off-model Mario, but I found this one without them. On the plus side, it's less of an eyesore without them.

IMG_37541.jpg



Front half of the NES cart collection and the overflow ...

IMG_3712.jpg

Backside of the NES carts. Oh and one of my Famicarts was owned by Okabe. Probably a salaryman right now.

IMG_3714.jpg

And the last of the NES carts. I have 104 in total.

IMG_3718.jpg

Just missing the 1st Megamenz..

IMG_3735.jpg

Now on to Famicom! It's still small, but I'm making a trip to Japan, so it will grow.

IMG_3706.jpg


Destroy Hitler!! The Japanese version of Bionic Commando, Top Secret: Hitler no Daifukkatsu

IMG_3724.jpg


Konami goodness you can't get in America!

Akumaj&#333; Densetsu - Dat Castlevania 3 with the sound chip for good musics.

Contra - Has a better custom Konami mapper, so it had much more animation, cutscenes and a map screen.

Gradius II - Gofer no Yab&#333; - Yeah there are various arcade-perfect ports later on, but I like the Famicom version.

IMG_3742.jpg

And let's finish off with a pornographic shot of Shigeru Miyamoto's most satanic videogame, Devil World.

IMG_3747-1.jpg
 

ankle-rocker

Neo Member
@Boco Dragon, You've got something beautiful there. Wow.

@Host Samurai, While not my favorite, it's possible that I played Fester's Quest MORE than any other NES game as a kid. I couldn't finish it then either.
 

IrishNinja

Member
yeah that fami is sharp, but man boco that little white cart is just perfect, takes me back! didnt they have an official nintendo one with mario on it too? i could swear i remember seeing that in a sears catalog & wanting one
 
I'm on the fence about getting an AV famicom that has been sitting at a nearby used game/anime/dvd/clothes megastore for 7450 yen. I would totally get it, but I got a classic famicom that was modded with AV cables just weeks before they got two of these in.

Outside of Super Potato stores, I've had a much harder time finding rare Famicom games than Super Famicom. To be fair, for my first year in Japan, I was only looking for Super Famicom, handheld, and PS1 games and I scoured every store I could find everywhere I went. I have found a few gems for cheap, like a 1oo yen Mike Tyson's Punch out, Fire Emblem Gaiden in box for 300 yen, and Kid Dracula for 5oo yen.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
yeah that fami is sharp, but man boco that little white cart is just perfect, takes me back! didnt they have an official nintendo one with mario on it too? i could swear i remember seeing that in a sears catalog & wanting one
That probably is the very one.. Mine just doesn't have the decals.

I'm very jealous of that A/V Famicom.

It's really the best NES or Famicom you can get. Everything boots great, picture output is clear, works with all the Famicom games with special sound output. If space were an issue, I'd go with this Famicom and a NES converter.

@Boco Dragon, You've got something beautiful there. Wow.
Cheers!
 
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