ReyVGM
Member
I've posted this before on another forum, but it's good enough for GAF too.
What would you consider to be Nintendo's most obscure games, in or outside of Japan? FDS games? N64 Disk Drive games? Arcade games? The 10 game portable that no one remembers called Pokemon Mini?
No, it's the Super Famicom Satellaview (BS-X) system games. Ones, that unlike FDS games, N64 Disk Drive games, untranslated games or the Pokemon Mini, will never ever ever be emulated or reproduced correctly. Ever.
Even though the BS-X is considered more as an expensive device that allowed people to play "live" SFC games than an add-on to the console, it truly was the Famicom Disk System or the N64 Disk Drive of the Super NES. Due to the nature of the Broadcast service, some of the games were played while a radio broadcast streamed arranged music and voices of actors playing the characters of the games. After the broadcast was over, you couldn't play the game ever again. These games were called "SoundLink" games.
A lot of games were released for the BS-X, many more than Virtual Boy or N64DD games. But you couldn't buy these games in a store, you had to download them from the broadcast service (ST. GIGA) and store them in a RAM cart. Some of the games you could keep for a limited time and some others could only be played live.
Thankfully, some of those games have been recovered and dumped, albeit partially. The most famous ones are the 3rd and 4th quest of Zelda 1 and the "sequel" to A Link To The Past. The streamed content, such as still cutscenes, arranged audio, voices and special events only exist in old VHS recordings uploaded to youtube. More than half of the library released for this system is still undumped and so far, lost in time or in the hands of hoarders.
The situation is not likely to change unless someone robs Nintendo HQ and recovers the original data, scripts and audio recordings of the broadcasts.
And so we come to Mario:
BS Super Mario USA Power Challenge. The game was broadcast in 4 parts, each part was one world for a total of 4 worlds. Even though the actual game is a condensed port of the Mario All-Stars Mario 2, story-wise it's a sequel. The king of Subcon made a bunch of golden Mario statues, but then Wart sends his minions to scatter the golden statues all over the realm. Mario then has to find all the statues and defeat Wart again. You only play as Mario, but during certain times, you change to other characters. During the game, the characters and enemies (played by radio actors) are constantly talking. Oh yeah, and there's a Birdo trio (Green Birdo FTW) that keep hinting transsexualism during the broadcast. Actually, their voice actors are even dressed in drag during the credits.
Next is BS Super Mario Collection, another condensed Mario All Stars port gameplay-wise. So far only the 3rd week as been dumped, and there's only VHS footage of the 1st week on youtube. It is unknown the contents of the 2nd and 4th week. The coolest thing you will notice is that Mario 1 now has a world map in the style of Mario 3. And Mario 3 has a different map altogether. Unfortunately the available stages are exactly the same as the originals. You can play any stage you want, but once the broadcast time is over, you'll be taken to fight the stage's boss and finally Bowser. Due to the live nature of the game, you can even get the game's ending without even reaching Bowser by just letting the time run out.
And finally, BS Excitebike: Bunbun Mario Battle Stadium. Nothing much to say except Excitebike with Mario characters. Pretty nifty.
These Mario games, the 3 Zelda games and lots of others will forever be lost in time and not emulated completely due to their original nature.
------------------------------------
Here's how one of the soundlink games (Mario 2) played out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMOH3rTDF6c
Here are some more BS games.
Toad/Kinopio started in her/his own BS game. It's a quiz game though.
Square made this cool aerial dogfight/RPG hybrid, Treasure Conflix.
And here are some of the art screens shown when you finished a week or the game in BS Legend of Zelda.
What would you consider to be Nintendo's most obscure games, in or outside of Japan? FDS games? N64 Disk Drive games? Arcade games? The 10 game portable that no one remembers called Pokemon Mini?
No, it's the Super Famicom Satellaview (BS-X) system games. Ones, that unlike FDS games, N64 Disk Drive games, untranslated games or the Pokemon Mini, will never ever ever be emulated or reproduced correctly. Ever.
Even though the BS-X is considered more as an expensive device that allowed people to play "live" SFC games than an add-on to the console, it truly was the Famicom Disk System or the N64 Disk Drive of the Super NES. Due to the nature of the Broadcast service, some of the games were played while a radio broadcast streamed arranged music and voices of actors playing the characters of the games. After the broadcast was over, you couldn't play the game ever again. These games were called "SoundLink" games.
A lot of games were released for the BS-X, many more than Virtual Boy or N64DD games. But you couldn't buy these games in a store, you had to download them from the broadcast service (ST. GIGA) and store them in a RAM cart. Some of the games you could keep for a limited time and some others could only be played live.
Thankfully, some of those games have been recovered and dumped, albeit partially. The most famous ones are the 3rd and 4th quest of Zelda 1 and the "sequel" to A Link To The Past. The streamed content, such as still cutscenes, arranged audio, voices and special events only exist in old VHS recordings uploaded to youtube. More than half of the library released for this system is still undumped and so far, lost in time or in the hands of hoarders.
The situation is not likely to change unless someone robs Nintendo HQ and recovers the original data, scripts and audio recordings of the broadcasts.
And so we come to Mario:
BS Super Mario USA Power Challenge. The game was broadcast in 4 parts, each part was one world for a total of 4 worlds. Even though the actual game is a condensed port of the Mario All-Stars Mario 2, story-wise it's a sequel. The king of Subcon made a bunch of golden Mario statues, but then Wart sends his minions to scatter the golden statues all over the realm. Mario then has to find all the statues and defeat Wart again. You only play as Mario, but during certain times, you change to other characters. During the game, the characters and enemies (played by radio actors) are constantly talking. Oh yeah, and there's a Birdo trio (Green Birdo FTW) that keep hinting transsexualism during the broadcast. Actually, their voice actors are even dressed in drag during the credits.
Next is BS Super Mario Collection, another condensed Mario All Stars port gameplay-wise. So far only the 3rd week as been dumped, and there's only VHS footage of the 1st week on youtube. It is unknown the contents of the 2nd and 4th week. The coolest thing you will notice is that Mario 1 now has a world map in the style of Mario 3. And Mario 3 has a different map altogether. Unfortunately the available stages are exactly the same as the originals. You can play any stage you want, but once the broadcast time is over, you'll be taken to fight the stage's boss and finally Bowser. Due to the live nature of the game, you can even get the game's ending without even reaching Bowser by just letting the time run out.
And finally, BS Excitebike: Bunbun Mario Battle Stadium. Nothing much to say except Excitebike with Mario characters. Pretty nifty.
These Mario games, the 3 Zelda games and lots of others will forever be lost in time and not emulated completely due to their original nature.
------------------------------------
Here's how one of the soundlink games (Mario 2) played out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMOH3rTDF6c
Here are some more BS games.
Toad/Kinopio started in her/his own BS game. It's a quiz game though.
Square made this cool aerial dogfight/RPG hybrid, Treasure Conflix.
And here are some of the art screens shown when you finished a week or the game in BS Legend of Zelda.