Wow that looks phenomenal from the screenshots. Hard to believe it’s a hack of NES Metroid.
It’s real good so far! A lot of creative tile work so rock formations can feel interwoven and gives the planet a very naturalistic feel. It uses one of the largest carts at 512k/256k so probably would have been incredibly expensive to produce back in the day unless it was very late in the system’s life, like Kirby which uses the same, and has way more head room than Metroid’s comparatively tiny 128k, but still impressive stuff all the same. Had to be a hell of a lot of work.
It’s a collaboration of several folks, lead by the guy who did Metroid Incursion, which I have also heard is worth a look although not as ambitious as Rogue Dawn.
There are some holes in the article too.
LOL, what the hell. This is the quintessential “we some content” type of article.
I really need to play rogue Dawn. I’ve been following it since just before it released
Ugh.
They’re clearly small vents in case the chips got a bit hot. Overkill but that’s what they are.
Took the plunge last year and bought an AV Famicom and a NESRGB board. Installation was actually pretty simple (documented here), and the results are awesome.
and I love how tiny the thing is
Love the linked guide, Rich. I had mine done for me, though I think now that I have more experience soldering, I’d probably be able to do it myself. And yes, the AV Famicom is a beauty. It looks so small in the cubby in my setup! It really is a great design.
Nice! I’m jealous hehe. I should mod my Famicom, although is it possible to do the rgb mod on a Famicom which has already been AV modded?
How are those desoldering pumps btw? I’ve been looking at them as a cheap option to a proper desoldering station but I don’t know if they’re any good or not. Probably not as good as a desoldering station but maybe better than using just a desoldering wick and non-heated pumps?
Thanks! And yeah, I’ve become really confident now in soldering and mods. It’s saved me a huge amount of money and has made my collection feel a lot more personal.
Not entirely sure…I presume it would be fine to do so, and then just desolder the wire to the phono jack to the composite output on the NESRGB board as it bypasses everything that the original output uses. I have no experience with the OG famicom though!
My desoldering pump was a tenner from Amazon and I use it all the time. It’s awesome. Just be patient with it and use flux if you can.
I really need to do a stocktake of my Famicom and NES games. I just counted and I have 78 games on Disk System alone, jebus.
I’m guessing I have 400-500 total?
Anyone got more?
That’s up there, man. I have about 130 NES games and a handful of Famicom and FDS games. I have about as many NES games on my wish list (another 120 or so) and I could probably collect just as many Famicom games if I really started a wish list. FDS … I’m going the ROM and FDS Stick route … Don’t hate me
It’s only money! Actually, the real problem for me is time. Have no time to play much of anything the last few months, though I have made a little time for Mario Odyssey.
My last count put me at 442. I thought I was done but there’s some great Homebrews out there I want to try.
I have probably owned that many over the course of the last 30 years but definitely not at once. There might be 200 games on the system I would enjoy replaying. That’s more than for most machines.
A while back I was over at a friend’s house, and he gave me an NES that he had managed to break when trying to make it region free. He said I could use it for scraps and since it has a brand new connector I could probably get some use out of it.
When I got home I opened it up to see what was wrong. The guy had cut the fourth leg of the chip alright, but not the lockout chip… Instead he had cut the 74HCU04AP hex inverter logic chip to the upper right of it. Well no wonder it doesn’t work I thought. I looked online and saw that the chip was available on Aliexpress, so I ordered one. It took forever to get here but it finally did last week. So I desoldered the old chip and soldered the new one into place, and it’s alive!
Then I gave my friend the NES back as a Christmas present. 
3 Likes
Ha awesome story!
Scheduled to arrive on Tuesday, hopefully before though! Just paid the import fees which DHL invoiced me for - £62 which isn’t bad at all compared to the £36 parcel force charged me for the £100 MVS board. Bastards
Congrats Rich! What are you going to do with your old RGB modded Famicom AV?