NES/Famicom Appreciation Thread - Playing With Power, Then and Now

Love it. You’re going to end up with an interesting mix in that subset. Great way to approach this angle of the system library. There will be more than a few!

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I’ve been meaning to dig into Akumajou Densetsu one way or another but I’m pretty happy to get ahold of the real deal to experience it with authentic Konami VRC6 music.

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Yeah my rough list so far:

Gilligan’s Island
Friday the 13th
Rambo
Dirty Harry
Gremlins 2
Jaws
Predator

etc

Yep, the Everdrive sounds okay but is only maybe 80% there.

re: that Akumajou Densetsu purchase: Welcome to the club. Got mine from eBay a year or so ago for $60, looks like the price has gone down as of late. It bugged me that the Everdrive got it almost there, but not quite. Next thing I need to do is figure out how to solder a translated EEPROM into a Lagrange Point cart.

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What a coincidence, I ordered a Lagrange Point for that purpose too. I’ll have to order the burned EPROM, but other than that, I’m mostly scared of opening the cartridge shell. Famicom cartridges are really annoying for that.

I’m also waiting for an Akumajou Densetsu. I’ll try to like the game, but the last time I tried a Castlevania I swore a lot because of the stairs.

I thought I read that Konami Famicom carts are easier to open than the standard design. At least I’m hoping I don’t need to bust out my clamps.

In other news, this arrived:

Chô Wakusei Senki Metafight, aka Blaster Master
There are very little differences with the Occidental release, save for a different intro an minor tweaks in a few levels.

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Never heard that but they do have a different design so maybe they are easier. The problem though with Konami (And Namco) carts are the end-labels that cover the gap between the cartridge shells. I’ve never tried opening one but that would make me weary of doing it in case I’d accidentally rip the end-label.

@Khaz Nice get! I’d love to have a 60hz version of it. Only have the PAL version myself.

After playing for a few minutes, the first level went reasonably well. Then I got completely lost in the second level, wandering ever forward in a seemingly massive level, and died. Looking online at a map, I can see why I got lost! There’s a lot of exploration to do, powers to acquire (I assume), so much that I’m surprised there isn’t a password system to give the player a break. Definitely different than what I was expecting (distinct maze-like levels). I’ll have to find a manual to understand what are the various items and how the power ups work. Right before I died I found out the special weapon was fired with down+1.

It’s still reasonably priced and there isn’t a lick of Japanese in game. I’d say go for it if you can play Famicom cartridges!

Not a bad idea. Will probably do that soon-ish. :slight_smile:

And yeah the levels are pretty big and easy to get lost in. And they only get harder the further along you get. A password system would definitely be a really good addition. I can’t think of any Sunsoft games with password systems right now though. Maybe they just didn’t like them or something haha.

@poptart @KRS

Lagrange Point isn’t on a standard Konami cart either, it’s on a tall one, I can check later if it uses screws or whatever? (One advantage of having a 100% complete set :wink: )

Also a bunch of Konami Fami games were on standard Nintendo carts too.

It doesn’t have screws, but a guy made a video about it and it came a part by wiggling it (hard). Apparently it’s easier than a regular Famicom cartridge, but not that easy either.

I received my copy of NEO Heiankyo Alien earlier today. It’s from Columbus Circle who already did the 8bit Music Power series and Kira Kira Star Night DX. It works great on my AV Fami, but their earlier releases had problems with original Famicoms. Word on the internet is that they got better, but you never know. I don’t have other consoles to test.

In any case, it’s a fantastic little game! it has both a port of the original arcade game, as well as an adaptation with contemporary graphics and a couple of gameplay additions. I have only ever played the freeware version released in 1999, but the port looks faithful, within the console limitations. The game does slow down when there are a lot of sprites to display in both modes, but that’s probably inherent to the Famicom.

Because it’s a Columbus Circle release, special attention has been made to the music. An option on the menu screens brings you to a juke box, and you can select your favourite composition at the beginning of a new NEO game. Or choose the Random option.

How long do you want me to stop playing?

I’ve always considered those releases.

I’ve gone a bit overboard buying trashy NES games already, they’re just mostly so cheap, $5-10.

Every half decent (or not) licenced platformer or action game is on the cards.

My trashy NES games collected so far

Jaws, Rambo and Mad Max are all very fun. Like, clearly not top tier and have some jank but I’m enjoying them.

Always wanted Bases Loaded since I loved the Game Boy one, but this is a lot jankier. Will try some more baseball games on NES.

I owned Based Loaded Second Season growing up. It’s a little broken if you pitch with a side arm player, but otherwise it’s a fairly decent game, especially for that era.

I actually had a lot of fun with Jaws back in the day. It plays well (meaning the controls or gameplay don’t feel straight up broken), and it can be beat in 20 minutes, so it’s a fun little time waster.

The two LJN games that I will defend to the moon and back are Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm St. Friday is an Atlus game, and has a lot of depth hidden to it: you can swap between 6 characters at any time with their own strengths, weaknesses, and individual inventories. Plus there’s lots of secrets items, rooms, and other things to do over the course of three days in between Jason attacks. The only truly terrible part of the game is the music, of which there’s 3 tracks and they all loop in 5 seconds (I’m not joking!). Otherwise the game is pretty fun, but unfortunately is known online mostly for that time is was roasted by AVGN.

Nightmare on Elm St is a Rare jam. It’s co-op up to FOUR players, has a great David Wise soundtrack, a cool “awake/asleep” mechanic where enemies are stronger when you’re asleep, but you also have Dream Warrior powers like Ninja or Wizard. But spent too long asleep and Freddie will show up! Great game with some tricky platforming and fun times: the only downside is the bosses get repetitive (and you have to do a boss gauntlet at the end too).

I enjoyed RBI 3 back in the day. People swear that Baseball Stars is the best NES sports game but for whatever reason I’ve never spent much time with it. Baseball Simulator 1.000 is fun too, hit huge HRs in space lol.