I've never played Shatter Hand, though I might give it a shot after I play Solbrain. Mostly I've been buying Famicom carts since they're cheaper (in most instances) and cuter than NES, haha.
NES/Famicom Appreciation Thread
- Thread starter Teknoman
- Start date
Some good examples there, although I wouldn't really call them shitty games or anything. And the Japanese version of Bayou Billy, Mad City, is much better/more playable so that seems to be the definitive version to get. The problem with the western version is mostly that it's just too hard and annoying, but that's not the case with Mad City. At least not as much. But yes compared to other Konami games they don't really stand out. Especially Contra Force indeed.
I don't think CV2 should be on there though. That game gets too much hate in my opinion. It's a good game. The only problem is that it is a bit vague at spots, that it gets a bit boring to walk around in the world, and the serious lack of bosses. I'm guessing they rushed it out a bit. With a bit more time to polish it, it would've been an excellent game.
I've been looking around a little and I think I might have found the worst Konami NES game. It's Circus Charlie from 1986. Here's a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toeIxrRtbFg
It's a port of their arcade game. Still though, I wouldn't call it a bad game. It's just so simple that it's boring. It otherwise seems competently made.
There's also this one. Antarctic Adventure from 1985.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKY05QcO7W8
I think that is actually Konami's first Famicom release. Seems to be a port of an MSX game. But again, it doesn't seem like a bad game. Just incredibly simple. Certainly a product of its time. I'd say Circus Charlie is the worst of them simply because it was released in 1986. By that point a game like Circus Charlie was just kind of lame, and Konami had released much better games by then.
And yeah try those games. I've only played Bucky O'Hare myself and it's pretty fun. Heard some good things about the other ones too.
Edit: Looking at a release list, it appears that Circus Charlie came out right after The Legend of Zelda and The Goonies (the first one) on the Famicom. Then Ganbare Goemon and Gradius came out during the following months. So yeah that should tell you where video games were headed in 1986.
Uh, I haven't installed mine yet, but how do I tell if I have one from the bad batch?
baphomet
Member
If its from the second batch that went up in december its from the faulty batch. If your board was received in the last day or two he may have updated it before shipping. Youll want to ask him if thats rhe cased. I talked to tim this morning and he actually said he already sent a flasher to me, so hopefully very shortly ill have the means to update the boards.
From what i gather hes going to post the info of people who volunteered to update boards so there should be quite a few people across the world you can ship them to. Im in CO so if your somewhat close ill be glad to help you.
I'm in the Netherlands so that's not gonna work out. What is this flasher thing you speak of?
EDIT: Just checked my board and confirmed I got the wrong chip. Yeah, this is out of my league.
I had Megaman 1-6, Duck Tales 1, The Guardian Legend and some more titles(like the obvious SMB1-3, Zelda I, II, and so on)
It was a great time, especially in the sound department. That was the Age of legendary Music to be written... Especially from the masters @ Capcom(Megaman omg!) and Nintendo (mainly Koji Kondo).
It was a great time, especially in the sound department. That was the Age of legendary Music to be written... Especially from the masters @ Capcom(Megaman omg!) and Nintendo (mainly Koji Kondo).
Rygar 8 Bit
Jaguar 64-bit
and then there was sword master
IrishNinja
Member
we can 100% talk about repros. they vary, i have the easy mode patch for better encounter rates on mine.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
Yeah, get the easy version of Earthbound Zero. Fantastic game that is hindered by some insane difficulty spikes. There are normal ass enemies throughout the entire game that can kill party members in a single hit.
Even though I mentioned it, I still dont know much aside from video reviews (and the fact I missed out on a REALLY good auction complete a year ago for cheap...only to have it double worth now lol). Could you post some impressions when you get around to it?
baphomet
Member
Hell post up people who are willing to update the boards at no cost, and there should be someone fairly close to you hopefully. You can always send it back to Tim and he can update the board as well. Don't let it get you down though, it's well worth it to get everything running correctly. You'll be very happy when you see it in rgb for the first time.
smbu2000
Member
Just picked this up recently. Akumajo Densetsu (aka Castlevania 3). The store I picked it up from was having a sale (20% off), so I thought I got it for a decent price. The box and manual are both in excellent condition and the cart as well. I played a bit of it on my AV Famicom and it runs just fine.
I did just purchase an RGB modded (ppu) AV Famicom, so I'm curious to see how it looks on there. Hopefully it'll arrive this weekend and I can try it out.
I did just purchase an RGB modded (ppu) AV Famicom, so I'm curious to see how it looks on there. Hopefully it'll arrive this weekend and I can try it out.
sixteen-bit
Member
Just picked this up recently. Akumajo Densetsu (aka Castlevania 3). The store I picked it up from was having a sale (20% off), so I thought I got it for a decent price. The box and manual are both in excellent condition and the cart as well. I played a bit of it on my AV Famicom and it runs just fine.
I did just purchase an RGB modded (ppu) AV Famicom, so I'm curious to see how it looks on there. Hopefully it'll arrive this weekend and I can try it out.
Nice pickup. Dat VR6.
Hello guys, I was wondering if any of you have a go to place for NES cartridge sleeves.
This past few days I've been cleaning most of my games and I want to protect them somehow. I keep them in a closed cabinet so there's not much dust going.
I'm looking into buying around fifty sleeves. So price is a huge factor. I don't mind if they are repros or third party as long as they get the job done.
Thanks in advance.
Edit: Forgot to add, shipping within the US.
This past few days I've been cleaning most of my games and I want to protect them somehow. I keep them in a closed cabinet so there's not much dust going.
I'm looking into buying around fifty sleeves. So price is a huge factor. I don't mind if they are repros or third party as long as they get the job done.
Thanks in advance.
Edit: Forgot to add, shipping within the US.
Irate Drake
Neo Member
Earthbound Zero is going to be the first repro I try to make.
Glad to hear I need to go with the EASY VERSION though.
Irate Drake
Neo Member
Does anyone have any suggestions for a famiclone?
Im wanting to play some of the regular famicom games and pretty sure the original famiclone will be too expensinve and harder to find.
Im wanting to play some of the regular famicom games and pretty sure the original famiclone will be too expensinve and harder to find.
Yeah it's a well-made game. The controls are good, graphics look great and the soundtrack is phenomenal. The common complaint is that most enemies take too many hits to kill, and that the driving sequences are too long and frustrating. Both of those things are much better in Mad City, the Japanese release. There the regular enemies take around 3 hits to kill instead of 8 or so, and some of the level design is a bit different and less frustrating. And the driving sequences are much shorter as well.
I've said this before but you could just get a converter and play the FC games on your NES. That's what I do. Unless you're looking to play one of the carts that use extra sound channels. The extra sound won't be audible on a regular NES without modifications. But there aren't very many such games in general, and there are even fewer of them really worth owning.
My converter is a little weird though. It doesn't seem to have a region chip in it, so it requires you to region mod the NES to boot Famicom games. But there are converters out there that do have region chips in them though, like the Honey-bee Converter. So look for those if you don't want to region mod your NES. I think most of them have the chips, otherwise how did they expect people to be able to use the converters without region modding their consoles. I think the one I have might be one that was used in China or Russia or something where their NES clones didn't really have region chips. It was made by NTDEC, the infamous unlicensed chinese developer. So avoid converters from them I guess.
Irate Drake
Neo Member
Dont the adapters cost as much as the famicom system would?
I just went and did some price check, and NES prices are getting downright dumb.
I have 2 games that I could sell and have enought to get both Xbox One and PS4.
Its ludicrousy.
I just went and did some price check, and NES prices are getting downright dumb.
I have 2 games that I could sell and have enought to get both Xbox One and PS4.
Its ludicrousy.
I didn't pay a lot for my adapter. At least not as much as an actual Famicom would cost. They do seem a bit more uncommon compared to SNES converters though.
And yes... retro game prices in general are getting stupid. I mentioned in another thread for example that I attempted to bid on a PAL Castlevania 1 listing, cart only, but I ended up getting outbid on it. It ended at 300 SEK which is around $45. I mean sure, Castlevania is a great game but it sure as hell ain't worth that much. But that seems to be the standard price for a CV cart on that site these days unless you get lucky.
That same day I also saw an auction for a cart only PAL Mega Man X for SNES which ended at 560 SEK, or around $87! It's complete madness.
And CIB copies of pretty much any game is now out of my league.
Luckily it seems that Famicom and Super Famicom games haven't been as affected by the price spikes. So these days I mostly end up getting Japanese releases of games. As long as I can play them and understand them I don't really care which region they're from.
And yes... retro game prices in general are getting stupid. I mentioned in another thread for example that I attempted to bid on a PAL Castlevania 1 listing, cart only, but I ended up getting outbid on it. It ended at 300 SEK which is around $45. I mean sure, Castlevania is a great game but it sure as hell ain't worth that much. But that seems to be the standard price for a CV cart on that site these days unless you get lucky.
That same day I also saw an auction for a cart only PAL Mega Man X for SNES which ended at 560 SEK, or around $87! It's complete madness.
And CIB copies of pretty much any game is now out of my league.
Luckily it seems that Famicom and Super Famicom games haven't been as affected by the price spikes. So these days I mostly end up getting Japanese releases of games. As long as I can play them and understand them I don't really care which region they're from.
Irate Drake
Neo Member
I started my collection about 2 years ago, and have a pretty good number of NES games, but im not looking forward to getting many this year.
Last year I got a few, but these prices will have every ebayer/flea marketer out there buying any and everything to resell.
Depressing.
Last year I got a few, but these prices will have every ebayer/flea marketer out there buying any and everything to resell.
Depressing.
smbu2000
Member
Well don't go for the FC release of Castlevania 1. Cart only goes for about 8,000 - 9,000 yen and CIB is about 11,000 - 13,000 yen in that range. I think that's the cheapest I've seen. It was a late re-release (of the FDS version which is cheap), so I'm guessing that accounts for the rarity.
Rygar 8 Bit
Jaguar 64-bit
yeah ill post some stuff on it when i get around to trying it out hope it holds up to kick master because that game is amazing
VARIA
Member
Very nice find! Do you live in Japan?
It's rare to find stores that carry Famicom carts in the US.
my favorite Famicom game. I have this too.
Like the hat?
Banned
I still want to pick up an OG famicom at some point just to have
Irate Drake
Neo Member
The things that kills famicom games for me is shipping. $8 for a game is cheap, but $20 shipping kills it.
I've been bringing in my NES to work and my co-workers and I are having a blast during lunch on Fridays.
What would you guys suggest I pick up for some new titles? I have all the standard Mario, Zelda, Tetris, Mega Man games and honestly, a lot of those are available on other services like Virtual Console.
What are some good third party NES games that are not too expensive and not released on VC type services?
I was thinking of licensed games. I have the Capcom Disney games, maybe some of the Sunsoft stuff like Batman? Any tips?
What would you guys suggest I pick up for some new titles? I have all the standard Mario, Zelda, Tetris, Mega Man games and honestly, a lot of those are available on other services like Virtual Console.
What are some good third party NES games that are not too expensive and not released on VC type services?
I was thinking of licensed games. I have the Capcom Disney games, maybe some of the Sunsoft stuff like Batman? Any tips?
Rygar 8 Bit
Jaguar 64-bit
can try getting a 4 score and play some mp games rc pro am 2 or super spike vball or king of the beach
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Sunsoft's Batman is great, and Return of the Joker is better. Battletoads is fantastic but probably really expensive.
Not yet, I'm going to wait for my jtag programmer so I can do the fix before installing. I might have a go this weekend at taking the PPU off, I'm just terrified I'm going to wreck it. I got some flux gel in a syringe (couldn't find a tub of paste anywhere, even in the electronics store which has pretty much everything else, it's not even in their giant catalog), so I'll give that a go too.
I ended up buying a new soldering iron cos I tried to change the tip on the other one, and when I unscrewed it all this white powder sorta broke out of it and it was like a ceramic shell or something. Figured it was safer to spend $20 to get another one the same and at least the tips I had before are interchangeable with the new one.
I picked up my spare NES from home though and I've got it hooked up in composite to my PVM right now. Seems to be reading games just fine now (guess I fixed it good enough last time) and they work even better if I don't press them down. Composite looks like complete ass though. White text on black background in Mario for example isn't too bad, but everything else is yuck as.
Neither of my PVMs have comb filters on them. So composite will always look like ass compared to what a decent TV will do. I'm not sure if newer PVMs have them.
smbu2000
Member
Yeah, I'm in Japan. The store I bought it from also sells online which is how I bought it from them (the store is in a different area of Japan.) there are local shops in my city that also sell retro games though.
One store near me has like 4 boxed copies of Gimmick! which I want although they are all over 40,000 yen! (~$400) each...
sixteen-bit
Member
someone was trying to sell one on ebay for $650 recently, lol.
baphomet
Member
Mine's a 2003. But also everything that isn't RGB looks like ass to me now
The curse of rgb is an expensive one.
joecanada
Member
Spent hours making new codes on game genie with my brother man that thing really worked you could in fact modify existing codes quite easily.., some crashed the game, some did nothing and then....
My bro and I made code for mike Tysons punchout... Health max +20%, full health between rds, full when knocked down, full when knock other fighter down, unlimited stars,
Was proud of that one
My bro and I made code for mike Tysons punchout... Health max +20%, full health between rds, full when knocked down, full when knock other fighter down, unlimited stars,
Was proud of that one
IrishNinja
Member
look at that Akumajo CV 3 art....damn i want to play that game now
The NES and a Nintendo Power subscription. That's all I needed as a kid. When Nintendo Power was bimonthly it used to kill me. It seemed like an eternity in between issues. When a new one arrived I would pore over it for days. I must have read every page at least three times by the time a new one arrived.
smbu2000
Member
Well I haven't really checked out ebay prices, just Yahoo Auctions JP and local stores around here. That's the cheapest I've seen it boxed. A cart alone I've seen for 25,000 yen... I'd like to get the game, but it's still expensive.
My RGB modded AV Famicom (PPU mod) just arrived last. Wow, the picture looks so clear! I switched between it and my normal AV Famicom and the sharpness difference is so vast. I thought there might be some jailbars, but it looks great and I didn't notice anything. (The guy did say he worked to reduce that though.)
There is some slight color difference, for example on Mother the skin color of my character is slightly different when comparing to my AV Famicom and the game on my GBA.
Also the color of the main character in Akumajo Densetsu (Castlevania III) looks slightly different compared to the regular AV Famicom. He reminds me more of the main character from Castlevania 1.
Definitely impressed with it so far though. Looking forward to trying out my other games on it.
georgetheplushie
Member
They pop up on Yahoo Auctions for about 15,000 from time to time. That's what I scored mine at. Finding Trip World for an affordable price has proven to be a little more difficult.
Sunsoft's Batman is like a finely-tuned instrument. RotJ is a bit of a mess.
The other week i bid on a cib Gimmick! in nice shape on ebay. It went for $387. That's the cheapest i've seen it go for the last couple of years, at least on ebay.
Welcome to the club! I'm thinking of replacing the PPU with the NESRGB mod, tho. Most games look fine, but some just don't work that well with the different color palette. As you mentioned, skin color tend to be a bit too yellow. But i'd take the RGB PPU over composite anyday.
Got some things in the mail today.
Wario's Woods
Side Pocket
Faxanadu
Super Star Force
They were all pretty cheap. Side Pocket is actually pretty decent for what it is. It's no Lunar Pool but it's pretty fun and competently made.
Shanghai I picked up because it's from the same seller that I picked up Super Star Force from, and he didn't really have anything else of interest at the time but I felt bad about only buying one game from him. Also the music is apparently made by the Sunsoft music guru's Naoki Kodaka et al, so that's pretty interesting. I haven't played it yet though so we'll see how good the music is.
The Faxanadu cart is a German one, so that's why the label is in German. The game itself is in English though. Also, a pleasant surprise, it seems that the PAL version is in fact optimized for 50hz. I was not aware of that.
And thanks Shining for the tip about removing sticker residue from labels using Gripens Bensin. There was sticker residue over the Tecmo logo on the Super Star Force cart label but it came right off using a q-tip dipped in that. And no damage to the label at all! That's some miracle shit right there.
I also got this which is sort of off topic but it is about NES games so here it is:
It's a book for Nordic NES collectors about the NES games that were released in the "SCN" region. It has info about the different releases of each game and what might have differed between them etc. The little graph on the Life Force page displays how valuable and rare it is, based on Bergsala AB's shipped numbers for the game. And that's the other really interesting thing about the book. It contains a list of shipped numbers for all SCN region NES games. The best selling game for example was, surprise surprise, Super Mario Bros., which shipped 269.387 copies. The list was compiled with help from people from Bergsala itself.
The book is written in Swedish and is called "NES-XX-SCN-1: Den oomkullrunkeliga handboken för den nordiska NES-samlaren", and is limited to 750 copies. This is the second edition of the book and contains additional info and some erratums etc. The first edition was limited to 250 copies.
The author, Thomas Sunhede, is a fairly well-known Swedish game collector. Back in 2000 he made this radio show that they broadcast on Swedish Public Radio called Syntax Error where he played music from games. So I think that's what he's most famous for. Here's his website. I assume he'll sell remaining copies there eventually, although so far it only has the first edition which is sold out. It was available for pre-order through a Swedish NES collecting forum, NESDB (now SNDB.se), and so far that's the only way to buy it until he puts it up on his site.
Shanghai
Wario's Woods
Side Pocket
Faxanadu
Super Star Force
They were all pretty cheap. Side Pocket is actually pretty decent for what it is. It's no Lunar Pool but it's pretty fun and competently made.
Shanghai I picked up because it's from the same seller that I picked up Super Star Force from, and he didn't really have anything else of interest at the time but I felt bad about only buying one game from him.
Also the music is apparently made by the Sunsoft music guru's Naoki Kodaka et al, so that's pretty interesting. I haven't played it yet though so we'll see how good the music is.The Faxanadu cart is a German one, so that's why the label is in German. The game itself is in English though. Also, a pleasant surprise, it seems that the PAL version is in fact optimized for 50hz. I was not aware of that.
And thanks Shining for the tip about removing sticker residue from labels using Gripens Bensin. There was sticker residue over the Tecmo logo on the Super Star Force cart label but it came right off using a q-tip dipped in that. And no damage to the label at all! That's some miracle shit right there.
I also got this which is sort of off topic but it is about NES games so here it is:
It's a book for Nordic NES collectors about the NES games that were released in the "SCN" region. It has info about the different releases of each game and what might have differed between them etc. The little graph on the Life Force page displays how valuable and rare it is, based on Bergsala AB's shipped numbers for the game. And that's the other really interesting thing about the book. It contains a list of shipped numbers for all SCN region NES games. The best selling game for example was, surprise surprise, Super Mario Bros., which shipped 269.387 copies. The list was compiled with help from people from Bergsala itself.
The book is written in Swedish and is called "NES-XX-SCN-1: Den oomkullrunkeliga handboken för den nordiska NES-samlaren", and is limited to 750 copies. This is the second edition of the book and contains additional info and some erratums etc. The first edition was limited to 250 copies.
The author, Thomas Sunhede, is a fairly well-known Swedish game collector. Back in 2000 he made this radio show that they broadcast on Swedish Public Radio called Syntax Error where he played music from games. So I think that's what he's most famous for. Here's his website. I assume he'll sell remaining copies there eventually, although so far it only has the first edition which is sold out. It was available for pre-order through a Swedish NES collecting forum, NESDB (now SNDB.se), and so far that's the only way to buy it until he puts it up on his site.
There was a cart only copy that went for ~$150 on eBay last fall. I am so mad I didn't catch that one.
Like the hat?
Banned
What is the story behind the T in NAMCOT anyway?