What have you been up to lately with your NES/Famicom?

[Tanooki]

@Austin  I can help on some of that.

Robowarrior - you're correct
Bungling Bay - You have these sorta randomized islands, take down or avoid radar to not get swarmed by jets, find X factories per stage, bomb them out of existence and return to (and defend from attack) the carrier.  It's fun, un-ending point grabber.
HA - Crap, five minutes is almost too much how bad it is
AoRG - As you said
Red October - Ditto
Recca - Beautiful, amazing graphics, hard ass shooter for the format but it's never unfair either.
CnDRR2 - Stunning game, whole lot of fun, not terribly long sadly since the price is a dumpster fire if you're a collector.  I prefer it over the original that overstays it's welcome.
DT2 - I prefer the original (opposites here) but it's just as good as the other, only issue knowing where to go in order despite open map or you're kicked out due to a soft lock for a needed item
Rescue: Amazing game, underrated.  Stealth but not, just follow the Xs on th emap to get in place, then do part 2 with some badass scope sniping to clear the windows, and then go into a third person-ish style room by room clear killing terrorists.  I never did the NES one much I owned it for DOS-PC but they play the same in the end gravis pad or nes pad.  I hate stealth mechanics games, this one I don't.

[Wayler]

18 hours ago, Austin said:

Rescue: The Embassy Mission - OK, this is an interesting one. Stealth your way past spotlights on the first level, move into the shadows in the backgrounds if you think you'll be spotted, Splinter Cell like? I didn't get past the first level as I just died (got shot, I assume) randomly. Stealth has never been my cup of tea, but it's interesting seeing that sort of thing on the NES in a more convincing way than what we got in Metal Gear.

This one is great but so short. You have to use the bushes and door ways as resting spots before your next dash in the first "level". They are the snipers that need to be placed on three different buildings for the next phase and I think you only need one to progress.

 

 

The sniping part is more or less optional, you'll probably only reduce 1-2 baddies per sniper. After that, you get 3 more guys that can storm the building, via rooftop rope ninja acrobatics (gently up-down on the d-pad and then smash that window). 

Then sweep the building and kill the rest of the terrorists (and try not to kill any hostages). I haven't looked but the speedruns for this game are probably crazy, cause you can easily complete the game in less than 10 minutes once you know what you're doing. And for that, it's a great pick-up and play title. 

 

Me and a few friends used to play act the first level in winter. One of us was the sniper while the rest threw snowballs at him from distance while he avoided the "searchlights". And for comedic effect, everyone wanted to act like Jumbo, cause he was slow af. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Wayler

[Austin]

5 hours ago, Wayler said:

This one is great but so short. You have to use the bushes and door ways as resting spots before your next dash in the first "level". They are the snipers that need to be placed on three different buildings for the next phase and I think you only need one to progress.

I'll give it another try as everyone keeps saying it's ridiculously short. I'm honestly not a big fan of stealth stuff, but given the short length and different gameplay styles, I could probably warm up to it.

 

Anyone know of any other stupidly short NES games? I'm talking 5 - 15 minutes. I'm quite familiar with Trojan, Marble Madness and Renegade, and now it looks like we've got Rescue: The Embassy Mission to add to the list, but I'm not certain of any others off the top of my head. (And for clarification, I'm wondering about games that you can beat/ones that actually end).

Edited July 14, 2023 by Austin

[Tanooki]

I hate faux stealth stuff, it's awful, awfully scripted and just obnoxious almost always.  This one really isn't.  It's not stealth even if it says so, it's just spotlight evasion so you don't get shot and they're on set patterns.  Just go, stop, wait, go a bit more.  I forgot about Jumbo, big oaf is slow, save him for the first X on the map since he has to travel the least for his lack of speed.

 

Super Dodgeball is 15-20min on easy, medium or even hard too.  So very replayable and lots of fun, and if you want a 5min if that game, just avoid the main game, do bean ball mode.  You're in a back lot and it's just your team everyone on their own, last one standing wins.  That one is easily just 5min of play if that depending on your speed.

[Trinity]

How many should you have, just in case. I have three toasters so far. And I feel like I need five more. And crt's... I can't sleep at night.

[Tanooki]

Hah

I just have my two, the only reason I even have the Action Set I made it a little mission to backwards build a CIB system after a ridiculously weird cheap find at the last day of an estate sale in town where I dropped like $10 or so on a beautiful box, foam insert, sealed up papers for everything, sealed up uhf and a/v cable too.  A week later another same thing showed up, destroyed box, but had a quality console and av cable, rf too.  From there it was a matter of about $30 more and I got the missing game, zapper and 2 controllers for $50 total.  It was a rewarding thing to do, that in time paid off since now I have that PVM to use it with.   I had just been using a hdmi modded top loader alone until the nes classic edition popped up but I never hacked it.

[Austin]

I have two toasters. Or is it three? I don't remember. I also have an AVS which gets most of the use today, despite my cleaner-of-the-two toasters being hooked up to a big-boy Trinitron CRT.

[zylon]

Was gonna be playing some new stuff...

[Tanooki]

Wow so melty...what happened

 

I got bit by the NES a bit today, both in interest to play, and largely having a terrible run of it enough I had to just put it down after awhile over a few games I normally would do better at.

[zylon]

52 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Wow so melty...what happened

 

I got bit by the NES a bit today, both in interest to play, and largely having a terrible run of it enough I had to just put it down after awhile over a few games I normally would do better at.

more smashy, with something very heavy. All 3 crushed, but only FF7 is dead. Board got tweaked inside. That was today's mail. The other two fire right up, as-is

[Tanooki]

Dude I own originals. Those two are gems. Especially crisis force. That game is well beyond usual famicom into early pc engine quality. 

[zylon]

4 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Dude I own originals. Those two are gems. Especially crisis force. That game is well beyond usual famicom into early pc engine quality. 

Other prior batches came fine, just got unlucky and they must have used yesterday's for a wheel chock.

Good time to point out that STED will run on most anything, except early Yobo and Retron, the ones without numbers. Stuck with multicart versions, if that's the only system someone has. Works on old Retron2 and up. Also noteworthy that much less flicker on actual cart R-type, vs the 509 multi version. 

Edited July 23, 2023 by zylon

[Tanooki]

Now see Lagrange Point I've been curious about that, but I'd need to find someone to make a custom cart, or mod the original running the translation on its own chip replacing(or if necessary bypassing) the original.  I understand it's a pretty fun game, kind of has sort of a phantasy star feel a bit, but the music is like arcade or SMS tier good with the FM audio.

[zylon]

9 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Now see Lagrange Point I've been curious about that, but I'd need to find someone to make a custom cart, or mod the original running the translation on its own chip replacing(or if necessary bypassing) the original.  I understand it's a pretty fun game, kind of has sort of a phantasy star feel a bit, but the music is like arcade or SMS tier good with the FM audio.

I'll probably be trying to get a 72-pin repro of my FC 1944, which died. I've been limited to my hackbox version for awhile now.

Edited July 24, 2023 by zylon

[CaptainBreakout]

I know a couple of options that can make a 1944. Kinda want one myself.

 

Wish I could get a Star Keeper.

 

Meantime I'm about to hack VS Super Mario. That sounds more exciting then it is. I just need to combine the modified high score save ROM with the second modified ROM that uses my VS Golf PPU chip.  Kinda fun to do some old fashioned hex editing and compare diff stuff.

[Tanooki]

You know what would be nice, but probably would end up having to get a famiclone(modern) of would be an english patched out Esper Dream 2.  I saw a video of that recently and it looks both short, but also like a lot of fun.  RPG but not, it's like Zelda for combat bits, no random battles, footprints on the map to pick your battles.  Many small RPGs rolled into one package, lots to do, doesn't overstay its welcome and from Konami so you know it's going to look, sound, and play quite good.

[Tanooki]

So anyway the 249 popped up today, mail came back around late afternoon, guess they let it slip out of the bag.  I'm impressed so far, can spot a few of the different games, but I can't seem to figure out ALL that's changed, but it definitely is enough.  More of the FC games like Adv Island 4 are english patched too.  Best of all, image was honest, NO BATTERY.   Menu is same but not, slightly more plain maybe or it's a color illusion of that.  I like it, like it much like the other.

 

I think Gremlins 2, the 2 Ghostbusters, Adv Island 4, the crap version of SF2(master fighter) to the stand alone I have is there, and a few others I'm forgetting.

 

Would be nice if a list could be made comparing the two for differences, could  be a good study to help others.

[zylon]

23 hours ago, Tanooki said:

So anyway the 249 popped up today, mail came back around late afternoon, guess they let it slip out of the bag.  I'm impressed so far, can spot a few of the different games, but I can't seem to figure out ALL that's changed, but it definitely is enough.  More of the FC games like Adv Island 4 are english patched too.  Best of all, image was honest, NO BATTERY.   Menu is same but not, slightly more plain maybe or it's a color illusion of that.  I like it, like it much like the other.

 

I think Gremlins 2, the 2 Ghostbusters, Adv Island 4, the crap version of SF2(master fighter) to the stand alone I have is there, and a few others I'm forgetting.

 

Would be nice if a list could be made comparing the two for differences, could  be a good study to help others.

most listings for the 249, omit the games list, other than the one vendor on Amazon. I think it would do better than the 239, which sells great, if the list got posted more. It's the same games+10, always the later design, and often cheaper than 239, should be a no-brainer. Possibly the best starter cart out there now. I have yet to find a title on any of that design, that won't run on everything I have. I've seen some recent listings of the 630, but already at scalper rates of 2-3x the cost new. Those were always around 25 shipped.

Only NES news on my end lately, is I just acquired a functional Shadowgate, so I can annoy my neighbors much like my parents long ago, lol.

[Tanooki]

From a member here, just re-acquired a couple sell offs(losses) from many years, and not so many years back for NES -- Conquest of the Crystal Palace and the more recent Gun.Smoke (I had an iCade with the arcade for some years.)

[zylon]

2 hours ago, Tanooki said:

From a member here, just re-acquired a couple sell offs(losses) from many years, and not so many years back for NES -- Conquest of the Crystal Palace and the more recent Gun.Smoke (I had an iCade with the arcade for some years.)

Gun.Smoke was fun. My brothers never figured out how to shoot straight ahead, so I usually beat them at that one. 

[Tanooki]

I'm sorry I sold it, didn't realize at the time the iCade 60 version I couldn't play right either, the fool who had the unit chopped the harness and excluded a button (face had 2 not 3) so it didn't work right.  Played like the NES one button wise, but not being made to do so, played like crap.

 

I got this really unique bizarre Japanese pirate console (fc) coming in sometime in the next week as it seems to have shipped (it's domestic)  I couldn't resist the fact no one bid so the price was less than shipping.  I want to poke at it because it has garbage games inside, but more so seeing how able or not it is on FC games of upper quality mappers.

[Trinity]

Broke my old hi-score at Galaxian today!

 

   20700@ 07 flags.

 

I was like YES!!! X10

[Trinity]

https://famicomworld.com/game/376/

[Tanooki]

So weeks ago (seeing date now) I brought up I got this odd as all get out strange utterly given the market should be illegal famiclone made for the Japanese market with 7 very stolen reskinned/titles games within as a side option.  It was rusty, crusty, internally damaged, both controllers were bad, one broken, the other jacked but I salvaged it enough to suffer playing some using a dremel to fit a real nintendo d-pad into the one still going.

 

I got some help with a question on facebook, said that the 9pin port on it is standard, so I went and got a couple of those 620in1 NES mini knockoff system controllers in a bundle on ebay for $10 shipped.  The system itself was $20 shipped but refunded being jacked, so 10 is it.

 

Shockingly this thing works stunningly well, even runs expanded famicom game audio like on the VRC6.  I've had a random select few games have an issue, the sunsoft-4 chipped afterburner 2 won't do backgrounds but sprites are fine, and oddly VRC4 Gradius II is very pissy to start unless you get lucky or swap a cart while others are fine...but all that stuff works, common non special chipped works too.  Those controllers made a HUGE difference, about as good as I can get to a legit AV Famicom without owning one (and damn I'm tempted.)

 

Yesterday I test drove Parodius for a few stages and Akamajou Densetsu 2 as well as I said, and it was a blast.  I had been tinkering with a couple famicom finds before that from oddly local from last weekend with Gyrodine and Gegege no Kitarou, both challenging and fun games, nice having Ninja Kid uncensored too.  And I put some time into a recent mail in of Hello Kitty World(FC version of Gameboy Balloon Kid), Sqoon (because the NES price is crap),  and Afterburner 2 too.

 

Ever since getting that 9" PVM largely I've not touched my HDMI NES really, or even the action set too more lately with the Famicom Yarou, no gameboy, no snes, no genesis, etc.  It's been peacefully fun just doing those old basic not basic challenging old games, as somethings less (2 buttons and a d-pad) really just is more.

[newtmonkey]

I've been mostly playing modern (or at least somewhat recent) games lately, but decided to play some Famicom.

 

Akumajo Dracula

This is of course Castlevania, but I am playing the original Famicom Disk System version.  This version lets you save your progress as you go, which is interesting because a save feature is something you'd normally expect in a remake or something... but no, the original experience intended by the developers was to allow you to save as you go and pick up where you left off.

 

Anyway, although I played this game a lot back in the day on the NES, I can't recall if I ever completed it legitimately.  So, I decided to finally complete this game legit once and for all.  On my first attempt I was quite rusty and was running into trouble all over the place, and failed miserably on the third level; I didn't even get to the bosses.  On my second attempt a day later, some of the rust had worn off, and I was able to complete level 3 with no issues whatsoever.  Level 4 was fine up until the hallway before the boss room, where the second bone dragon wrecked me.  On my third attempt, I started getting into the groove, and was able to defeat Frank & Igor without a sub-weapon and at low health (a very satisfying win).  I was able to then get through the nightmarish hallway before the boss of Level 5 intact with a double boomerang, but screwed up and died almost immediately.

 

That's where I left off, so my focus now is on learning how to get through that hallway at near full health, so that I have more time to learn the Grim Reaper's patterns.  I'm hoping to complete this one in October (seems fitting).