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

[newtmonkey]

On 12/26/2023 at 8:56 AM, Cris1997XX said:

The original two Megami Tensei games on Famicom were really something special, a breath of fresh air amidst all those western RPGs and Dragon Quest, even if they aged kinda poorly. But this remake/compilation...eehh, it's kinda half-assed. It looks drab and with a poor choice of colors, including some lazily-made sprites, and the music pales in comparison to the original soundtrack: 

 

(Quoting from the SNES forum).  I was playing the SFC remake of DDS:MT but decided to follow up on this and give the original FC version a try.

 

Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei

This could basically be described as Wizardry with monster summoning.  You have two (fixed) human characters in your party: Nakajima the genius programmer who develops a program to summon demons, and his friend Yumiko who can cast spells.  You fill out the rest of your party by negotiating with demons and convincing them to join your party, and can then combine two demons to create an even stronger one.  Like Wizardry, it takes place in a first-person dungeon and you are quite weak to start out.  Although the game has an auto-mapping spell, you can't rely on it 100% because it shows you the entire map (even unexplored areas), and it is crucial to fully explore the maps by stepping on each tile.  The map also won't work during the new moon phase, which also turns demons crazy with bloodlust.

 

I guess the biggest issue with this version in particular is the lack of battery backup.  Instead, you have you work with passwords, though they really aren't bad... they aren't too long, and consist of only numbers and uppercase letters.

 

Anyway, I played the FC version for an hour or so this morning, just to try it out.  It's a pretty impressive FC game with large, colorful enemy sprites and some excellent music, and moves much snappier than the SFC version.  The color palette used also gives the game a darker atmosphere than the SFC game, which mostly just reuses graphics from the Shin Megami Tensei games.

 

When the game starts you get to allocate stat points to the two human characters, so I restarted a few times trying different strategies.  I think I've settled on splitting the points between STR (HP) and ATK (physical damage) for Nakajima and STR and INT (MP + demon negotiation bonus) to start.

[Vidiot1981]

Recently I got all the necessary parts and now have a working Nintendo again after about 16 years, I regrettably gave away the last one I had..

I'm playing through the Castlevania games, starting with the first. It's impressive how much better each one got on a technical level. Super Mario 3 has been getting played as well, I have major nostalgia for that one. And I totally dig River City Ransom, super fun beating people with trash cans!

 

[newtmonkey]

Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei

I finished exploring the first five levels.  So far, this game is pretty cool!  I've played some of the more recent games in the series, so it's fun to see where it all started.

 

I read the manual before playing, and also read some general advice on character building (but ended up ignoring it)... otherwise I am playing blind, and am just recruiting and combining demons as I'm able to do so.  I feel like I've got over the initial difficulty hump, as I've got my two human characters decked out in decent gear and finally was able to fuse my first demon.

 

There really isn't much story to this game, but that's fine because I was in the mood for a dungeon crawler.  I'd forgotten how satisfying it is to map out mazes on graph paper.

[scotty]

Wife and I play Dr. Mario on (almost) a daily basis.   We are so evenly matched that it makes it so fun.   She is a longtime Tetris player, so when she discovered it, she loved it.   Some days I will kill her, other days she returns the favor, and other days if we play 10 rounds each will win five games.  You never know from one day to the next.  The one thing I do know, is she HATES to get shut out.

 

We play on real hardware with the exception of an Everdrive cart.   We could use the MISTer, Raspberry Pi or emulation (PC is connected to same TV) and even with USB controller adapters, we still play on real hardware.

 

 

Edited December 31, 2023 by scotty

[bluejay]

I finally beat the Legend of Zelda!

 

Zelda 2 is turning out to be hard as shit though. I still can't consistently kill a lot of the enemies and I haven't managed to figure out how to attack horse man without taking a hit myself. 

[Tanooki]

@bluejay Outside of the minority of those who revel in that game and love to play and replay it, most consider it the black sheep if not the kusoge level of annoying release of Zelda.  The game is the outlier in being overly hard for the franchise, largely by some questionable design choices when trying new ideas from having no heart drops to refill in the wild/dungeons instead being stuck to limited use magics(then waiting to find bottles to creep it up again) or the asinine no indication invisible hole in the floor crap to drop you in bad places at the worst time.  It's a solid game, but almost equally solidly aggravating/annoying depending on tastes.

 

Stick with it, and if you're needing help, visual help without dealing with YT garbage Nintendo on GC had this Zelda COllector's Edition which was the 2 NES and 2 N64 games, full color full everything guides.  Was the first and only time Nintendo ever had annoyingly(stupidly?) a full printed guide to Zelda 2, all areas, all dungeons, all tricks, holes, etc.  Use it.

[bluejay]

@Tanooki Yeah I've certainly known Zelda II's controversial reputation, which was partly why I was interested in trying it out for myself. 

 

So far I find the combat to be enjoyable if a bit too challenging. The fact that you need to be strategic with your tiny dagger and shield to bring down armed enemies instead of button mashing like in most other NES side scrollers is definitely exciting, though I think I need more practice to be able to fight consistently. 

 

I can't read Japanese much less the katakana-only madness that is Zelda 2, so I sort of have to borrow the help of guides and walkthroughs from time to time. I feel that it detracts little from my experience considering its focus on combat and the overall crypticness of the game to begin with.

 

I beat the horse man but died at 3-2-3 so there goes all the xp grinding I did during the buildup. Yeah I think the only gripe I have about this game is it not saving the stats properly. I understand that the US release doesn't have this issue but it is what it is.

Edited January 5 by bluejay

[Tanooki]

50 minutes ago, bluejay said:

@Tanooki Yeah I've certainly known Zelda II's controversial reputation, which was partly why I was interested in trying it out for myself. 

 

So far I find the combat to be enjoyable if a bit too challenging. The fact that you need to be strategic with your tiny dagger and shield to bring down armed enemies instead of button mashing like in most other NES side scrollers is definitely exciting, though I think I need more practice to be able to fight consistently. 

 

I can't read Japanese much less the katakana-only madness that is Zelda 2, so I sort of have to borrow the help of guides and walkthroughs from time to time. I feel that it detracts little from my experience considering its focus on combat and the overall crypticness of the game to begin with.

 

I beat the horse man but died at 3-2-3 so there goes all the xp grinding I did during the buildup. Yeah I think the only gripe I have about this game is it not saving the stats properly. I understand that the US release doesn't have this issue but it is what it is.

I think the US version does actually, where if you're partly along in going towards the next XP up and you save, you lose that partial rise so it's best to level, then save.  The only advice I can give, other than since you are stuck with Japanese katakana which is a hurdle is that US guide, there's a clean downloadable PDF scan of it easily found over through a web search.  That and, as boring as it is, find a safe (enough) spot and grind levels, get everything up through at least lv4 or more before going further, then abuse those end of the palace checkpoints where it rounds your XP to the next amount, try and get a boost before the palace so you can save hours not grinding levels as it's a freebie.

[bluejay]

13 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I think the US version does actually, where if you're partly along in going towards the next XP up and you save, you lose that partial rise so it's best to level, then save.

Yeah but in the FDS version not only do you lose your XP progress but you also lose upgrades that exceed your lowest stat. That is, if you were at 3-2-3 like I was before Game Over-ing then it will save your stats as 2-2-2. Anyhoo, I'll definitely check out that guide, thanks.

[Tanooki]

Oooooh that sucks, they had fixed 1 bug and left the other, smart.  I wonder if the FDS ROM that boots on the FC Mini cart on GBA has the same problems too.  Not that I'm going to buy it, not worth it with the barrier in place, but, it would have been nice.

[newtmonkey]

Gradius

After years of focusing mainly on RPGs, I suddenly decided to play some shmups... so why not start with this fine port?  I had this game back in the day, but back then I had zero patience for it.  Revisiting it now, it's a pretty cool game for an early release.  It looks alright, although it is graphically and sonically eclipsed by Life Force, which was surprisingly released just a year later.  It plays great, with plenty of action on-screen but very little slowdown or flicker.  After a few attempts, I was able to make partway through level 3 without continuing.

 

I know this series has a somewhat bad reputation due to its checkpoint system, where after death you spawn partway through the level with all of your powerups gone... but so far it's not bad.  It's not so manic that it's impossible without powerups, and if you can just manage to get a couple of powerups (at least one speed and either missiles or the laser), you can usually survive with some fancy dodging.  I think with just a little practice I could 1CC this.

[bluejay]

I figured I should just start over and grind Parapa Palace before completing it again. As a result I managed to rack up a solid 5-5-5 until I went to do something else. Now even the harder enemies die in two hits so completing Parapa is a cakewalk; it's too easy even to the point the combat no longer feels satisfying. Hopefully the difficulty spike that I keep hearing about will come soon as I head to the secone palace.

 

 

Meanwhile, do Goriyas have a certain pattern in which they throw their boomerangs? They're the only enemies that I cannot consistently defeat without taking damage so far because I never know at what angle they'll throw their boomerangs, and if I keep a distance so I have time to react I'll never be able to land any hits.

Edited January 7 by bluejay

[Tanooki]

22 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

Gradius

After years of focusing mainly on RPGs, I suddenly decided to play some shmups... so why not start with this fine port?  I had this game back in the day, but back then I had zero patience for it.  Revisiting it now, it's a pretty cool game for an early release.  It looks alright, although it is graphically and sonically eclipsed by Life Force, which was surprisingly released just a year later.  It plays great, with plenty of action on-screen but very little slowdown or flicker.  After a few attempts, I was able to make partway through level 3 without continuing.

 

I know this series has a somewhat bad reputation due to its checkpoint system, where after death you spawn partway through the level with all of your powerups gone... but so far it's not bad.  It's not so manic that it's impossible without powerups, and if you can just manage to get a couple of powerups (at least one speed and either missiles or the laser), you can usually survive with some fancy dodging.  I think with just a little practice I could 1CC this.

You're right, it really isn't that bad until the late stages, and even then a speed and +1 or 2 others won't quite save you unless you're a shooter master.  Typically what will save your ass best is a speed, missile, and one option to double those up as that'll clear enough space.  The speed alone is vital and the missile covers below which clears enough but it's still nasty, most Moai stage.  I used to 1CC this all the time and can no longer do it, just mess around for fun.  I find seeing how far you can go on just 1 life then after a certain point just resetting is smarter to try and just get more comfortable because you'll get caught in an infinite death spiral.   You are right about also Life Force which is amusing given even that is watered down against Salamander it's FC counterpart.  And even then that one is the correct order as Life Force was also re-organized too, so in a way they're almost 2 distinctly different games enough it's probably smart to own both (I do.)

 

That said, don't touch Gradius II until you're comfy with those ones, that one is brutal from stage one.  Strangely stage one is just a whore, stage 2 and 3 are easier due to some weird design choices how the stages work really which never made much sense ot me.  G2 I have on FC and also PCE Mini, strangely I can do better on the PCE one.

[bluejay]

I just made it past Death Mountain without dying once. I’m not one to call myself particularly good at video games of any sort, but where’s the challenge everyone’s been talking about? It wasn’t exactly a cakewalk but it was hardly more difficult that Parapa Palace.

 

Meanwhile, I’ve learnt downthrust and it’s definitely made the game easier, but I’m not sure if I wholeheartedly appreciate this new easy way out of properly fighting an enemy. 

 

Meanwhile, the cumulative xp from beating Death Mountain and Midoro Palace brought me to 6-5-6 and 1472/1500xp to the final step before 6-6-6 where I could save my stats until I learnt that the level up bonus at the end of a palace does not save any XP progress gained prior. I lost my final life before regaining that 1500xp and therefore lost all my xp gains since before the palace and Death Mountain. 

 

Really Nintendo, was it so hard to program the game to save three fucking numbers accounting for a combined 9 bits of data separately?

[NE146]

2 hours ago, bluejay said:

I just made it past Death Mountain without dying once. I’m not one to call myself particularly good at video games of any sort, but where’s the challenge everyone’s been talking about? It wasn’t exactly a cakewalk but it was hardly more difficult that Parapa Palace.

 

Meanwhile, I’ve learnt downthrust and it’s definitely made the game easier, but I’m not sure if I wholeheartedly appreciate this new easy way out of properly fighting an enemy. 

 

Meanwhile, the cumulative xp from beating Death Mountain and Midoro Palace brought me to 6-5-6 and 1472/1500xp to the final step before 6-6-6 where I could save my stats until I learnt that the level up bonus at the end of a palace does not save any XP progress gained prior. I lost my final life before regaining that 1500xp and therefore lost all my xp gains since before the palace and Death Mountain. 

 

Really Nintendo, was it so hard to program the game to save three fucking numbers accounting for a combined 9 bits of data separately?

Yeah I never understood the difficulty complaint as I beat the game at launch and enjoyed every minute of it. It's still one of my all time favorite games to this day where I still play it every couple years or so. That said, I used to use a NES Advantage and use the turbo button for fighting and that's how I got through a lot of it (spamming sword thrusts while randomly jumping ).  I will say I definitely prefer the sounds and sprites of the US version over the original which makes sense as they had a few years to improve what they wanted like the animation of the dragon boss, etc.

 

Re: levels: You're in Death Mountain and only 6-5-6? You should be maxed out already especially in the FDS version where the required exp is less that the US version... (I think?)

 

In Zelda 2 placing the gems at the end of the dungeons levels up your next skill immediately.. giving you (potentially) thousands of EXP free. So I like to grind the first dungeon for a while (i.e. jump over the middle of the statue at the end, so the gem won't be placed, exit, then re-enter and repeat) until you can level up your attack to at least level 5-6 by placing the gem.  THEN the subsequent dungeons become that much more beneficial at the end of each. You can easily plan it so you get an attack level 8 early on really. e.g.:

 

Edited January 12 by NE146

[Tanooki]

The up and more so down strike isn't cheesing or cheating, even the old NIntendo pros would tell people to do it from the company hotline and in print.  You're just using finally the right mechanic to get around some obnoxious stuff.

[bluejay]

Just sayin, I liked trying to fight Goriyas and stuff head on with all the shield techniques and whatnot. Takes away some of the challenge and excitement, especially now that I have the life spell and am much less likely to die much less game over.

 

The XP requirements in the FDS version may be lower but the XP payouts are lower as well. I grinded Parapa for 5-5-5 until I decided it became too tedious, especially since I had 5 more dungeons ahead of me. I’m really not regretting that decision, 5-5-5 was plenty to get me through DM and Midoro as I mentioned before. Parapa enemies give way too little XP anyways, perhaps 400-500 at most per run.

[Arno1978]

While I have a NES with almost 100 games hooked up to a perfect little CRT TV, I've been playing NES titles on my modded GBA SP. I modded it with an IPS screen. I find the Classic NES Series well done - in terms of fitting the game on a lower resolution and still making it look nice. Been really enjoying The Legend of Zelda port. I forget that I'm playing on a lower res screen. In my opinion they did it well, but the game does suffer a bit more slowdown than the actual version, when too many enemies on screen. That said, it works so well. I'm still surprised that the GBA is a 20 year old system. With the modded screen it feels like the best portable handheld console. I would not be opposed to Nintendo re-releasing the unit with the IPS screen and also making as many Classic NES Series games as possible. Nothing will kill my love of my actual NES. But having a version on a small screen in my pocket was my ultimate childhood fantasy and now it exists.

[NE146]

43 minutes ago, Arno1978 said:

 I've been playing NES titles on my modded GBA SP. I modded it with an IPS screen.. Nothing will kill my love of my actual NES. But having a version on a small screen in my pocket was my ultimate childhood fantasy and now it exists.

Yes! the GBA SP with a flashcart loaded with emulators giving NES/SMS/GG/etc. is one of the best bangs for the buck. I've been singing its praises over various posts for years. However for me today, it's been replaced by the Analogue Pocket as my favorite go-to.  It's not as compact as an SP for travel, but it just has so much more support not only for additional handhelds as well as the 8-bit era and also 16bit GEN/SNES/TG16 as well as arcade cores. The one thing you miss is emulator features like save-states for most of the cores (some do have them though).

[Tanooki]

I had a shock of a surprise yesterday.  I went to the door early evening for a family member sneaking up with a door surprise of a bag of cookies to find at my feet a busted open on one side box, priority mail open on one end and odd white tape around various others.  This was something I was supposed to have in the mail Dec 15th mailed out about 8-9 days earlier and assumed stolen through ebay, I was refunded, seller didn't get screwed either.  A box of 8 now 7 FC games showed up.  And within it thankfully the loss was the one FC cart I already owned (F1-Race), but the rest made it, and the key title I really wanted worth the price of the lot and a little more -- Cosmo Police Galivan.  A metroidvania before that dumb term was stuck as a term, and very well made.  Along with that Gradius, Mickey Mouse, Star Force, Spartan-X, Seicross and Magical Tarurutokun Fantastic World all showed up.  They were dirty some more than others, but all worked thankfully and after a clean up I gave them all a try.  I've been on a little hiatus of the FC doing some other games but that was refreshing.

 

The couple unique games are very very welcome of course, and the changes or not from the others are interesting as well.  Galivan I put like 30 min on, the longest play other than me going through to a first death in Spartan-X half way up the 2nd loop which surprised me.  Galivan is fun, you get to gain experience, but also find and level up your beam (sword) weapon, your projectile and then your third as you find it (not found it yet.)  EVerything has its own gauge, game also has a save battery but saving is death, so die if you have to quit.   The graphics are quite well detailed, challenge is pretty seemingly fair, good sized boss I found so far too, and the audio is pretty clean and well done which makes for a surprisingly good package.

[newtmonkey]

Akumajo Dracula (FDS version)

I've been stuck at the Grim Reaper boss battle for some time, and even when I did defeat him in the past, I won either through cheesing the fight, or just dumb luck.

 

If you look up strategies for this fight, you find a couple.  Strategy (1) seems to be to hold onto the holy water the entire level, get the triple shot, and then defeat him effortlessly.  Strategy (2) seems to be to pick up the boomerang, get the triple shot, and then defeat him with not much trouble.

 

I don't like either of these strategies.  Strategy (1) requires you to get through the entire stage without dying (and also strikes me as a really cheap way to beat the boss), while strategy (2) requires you to have enough hearts to "waste" on getting the triple shot for the boomerang (though you could maybe abuse the stairs to go back and forth and gather hearts?).

 

I'd already mostly mastered the stage up until the "Hallway of Horror" before the boss room, so running through it all each time was just wasting my time.  With that in mind, I used the Everdrive save state function to practice the Hallway of Horror until I got it down mostly perfectly, and now have a save state dropped right before the Grim Reaper battle.  My next step is to practice the fight for a while, but just focus on avoiding and whipping the scythes.  If I can develop a strategy there to somewhat reliably defeat him, then the next step is to load my real save on the FDS version (unlike the cart version, this one actually saves your progress) and run through the level.  It seems doable.

 

Gradius

I'm been playing this here and there, trying to get better at it as I go, and I'm making some decent progress.  I'm able to get to the third stage on my first or second ship, and I've got a lot better at recovering from a lost ship.  I have certain powerups that I focus on during recovery (speed up once, then either missile or double depending on which would be more useful), which make recovery a bit less grueling.  I've also been experimenting with dodging through tough areas, so that I can get through them even without being powered up.  Today I was able to get through the enemy barrage section prior to the boss straight after recovery, with only a single speed up.

This game is pretty great!  It's a nice port of the arcade game, that plays great with simple but clean graphics.

Edited January 24 by newtmonkey

[Trinity]

Interesting.

[Gamemoose]

Finally got back to Dungeons and Doomknights. It's been a while and I forgot a lot about what is where.  I beat the Dragonlord and also Death and have worked my way through a couple areas to where I find I need something.  I was looking at a video to confirm a theory and found that player had more skulls than I did at about the same point in the game I was. So I spent the rest of my game time back tracking until I came across some skeleton boss I skipped. Oi.

[Tanooki]

I got a nice gem of an oddball famicom game in the mail a couple days ago and put some time on it since then.  Famicomworld is even stumped on it because you can only assume things given the title.  It's Queen Bee V, and put out by NITRA.  The confusion is Nitra, they did two games, that and Time Diver Avenger (aka Time Diver Eon) which was a canceled game released long ago on the after market as a rom.  Nitra existed for like 6months in one year, that's it.  It's a mix of wondering if it's a legit company or a bs one, it was Taiwanese based, but it looks almost like TAITO had some problems with at least Time Diver and maybe pulled a Konami-ULTRA thing in a more receptive market to peddle the game to get money back on not officially releasing it in Japan/US.  Mine though, it was released, not sure the depths of the changes unless it's in title only but it's the Famicom version of the uniquely fun Insector-X.

 

I don't have a pic of the cart, but I did find this ridiculously(is it?) priced listing on ebay with no sales history.  I don't have it complete (box+game) like that, just the game.  It's quite the keeper and pretty fun.  Also comes with a weird boys mode/girls mode and if you go boys you need to rank up your abilities so it's normal mode, and girls is easy mode, same difficulty but you start up with a girl hero and with your weapons charged up to start.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175997603838

[+neogeo1982]

On 2/18/2024 at 1:00 AM, Gamemoose said:

Finally got back to Dungeons and Doomknights. It's been a while and I forgot a lot about what is where.  I beat the Dragonlord and also Death and have worked my way through a couple areas to where I find I need something.  I was looking at a video to confirm a theory and found that player had more skulls than I did at about the same point in the game I was. So I spent the rest of my game time back tracking until I came across some skeleton boss I skipped. Oi.

Did you realize there's more than 1 ending to this? I had to go back and replay the end to see them...