My first NES action set!

[Wing_Commander]

A long time ago I had an NES and Mario, but long since sold it along with my huge PS1 collection. With that money I managed to obtain a rather large 3DO collection..., but not without some regrets. I never really got to explore the NES game library as much as I had wanted to..., and this along with the fairly still reasonable prices have led me to pull the trigger and get a NIB NES Action Set. Other contenders were getting an Amiga 3000, Intellivision II, and a Sega CD. However, these were either too limited in their library, too expensive, or not as interesting to get.  I hope I chose well, and if anyone has any really good games to get, please share  

[Austin]

Congrats! I used to have one of those. Ended up downsizing it eventually for a non-gun/pack-in-cart version to save space (then ironically bought a ROB bundle box by itself, so now between the two more space is being taken up than ever!).

 

For games, you really can’t go wrong with the really popular stuff. Like any era, the games got popular for a reason. They often have much higher levels of polish than third-rate titles. Examples being the Mega Mans, the Castlevanias, the Super Mario Bros., the Legend of Zeldas, the Ninja Gaidens, etc., etc.

 

If you’re into the Golden Age stuff, then check out the “black box” games along with ports from that era, like Joust, Millipede, Gyruss, Q-Bert, Defender II, etc.

 

For some of the more impressive late-era stuff, Kirby’s Adventure is a must, as is Shatterhand or Gimmick (the later would need to be imported).

 

A flash cart really helps as a lot of the ‘91 - ‘92+ titles are uncommon and pretty expensive now. It’s also a good investment just to dabble with the library to see what you like. There were over 600 titles released in NA alone, with many more in Japan.

Edited January 12 by Austin

[Wing_Commander]

1 hour ago, Austin said:

Congrats! I used to have one of those. Ended up downsizing it eventually for a non-gun/pack-in-cart version to save space (then ironically bought a ROB bundle box by itself, so now between the two more space is being taken up than ever!).

 

For games, you really can’t go wrong with the really popular stuff. Like any era, the games got popular for a reason. They often have much higher levels of polish than third-rate titles. Examples being the Mega Mans, the Castlevanias, the Super Mario Bros., the Legend of Zeldas, the Ninja Gaidens, etc., etc.

 

If you’re into the Golden Age stuff, then check out the “black box” games along with ports from that era, like Joust, Millipede, Gyruss, Q-Bert, Defender II, etc.

 

For some of the more impressive late-era stuff, Kirby’s Adventure is a must, as is Shatterhand or Gimmick (the later would need to be imported).

 

A flash cart really helps as a lot of the ‘91 - ‘92+ titles are uncommon and pretty expensive now. It’s also a good investment just to dabble with the library to see what you like. There were over 600 titles released in NA alone, with many more in Japan.

The Zelda and Castlevenia games are definitely must haves! I have played Zelda before on a friends NES, but never got to play long enough to beat the game. So I am really looking forward to getting to really dive into it and Zelda II. I am told that there is a 2nd play through in Zelda, like Mario, after you defeat it the first time. Something about how certain things change in the 2nd play through.   Also surely going to get all the Mario games, the girlfriend pretty much demands them after this arrived today lol. I appreciate the other options you listed and currently Googling them and the flash cart. In another forum I was suggested a game called Salamander 2 (Life Force), similar space side scrolling shooter to the Defender 2. Defender 2 gives me the old Atari vibes, a real retro experience.  Shatterhand looks awesome!  All good suggestions! 

Edited January 12 by Wing_Commander

[Austin]

11 minutes ago, Wing_Commander said:

The Zelda and Castlevenia games are definitely must haves! I have played Zelda before on a friends NES, but never got to play long enough to beat the game. So I am really looking forward to getting to really dive into it and Zelda II. I am told that there is a 2nd play through in Zelda, like Mario, after you defeat it the first time. Something about how certain things change in the 2nd play through.   Also surely going to get all the Mario games, the girlfriend pretty much demands them after this arrived today lol. I appreciate the other options you listed and currently Googling them and the flash cart. In another forum I was suggested a game called Salamander 2 (Life Force), similar space side scrolling shooter to the Defender 2. Defender 2 gives me the old Atari vibes, a real retro experience.  Shatterhand looks awesome!  All good suggestions! 

Oh yeah! With the first Zelda, you just type "ZELDA" as a character name and you'll access the second quest. No need to beat the game! It is significantly more difficult, with dungeons and power-ups being in totally different locations. Zelda II I believe requires you to beat the game first, but it also doesn't remix the quest, so it's not that interesting on a second loop.

 

I totally recommend Life Force! It's one of the better shooters on the system. Gradius 2--released in Japan--is also really good. Konami titles in general (along with games published by Ultra, which was another Konami brand) are worth playing.

[Wing_Commander]

10 minutes ago, Austin said:

Oh yeah! With the first Zelda, you just type "ZELDA" as a character name and you'll access the second quest

😮  Dude that is awesome! 

 

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I totally recommend Life Force! It's one of the better shooters on the system

The CIB for this is pretty spendy , but the loose copies are pretty cheap. In fact this seems to be the case with most of the titles I have looked up. Seems I will be focusing on getting loose carts and sleeves. With that said, this game looks really good. I would have to agree that Konami games are generally very good, and that includes the Total Vice arcade shooter that I have (Konami 3DO M2).   I further went a ahead and bought Demon Sword and Faxanadu! Ninja Gaiden looks promising as well.. OMG..., soo much to explore on the NES.. I really shorted myself back then 😮

[+GoldLeader]

I thought first I'd mention that getting an Everdrive (Flash Cart) is a Fantastic idea,  although expensive (Worth it for sure!)...I'm thinking of going nuts and upgrading to the latest one myself (the exact one I want is $246 (OUCH!)).  But I can sometimes be a sucker for custom colors etc. (And I like the frosted Green one)...Ridiculous I know.  Say,  would you be interested in buying my old one?  No obligation,  I'll think about it and send you a PM.  Then as Austin said you can always try before you buy, etc,.  It doesn't have to stop you collecting at all,  but maybe you'll put some thought into the truly expensive games...Are they worth it?  Well now you can judge for yourself!  Plus you can then buy homebrews as ROMs which rules!  And download games, demos, and hacks for free too,  A lot of people give stuff away for you to download...

 

Anyway,  there is a thread about "bad" games you like anyway here...

 

And there in that thread, well  I say this:

 

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My favorite NES games in life are FAXANADU, and DEADLY TOWERS, (also sometimes DR. MARIO...but not as often)...

 

 

But NOW,  Faxanadu is some underrated Classic of near Masterpiece proportions and Deadly Towers is somehow one of the Worst games ever made...WHAAAAAA?

 

For Deadly Towers (One of my very first NES games,  so I compared it to Atari and ColecoVision games back then)...   I get that people don't like that some enemies take too many hits, or that there can be cheap deaths, ...or that it is disorienting when a game drops you into a dungeon if you weren't expecting it.  OTOH,  I'm sure everybody would complain that it was too easy otherwise.  Being one of my first NES experiences,  I might be reading things into it that others don't...

 

Anyway,  I still see "beating a game" or even a game having an ending as icing on the cake.  If I'm ONLY playing a game to see an ending, that is almost a chore to me.  I prefer games that are fun to play.  It's kind of like when a movie is good or even great for 3/4 of the time you spend watching it,  but then it has something in the ending where people harp on it.  Somehow they instantly forget they had fun watching almost the whole thing up until that.  For another example,  Yes I liked Game of Thrones,  where I guess most people forgot about the entire series because they didn't like 2 minutes at the end...

 

Anyhow for Deadly Towers,  I watched a little bit of a video on YouTube from someone who beat the game...And they sucked!  Haha,  better explain this one.  They certainly didn't appear to be enjoying the game!  They were just racing through the scenery, not exploring it in the least,  avoiding all pitfalls,  not even checking all of it out;  They were zooming through some scenes without ever taking in the music (which blew my mind back in those days!)...The set pieces may as well have been the repeating background in a Scooby Doo cartoon, because they didn't even seem to notice.  They missed every atmospheric piece of intrigue the game had to offer...As far as I'm concerned they were so intent on BEATING the game,  they didn't even take the time to PLAY the game...

 

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I see you've got Faxanadu on the way!  Awesome!  You are on your way!  (Although with all the letters (Upper and Lower case) and numbers available,  Faxanadu has the worst Password system I've Ever seen in a game).  I personally recommend Dr. Mario as, Well,  Damn it is addictive!  Then,  as I say, I personally Love Deadly Towers but most people just kind of hate it.  I have a lot of nostalgia associated with it and it was technologically advanced when I first saw it...Quite the mind blower next to ColecoVision games,  but still fun to this day I think.  With an Everdrive you can just check it out.  Or...  One of the perks of everyone hating it,  is that it should be cheap!  OK looks like about $5-$10 for a loose cart or $30 for CIB (Hallelujah!)  So that one's real cheap to try out!

 

[Tanooki]

I'm seeing a lot of suggestions here, but as I started to read them it got me thinking it would maybe change my mind on what to write, so I stopped, so if it's overlap consider that as an added layer of approval on a choice.

 

For starters I've had my Nintendo in some form since 85, and been into the Famicom for about 25 years through emulation, then dated multicarts, and now a real one with a nice stack of games and I don't discriminate with bootlegs either.

 

If anyone said if you know of a franchise that has existed for at least 30 years that likely started on the NES to try it, I'd agree.  Whether that's Mario to Zelda to Megaman to Castlevania and more they're all really a safe bet and will suck up a lot of time, but they also are kind of obvious calls on the US front.

 

I think it maybe best on the American side to just type a list of stuff you can look up than try and influence you.  You'll find I won't list the biggest decades long franchises on that side, but for those we missed or were very changed for Famicom it's pretty fair game.  I'm thinking of stuff as old as the black box era to the end really would be some fun.

 

Balloon Fight, Baseball Stars 2, Blaster Master,  Bump n Jump, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers(1+2), Crystalis, Darkwing Duck, Donkey Kong jr and 3, Duck Tales (1+2), Dragon Spirit, Duck Hunt (if you can use a light gun), Faxanadu, Gauntlet II, GI Joe the Atlantis Factor,  Gun.Smoke, Jackal, Life Force, Little Nemo the Dream Master, NES Open Tournament Golf, Pro Wrestling, Rad Racer, Raid on Bungling Bay, River City Ransom, Silent Service (needs 2 controllers), Stinger, Super Dodgeball, Super Spy Hunter (and Spy Hunter), The Battle of Olympus, Vice Project Doom, and WURM

 

 

The famicom was an interesting one, lots more games, lots more that aren't good, and a good many that just got aced out by Nintendos limited release window of 5-6 titles as year.  Then there were the taboo sorts like Sega games that popped up on there, some we did get like Afterburner but our release was garbage compared, their version was afterburner 2 with the smarter targets, harder challenge, little cut scene bits, and afterburner boots.  Or you would have a game like Mad City, we got it as the turd Bayou Billy.  BB was a turd here because they decided to punish renters.  Mad City though you don't take double damage, and it doesn't take 4x the hits to KO an enemy and the car bits control right and have more lenient fuel to finish them.  Other games we did get that were better got whacked because of censorship like Castlevania III (Akumajo Densetsu) which got nailed for the difficulty reasons too gimping and ruining Grant and making damages worse, but also a lot of censorship of icons and art, also it had a better chip for some advanced audio that sharply better.

 

So those 3 I could recommend to start but also Konami had the strongest library of choice stuff we got hosed out of and I'll list them alone to start: Akamajou Densetsu Boku Dracula Kun(Kid Dracula), Akumajou Densetsu(CV3), Crisis Force, Ganbare Goemon, Goonies 1, Gradius II, King Kong 2, Moero Twinbee, Parodius Da, Salamander, Twinbee 1 and 3, Wai Wai World 2, Yie Ar Kung Fu, and Yume Penguin Monogatari come to mind.  A few are more launch era titles, but a majority are mid-later releases using their VRC2-6 chips that really pushed the hardware quite well.

 

Outside of Konami some other good choices: Armadillo, F1-Race, Fantasy Zone, FC Genjin(Bonk to save money $30 vs $700), Final Lap, Hello Kitty World(Balloon Fight 2 reskin), Mappy, Ninja Jajamaru Kun, Rainbow Islands, Splatterhouse Wanpaku Graffiti, Star Luster, Urusei Yatsura, Valkyrie no Bouken, are some more.

 

It's kind of hard to gauge what you'd care about. 

 

Also I'd assume you won't be buying a FC cart adapter, you'll end up with a cheap flash cart perhaps, so cost has no point and neither does language as a heap of the games have been translated.  Popular stuff like Shin Megami Tensei got translated, as did the 2 other Final Fantasy games we didn't get from the JRPG side of things.  The games above from Konami also were translated too as have a few others.   Ys 1-3 are solid zelda-ish style games we didn't get, and again, translated.

 

And on that if a flash kit is a heavy hit, a year ago finally the lazies in pirate land with their multicarts finally made one both with smart menuing AND multiple saves allowed on the cart (previous years 1 would overwrite the next making it useless.)  I can point to two killer multis in NES format I picked up, it uses the high end mapper stuff so you can try out that Castlevania III in english wihtout the butchery, the Y trilogy, and others.  Everything saves, nothing dies off from it, and the menu remembers your last game and has fast toggle to other parts of the list and they're cheap.

[Wing_Commander]

On 1/12/2024 at 3:41 AM, GoldLeader said:

I thought first I'd mention that getting an Everdrive (Flash Cart) is a Fantastic idea,  although expensive (Worth it for sure!)...I'm thinking of going nuts and upgrading to the latest one myself (the exact one I want is $246 (OUCH!)).

I think when I get my tax returns back we could work out a deal for that flash cart. I am definitely interested  

 

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For Deadly Towers (One of my very first NES games,  so I compared it to Atari and ColecoVision games back then)...   I get that people don't like that some enemies take too many hits, or that there can be cheap deaths, ...or that it is disorienting when a game drops you into a dungeon if you weren't expecting it.  OTOH,  I'm sure everybody would complain that it was too easy otherwise.  Being one of my first NES experiences,  I might be reading things into it that others don't...

I looked this up... Looks  like a Semi-3D Zelda ..., at least that is the vibe I get from it.   I might pick this one up at some point .. You have lots of good suggestions.. I do enjoy a pretty broad range of games, especially if they are in the RPG, Racing, Fighting, and Flight Sim realm.. I am really big into space combat games such as Wing Commander as well. 

 

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Also I'd assume you won't be buying a FC cart adapter

Not at this time, but that may be a future purchase.  I will  be starting out slow and simple as I need to still buy a Retrotink 4k for which is going to cost me about 800 USD. So anything like this or a flash cart etc is going to have to wait until after tax returns  Or if I end up selling my M2 Arcade board here...

 

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 2 other Final Fantasy games we didn't get from the JRPG side of things.

These are a must get. 

[Wing_Commander]

On 1/12/2024 at 3:41 AM, GoldLeader said:

Anyway,  I still see "beating a game" or even a game having an ending as icing on the cake.  If I'm ONLY playing a game to see an ending, that is almost a chore to me.  I prefer games that are fun to play.  It's kind of like when a movie is good or even great for 3/4 of the time you spend watching it,  but then it has something in the ending where people harp on it.  Somehow they instantly forget they had fun watching almost the whole thing up until that.  For another example,  Yes I liked Game of Thrones,  where I guess most people forgot about the entire series because they didn't like 2 minutes at the end...

I totally agree with this.. For me beating a game is a fun challenge, and for the mystery of what the ending might be... Usually endings are pretty lame , but once in a while you get that treat at the end . A game has to be fun / good for me to even care about playing it through to the end. I always expect the end to suck lol..., so the joy comes from winning a game I enjoyed playing. So if credits is all there is at the end, I would be fine with that . I too also loved Game Of Thrones.. That show was intense and the Dragons were my favorite part of the show....

[Tanooki]

I'd agree Final Fantasy II and III FC english translation patched are a must.

 

I haven't dug into it (don't care, have the GBA release, eventually mobile) with FF2 but be aware it has no experience system, it has a punishment system as I like to call it.  You have to dish out physical beatings to raise attack, take a beating to raise HPs.  You use magics to get MP, and get roasted by magics to raise M-Defence, and so on with specific swords, armors, running away for evasion.  It's a nice idea in theory but badly executed.  It was tweaked a lot with releases since to work fairly decently compared, maybe there is a FC hack to calm that crap down, I'd apply it.

 

FF3 though I've never touched the FC release, just was too busy, then eventually the 3D remaster of it hit the DS and then mobile devices, pc-steam, and now been pixel remastered for the first time in 2D too.  That one was the birth of the final fantasy JOB system.  It has a decent story, but the FC release sticks to the FF1 style of the nameless crew, later DS+ releases added story and gave people in the party names.  It's a bit grindy due to the jobs, not that you need many of them, but it's more grindy than FF5 was and that takes a bit of work.  FF3 is a real piece of visual work as far as the format goes, square pushed the style they could the best that was pretty directly adapted on FF4 for SNES.

 

By the way just to throw it out there, if you're into that whole metroid adventure castlevania style stuff, I happen to have this game that did it as well as those from back in 1988 on the FC, it's based off one of those guys in a space suit battling monsters junk from the 70s/80s.  It's called Cosmo Police Galivan.  The game is a FC release, doesn't require reading but might help slightly if you don't use the visual maps on gamefaqs.  But basically it's that metroid style play, but with RPG elements since you can raise your health, your gear stats, find more gear, pop doors using the gear (like metroid missiles) and done quite well.  Give it a try.

Edited January 15 by Tanooki

[Gory-Glory]

Really nice with a boxed Action Set 😀