/vr/ - Retro Games

The NES display case was probably the most tantalizing of all mainstream gaming eras. The box arts, the scarcity of used games at the time, and the price all contributed.

Going to the local video game rental shop was an incredible experience. You'd regularly see games you never heard about and didn't even know existed. You'd get the same thing going over to a friend's house, there was always the possibility you'd run into some new game and just spend hours playing as much of it as you could.

>>10528235
I wonder if there's anyone here old enough to actually tell you about the transition from gen 2 to 3. That's 40 years ago now, personally I only saw the tail end of gen 3 in the early 90s.

The NES and Famicom lasted so long that it was cross generational and different people from different periods and different places will have had a completely different experience with that one system, and that's the beauty of it.

In Japan, the real famicom boom was between 86 and 89. That's not to say it didn't live on afterwards, it still had plenty of games (even Japanese exclusives) after 89 but from that point onward it had a lot more competition between the Megadrive and the PC-Engine, and Nintendo itself was focusing its efforts on the upcoming SFC, so sales and number of releases quickly dwindled.

So the Japanese Famicom nostalgia was mostly games from 86 to 89, including the FDS, its piracy, and buying low price FDS games including using the disk writer.
The one important series is Dragon Quest, considered by them the birth of the JRPG genre, and the boom and influence of DQ2,3 and 4.

In the US it started afterwards, and the real boom was 87 to 91, mostly action games.
In Europe it was also mostly action games and the experience vastly differed from country to country as pretty much each country had its own distribution and its own game publishing. This is why some games were only released in 1-2 European countries.
But the NES lived on much longer there, for instance the last NES bundle released was The Smurfs + NES bunble released in 1995 in Germany and France (possibly a couple other countries). My personal experience was that up to 1998, (yes, 1998) pretty much all pre-teens who were into video games had an NES and it was what kids were playing at birthday parties etc Double Dragon, Chip'n'Dales and TMNT were huge. And yes, at that date, you could still play NES games, even new, in some stores. The mentality at that point was that the NES was considered for kids, while 16 or 32-bit consoles were for teenagers.

>>10528612
Was FDS piracy really that bad or just more Nintendo piracy whinging?

>>10528235
>NES/Famicom
better than Game n Watch shit, or playing my Tetris handheld 1000x over and over again.

>>10528948
>FDS piracy really that bad
if piracy could kill Yakuza Nintendocorp, then all those Famicom clones in commie china would have ruined them 100X before their bubble economy burst in the 90s.

>>10528235
>What did the NES/Famicom feel like at the time?
I am not exaggerating when I say that it was, at the time, like having an arcade game in your home. It was the video game equivalent of Star Wars 1977. Keep in mind that Super Mario Bros. was already in arcades in two different forms in at least three different cabinets.

>What was it like seeing all these franchises like Mario, Zelda, Metroid, DQ, FF, popular puzzlers, etc.?
We took them for granted, like everything.

>Did it feel like an evolutionary leap forward?
By far. Before video games were more of an idea; Nintendo basically made it possible to play with cartoons. And that is how it felt then just as strongly as one feels playing Super Mario Wonder or whatever it's called.
It's all relative.

>>10530070
Based effortpost thanks anon

>>10530070
This is a fucking bullshit post.

>>10528235
The PS1 and PS2's libraries and amount of franchises starting on them is very analogous to that of the NES and SNES. There's not been anything like that since in the console space.

>>10530070
>>10530182
Yeah that post is really wierd. Specially if you were an arcade player.
Now because the NES had Famicom technology and was from '83 but it came out in the US in '85, around that time you could be playing Green Beret and Ghost and Goblins at the arcades. The difference in quality is so massive I don't know how you could be fooled into thinking you had "an arcade at home" (this didn't happen until the Neo-Geo and was perfected by the Dreamcast) even harder difference with Space Harrier.
I know it's an unfair comparison since the arcades had boards that costed thousands vs a few hundred dollars for a home machine, but the NES was so behind the arcades. And it got worse as the years went by since the NES tech stayed the same (besides some upgrades on the cart themselves) and the arcade boards kept getting better and better. By '88 the difference was colossal.

Franchises? I don't think we really thought about them that way, or not the same way we think about them now. Besides Mario games, but most franchises were barely starting, they weren't at the level of a franchise yet. The other games you mentioned had barely 1-2 games on the NES and the JRPGs were big in Japan but in the US it would take years for people to notice them.

>>10528581
Going from Atari 2600 tier games to NES was a huge jump, specially the fluidness of the scrolling. Music was waaay better too. (not to mention design philosophy, there is a reason Super Mario became so popular)
But like I mentioned earlier, if you lived at the arcades seeing that jump in quality was diminished greatly because pretty much each new arcade board was better than the older one in some ways, more colors, more pixels, better sound, a gimmick chip that allowed for a catchy voice or whatever. And they were ahead in technology from the home experience by a long shot, so the level of quality you'd see at the arcades you would need to wait several years to see at home.

Switching out a cartridge feels like loading a gun.

>>10531271
RPGs were huge on the NES, it's in the next gen that they took a step down

>>10528612
The real EU NES experience is playing all those 9999 in 1 bootleg carts in bootleg Famicoms. I don't think I ever saw a legit NES game until I was in my 20's.

And yeah those carts somehow always seemed to include TMNT and Chip 'n' Dale.

>>10531418
That would be eastern Europe

What I remember the most is that there was a universality to the NES back then. EVERYONE I knew played the NES. All kids (boys and girls) played it. My parents played games, I had aunts and uncles play games. I remember my dad borrowing games from his blue collar coworkers for us to play. The NES had a huge and varied library but people were still generally drawing upon the same pool of games so you could talk about Zelda, or Contra or Bomberman and people would know what you were talking about. It felt like a phenomenon.
Starting with 16-bit, it seemed like all the adults I knew stopped playing games and it pretty much just became a thing for young boys and teenagers.

>>10531352
>posts a ranking from what appears to be 1993
Which gen is that supposed to represent really

>>10531271
>you could be playing Green Beret and Ghost and Goblins at the arcades
Were arcades mainly populated by new machines though? I imagine the majority was still a few years old so not that different from NES. Didn't live through that period myself but all arcades I've ever seen were full of old crap

>>10528612
I always got the impression that the NES wasn't that big in Europe. Was it just specifically not big in Bongland?

>>10531857
Like I said it varies greatly from country to country. In my country everyone had one. Parents called video game systems "Nintendos", just like in the US.

>>10528235
>When’s the last time we had that many franchises be born on a console?

That actually caught on? Only the NES has ever achieved anything like it.

>>10531549
My local arcade didn't even attempt to get newer machines in earnest until the Street Fighter II/Mortal Kombat hype. it was like a new game every few months and then suddenly, boom, I went from playing TMNT and Simpsons all the time to feeding quarters into fighting games like my family wasn't poor.

>>10528235
It was an amazing time which made the NES/Famicom one of my top 5 most favorite home video game console. However, it was just a small part of the bigger picture as it is not about Nintendo, since there were so many other arcade and computer games at the time too. The NES/Famicom was not "an evolutionary leap forward" as there were better and different technologies available. Arcades had games which the NES could not reproduce such as vector graphics which in some ways were better in "resolution" but lacked color or the color depth and voices in arcade Double Dragon. However, the NES/Famicom was better than the 2600, 5200, 7800, LCD games, and Master System so it is better comparatively in a sub-category of home systems released before 1987. I think we get as many today as ever since there's so many great independent creations.

>>10530070
>Keep in mind that Super Mario Bros. was already in arcades in two different forms in at least three different cabinets.
Stopped reading there. SMB released on the NES/Famicom first

>>10531549
I don't know how true for the rest of the world/cities this is but my city had a lot of arcades and they were huge, for example one with 2 floors one underground, then less than a block away, a really really long one that took the entire block, then coming out of that one a three floor arcade (this one usually had the latest machines) and about 2-3 more arcades around the city that were small.
So being this big and so many there were a lot of older cabinets, but it also meant that there was always one big arcade that would bring something new every other month or so. So you were always kept at the forefront of technology.
For example in 85-86-87 you'd have new games like Xevious, three screen Darius, Adventure Island, Double Dragon that would take a year or years for you to see in your home and in a significantly diminished way (comparing Double Dragon arcade to NES is too much).
By 88-89 you'd have cabinets with games Final Fight or UN Squadron that would take many years to show up in SNES. All of these sitting along with oldies like Galaxian or such.
In 92-93 you could see polygonal games show up already that would take until the PSX to be ported. I will always remember seeing that Virtua Racer cabinet, it was amazing.

>>10528235
It was before internet so everything was new and exciting all the time.

>>10530191
Not a hell of a lot of stuff that started on PS1, PS2, or SNES really caught on though.

>>10531352
Not in terms of sales they sure as hell weren't.

>>10534435
FF1 sold 600k in the US, which is as much as it sold in Japan

>>10528235
It felt like the first game system we had at home because I was under 6 in 1989 when we got one

So after seeing Batista Harpu's project to beat all SNES/SFC games I wondered how hard it would be to do a project like that for NES games. I guessed probably harder since although the library is a bit smaller than the SNES's there's more action-style games and a bunch of stuff like the Monster Maker games depends on unemulatable peripherals.

>>10535217
also the first year and a half of FC games is simplistic arcade stuff with no actual ending

>>10535217
A YTuber a couple of anons shill all the time did every "NES" game.

This website, community project, did every "Famicom" game
https://w.atwiki.jp/famicomall

>>10535237
>A YTuber a couple of anons shill all the time did every "NES" game.

If you mean The Mexican Runner he beat all licensed US releases and some bonus PAL stuff but he didn't do unlicensed or Famicom games. Batista Harpu has been literally trying to beat every SNES game regardless of region. The SNES library is huge yet I also believe it is easier simply because there's more slow-paced games and less reliance on twitch reflexes.

>>10533194
I didn't say it wasn't. Learn to read. Also it was not on the NES first in the U.S.
Imported Vs. cabs with the 1986 copyright were seen in 1985. Don't argue with me because I was there, while you weren't born for ten years.
Then there was the PlayChoice and PlayChoice 10 cabinets that also predated the late 1985 New York City test market of the NES and then the Spring U.S. rollout in 1986, so yes, getting an NES in 1986 was freaking amazeballs, don't argue with me. Or anyone.

>>10535237
>This website, community project, did every "Famicom" game
>https://w.atwiki.jp/famicomall
Didn't they cheat with emulator save states or something?

>>10531271
>but it came out in the US in '85,
This is how I can tell you have no idea what you're talking about like many here. The NES came out in a small test market in New York City in late 1985. I assure you, 1986 was the year everyone got one.

I liked playing Mario as a kid. I didn't think much about Zelda and never heard of Final Fantasy until SNES came out. My friend's older brother was really into Dragon Warrior series though. Castlevania was the first NES game that really pulled me in. The evolutionary leap was happening in the arcades, but Nintendo legitimized home consoles.

>>10534448
>FF1 sold 600k in the US, which is as much as it sold in Japan
Japan is also a significantly smaller country, anon.

>>10535253
No, check the rules.

If you get good at video games there is nothing exceptional about beating most NES/Famicom games other than the sheer volume of it.

>>10535252
Keep making shit up

>>10535340
Now you're angry that you've been educated. You probably believe that there was a real video game crash in 1983 too.

>The first test launch was in New York City on October 18, 1985, with an initial shipment of 100,000 Deluxe Set systems. Nintendo began marketing the system the same month in October 1985.

>When did the NES come out in the US?
September 27, 1986
This was deployed as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Nintendo seeded these first systems to limited American test markets starting in New York City on October 18, 1985, and followed up in Los Angeles in February 1986; the American nationwide release came on September 27, 1986.

Btw because the NES really came out in September 1986 for 99.999% of anons, their parents often found no reason not to make them wait until Christmas to get one, so really, the NES almost didn't come out until 1987 in terms of national consciousness.

SNES games may not be as dependent on button mashing but they can definitely be more drawn-out and tedious.

>>10535227
Yeah that would suck as you don't start to get into the "real" games until '86.

>>10528235
Well, I'll tell you one thing. You'll never realize how fucking weird Super Mario Bros. 3 really is if you weren't there when it launched. That's some really weirdo level shit that we're just used to now.

>>10531352
>it's in the next gen that they took a step down
how? RPGs were huge on SNES.

>>10535676
>when your first time seeing a new Mario game is in an entire fucking movie

>>10535217
Um, how does he play stuff that's in moonrunes?

>>10535217
Checked the updates. He's up to Rock 'n Roll Racing (released June '93). The next one he does might be Dungeon Master or maybe Dragon Slayer.

>>10535291
Yeah right. You can't beat Punch Out, Castlevania or Ninja Gaiden. You couldn't even beat Zelda II. Fuck right off.

the NES is responsible for centralizing game development and requiring games to be approved to be released

>B-BUT MUH QUALITY CONTROL
>MUH GAME CRASH

nintendo propaganda used to advocate for control of video game production. I'm glad indie games are getting popular and making games decentralized again.

>>10536294
Except not really because Mattel and Coleco had licensing policies before Nintendo did. It was just on the Atari 2600 where shit was like Mad Max anarchy.

>>10528235
At "the time" the NES didn't feel like anything because it didn't exist yet.

>>10536294
I WISH Nintendo had tighter control of game production nowadays. Have you seen the slop they put on the eshop?

>>10535653
so with the SNES you get F-Zero and SMW out of the game but for Famicom it's more like this

>>10528235
Can zoomers actually understand that the concept of "franchises" didn't exist back then? In only recall the word starting to be used in the 2010s. I'm sure it was a thing for marketers and people on the business side, but consumers didn't just talk about "franchises" and "IPs".
You had no idea that Mario was some incredible "franchise" that would be around forever getting constantly milked. It was a good game that had a sequel, then wow another sequel, cool.

bump

>>10536294
I read that PC gaming was discouraged in Japan, because it was said to be a wild west full of porn games, and gaming over there was mostly for children back then. This was probably propaganda of Nintendo's doing...

I also hate that narrative of the supposed total video game crash, and Nintendo swooped in with quality control to save the entire industry. Even if Nintendo did save console gaming, I'm sure arcade and PC gaming would have continued on. And I'm not sure gaming's state would be worse off if it hadn't been for Nintendo.

>>10536918
I don't think we can fathom what video games would be like if someone entered into consoles a lot later, and the state of computer and arcade gaming.

>>10536991
Why not... Arcades and PC games were going fine while Atari was failing. So, I think it's pretty feasible to extrapolate that after Atari failed, arcades and PC would have gone on.

>>10536253
I haven beaten about 330 NES/Famicom games so far thank you very much. Never played Punch Out though but judging by the other memed "Nintendo hard" games it's probably not that hard.

>>10528581

I went from 2600 to NES, and it happened less than forty years ago. I started on the Atari and then saw NES games in arcades (Super Mario Bros. was really impressive to me there) and at some point I played them at a neighbor's house. Eventually my family got our own NES. All of it was awesome of course, except for some of the 2600 games because that console isn't that great, but I was still young enough to like it a lot.

I don't know whether that's the transition you're referring to though because I haven't memorized and won't memorize those goofy generation numbers.

>>10537161

It's not. I finished it as a kid (when it was new) without great difficulty. Not the easiest game certainly, but not extremely hard. Games I didn't finish include TMNT (though I could have if I'd worked a bit harder) and Battletoads.

>>10535279
In 1986 the difference was much smaller - Japan had half the population of the US, unlike today where the US has 3x the population.

So you could argue that FF1 was about half as popular in the US as it was in Japan, which is pretty fucking impressive given the prevailing narratives about JRPGs.

>>10536918
PC gaming was discouraged in Japan because home PC ownership was not especially high. There wasn't really room in most Japanese apartments for a full PC setup. It also took a long time for PCs to get good Japanese language support due to hardware limitations.

Even in the homes that did own PCs in the late 90s, you tended to see a lot of compact machines - iMacs and laptops and shit instead of proper PCs capable of playing high-end games. Proper PC gaming in Japan only started growing very recently due to the coof + PS5 shortages pushing everyone to just buy a gaming PC.

There was actually a really hilarious presentation Square-Enix did about how to buy their games on Steam because so many Japanese customers were clueless about it.

>>10536412
At some point they dropped their ancient requirement that publishers needed a real office and $100,000 minimum in assets.

>>10531549
Arcade gaming was so widespread you didn't even have to go to an actual arcade to play. Pretty much every gas station, grocery store, laundromat, and restaurant had a cabinet or two. My local 7-11 had a new game every month.

>>10536445
So what do you say is better? Beating a console's entire library in release order or RNG like The Mexican Runner?

>>10538791
>So what do you say is better? Beating a console's entire library in release order or RNG like The Mexican Runner?
For the NES at least the second because nobody wants to do about 50 primitive NROM games before they get to the real stuff which doesn't come along until 1986.

>>10538804
it's fitting because LOZ was the 100th Famicom game released and it begins the era of "real" games that have more than 32k of ROM

>>10535217
not Monster Maker, Barcode World. it had a barcode reader gadget and cards were sold in packs ala Pokemon cards. completely non-emulatable and even if you had a Famicom and the barcode reader good luck finding the cards for it.

There's also the Datach games which as far as I know are also not emulatable.

>>10538846
>>10538836
AFAIK some emulators do support them but of course those barcode games are beyond the reach of my toaster NES so if I played those I would just have to emulate them.

good point because game #2 for the SNES was SMW while game #2 for the Famicom was...Donkey Kong Jr.

>>10528581
I'm 39. Not really old enough to have personal anecdotes.
But it seemed to me that the the boomers dropped the VCS like a rock when the NES came out. There was no loyalty or nostalgia when discussing it with them. They considered it just far too primitive to ever go back to.
Of course, there was also a minority who became long-term collectors and fans into the present day. But I never met one of those people, and I knew a lot of boomers who played games when I was a kid.

>>10531549
>Were arcades mainly populated by new machines though?
Yes.
But also no since the oldest commercially released games at the time period were still less than 20 years old.
In 1985 Galaga was a four year old game.

>>10536453
zoomers only understand the world through a corporate lens. its actually soberly depressing.

>>10536445
>so with the SNES you get F-Zero and SMW out of the game
*out of the gate I mean

>>10535858
>RPGs were huge on SNES
Unfortunately.

well there's 1,751 total SNES games so good luck with that

>>10538276
>So you could argue that FF1 was about half as popular in the US as it was in Japan, which is pretty fucking impressive given the prevailing narratives about JRPGs.

That's assuming that the ratio of platform per household was the same. Which it wasn't. Many more Japanese household had a Famicom compared to the US and NES.

>>10539753
And nearly 40% in moonrunes.

nothing on the SNES was as aggregious as Super Monkey Daibouken

>>10531857
>Was it just specifically not big in Bongland?
My dads family had one, my mums family too and my mums friends had them also. None of them came from well off families so i think it must have been quite popular