What non-NTSC NES games are worth getting?

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

Tecmo Cup Soccer is PAL? That explains why it's so hard to find here, I've been searching for years.

[m308gunner | 352]

10 hours ago, Sumez said:

People are dropping Jap-exclusive titles now. By "NTSC" did OP mean just "US releases", or are we looking at the few rare PAL-exclusive releases that actually exist?

Because if it's the former, there's a TON of awesome Jap-exclusive titles that are worth picking up IMO. I could go on about those for a while.

Well now I'm not sure what NTSC really means. My assumption was that games released in the USA were NTSC. 

I'm mainly looking to see what games that were not released in North America are worth seeking out. Getting alot of good ideas so far. Next step after this is to find carts

[Tulpa | 3,509]

10 minutes ago, m308gunner said:

Well now I'm not sure what NTSC really means. My assumption was that games released in the USA were NTSC. 

I'm mainly looking to see what games that were not released in North America are worth seeking out. Getting alot of good ideas so far. Next step after this is to find carts

NTSC = National Television System Committee. It's a broadcasting standard that used to be used in a number of countries. The US did use it, but so did a lot of others, including Japan. Nowadays we use ATSC, when the broadcasts went digital. But for NES era video games, NTSC was used to match the TVs in the respective nations.

Most of Europe used the PAL standard. Well, there was also SECAM, which was a joint French/Soviet Union standard, but I believe PAL was close enough that PAL video games would work.

[MrMark0673 | 197]

8 hours ago, guitarzombie said:

I can't remember asking you, but was the Super Turrican NTSC proto faster than the PAL version?  I think there are a few games that run the same speed both PAL and NTSC because of how it was programmed (I wanna say Hammerin Harry and Rodland).  I beat Super Turrican on my toploader when it ran fast and thought it was ok.  But got an AVS and put it in PAL and it ran more like how I thought it should.  

 

PAL games are great.  Ive also always said if Gimmick was released in the US, it would easily be the most expensive game for the system (Minus SE but I dont exactly count that one)

My build was so broken and fucked up you honestly couldn't tell.  I got it from a guy who had two copies, and unfortunately he had already sold a "good" build and I was left with buying the broken build or nothing.

I'm 99% sure the other copy ran at "normal" speed on an NTSC system and tv setup, but I can't say for certain.

Edited November 27, 2019 by MrMark0673

[Nintegageo | 582]

4 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

Tecmo Cup Soccer is PAL? That explains why it's so hard to find here, I've been searching for years.

It's not.

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

5 hours ago, m308gunner said:

Well now I'm not sure what NTSC really means. My assumption was that games released in the USA were NTSC. 

I'm mainly looking to see what games that were not released in North America are worth seeking out. Getting alot of good ideas so far. Next step after this is to find carts

Well there were 1500 games released for the Famicom and 700 for the NES. That leaves you with about 800 games to find gems.

[fcgamer | 4,727]

Not sure where the 1500 number is coming from, there about 1051 licensed Famicom games, and if we include all the unlicensed originals it brings the number to maybe 1700 or so, easily 2000+ games if we include the NES exclusives unofficially released on Famicom too.

My favourite pal exclusive is Smurfs. Such a fun game. 

[peg | 372]

PAL games by and large are nearly worthless other than for displaying on a shelf.

[Sumez | 2,963]

Yeah when talking PAL/NTSC in terms of NES, it's not so much a question of release regions, but the retarded difference in how the games actually play. On a PAL NES most game will run slower, but occasionally the music will still be faster, meaning there's no way to get the "genuine" experience.

Although @peg is correct about a majority of "PAL" releases, you can't really generalize. A lot of NES games released in Europe were actually mostly untouched, and play absolutely fine if you run them on an NTSC NES/Famicom. One curious example would be Probotector, the famous robot version of Contra, which despite all of its changes actually runs at the original, correct speed on an NTSC system. I've made a list of all major European releases and research about how timing was changed for each of them, which is a handy reference. Maybe worthy of another thread in the future.

[peg | 372]

And a lot of them won't even work at all, or will crash or run with ridiculous problems.  I would like to see your list of PAL region games that are programmed to run in 60 hz properly on a normal NES.  Yes I said normal, ex: NA NES and Famicom.   PAL gaming in general is just shit.

[Sumez | 2,963]

10 hours ago, m308gunner said:

I'm mainly looking to see what games that were not released in North America are worth seeking out.

Well, off the top of my head, here's my immediate list. I'm probably gonna split this into a couple of posts.

Gimmick! (or Mr. Gimmick! in Europe). This should be #1 priority for anyone, as it IMO is among at least the top 3 titles available on the NES. It's an incredibly good game.

Akumajou Special Boku Dracula Kun (aka "Kid Dracula"). Looks like a Castlevania spinoff, but plays more like a Mega Man game. It's a really fun action game with a bit of everything thrown in there, not unlike Bucky O'Hare. One of my fav Jap-exclusives on the system. You'll need a translation guide for a quiz section mid-game, but the rest is perfectly playable in Japanese.

Mitsume Ga Tooru - Strangely overlooked for a Natsume game, considering they are one of the console's more prolific developers. Crazy well polished game with pretty sprites, impressive bank switching parallax effects, and a great soundtrack.

Nazo No Murasamejou - It's kind of a stretch if this qualifies as "NES" when it's a disk game, but the FDS attaches to a top loading NES without issues, so I'd allow it. Basically imagine if Zelda 1 was a crazy challenging ninja action game with a more linear approach. Murasamejou requires you to keep moving and quickly reflect shurikens thrown at you to keep afloat. Super rewarding game, and one of the few original Nintendo-developed titles to never make it outside Japan (until its 3DS eShop release)

Ufouria/Hebereke - More enjoyable with English text, but it's perfectly beatable in Japanese. This one was altered for the PAL release both in terms of gameplay timing and graphics, so you might want to do some research to figure out which you want. I think it stands out for feeling like a metroidvania design very similar to what you see in a lot of indie games today. Kind of ahead of its time, despite the genre being quite prevalent on NES/FC.

Ai Senshi Nicol - Another FDS game, but worth checking out. One of the few top-down action games with 8-way movement that really works on the NES. Mixes exploration and combat, and kind of feels like a series of Zelda dungeons. A bit on the easy side, but very well made.

Don Doko Don 2 - Nothing like the first Don Doko Don. Another Natsume platformer, which probably due to how late it was released feels a lot like a 16-bit generation game, with large stages and unique setpieces. Very overlooked, so should be possible to pick up cheap. I doubt it'll stay that way

[peg | 372]

Gradius II, Recca, Over Horizon, Crisis Force, Parodius.  All pretty good shmups for the 8-bit era.  I'm sure I missed some but those are the stand outs.

[Sumez | 2,963]

Part 2:

Recca - If you're into shooting games, you probably know of Yagawa, most famous for Battle Garegga and how it's a complete oddball in terms of weird underlying mechanics, yet often considered one of the finest games in the entire genre. If you're not, well then Recca is still interesting just for being one of the most unique shooters of its generation. This was Yagawa's first shooter, and he goes all in with a ton of stuff that's rarely seen on the NES. Lots of sprites on screen at a time, weird wavy scanline effects, huge lasers and mechanical robot limbs. And the soundtrack is... well, it's like nothing else on the NES.

Crisis Force - Konami shares its take on the compile-style vertical shooter. It's in the easy end for the genre, but is a lot of fun. It's also incredibly good looking, one of the prettiest games on the platform.

Holy Diver - Sort of Castlevania-esque platformer with a strange magic system and a lot of unique quirks and unfortunate movement-related bugs. Famous for being difficult. Like, incredibly difficult. Makes Ninja Gaiden 3 feel like a walk in the park.

New Ghostbusters II - An enjoyable overhead action game. People are maybe overplaying how great it is, but it's notable for being one of the few actually good Ghostbusters games.

Meikyuu Jiin Dababa - One more FDS game. I'm one of those people who's a huge fan of Startropics' unique tile based movement adding a strategic layer to what appears like an action game. If you ever wondered where Nintendo got that from, here it is! This game works exactly the same way, but never utilizes it in as fun puzzle-solving and trap-escaping ways as Startropics does. Still worth playing though, IMO.

Moon Crystal - I love this game, but I can see it being hard to approach for a lot of people. Imagine if Castlevania had a more fluidly animated movement set, similar to Prince of Persia. The two don't really mesh well, but for some reason I think this game justifies it. It's a very unique action game where every movement has to be planned. It's also very good looking in motion, even though it looks a bit dull on still frames.

Robocco Wars - A weird fast paced run-n-gun/platformer where you're a robot train running on tracks. It's hard to really explain this game, but there's a lot to see here.

Adventure Island 4 - The first "Adventure Island" game to approach the metroidvania concept rather than the hardcore arcade platformer. It's notable for that, and it's well made, but IMO it's not really worth the price of admission if that matters to you (I have a full CIB copy and I'm not sure I can justify that). Hebereke is cheaper, and a much better game. But this one is at least very interesting, if nothing else for being the last game officially released on the Famicom.

Cocoron - A weird Mega Man'esque action game where your character is a combination of abilities that you pick before the start of each stage, which also completely changes the way it looks. The result is that every stage needs to be designed to work with any possible skill set (which includes flying), and obviously some configurations are vastly superior to others. It's a little broken, but makes for interesting challenge runs. It's kind of the predecessor to Little Samson (made by the same company), and it feels very much like it.

Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Grafiti - A chibi parody of Splatterhouse, with a lot of the same elements from the original arcade game, except presented in a more humorous way. I honestly prefer this game to the original Splatterhouse!

Time Zone - Very similar to Panic Restaurant (made by the same team). A fast paced, colorful platformer with very large jumps. It's an easy game, but you feel kind of pushed to try and dash through the stages as fast as possible, not unlike the first SMB. Imo this aspect alone makes it way more fun than Panic Restaurant (which is just easy and dull). It's also way cheaper.

Yume Penguin Monogatari - Not really a great game, but fun in how weird and unique it is. You're a fat penguin who needs to slim down in order to keep his girlfriend who will otherwise leave him for an evil mustache-wielding top hat-wearing penguin antagonist. Has a really ridiculous plot twist in the end. Pick up diet drinks and avoid rice cakes to change weight. Being slim makes you faster, but being fatter gives you access to more devastating attacks. By the end of each stage you'll call your girlfriend, and if you didn't slim down enough you need to replay the stage.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Sumez

[T-Pac | 7,560]

@Sumez Those write-ups are excellent! I got so excited to look into some of those famicom games, but seeing the prices on ebay is devastating. With all those Taito releases, I should've known...

-CasualCart

[Sumez | 2,963]

A lot of these games are still cheap (or at least available cheap with some patience - don't rely on eBay's buy-it-now prices), but yeah that are some crazy ones among them. I've found that Taito is really only truly bad on the US market, supposedly because a lot of their late era releases were only released as rentals or Blockbuster exclusives or something like that?

I have a couple of European copies of Taito games like Little Samson and Flintstones 2, and none of them were that expensive, at least compared to their going prices for US versions.

Recca, Gimmick, and Adventure Island 4 are probably the big ones here. And Holy Diver, Moon Crystal and Robocco Wars are starting to climb, but I think they can still be found for human money with some patience.

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

6 hours ago, Sumez said:

Nazo No Murasamejou - It's kind of a stretch if this qualifies as "NES" when it's a disk game, but the FDS attaches to a top loading NES without issues, so I'd allow it.

It does? How?

[Sumez | 2,963]

You just plug it in via an adapter same as any other Famicom cartridge.
You need a mod to get the expansion audio though, same as Gimmick, Akumajou Densetsu, etc.

That's how I played FDS games initially before getting my AV Famicom  I'm sure there are people who have made it work on a front loader too, but you'd need quite a unique adapter.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Sumez

[fcgamer | 4,727]

2 hours ago, Sumez said:

A lot of these games are still cheap (or at least available cheap with some patience - don't rely on eBay's buy-it-now prices), but yeah that are some crazy ones among them. I've found that Taito is really only truly bad on the US market, supposedly because a lot of their late era releases were only released as rentals or Blockbuster exclusives or something like that?

I have a couple of European copies of Taito games like Little Samson and Flintstones 2, and none of them were that expensive, at least compared to their going prices for US versions.

Recca, Gimmick, and Adventure Island 4 are probably the big ones here. And Holy Diver, Moon Crystal and Robocco Wars are starting to climb, but I think they can still be found for human money with some patience.

Holy Diver started to decrease after the rerelease

[Sumez | 2,963]

That's great news, really! I'm glad I managed to snatch a boxed copy before the price hike, but I'd prefer if other people get the chance to own a copy, too.

I wonder if the re-release of Metal Storm will have a similar effect.

Edited November 27, 2019 by Sumez

[DefaultGen | 5,407]

17 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

Tecmo Cup Soccer is PAL? That explains why it's so hard to find here, I've been searching for years.

They are two different games to be clear. World Cup didn't come out in the US, but did come out in Japan. Not sure if we're talking about non-US games, non-NTSC region games, or specifically 50hz games yet! Although Super Tilt Bro is a homebrew game I know for sure was designed for 50hz NESs and it's the bomb!

Edited November 27, 2019 by DefaultGen

[fcgamer | 4,727]

@Sumez makes a great list of Famicom exclusives above, from Japan. There were so many other amazing exclusives coming out of Taiwan and Korea too, though, which I feel are definitely worth playing. Here are a few of my personal favorites:

-Huang Di

-Lin Ban's the Opium

- Metal Force

-Koko Adventure

-Final Fight 3

-Super Donkey Kong 4

-Dragon Knife (think I'm remembering the name correctly, it's an unofficial sequel to the Double Dragon games)

This is just a short list off the top of my head, but there's dozens of fun games from that region that people just aren't aware of.

For those of you who are interested in Taiwanese and Korean original video games, I hope you get the chance to check out my book, Family Bits, when it's finally completed. I designed it with the sole purpose of helping others discover more about the obscure games coming out of this region.

[guitarzombie | 924]

15 hours ago, Sumez said:

I've made a list of all major European releases and research about how timing was changed for each of them, which is a handy reference. Maybe worthy of another thread in the future.

I would like to see this!

 

Ok I'm not an expert with the details but this is why PAL games don't always work for US/NTSC systems, even past the lockout chip.  I think this is pretty accurate unless someone with a bit more knowledge can clean this up.

 

Because PAL, or other countries use different voltages and frequencies for their power grids.  We use 120V / 60hz.  Europe uses 220V / 50hz.  I think because of this the TVs refresh rates are different (Slower than the US) as well as the actual display resolution for the TV.  256x240 for US and 256x226 for PAL.   Had to look those up.

 

Now because of these differences, the actual CPU and GPU chips on PAL NES' are DIFFERENT and are intended for those issues.  The PAL versions have a slower clock rate (or speed) than the NES versions.  This is why when you use a PAL game on a US system, it runs too fast, as well as the sound, because the sound comes from the CPU.  Some games the graphics are off because the PAL NES systems had a different color palette to suit European TVs.  Some PAL NES games (I dont know how) I think can detect if the system its being used on is PAL or NTSC and can modify its speed in order to run properly.  I think Rodland and Hammerin Harry do this.  Otherwise the games for PAL systems were programmed FOR those systems, so certain ways they used the code when they expect the screen to refresh, doesn't work the same way, hence graphical glitches/random crashing.  Also IIRC PAL is easier to use because everything is more symmetrical, like the metric system, where as in the US its a pain because things aren't perfectly even.

 

Also, other countries like Japan and Chile use NTSC for whatever reason.  This is why games work well and a lot of the rare US NES games went over to Chile.  Had they went to, lets say, France they wouldn't work.  Handhelds are also region free because they don't rely on AC adapters (usually) but by DC current like batteries.  I think if they are region locked is usually physically or programmed into the system.  

 

Finally, PAL A and B were only used to differentiate locations.  PAL A - UK, Italy and Australia (I think) PAL B - Everywhere else in Europe (I think)?  Like Germany, France, Sweden.  

 

TL:DR version:  PAL NES games were programmed for European electrical grids & systems. They dont always work in the US because we use a different grid. 

[Sumez | 2,963]

I think there are a few misunderstandings in your writeup, but the essence of it is correct: There are different standards which causes the games to run at different speeds depending on which console is running it.

Since it's not the intended topic of this thread, and since several people asked about my list, I'll start a new one outlining the important difference between PAL/NTSC consoles and releases.

[CMR | 520]

On 11/23/2019 at 8:03 PM, ThePhleo said:

I think most of the PAL exclusives are good games.

• Banana Prince
• Asterix
• CrackOut
• Devil World
• Elite
• Formula 1 Sensation
• Hammerin' Harry
• Mr. Gimmick
• New Ghostbusters II
• Noah's Ark
• Over Horizon
• Parasol Stars - Rainbow Islands II
• Parodius
• Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2
• RodLand
• Super Turrican
• U-four-ia

Rainbow Islands has a US release.  I have it

[Sumez | 2,963]

2 hours ago, CMR said:

Rainbow Islands has a US release.  I have it

The US Rainbow Islands is the Taito version, similar to the Japanese version (but with different music).

The European release is the Ocean port, which IMO surprisingly both looks and plays better. It's more similar to the original arcade version (though it lacks the last three "hidden" islands), while the Taito one changes up a lot of stuff, and has completely different stages, enemies and boss fights. It's almost like a "sequel".
Unfortunately Ocean's NES port isn't anywhere near as spot on as their Amiga one though. They must have had a different guy working on it or something.