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There are quite a lot but one thing I will put out there, if it's from Konami, it most likely belongs on your list to play (buy?)

Boku Dracula Kun
Akumajou Densetsu(castlevania 3 uncensored)
Crisis Force
Wai Wai World 2
Salamander (Life Force unhindered)
Gradius II
Contra
Goonies
Twinbee
Moero Twinbee
Twinbee 3
Parodius
Yie Ar Kung Fu
Mad City (the correctly balanced not to punish renters version of Bayou Billy)
Yume Penguin Monotagari

They're all from Konami, none will have a fun stopping language barrier.

 

Beyond that though there still is a lot, but they really were king of the amazing stuff with consistency.  Namco had Splatterhouse already mentioned, but more from the early stuff like Star Luster, Battle City, and Valkyrie no Bouken, Mappy, Tower of Druaga, Quest of Ki, Dig Dug, Galaxian that got skipped, and Final Lap Twin a bit later on.  Sega had some third parties port some good stuff like Juuoki, Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, Afterburner, those latter 2 are not the Tengen titles but very superior and Altered Beast has twice the stages and monster forms of the original.

A random listing of some other ones I own and consider gems that didn't see the US would be stuff like: Armadillo, Cosmo Police Galivan, Hello Kitty World(Balloon Kid GB reskinned), Joy Mech Fight from Nintendo, F1-Race from them too, Rainbow Islands(not the US release), Urusei Yatsura, Space Harrier, Insector X, Perman Part 2 (1 is fine, but needs translation for boss fights to be playable), Ninja Jajamaru Kun all come to mind.

There are some bullets price wise to dodge you can really cheap vs the US like Bonk, Samson ($300 vs $2000), Bubble Bobble 2, and some others.  I could keep adding more suggestions but this is a good stopping point.

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  • Sweet Home (Predecessor to Resident Evil and just an interesting RPG)
  • Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (First in series)
  • Mother (First in series)
  • Famicom Wars (First in series)
  • Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light (First in series)
  • Punch-Out Special (First console Punch Out)
  • Mahjong (The first ever traditional mahjong game AFAIK)
  • Pac-Land (First home port)
  • Tower of Druaga (First home port)
  • Family Basic v3.0 (Obscure Mario game)
  • Super Mario USA (Not obscure Mario game)
  • Wizardry II: Legacy of Llylgamyn (Not very notable, but JP exclusive console port)

Star Wars, Holy Diver, and Devil World are maybe notable exclusives that haven't been mentioned. Gimmick is notable.

This is random junk I'm interested in. I would call Sweet Home and Gimmick the real "must haves".

Edited by DefaultGen
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Cocoron

After Akira Kitamura (creator of Megaman) left Capcom he made a spiritual successor to it. It has really nice feeling physics and has character customization. This is my favorite FC/NES/FDS game

 

There's also the Tecmo theater series of stuff that might be worth checking out. I haven't played much of them though

https://famicomworld.com/workshop/articles/tecmo-theater-games/

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I have a few of the games suggested so that helps. Thank you all for your suggestions so far.

@DefaultGenI am 100% not surprised a Wizardry title is in your suggestions. 

Possibly my favorite so far is Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-Kun 

I just remembered: There is a pretty good unlicensed platformer game that is Famicom exclusive. It's called Huang Di. There's a bug with playing it on emulator that gives the player moon jump, but on cart this doesn't happen. I think there's some patches that fix that. Might be better to just emulate that one though since it can be kinda a pain to track down copies

 

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5 hours ago, DefaultGen said:
  • Mahjong (The first ever traditional mahjong game AFAIK)

Imagine thinking Mah Jong is a Famicom exclusive... 🥱

I would also add:

  • Altered Beast (Yes, THAT Altered Beast)
  • Arkanoid II
  • Asmik-kun Land
  • Bokosuka Wars
  • Cosmic Epsilon
  • De-Block
  • Karateka
  • Kid Dracula
  • Puyo Puyo
  • Quarth
  • Recca - Summer Carnival '92
  • Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti
  • Super Chinese 3
  • TwinBee 3
  • Wagyan Land 1, 2, and 3
  • Wit's
  • Yie Ar Kung Fu
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Altered Beast on Famicom is quite good, don't get the hate.  Sure they're smaller than the other versions on Sega hardware, and stupidly (guess size limit?) they didn't have the big growling head for the transformation, and no voices on the DPCM either I'll give you all that.  But the gameplay works, the stages are there from the original, and then twice as many more stages with new transformations on all of those.  The visuals are fine, the audio is fine too, I'm not calling it A tier but it's not garbage any remotely close to it.

Space Harrier could make a case for being worth mocking, I own that one too.  It scales about as well as could be expected on a Famicom cart, and to be fair if you can't adjust to faux 3D placement of incoming targets, bullets, or just junk to shoot at it'll drive you up the wall after a short play but it works pretty well for what it is too.

 

I've got like 50 FC legit carts, just over 10 clones, same with FDS too now, and a few vintage and modern multicarts that add a ton more into the mix.  If I choose to make another list yet I'd go digging through their game lists and mark some with stars if they'd need an english patch (like the Ys trilogy) or are fine without and solid like the damned costly Over Horizon.

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Went down to my collection to find a few that hadn't been mentioned: 

Battletoads - I was able to beat the US version by learning on this version first. It's different and easier, so it's a good way to play if you want to actually finish the game. 

Ninja Gaiden 3 - same as Battletoads. Infinite continues, aka less bullshit. 

Moon Crystal - surprised this one wasn't mentioned. Incredible Prince of Persia-esque games. Insane # of animation frames for an NES game. 

Ghostbusters 2 - Technically was released in PAL, but if you want a NTSC version, gotta get the Japanese one. Only good ghostbusters game in the 8-bit generation. 

Don Doko Don 2 - Good solid platformer 

Honorable mentions: 

Hebereke - Honestly, Ufouria on PAL actually plays at NTSC speeds and is in English. One of my favorite NES/FC games, but a lockout-modded NES NTSC is the way to play. 

Don Doko Don 1- A clean'em-up, not as good as the sequel. 

Hammerin Harry 1 & 2 - pretty mid-tier platformers. 

A Week of Garfield - FOR THE MEMES

Wai Wai World 1 & 2 - Konami roster of characters in a platformer. Haven't spent enough time with these to have strong opinions on them. 

 

 

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