What are the rarest games for nes.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

2 minutes ago, PII said:

Couldn't help noticing It took exactly 7 months to the day for this thread to touch rock bottom.

Don't forget the year...

Edited November 30, 2022 by Dr. Morbis

[PII | 1,885]

3 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

5 minutes ago, PII said:

Couldn't help noticing It took exactly 7 months to the day for this thread to touch rock bottom.

Don't forget the year...

Oh shit, my bad; correction 19 months.  

I guess my overlooking small numerical details and you correcting me is a theme tonight, eh Morbo?

[Nesmaster | 402]

I thought I was on DP for a minute...

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

You know, people always ask if 5 or 3 screw is better....but 4 screw really needs some love.

[Link | 2,712]

On 11/29/2022 at 8:03 PM, PekoponTAS said:

Bayou Billy

Baba Booey

[Tanooki | 4,933]

10 hours ago, Nesmaster said:

I thought I was on DP for a minute...

So we're getting the old gang back together eh?  At least this place is active.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

4 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

So we're getting the old gang back together eh?  At least this place is active.

I think now that the hype train is dying a lot of "new long haulers" are going to start looking for a place to call home.

I'm willing to bet a nice chunk of those people will end up here, or on facebook, reddit, and discord.

[Ferris Bueller | 495]

On 11/29/2022 at 7:11 PM, port said:

Sweet baby jesus, I need to stop googling oddball NES stuff. The vein in my forehead can be seen from space after reading this thread.

The what ifs around Sharedata Chiller are worse. You don't know, period, take it off the list. Again, no label and it wouldn't be in the conversation. 

[PekoponTAS | 171]

This is why even though there's merit to some of the unlicensed games, I tend to just ignore them. It just makes things too muddy for me to handle. There are a few pretty good unlicensed games, but I don't feel like any of them are good enough that I miss them by shutting out the whole set.

We all know the rarest NES games are Trojan and Karnov anyway, so really they're the only two games worth looking for.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

22 minutes ago, PekoponTAS said:

This is why even though there's merit to some of the unlicensed games, I tend to just ignore them. It just makes things too muddy for me to handle. There are a few pretty good unlicensed games, but I don't feel like any of them are good enough that I miss them by shutting out the whole set.

A lot of people who ignore them for "quality" reasons will still collect the Tengen set since more than half of their titles are above average games.  Camerica also has Micro Machines, the best top-down racer on the console, and AVE has Krazy Kreatures, which is the best action puzzler on the NES that's not called Tetris.  So yeah, overall unlicensed quality may be below average on the whole, but you're definitely going to miss out on some great games...

Edited December 2, 2022 by Dr. Morbis

[PekoponTAS | 171]

15 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

A lot of people who ignore them for "quality" reasons will still collect the Tengen set since more than half of their titles are above average games.  Camerica also has Micro Machines, the best top-down racer on the console, and AVE has Krazy Kreatures, which is the best action puzzler on the NES that's not called Tetris.  So yeah, overall unlicensed quality may be below average on the whole, but you're definitely going to miss out on some great games...

The R.B.I Baseball games are pretty sweet too. Tengen certainly had the best ones.

[Tanooki | 4,933]

11 hours ago, ThePhleo said:

I think now that the hype train is dying a lot of "new long haulers" are going to start looking for a place to call home.

I'm willing to bet a nice chunk of those people will end up here, or on facebook, reddit, and discord.

Yeah, probably so.  DP if anyone wasn't aware is digital press (forums) and I've been there for a decade, but those members go back to the 90s through irc channels on efnet, the retrogames forums, daves vgc when it existed, etc.  I guess I've been online too long, some of these old names that pop up have a good 25 year history easy.

[ThePhleo | 2,184]

8 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

A lot of people who ignore them for "quality" reasons will still collect the Tengen set since more than half of their titles are above average games.  Camerica also has Micro Machines, the best top-down racer on the console, and AVE has Krazy Kreatures, which is the best action puzzler on the NES that's not called Tetris.  So yeah, overall unlicensed quality may be below average on the whole, but you're definitely going to miss out on some great games...

Even Sachen has a decent game or two.

Pang is fun, and PoPo Team is....playable

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

Tengen was basically Atari, and published games for Namco, as well as ports of Sega titles.  That's three big names under one banner.  Of course they're gonna be quality

Camerica, while technically separate, was basically a North American publishing arm of Codemasters (as they made all the games Camerica published).  They must be a quality developer, as they're still around today (EA purchased them last year in fact).  Thus, their games aren't shit either.

In fact, pretty much every unlicensed publisher that put out more than one title has some decent stuff in their catalogues.  While they won't set the world on fire with their greatness, they aren't terrible games either.  Well, maybe a few, but on the whole I can think of a few licensed publishers that put out more crap (*coughTHQcough*). 

[Tulpa | 3,497]

27 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Tengen was basically Atari,

No basic about it, they were Atari, or at least the arcade division post Warner split. The main reason they used the Tengen name was they had a non-compete agreement with "console Atari" to not produce console games under the Atari name. So they picked another Go derived term and off they went. Although I think their Namco and Sega offerings were a bit better than their own in terms of Tengen games. Their version of Ms. Pac-Man was fantastic, though.

 

28 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

In fact, pretty much every unlicensed publisher that put out more than one title has some decent stuff in their catalogues.  While they won't set the world on fire with their greatness, they aren't terrible games either.  Well, maybe a few, but on the whole I can think of a few licensed publishers that put out more crap (*coughTHQcough*). 

I can get behind that. Even Color Dreams/Bunch Games had a couple of okay games, like P'radikus Conflict and Galactic Crusader, and Wisdom Tree's Spiritual Warfare is a decent Zelda clone. AVE was mostly uninspired but playable puzzle games, but Krazy Kreatures is inspired, and Wally Bear is pretty hilarious.

THQ is probably the worst publisher, licensed or unlicensed. Probably the best argument that the Nintendo Seal of Quality don't mean shit if all of their games had it. I mean, their best game is probably James Bond, Jr, and even that one mostly sucks.

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

23 hours ago, Tulpa said:

No basic about it, they were Atari, or at least the arcade division post Warner split. The main reason they used the Tengen name was they had a non-compete agreement with "console Atari" to not produce console games under the Atari name. So they picked another Go derived term and off they went. Although I think their Namco and Sega offerings were a bit better than their own in terms of Tengen games. Their version of Ms. Pac-Man was fantastic, though.

 

I can get behind that. Even Color Dreams/Bunch Games had a couple of okay games, like P'radikus Conflict and Galactic Crusader, and Wisdom Tree's Spiritual Warfare is a decent Zelda clone. AVE was mostly uninspired but playable puzzle games, but Krazy Kreatures is inspired, and Wally Bear is pretty hilarious.

THQ is probably the worst publisher, licensed or unlicensed. Probably the best argument that the Nintendo Seal of Quality don't mean shit if all of their games had it. I mean, their best game is probably James Bond, Jr, and even that one mostly sucks.

With Color Dreams, I really feel like their creative ambitions were significantly higher than their ability to actually make the games they had in mind.  Captain Comic and Secret Scout both come to mind in that regard.

I definitely agree that THQ is the crappiest publisher.  James Bond Jr. is kinda fun, and I don't mind Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but that simply isn't enough to offset crap like Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, or Wayne Gretzky Hockey.  Mindscape and LJN do have their fair share of turds, but they have enough gems to offset the "worst" label.  And yeah, no unlicensed company would fit that bill either, with the exception of maybe Active Enterprises, but even that has the whole "dudes in their garage following a dream" backstory to give it some sort of gravitas.  Yeah, THQ is definitely the worst of the worst.

[Ankos | 439]

To me the bigger difference between licensed and unlicensed games is quality of data, not quality. If I were handed a game at random for most game system's libraries the game would likely be only ok or even kinda bad. I think that the same could be said for if I were to pick out an unlicensed game at random, so I don't think that the quality gap is that big.

What is a bigger difference is that almost all licensed game companies are pretty well documented, and it is easy to figure out exactly what they released. This is less true for some unlicensed game companies. For an example, Sachen's Gameboy set has for a long time been considered 9 volumes of 4-in-1s, 4 volumes of 8-in-1s, 2 volumes of 16-in-1s, a 31-in-1, and 5 solo cart games. This however is no longer the case. People have discovered a 5-in-1, a 6-in-1, another 16-in-1, and single cart releases for games that appear on their multicarts. The possibility of discovering an unlicensed game company has previously undocumented releases seems higher to me than the possibility of discovering an undocumented release for a licensed game company. When you factor in variants this problem becomes even worse.

Some unlicensed game companies, like Tengen, are better documented and are more commonly tacked onto sets. Some unlicensed game companies on the other hand have worse data on their releases, so it is less clear what you need to make a set for them, so it is harder to stack up their games and saying with confidence you have a set.

I personally enjoy it when a game company has bad data on what they put out, so I mostly collect unlicensed stuff

[fcgamer | 4,723]

On 12/3/2022 at 5:10 AM, Dr. Morbis said:

So yeah, overall unlicensed quality may be below average on the whole,

Disagree, this is the bias spun from websites and then Youtube kiddies trying to get laughs and hits back in the day, simply by making fun of primarily non-Japanese Asians and their works.

We came to that conclusion in the thread someone created here asking what licensed games felt of unlicensed quality, and almost all of them were British / American NES games that weren't released on the Famicom. People don't particularly like LJN, for example, but it's a lot more trendy to bash Sachen or something like that.

[fcgamer | 4,723]

On 11/30/2022 at 11:37 AM, Gloves said:

Heck he's even made some carts himself, probably counts those too!

Well those would belong on any list that also includes Sudoku, Brian's Christmas carts, Kira Kira Night, etc. So yeah, they would indeed "count" on a list of homebrew / indie games being released. 

edit: And for the record, any of the special stuff done I personally wouldn't count on the list, i.e. the hack of Dragon Boat Fest 2020 I made for my brother for his birthday, or the double pack Hungry Ghost Night set that @OptOut has.

Edited December 4, 2022 by fcgamer

[fcgamer | 4,723]

On 11/30/2022 at 11:16 AM, MrWunderful said:

For those not in the know from the middle ages of NA-

 

“port” was some guy that had internet drama with the old NA heads from back in the day over something, and at one point created an Anti-NA where all him and a few other guys did was make fun of NA and rage about how said old NA dudes ruined collecting or something. 
 

Guy always seemed weirdly knowledgeable to me, like could probably write a good book but probably isnt too fun at a party. The majority of his posts ive seen are stuck in peak early 2000s AOL chat nerd rage.

The good old days!

 

Portnoyd kicks ass, always got along well with the guy and love seeing him around. One of the few greats left from the old wild west era, when collecting was a lot more fun. 

[Tulpa | 3,497]

12 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

With Color Dreams, I really feel like their creative ambitions were significantly higher than their ability to actually make the games they had in mind.  Captain Comic and Secret Scout both come to mind in that regard.

My main issue with Color Dreams is the weird disembodied feel of their sprites. You know how when Mario jumps and lands, there's a sense of weight to him? CD games feel weird and floaty. Hard to describe. Other than that, yeah, they lacked polish for the most part.
 

12 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

I definitely agree that THQ is the crappiest publisher.  James Bond Jr. is kinda fun, and I don't mind Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, but that simply isn't enough to offset crap like Wayne's World, Rocky & Bullwinkle, or Wayne Gretzky Hockey. 

When I first played James Bond Jr., I got a cheap death right off the bat within the first minute. Not a way to get on my good side. Other than that, it was an average NES platformer but an above average THQ game (it does have some variety to the gameplay and levels.) Killer Tomatoes is pretty inoffensive, and I like the sewer level music, and the level design is decent. A bit short, and no replay value, but not true dreck.

Wayne's World might be the worst, but Bullwinkle is definitely a contender. Bullwinkle also has that disembodied sprite effect, too.

I actually think Home Alone (the first one) is a cool idea, but it becomes too tedious doing the same thing over and over for twenty realtime minutes. They needed to make the traps do different things, rather than just knocking the Wet Bandits down. I mean, the joy of the movie was watching Kevin Macguyvering all those different traps. Use that in the game! Big missed opportunity there.

12 hours ago, the_wizard_666 said:

Mindscape and LJN do have their fair share of turds, but they have enough gems to offset the "worst" label. 

I actually don't mind either publisher. They're both middle of the road to me. Neither has what I would consider a top tier NES game, but definitely not a THQ level publisher.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Tulpa

[DarkTone | 984]

Love watching top 10 rarest games videos. I'm sure if people here watched them,vthey would either laugh or pull their own hair out. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

4 hours ago, DarkTone said:

Love watching top 10 rarest games videos. I'm sure if people here watched them,vthey would either laugh or pull their own hair out. 

Or in the case of the man who gifted us with a blog about his poop, randomly show up and rant about it and a bunch of other loosely related yet trivial things.  God I missed Port

[fcgamer | 4,723]

On 12/13/2022 at 5:08 AM, DarkTone said:

Love watching top 10 rarest games videos. I'm sure if people here watched them,vthey would either laugh or pull their own hair out. 

I hate videos of this sort, someone recently made a video about a $5000 Famicom multicart and it was all just bogus clickbait BS, these types need to be neutered.

Do proper research and present am accurate account, or get a real job. 

[RH | 4,903]

15 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

I hate videos of this sort, someone recently made a video about a $5000 Famicom multicart and it was all just bogus clickbait BS, these types need to be neutered.

Do proper research and present am accurate account, or get a real job. 

I'd actually like to see just one person do one of these correctly.  Someone who starts out asking "what does 'rare' even mean?" and then branches out to talk about the top couple of games that are rare, regardless of popularity, and then it branches a bit on variants and games (specific to the NES) that are rare and worth searching in other regions.

It amazes me that so many of these videos appeal to the lowest common denominator.  At this point, if someone really is interested in the rarity of NES titles, they've probably read one of the thousand articles that talk about the most expensive NES games (which we all know does not equate to rarity) and if they are still searching, they'd probably be interested into the niche side of collecting for the system.

Heck, I'm more into the niche side of Game Boy collecting and I've casually observed you guys regarding NES stuff.  I'd love to see a "Top 10 Rarest NES" titles video that actually looked at legit rarity, regardless of cost, and also spoke a lot on desirable, rare variants.  Things like Top 5 5-screws, rare NES label variants from difference regions or "oddities" that have been confirmed legit but are hard to explain how they came into existence.

I guess there just aren't enough YouTubers out there with that knowledge that care to make those types of videos.