Favorite NES Homebrews/new releases.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

Well said.

And I don't think everyone is scared of the upper level stuff.  While I haven't gone and sorted out which chip is what exactly and how it gets there on that board I showed in an earlier post, but the Super Mario Allstars+Mario Bros cart Infidelity did a few years back runs the MMC5 chip to run this hacked together cart with perks.  I'm kind of curious why more people don't utilize this board and chipset to do some incredible stuff.  Not many things even in the day used the MMC5 but those that did produced some pretty quality stuff with that added power at the ready, though most notable of that would be Castlevania III.

[fcgamer | 4,722]

@Dr. MorbisBasically you feel homebrew games aren't polished, unless they have all the bells and whistles of the later games, that's how I'm reading it anyways. 

Whether a game is polished or not should have nothing to do with whether it pushes the hardware to the limits or not. 

I mean, your argument to me is starting to sound like if we said something similar about musicians, like the only ones who can "play" their instruments "properly" are classical musicians, since they arguably might have "better technique".

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

1 hour ago, fcgamer said:

@Dr. MorbisBasically you feel homebrew games aren't polished, unless they have all the bells and whistles of the later games, that's how I'm reading it anyways. 

Whether a game is polished or not should have nothing to do with whether it pushes the hardware to the limits or not. 

I mean, your argument to me is starting to sound like if we said something similar about musicians, like the only ones who can "play" their instruments "properly" are classical musicians, since they arguably might have "better technique".

That's not what I'm saying at all.  Polish is not equal to "pushing a system to its limits."  I thought bringing up Micro Mages would get that point across.  I don't know if you are aware, but the developers of that game were determined to make Micro Mages in line with the 1985 releases.  There is no paralax scrolling or crazy lightning visual effects; Micro Mages is made under the original  parameters that 1983 Famicom games were "meant" to be made, black backgrounds and all.  HOWEVER, if you play the game, you will immediately see how supremely polished it is.  There is a video on youtube that explains just how much effort they put into optimizing the code, and it really shows from the title screen onward.  Those guys who made Micro Mages and Super Bat Puncher and Bobl are some of the best homebrewers around, and even they haven't put out a NES game yet with the level of depth of some of the best mid-era NES games, nevermind the late era ones.

I don't know how else to explain it - maybe I'm just on crazy pills if you guys think homebrewers are topping out the original NES library.  From where I'm standing, the majority of homebrewers I've seen appear to be deathly afraid of tackling horizontal scrolling.... SCROLLING!!!... the most staple attribute of the original NES library since Super Mario Bros on DAY ONE!!!  It's 2021 and were still in the flick-screen era!  Like, WTF more can I say???

I love the homebrew scene and I'll always buy new games and continue to support them (really looking forward to Halcyon right now), but you guys like @Sumez who think that homebrewers are anywhere near catching up with late era NES games are DELUSIONAL!!!!

Edited July 9, 2021 by Dr. Morbis

[fcgamer | 4,722]

2 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Polish is not equal to "pushing a system to its limits."  I thought bringing up Micro Mages would get that point across.  I don't know if you are aware, but the developers of that game were determined to make Micro Mages in line with the 1985 releases.

Maybe I'm the crazy one here, but I personally think it's irrelevant that Micro Mages optimised their code and while keeping it to 1985 parameters. I mean, did Nintendo and the plethora of other developers st that time bother doing that? Some perhaps did, many probably didn't. If anything, I'd say that makes Micro Mages less of a NES game, if I were picking and choosing titles to represent the era, ignoring whether they were produced then or later as homebrews.

The NES spanned across many years, and the results are that games range from quite simple, to those that look like they could have been a SNES game, so I feel the critiques some are making here referencing graphics choices or gameplay choices is a bit ridiculous, I mean why can't a nes homebrew guy make a game that plays equally to others made in 1986, for example, without being called out for making an "unpolished" game. 

[Sumez | 2,937]

8 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Here's where I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.  It seems from your posts that your assertion is that the only true "NES" games are the original launch-release timeframe games that were 40k with no memory mappers or hardware tricks or anything else - just what the original 1983 Famicom was "designed" for.

At what point did I even insinuate that?

Look at the list of games I posted, not a single one of them (even the two or so that actually are NROM games) are even slightly reminiscent of the 1983 launch titles, or any games to come out over the next few years for that matter. Hell, I'm a massive NES fan, and even I don't really have that much love for that period of games, outside of a few outstanding titles.

It's very hard to argue my position when you keep just putting words in my mouth and respond to claims I never made.

Nearly every homebrew game that comes out uses mapping techniques, including some that allow things that weren't even done back when licensed games were still released. So I'm really not sure what you are missing.

8 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

So the TLDR version is this: I disagree with you completely about the state of current homebrew development being on par with late-era NES games.  You should try playing a well-regarded NES game from the '90's some time

You should try looking at some of the games I namedropped.

8 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

And if homebrewers truly are intent on staying away from memory mappers and other advanced hardware as you say they are

I'm gonna repeat this, only because I feel that I'm really not getting through.
I never said this.

[Sumez | 2,937]

6 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I'm kind of curious why more people don't utilize this board and chipset to do some incredible stuff.  Not many things even in the day used the MMC5 but those that did produced some pretty quality stuff with that added power at the ready, though most notable of that would be Castlevania III.

Castlevania 3 barely utilizes the MMC5 at all. I know exactly what features it uses and why it needs them because I had to make it work when I made my NES emulator, but right now I'm kind of curious what you even think the MMC5 does.

MMC3 is very, very capable, and more than sufficient enough to make some of the most amazing looking NES games ever. And if you want to push it further with other mapping techniques, going MMC5 specs sounds backwards to me. I'd instead go with a mechanically simpler mapper that allows much cooler things, like what Something Nerdy Studios is doing with Former Dawn.

Hell, even with 8x8 attributes, vertical splits, and whatever you want from the MMC5 - at the end of the day, the single most important thing that'll make NES games appear truly outstanding to anyone who isn't a programmer and understands the tricks going into them, is just more ROM space, allowing for more variation in the graphics, and that is much, much, much cheaper now than it was in the 80s or early 90s.

[Sumez | 2,937]

47 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Maybe I'm the crazy one here, but I personally think it's irrelevant that Micro Mages optimised their code and while keeping it to 1985 parameters. I mean, did Nintendo and the plethora of other developers st that time bother doing that? Some perhaps did, many probably didn't. If anything, I'd say that makes Micro Mages less of a NES game, if I were picking and choosing titles to represent the era, ignoring whether they were produced then or later as homebrews.

To be honest, most of the techniques and considerations discussed in that Micro Mages videos are very common for NES development, and it is things every NES programmer needs to consider, even when using mappers like MMC3. There's some compression stuff that becomes kind of pointless when you get to use bigger ROMs, but depending on how you design your game it is still stuff you need to think about.

I don't mean to belittle MorphCat, they are some of the most talented NES devs around, and I really love the video they made, I think it describes NES development super well. But it's not unique to Micro Mages.

[Tanooki | 4,932]

4 hours ago, Sumez said:

Castlevania 3 barely utilizes the MMC5 at all. I know exactly what features it uses and why it needs them because I had to make it work when I made my NES emulator, but right now I'm kind of curious what you even think the MMC5 does.

MMC3 is very, very capable, and more than sufficient enough to make some of the most amazing looking NES games ever. And if you want to push it further with other mapping techniques, going MMC5 specs sounds backwards to me. I'd instead go with a mechanically simpler mapper that allows much cooler things, like what Something Nerdy Studios is doing with Former Dawn.

Hell, even with 8x8 attributes, vertical splits, and whatever you want from the MMC5 - at the end of the day, the single most important thing that'll make NES games appear truly outstanding to anyone who isn't a programmer and understands the tricks going into them, is just more ROM space, allowing for more variation in the graphics, and that is much, much, much cheaper now than it was in the 80s or early 90s.

I'm not that in depth on the MMC5 so I think that's kind of a baiting trap question since you're boasting about some emulator.  I recall the very very consumer end high level stuff it pulls off, such as what the old NP magazine covered on various chips in an 1990/91 era issue of the magazine.  The larger memory footprint that allows for a few purposes, the finer level of pixel depth over others that proceeded it, the little bit added to the sound processing as an option, but ultimately in the end if I recall right, it shares a lot in common with the MMC3 variants.  One thing I recall from the old NES header hacking/learning period I did in the 90s, the chip could support a game size never made which I think was 2MB total, commercially never happened.  Either way keep in mind I touted the MMC5 just because of my amazement at the SMAS conversion, but previously pointed out the real jaw dropper work on stuff like Jim Power to commercially GQ2 which were MMC3 level of depth, not the MMC5 which would be overkill there.   MMC5 is pointless unless you need at least one of the specs it rocks, the other does not.

[Sumez | 2,937]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

I think that's kind of a baiting trap question

Call it what you will, I'm not looking to boast or ridicule anyone, and went directly to the point in the same post you're quoting - The MMC5 can do a lot of really cool things, but CV3 does almost nothing of it.

There's no extra sound processing in the MMC5 version of CV3 since they wouldn't have been able to play the cartridge sound found in the VRC6 version on a western NES, without something like INL's audio expansion dongle sold alongside it. But if you want modern homebrew games that use that feature, look no further than Membler's GTMP3 mapper. Who needs boring chiptunes? This board streams high fidelity MP3 tracks directly through your NES.

While that's a really cool feature, and I honestly can't wait to see some games make good use of that, hopefully in this example you can maybe understand the stance - that there will always be devs who specifically want to have pulse generated "8bit" chiptunes in their game, generated by the NES's own CPU?

Edited July 9, 2021 by Sumez

[Tanooki | 4,932]

You're admitting to want to act like a douche?  At least you're honest about it, I'll give you that.  I was speaking to the MMC5 on the whole, that's what you asked, not what I thought CV3 was limited to.  I'm aware of the MMC5 of the VRC6, similar to a point, but not.  I know CV3 is limited, it's not the censorship why I own both the US and JP versions of that cart.

I don't keep up anymore, motivation is gone, so I hadn't heard memblers was still at it, let alone created that new board/mapper profile so seeing/hearing that Golf clip was quite nice.

Ultimately though as far as personal taste goes, I feel most homebrew falls sadly short.  Not just for looking fairly basic, but where gameplay isn't that good or lacks the polish to make it enjoyable enough to keep going.  When you combine the meh issues with average or less quality work on the audio visuals side I've got no interest.  I keep an eye on stuff as it comes around, and to me not on the whole, but largely the NES homebrew market has been pretty crap so I just selectively buy extremely little of it.  Bring enough polish across the board to a game where I feel it could have sold in the late 80s into the 90s high point of the NES era, sure, if I like what the game offers for an experience I'd buy it.

[Sumez | 2,937]

7 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

You're admitting to want to act like a douche?

Being a little aggressive here, no.
I'm not the one taking a dump on people's hard hobbyist work saying stuff like, I don't know, "largely the NES homebrew market has been pretty crap".

I have no intention to fight you, and I don't understand why you are being aggressive about this subject. I'm just trying to make people understand (and maybe even respect) what the homebrew scene is, because there's a good bit of entitlement going around here that makes me sad to see.  

[fcgamer | 4,722]

14 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Ultimately though as far as personal taste goes, I feel most homebrew falls sadly short.  Not just for looking fairly basic, but where gameplay isn't that good or lacks the polish to make it enjoyable enough to keep going.  When you combine the meh issues with average or less quality work on the audio visuals side I've got no interest.  

I'll respond to your dm tomorrow, at need to check what games are on that.

Getting back to the discussion though, I'm surprised to hear you say this, as you're always referencing the NES multicarts of old, and let's face it, on a lot of them, there are exclusives but it's stuff like Pac-Land, Zippy Race, etc.

That's why I feel this conversation is so weird. People would gladly play some of the earlier NES games, yet they'd then snub their noses at homebrew games of similar calibre. 

It honestly makes no sense to me, sometimes less is more, right?

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

17 hours ago, Sumez said:

It's very hard to argue my position when you keep just putting words in my mouth and respond to claims I never made.

Okay, I'll keep it simple.  I'm not putting any words in your mouth. I made a statement originally to the effect that homebrews were getting to the point of about 1987 in terms of the lifespan of the original NES timeframe.  You responded with walls of text refuting that claim and making the astounding declaration that they were already caught up to late-era NES games!!!  Every post made by me thereafter is simply in defense of reality.

I mean, come on, you seem pretty well versed with the NES library - I'm going to assume you've played most of the better games - how can you honestly with a straight face say that the current state of homebrewing is on par with the likes of  Bucky O'Hare, Kick Master,  TMNT 3, Dragon Warrior 3 & 4, Gargoyle's Quest II, Little Samson, Mega Man 4-6, RC Pro Am II, Fire & Ice, Kirby's Adventure, Mighty Final Fight, all the later Koei games, Ninja Gaiden III, Vice Project Doom, Snow Bros, Battletoads, do I have to go on???  I mean, come on!  Your assertion that the homebrew scene is on par with late-era NES games is absolutely ludicrous!

The scene has come a long way, but there are huge gaps, like where are the RPGs?  Is there even a single turn-based RPG yet or are we still at the pre first Dragon Quest 1986 level in that aspect?  I almost don't want to keep defending myself because I'm coming off as a homebrew denigrater when I actually love the new games and have bought over 20 of them with my hard-earned cash.  I'm sorry, but I just can't sit idly by and let full-fledged lies go unabated.  The homebrew NES scene is awesome, but it's only up to about 1987 levels right now, though I'm just as excited as anyone to see who will pop out of the weeds as the next Sivac/Battle Kid guy to come along and take NES homebrewing to the next level.....

Edited July 10, 2021 by Dr. Morbis

[fcgamer | 4,722]

4 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I made a statement originally to the effect that homebrews were getting to the point of about 1987 in terms of the lifespan of the original NES timeframe.  You

Who cares though? That's just personal preference and taste.

This has nothing to do with "polish", that one word that kept being thrown around earlier.

Simply put, you just prefer NES games with "better" graphics and music. Some folks do,  others feel it's not necessary at all when it comes to making a kickass game. But this has absolutely nothing to do with "polish", as you like to call it.

Polish is basically the reverse of Action 52...

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

24 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Who cares though? That's just personal preference and taste.

This has nothing to do with "polish", that one word that kept being thrown around earlier.

Simply put, you just prefer NES games with "better" graphics and music. Some folks do,  others feel it's not necessary at all when it comes to making a kickass game. But this has absolutely nothing to do with "polish", as you like to call it.

Polish is basically the reverse of Action 52...

Ummm.... no... not at all.  Forget polish.  Forget graphics.  Forget music.  In fact, I didn't use any of those words in the post you just quoted, so wtf man?!?  I like games from all eras of the NES, not just late-era ones.  In fact, most of my favourite NES games are from the 80's; in fact almost all of them are.  But this isn't about personal preference.  If you want to put words in my mouth, then here: all I care about is gameplay.

The reason I made a list of a ton of specifically late-era games was not because that's what I personally prefer, but to refute Sumez's absurd claim that homebrews have caught up with late-era NES games.  Think about 1987, what came out that year in the US: MT's Punch-Out, Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, Mega Man, and so many more; it was a watershed year for video game history and so vastly improved from earlier efforts (other than SMB) that it's not even funny.   And I feel like this is the point we're travelling through with homebrew's right now: they are just beginning to hit their stride and the best is yet to come.  That's why I feel that homebrew's are roughly in line with 1987 in the original NES's timeline.

@fcgamer I don't understand why you keep wildly misinterpreting my posts; either I gotsta git gud at writing, or you need to learn how to read for comprehension    Either way, it's all in good fun!!!

Edited July 10, 2021 by Dr. Morbis

[fcgamer | 4,722]

9 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

...they are just beginning to hit their stride and the best is yet to come.  

By stating this though, it suggests that the later games (improved graphics, music, etc) are "the best", no?

[fcgamer | 4,722]

On 7/8/2021 at 9:11 AM, Dr. Morbis said:

What?!?  Polish is part of the process of any endevour.  It's a very important part too, because it's that extra attention to detail that seperates something from being just "good" to being "great." 

I knew you mentioned polish earlier.

Edit: I totally agree this discussion is just in good fun, there's nothing wrong with us having differing opinions.

I just feel that some of the points here are contradictory to each other. 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

7 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

By stating this though, it suggests that the later games (improved graphics, music, etc) are "the best", no?

That's one way to interpret it; another way would be that if homebrewers are getting much better at making games in general, then "better" games will likely follow suit...

Edited July 10, 2021 by Dr. Morbis

[fcgamer | 4,722]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Morbis said:

That's one way to interpret it; another way would be that if homebrewers are getting much getter at making games in general, then "better" games will likely follow suit...

You could argue the latter part, but the opinion of the this thread as a whole suggests that for many (most?) people, better sounds and graphics = better games, something that I personally don't agree with at all.

Sometimes graphics are king, other times it's just useless unnecessary eye candy.

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

1 minute ago, fcgamer said:

I knew you mentioned polish earlier.

Edit: I totally agree this discussion is just in good fun, there's nothing wrong with us having differing opinions.

I just feel that some of the points here are contradictory to each other. 

I only have - and am defending - a single point: current homebrews are not on par with late-era NES titles.  Anything I write or have written is in defense of that and has nothing to do with my personal preferences in gaming

[Dr. Morbis | 2,088]

4 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

You could argue the latter part, but the opinion of the this thread as a whole suggests that for many (most?) people, better sounds and graphics = better games, something that I personally don't agree with at all.

Sometimes graphics are king, other times it's just useless unnecessary eye candy.

Trust me, man, if I cared one iota about graphics, the N64 wouldn't be my newest console

[erac | 78]

RPGs are big, requiring lots of resources to create. You can try the various ones made in China demaking modern RPGs for the NES (FF7, Golden sun, etc etc). Otherwise you'll need to wait for Former Dawn, only smaller ones have been done like my Inherent Smile.

[fcgamer | 4,722]

1 minute ago, Dr. Morbis said:

I only have - and am defending - a single point: current homebrews are not on par with late-era NES titles.  Anything I write or have written is in defense of that and has nothing to do with my personal preferences in gaming

I think the problem might be such phrases as " not on par" then, as by nature of the phrase it suggests a negative connotation towards the earlier games.

 

[Sumez | 2,937]

7 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

how can you honestly with a straight face say that the current state of homebrewing is on par with the likes of  Bucky O'Hare, Kick Master,  TMNT 3, Dragon Warrior 3 & 4, Gargoyle's Quest II, Little Samson, Mega Man 4-6, RC Pro Am II, Fire & Ice, Kirby's Adventure, Mighty Final Fight, all the later Koei games, Ninja Gaiden III, Vice Project Doom, Snow Bros, Battletoads, do I have to go on???  I mean, come on! 

In terms of quality as a video game? Outside of being subjective, I'd say it's a little unfair.  The Ninja Gaidens are some of the best video games ever made, I wouldn't expect any video game developer to match that quality on any console, new or old, any time soon. A game like that is a rare lightning in a bottle, and has nothing to do with which platform you are targeting.

In terms of polish? Sure, there's plenty of homebrew games that match the majority of that list. Again, I implore you to look up the games that I namedropped.
Of course, there are exceptions - like Kirby's Adventure is hands-down the most polished game on the NES, and the product of a full professional team with years of experience and a massive budget supported by the biggest video game publisher at the time. It's not the product of the MMC3 mapper. I want to say there are probably homebrew games coming out that have the potential to match it, like Orange Island or Former Dawn could definitely go there. But expecting every new homebrew game to match that level, would be like expecting every existing NES game to match that level too. Something only one NES game did, ever.

But let's put some homebrew games up against the titles you mentioned

 

Of course, most of the games you mentioned look amazing, and I'm a big fan of a bunch of them, I have no intention of underselling them. But don't come telling me the games on the left look like 1987 NROM games  

Edited July 10, 2021 by Sumez

[fcgamer | 4,722]

@SumezThe scary thing is that in many cases, I think the games on the left look better than the ones on the right.