Famicom Games, Let's talk about your favorites, they're now more accessible with the Retron 5.

[Tanooki]

A couple months back I got my first converter, then I ended up a month maybe before the R5 hit getting a honeybee via a really piss poorly setup ebay auction with a pricey famiclone attached for peanuts. I started to rack up a pretty decent little library of titles.

I've managed to get these so far and can recommend the lot of them to anyone curious.
- 260-in-1 Golden Game (Famicom-Pirate)
- Armadillo
- Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa ("Baby Mario" - Famiclone)
- Choplifter
- Choujikuu Yousai - Macross (Super Dimension Fortress Macross)
- Crisis Force (CI)
- Daiku no Gen San (Hammerin' Harry)
- Family Jockey
- Final Lap
- Joy Mech Fight
- Kyattou Ninden Teyandee (Samurai Pizza Cats)
- Mitsume ga Tooru (Three Eyed One)
- Moon Crystal (Famiclone)
- Parodius Da!
- Rampart
- Splatterhouse Wanpaku Graffiti
- Super Mario Bros. 2 ("Golden Mario" - Famiclone)
- Twinbee
- Twinbee 3: Poko Poko Dai Maou (The Great Demon King Poko Poko)
- Wai Wai World 2: SOS!! Paseri Jou (SOS!! Parsley Castle)
- (The) Wing of Madoola
- Yume Penguin Monogatari (Story of the Dream Penguin)

I know of some other decent games like Holy Diver, Gimmick, Heberke, Mappy Kids, and some others. Do any of you have any preferences? I'm surprised just how damn well these things work on the R5 with all the weird chip variants as I've got most of the Konami VRCs in that list and a Sunsoft and Namco mapper in there too.

[Gameguy]

I have a few multicarts, about the only original cart that I currently remember having is Gradius II. I might have some more around somewhere, the carts I own were all found locally so my collection of famicom games is low.

[Nesmaster]

Adventure Island 4 is probably my favorite in the entire series.

Battle City is a classic and on damn near every pirate.

Gimmick is a given. Hammerin Harry and Ufouria are very fun. Also all available in PAL.

Gradius 2, Crisis Force, Recca.

Exciting Rally: World Rally Championship. Always liked this one for some reason.

There's a lot more I'm forgetting, and probably many more I've never played.

[Tanooki]

You know what, that's just all the more cool. It's hard to find these things locally, even when I was on the west coast I rarely if ever saw a multicart let alone a legit game and that was prime country for it. Gradius II is amazing, that one I have as a retrozone cart along with Kid Dracula so I don't see a need to re-buy those as a famicom cart or I would.

[Ozzy_98]

Goonies.

[Gatucaman]

Gun Nac, Bomberman II, Time Zone, Sweet Home (tough you need to familiarize yourself with what the menus do and the names of the items, cause, i guess i am not sure anymore about sacrificing my untranslated copy of the game for a repro, because of the old chinese EPROMS that had short life cycles and that one repro i almost got was stolen in the mail all the way to my country).

[Einzelherz]

I recently picked up Sanrio Cup Bon Bon Volleyball to go with my set of FF games. I've wanted Crisis Force for forever but the price has spiked considerably on it.

[Tanooki]

Im selling a famiclone of crisis force. It is made with all chips on the board, very early famiclone so its not the cheap easy fail glop top black blob stuff. I had it working fine on real hardware and the retron5. I happened into a legit copy with a manual or Id have kept it.

[StealthLurker]

Maybe judge these for yourself, but worth a look (at least on Youtube):

- Uchuu Keibitai SDF (shmup)
- Taruto Kun 1 & 2
- Spartan X 2 (Kung Fu 2)
- Hi No Torii
- Maten Douji
- Ginga Daisakusen
- Jacky Chan
- Sayuki World part 1 (basically Wonderboy in Monsterworld for famicom)
- Magical Doropie (you probably know, very well known)
- Chojin Sentai Jetman
- Cosmo Police Galvan (This isn't Solbrain)
- Air Fortress (shmup)
- Image Fight (shmup)
- Over Horizon (shmup)
- Moeru Twinbee (shmup)
- Abarenbou Tengu (shmup)
- Daiku no Gen San 2 (Hammerin' Harry 2)
- Fudou Myououden (Demon Sword NES, but japanese version has more stuff and levels)
- Cocoron
- Namcot Star Wars
- PC Genjin (Bonk)
- Kid Niki 2 & 3
- Final Mission (shmup)
- Captain Saver
- Dragon Unit
- Dragon Fighter
- Magic John (Totally Rad NES, but lots of graphics swapped)
- Paman Enban o Torikaese 1 & 2
- Banana Prince (was this only released in EU for the west?)
- Kamen No Ninja Hanamaru
- Ultraman Club: Kaijuu Dai Kessen
- Great Battle Cyber
- Youkai Douchuu-ki
- RAF World
- Parasol Henbee
- Power Blazer
- Konami Motorcross Champion
- Jump Kid
- War Wolf
- Hello Kitty World (like Balloon Fight trip mode)
- Kero Kero Keroppi no daibouken (platformer)
- JuJu Densetsu
- Moai Kun
- Don Dokodon 2
- Genpei Toumaden (Samurai Ghost)
- Metal Figther
- Doki Doki Panic (maybe pirate cart but much rarer than disk version)

[Kitsune Sniper]

*edited*

Forget it.

[GarrettCRW]

- Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa ("Baby Mario" - Famiclone)
- Super Mario Bros. 2 ("Golden Mario" - Famiclone)

It's wonderfully ironic that you're suggesting piracy to play games that if the Retron 5 was even halfway competent would be playable by plugging a Famicom Disk System into the thing. Also, Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa was released officially on cartridge in Japan.

[SparTonberry]

Maybe he's weary of paying money for nearly 30 year old floppy disks (which is a far more fragile media).

Yeah, Upa was released on cart but it's quickly surpassing the limits of what most people would consider acceptable to pay for a single game.

[Tanooki]

I know it's amusing, yeah they're pirates. I have zero interest in ever owning a FDS as they're fragile and the discs are a magnetic ticking time bomb so Spar there is right. And with Upa being like a $125-150 famicom cart being it was nearly one of the very last released that's well beyond what I consider reasonable for a Japanese loose cart. I cap out around $40 on stuff which is why I had a famiclone of Crisis Force but I got the real one for $40 with the manual so it's up for sale. I have a clone of Moon Crystal which the R5 is friendly to, again not interested in paying for a $150 loose cart which is a joke. I would here and there perhaps make an exception like Lickle for around $100~ because $500 for the US version is disgusting.

The R5 with the 1.4 firmware actually is very capable of running most bootleg stand alone Nintendo carts with that auto detecting mapper 0-4 routine. The R5 is well beyond half way competent as really on the whole when you look into what a Trio, Yobo, and the older Retrons will run, it's not suffering for doing worse anymore.

[GarrettCRW]

No FDS support means cutting off a good two years worth of Nintendo releases for the Famicom, and a substantial percentage of Konami's releases in that same period. And with Hyperkin flogging the goal of 100% compatibility, it's going to represent one hell of a substantial gap, no matter your opinion on the reliability of the systems or disks (which, as someone who has owned two FDS units and a Twin over the years, the reliability factor isn't that pronounced-unless you're screwing around with pirated disks).

[calgon]

Where do you guys buy most of your famicom games? Ebay prices have been redonk lately

[Tanooki]

I've picked up almost all of them from ebay, mostly from 3 particular US based large scale famicom sellers who luckily for much of it price under what you'll get from Japan after the crappy shipping and long delay. A few others were just random people on there, just a few from senseiman from famicomworld.com forums, and a couple from dave (tracker) from a checkered forum. The best of it by far was senseiman and the ebay bigger sellers as they post nice stuff along with a heap of common so-so stuff in bulk I think every week or two.

Garrett I don't see the relevance of picking on the R5, it's just not a FDS or a legit famicom, but I agree entirely with your feelings on some unique Konami games and a couple others. Kiseki no Almana and Senshi no Nicol(or whatever it is) are pretty slick, but I've never seen much on there I'd really ever bother with and some that I would came to the US annoyingly with passwords attached. Hyperkin was attempting to achieve 100% compatibility for the systems they support, but they never planned to support the FDS, just the Famicom so it's not really a lie or even an omission of the truth either.

[OrdinaryOtaku]

A couple months back I got my first converter, then I ended up a month maybe before the R5 hit getting a honeybee via a really piss poorly setup ebay auction with a pricey famiclone attached for peanuts. I started to rack up a pretty decent little library of titles.

I've managed to get these so far and can recommend the lot of them to anyone curious.
- 260-in-1 Golden Game (Famicom-Pirate)
- Armadillo
- Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa ("Baby Mario" - Famiclone)
- Choplifter
- Choujikuu Yousai - Macross (Super Dimension Fortress Macross)
- Crisis Force (CI)
- Daiku no Gen San (Hammerin' Harry)
- Family Jockey
- Final Lap
- Joy Mech Fight
- Kyattou Ninden Teyandee (Samurai Pizza Cats)
- Mitsume ga Tooru (Three Eyed One)
- Moon Crystal (Famiclone)
- Parodius Da!
- Rampart
- Splatterhouse Wanpaku Graffiti
- Super Mario Bros. 2 ("Golden Mario" - Famiclone)
- Twinbee
- Twinbee 3: Poko Poko Dai Maou (The Great Demon King Poko Poko)
- Wai Wai World 2: SOS!! Paseri Jou (SOS!! Parsley Castle)
- (The) Wing of Madoola
- Yume Penguin Monogatari (Story of the Dream Penguin)

I know of some other decent games like Holy Diver, Gimmick, Heberke, Mappy Kids, and some others. Do any of you have any preferences? I'm surprised just how damn well these things work on the R5 with all the weird chip variants as I've got most of the Konami VRCs in that list and a Sunsoft and Namco mapper in there too.

My favorites are probably Wrecking Crew and Mario Bros. They better be playable on the R5. :vamp:

[Satoshi_Matrix]

mapper 0 boards work on it. Hell, mapper 0 boards work on the worst famiclones out there.

[Tanooki]

I only have around 20 famicom games, but a share of them use exotic mappers and they work, so I'd think some launch era mapper 0 stuff would be just fine. At this rate the safe argument would be to say the list of legitimate games, non-pirates, non-multicarts, non-flash pirate carts, and non-homebrew would be a fairly small list and far too much research and work to type up a working list.


...that and I own both those as NES games and they're perfect.

[Little Miss Gloom]

I'm a really, really, really huge fan of Splatterhouse: Naughty Graffiti. That game is so much fun!

[SparTonberry]

I only have around 20 famicom games, but a share of them use exotic mappers and they work, so I'd think some launch era mapper 0 stuff would be just fine. At this rate the safe argument would be to say the list of legitimate games, non-pirates, non-multicarts, non-flash pirate carts, and non-homebrew would be a fairly small list and far too much research and work to type up a working list.


...that and I own both those as NES games and they're perfect.

With Famicom, you're more likely to encounter an exotic mapper when you don't suspect it.
I remember watching some of Pat the Punk's NES marathon, and someone requested Dragon Buster. One of the few games that refused to run, guess whoever made the charitable donation for that one to get played lost out. Turns out it doesn't work on PowerPak because it uses its own mapper. I can only imagine that's probably a low priority because it's only used by that one sort-of-obscure game. Seems Namco did several custom mappers, mostly for custom CHR swapping effects.

[Bighab]

Some of my favs are Getsu Fuuma Den(some spellings have it at Getsu Fuma Den),great Castlevania clone. Love the Famicom box for it. Arkanoid 2 and Bard's Tale 2

[RoryDropkick]

Some of my favorites are Madara, Akumajou Densetsu, Lagrange Point, Capt. Tsubasa II, the Hiryu no Ken series <different from Flying Warriors> and Metro Cross.

[Tanooki]

Isn't Lagrange Point without a translation entirely unplayable? I'd love to see that one in action but it would suck just staring at a bunch of stuff I can barely read. Everyone seems to be in love with Akamajou Densetsu and I feel at some rate I should grab that just due to the differences.

[Armor_King]

Well I've only played 3 Famicom games which were on some super joy plug and play thingy found at a flea market. And then Final Fantasty 3 which is better than that DS remake version. So:

Final Fantasy 3
Twinbee
Karateka
Ninja Kun

[RoryDropkick]

Isn't Lagrange Point without a translation entirely unplayable? I'd love to see that one in action but it would suck just staring at a bunch of stuff I can barely read. Everyone seems to be in love with Akamajou Densetsu and I feel at some rate I should grab that just due to the differences.

True, if you don't know Japanese it's yet another text-heavy RPG, so YMMV on that one. You should have a copy of Akumajou Densetsu, music aside its nice having things like Grant with his knife and other little gameplay tweaks. I've won that game 3 times on ebay, once by accident *lol*

[Tron 2.0]

I would here and there perhaps make an exception like Lickle for around $100~ because $500 for the US version is disgusting.

This when i was ready to buy little samson i found the famicom version,cheaper in price.I can say the same to for gourmet world aka panic restaurant as well.I bought it loose recently for the famicom and it is cheaper compared to the nes one.

[bb_hood]

You should have a copy of Akumajou Densetsu, music aside its nice having things like Grant with his knife and other little gameplay tweaks

Like how Sypha in the Japanese version is incredibly broken. She can take out bosses in like 1-2 shots.

[RoryDropkick]

This when i was ready to buy little samson i found the famicom version,cheaper in price.I can say the same to for gourmet world aka panic restaurant as well.I bought it loose recently for the famicom and it is cheaper compared to the nes one.


That's for sure, I found Gourmet World for $29 at a local store within the past few months.

[Tanooki]

I'm thinking between my honeybee and the R5 maybe telling the US predator pool to 'f-off' and just buy the vastly cheaper Famicom stuff would be best. Stuff like Lickle and Gourmet World are not at a loss for words being platformers without stories really attached to the games. You don't have a continually flowing story between stages like some of those Disney Capcom titles we got that are up over $100 now among some other stuff. Look at PC Genjin vs Bonk's Adventure and Bubble Bobble 2 on either style of system. Same game, and no raping of the wallet. The crooks lose and you win having the game anyway.

[Tron 2.0]

That's for sure, I found Gourmet World for $29 at a local store within the past few months.
Cheaper then what i paid for.It cost me $54.00 though i bought mine from a importer based in the uk.

[Ozzy_98]

I don't see much point honestly. If you just want to play it, there's emulators, even though some people use flimsy excuses to not use them. If you wanted to try it on actual hardware, almost everything works on rom carts. People who buy the games are generally doing it for a collection stand point, but if you're collecting, then you're not collecting the same item as everyone else. It'd be like collecting one Chevy from every year since 1950, except for 1969 since you couldn't find any cheap, so you have a Dodge. Now if you plan on collecting famicom carts in general, that's a whole different ball-game, but you still need the US versions if you're going for complete sets.

[Tanooki]

Only a fool would bother with the climate of the last 3 years to get a complete NES set as the prices thanks to predators is madness. Just because a high dollar US game isn't high dollar in Japan doesn't mean a Dodge or a Chevy, it means you decided to buy a foreign version of the same car, just so happens the steering wheel is on the other side but it still handles the same, just little things like the wheel and the lettering in the owners book aren't the same. :D

At some point you're pissing a mortgage worth of cash for a 30 year old video game, you need to have yourself psychologically evaluated.

Personally I'd rather do the following if the Famicom option wasn't that attractive. Buy a used or new gray shell. Buy a kazoo writer and an infinite lives board. Flash that $500 game to the chip and place it in the shell. Then i'd go find a high resolution clean image of the original label, have it printed as high of quality as possible, and stick it on there and be done with it. It would be basically the option of having a pretty kit car or an original one, both look and act the same, but one costs a crap ton less.

[old_skoolin_jim]

Hmm, well, I converted a 5-screw Gyromite w/converter to my own Gyromite-shelled Arkanoid 2, so that's something!
Unfortunately, I was unaware the US Arkanoid controller is incompatible with Ark 2. D'oh!

[Tanooki]

I just saw that in a sales thread on here the other day that the vaus won't work on arkanoid 2 so now I'm not sure I even want it anymore since the control won't be as nice and with it being much harder than the first I just don't know.

[Ozzy_98]

Personally I'd rather do the following if the Famicom option wasn't that attractive. Buy a used or new gray shell. Buy a kazoo writer and an infinite lives board. Flash that $500 game to the chip and place it in the shell. Then i'd go find a high resolution clean image of the original label, have it printed as high of quality as possible, and stick it on there and be done with it. It would be basically the option of having a pretty kit car or an original one, both look and act the same, but one costs a crap ton less.

And make cases for CD-ROM games after you print labels? ;) That's just having a physical copy of a game, you didn't "collect" it. To me, the famicom and domestic nes carts are separate items, so having one is not related to having the other.

[Tanooki]

I never said anything about collecting. I'm talking about playing a game with a physical copy of it, that's all, not just some digital rom using an emulator. I started buying old games in 1995 and the prices of the last few years just sicken me so I'll find any way around being screwed paying too much for something that only is that high because of the same scumbag tactics that have ruined other hobbies every decade. As a kid I had baseball cards and comics ruined for me much the same way so anyway to fight the beast is good to me.

[bb_hood]

I just saw that in a sales thread on here the other day that the vaus won't work on arkanoid 2 so now I'm not sure I even want it anymore since the control won't be as nice and with it being much harder than the first I just don't know.

You can get a Famicom Vaus controller. I have one but it has a different plug so you would need a famicom system, a Nes wouldnt work.

[Tanooki]

You can get a Famicom Vaus controller. I have one but it has a different plug so you would need a famicom system, a Nes wouldnt work.

See that's the problem just have the new sharp and Retron5 so it's just not doable. Looks fun though either way.

[SparTonberry]

I have an Arkanoid II Vaus but it doesn't seem to work with my official AV Famicom. I'm not sure if it's the controller or the console as I lack any other FC-expansion-port controllers to test it with. (I only play with standard NES controllers.)

[Tron 2.0]

I have an Arkanoid II Vaus but it doesn't seem to work with my official AV Famicom. I'm not sure if it's the controller or the console as I lack any other FC-expansion-port controllers to test it with. (I only play with standard NES controllers.)
Sounds like the controller i have arkanoid II plus vaus controller and it works fine on my famicom av.