Recommend some good Tengen NES titles to me!

[DigitalSpace]

I currently own 19 NES games, none of them being Tengen titles. I'd like to have at least one black Tengen cart in my collection. Tengen Tetris would be a sweet find, but we all know how to tough it is to acquire a copy and I doubt I'll find one soon (although I'm hoping I'm wrong on that).

Anyways, other than that, I don't know much about the good Tengen titles out there, so I'm turning to you guys.

What do you recommend?

[soundwave]

Rolling Thunder has my vote :D

[ryborg]

If you're a fan of puzzles, it's hard to go wrong with Klax. RBI Baseball is a must-have too.
________
Amateur Nude (http://www.fucktube.com/categories/66/nude/videos/1)

[InsaneDavid]

Now that's my specialty. :D I've reviewed every NES Tengen game (with the exception of Gauntlet which will be in the June issue, and Fantasy Zone which is done and will be in May's issue) in comparison to their arcade counterparts over at Retrogaming Times Monthly (http://my.stratos.net/~hewston95/RTM/RTM_Home.htm). Look for my "Titles of Tengen" column in the current issue and RTM previous issues, issues 07~15, 17~23+ will have one. I was omitted from issue 16 due to an e-mail problem. I encourage you to read all my Titles of Tengen columns (and all of RTM while you're at it).

My favorites are...
Super Sprint (my favorite Tengen game, my review sucks though, was still cutting my teeth with writing for RTM so it's formatted like the game reviews at my site)
Rolling Thunder
Ms. Pac-Man (the Tengen version beats the pants off the Namco licensed release)
Klax
Tetris
Vindicators
Road Runner

Games to stay away from unless it's just to collect...
Toobin'
Alien Syndrome (not the worst Tengen port but the most disappointing)
Skull & Crossbones (now THIS is the worst Tengen port)
Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (nothing like the arcade game = poor reception and a letdown)

Other games fall in the middle, RBI Baseball is very good though and was/is very popular.

Honestly Pac-Mania is FAR harder to find than Tetris in my experence. It's the hardest Tengen release to find but it's a bad game - so it's usually cheap when you do find a copy.

[19k]

Honestly Pac-Mania is FAR harder to find than Tetris in my experence. It's the hardest Tengen release to find but it's a bad game - so it's usually cheap when you do find a copy.

Oh man, Pac-Mania is one of my favorite Tengen games... top 5 easy.

I'd say Rolling Thunder, Super Sprint, Tetris, Klax, and Pac-Mania are the best Tengen games. (*Super Sprint and Tetris are a lot more fun with two players).

RBI Baseball is OK as far as Tengen games go, but there are other baseball games for the NES that are way better.

[c0ldb33r]

I really liked RBI baseball! I'd definately recommend it.

Tengen tetris is great too - I know a local seller that always has a copy for sale, but wants an obscene amount of money for the loose cart. :(

[christhegamer]

19 games? holy f*ck, you've got a way to go x_x .

Anyways, Most of the best Tengen games I have are, sadly, rare and/or expensive. Yep, you'll have to pony-up to the plate to enjoy games like Ms. Pac-Man [going price-$13], Klax [going price-$12], or Tetris [going price-$41]. I'll try not to bore you with tips on how to find these games (and how I got one of them for $5 ;)), but I can tell you that they're some other cheaper games that are more enjoyable (Rolling Thunder is a good one, for example.)

all I can say about bad Tengen titles is that you should STAY AWAY from Shinobi!!! Horrible port, impossible bosses; heck, most of the time there is'nt even a background! The ending won't win any awards, neither

[RJ]

Vindicators is a decent port, if you dont have the awesome MAT1 version already.

[jcalder8]

For me my favorite is Super Sprite, I feel its pretty close to the arcade version minus the steering wheels but it runs pretty much the same. Also it doesn't go for as much as some of the other Tengen games. It was the first one that I picked up just because its a great game to play, at least that my opinion.

[aaron7]

Vindicators is great. Klax is amazing (so weird and great music).

I just sold a Tengen Tetris to someone on the boards for... $40 I think.

[le geek]

19 games? holy f*ck, you've got a way to go x_x .

Heh, I guess it depends on if he's going for a complete collection. I have about 35 NES carts, just the games I like to play. But as an old fart I'm more of an Atari 2600 guy with over 250 carts...

Anyway, I recommend Super Sprint and Tetris... :D

Cheers,
Ben

[KennyB]

I recently found pac-mania and IMO it's a fun game. It's the best tengen game i've got ( I only have 2, the other is alien syndrome) LOL

How much is pac-mania worth ?

[aaron7]

EDIT: quit whining about links it's annoying :roll:

[Speedy_NES]

How much is pac-mania worth ?
Cart only usually sells for between 5-10$. I'm sure that the CIB copy will rise in price in the last seconds of the auction.

Pac-Mania is also one of my favorite Tengen games, but if I were you, I'd go for a Camerica title if you don't already have one. IMO the Camerica games look better than the Tengen games, plus they are generally more fun ;)

[funksoulfather]

Fantasy Zone is an alright game to kill a few minutes. One of the bosses is near impossible for me to beat, the one that moves around in circles.

[jboypacman]

my picks would be.....
pac-man
ms.pac-man
pac-mania
and if you want any non pac related titles i would say tetris and rolling thunder.

[InsaneDavid]

Edited.

[aaron7]

x_x

[InsaneDavid]

hmm all that did was make it bold and more prevalent... LOL

If you are worried about readability... just skip past my post :eek 2:


(BTW... I don't believe I'm a repeat offender.)

You don't seem to understand, your LONG LINK requires a full half screen of left to right scrolling JUST TO READ everyone else's posts. :roll: You're not a repeat offender but you're not a new user either.

[aaron7]

x_x

[c0ldb33r]

I think he's more concerned about how now there's horizontal scrolling involved.

Just do this:


[url=http://www.link.com]link[/url]

It is pretty annoying having this big ass link up there, it weirds out the rest of the thread.

[InsaneDavid]

...? huh? Maybe I'm special... but it isn't doing that to me.

What do you have, 800x600 resolution?

1024 x 768 = majority resolution, please just quit trying to play flame war and fix your link.

LEFT BRACKET, URL=yourlink, RIGHT BRACKET, Display text, LEFT BARCKET, SLASH, URL, RIGHT BRACKET.

Read this thread (http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=79717) for further assistance.

[aaron7]

Edited since there seems to be a cease fire.

[InsaneDavid]

Pac-Mania is also one of my favorite Tengen games, but if I were you, I'd go for a Camerica title if you don't already have one. IMO the Camerica games look better than the Tengen games, plus they are generally more fun ;)

Some of the Camerica games are okay but the only one I ever really cared for was Micro Machines. Also since Tengen cartridges use a reverse engineered clone of the 10NES lockout chip (Tengen's "rabbit" chip), they don't have the loading problems other unlicensed games are subject to.

As for Pac-Mania, it's not a bad game it's just a shell of the arcade original where as the Tengen version of Ms. Pac-Man has about five times the gameplay of the arcade original (the licensed version is laughable). Pac-Mania is hard to come by because no one was really banging down the doors for a copy when it was released so I'd assume that very few copies were manufactured. Tetris on the other hand is hard to come by because it was pulled from sale not all that long after the release. I still think the price for a loose copy of Tetris is crazy, it's not that hard to come across. The constant rotation of cartridges on eBay is proof of that.

Personally I hate Shinobi but it's a game I never liked in the arcade anyway so I'm biased there and took a step back in my article to try to remain objective. However Skull & Crossbones is HORRIBLE and has not one redeeming value. It's nothing like the swashbuckling hack and slash / beat 'em up that the very nice arcade original was.

aaron7, thank you for removing your link but a fix would have worked just as well. Speaking up about an eyesore on a thread isn't annyoing, having to scroll back and forth to read each line like a typewriter is. Thank you just the same.

[Bratwurst]

...? huh? Maybe I'm special... but it isn't doing that to me.

What do you have, 800x600 resolution?

I'm 1280 by 1024 and the url was stretching the forum out for me.

[aaron7]

Wow, you're REALLY special... because it isn't even there anymore!!!

[jcheatle]

Just to add my $0.02, I'd have to agree with most everybody on the Tengen choices thus far. Ms. Pac Man is by far my favorite, as the various play modes (tiny / huge / standard size boards as well as "strange" boards which are really fun) add a lot to the game. I also dig the "Pac Booster" that's included even if it bastardizes the original a little. :)

Other than Ms. Pac Man, though, I haven't played much Pac-Mania except on emulators and I never got into any console ports of Pac Man. Tetris is pretty fun, though I personaly prefer Nintendo's version. Klax is alright, but I'm spoiled since my friend has the arcade cab in his house.

Super Sprint's decent, and RBI Baseball 3 is head and shoulders above the other two in the series, but that's about it for me. Comparing them to Camerica, I'd say Camerica's maybe look a little better (being primarily released later on in the system's life) but as far as better... meh.

I only really play Ms. Pac Man from the Tengen library (though that may change since I found a copy of Tetris about a month ago for 6 dollars :D) and I also only play Micro Machines from the Camerica library, making it 1-1.

[Speedy_NES]

Pac-Mania is also one of my favorite Tengen games, but if I were you, I'd go for a Camerica title if you don't already have one. IMO the Camerica games look better than the Tengen games, plus they are generally more fun ;)

Some of the Camerica games are okay but the only one I ever really cared for was Micro Machines. Also since Tengen cartridges use a reverse engineered clone of the 10NES lockout chip (Tengen's "rabbit" chip), they don't have the loading problems other unlicensed games are subject to.
I've never noticed much of a loading problem with any NES game, but I don't really pay much attention to it ;)

Micro Machines is definitely a nice title...Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy is nice as well, but for me it's partly nostalgia since I used to play the Amiga version a lot back in the day (Treasure Island Dizzy). One of the main reasons why I prefer Camerica games over the other unlicensed games is because they are generally fun to play, and have some of the best graphics and sound effects/music, in my opinion.

[Moo Cow]

19 games? holy f*ck, you've got a way to go x_x .

Anyways, Most of the best Tengen games I have are, sadly, rare and/or expensive. Yep, you'll have to pony-up to the plate to enjoy games like Ms. Pac-Man [going price-$13], Klax [going price-$12], or Tetris [going price-$41]. I'll try not to bore you with tips on how to find these games (and how I got one of them for $5 ;)), but I can tell you that they're some other cheaper games that are more enjoyable (Rolling Thunder is a good one, for example.)

all I can say about bad Tengen titles is that you should STAY AWAY from Shinobi!!! Horrible port, impossible bosses; heck, most of the time there is'nt even a background! The ending won't win any awards, neither

you can bore me with the details on how you got one for five bucks.

[DigitalSpace]

Now that's my specialty. :D I've reviewed every NES Tengen game (with the exception of Gauntlet which will be in the June issue, and Fantasy Zone which is done and will be in May's issue) in comparison to their arcade counterparts over at Retrogaming Times Monthly (http://my.stratos.net/~hewston95/RTM/RTM_Home.htm). Look for my "Titles of Tengen" column in the current issue and RTM previous issues, issues 07~15, 17~23+ will have one. I was omitted from issue 16 due to an e-mail problem. I encourage you to read all my Titles of Tengen columns (and all of RTM while you're at it).

I've heard of RTM before but I never got around to checking out the site. Man, was I missing out or what? Also, I'm enjoying your column, I'll be looking forward to reading about Gauntlet and Fantasy Zone. Thanks, and great work!



19 games? holy f*ck, you've got a way to go x_x .

Heh, I guess it depends on if he's going for a complete collection. I have about 35 NES carts, just the games I like to play.

I've only had an NES since late November, but I've had a decent start. I'm not going for everything, but eventually, I'd like to acquire a good number of must-own titles.


I'd go for a Camerica title if you don't already have one. IMO the Camerica games look better than the Tengen games, plus they are generally more fun ;)

I do plan on owning some Camerica stuff eventually - I'd like to own Micro Machines and Bee 52 someday.

Thanks for the responses everyone, keep them coming!

[The Manimal]

RBI Baseball 3 (along with Baseball Stars) are the two best baseball games on the NES. :)

[DigitalSpace]

I figured I should post an update here. I now have a few Tengens in my collection (and currently own 165 NES carts overall). Here's what I have (all cart only):

-Fantasy Zone (my first Tengen cart - I never noticed how similar Tengen NES carts looked to Atari 5200 carts until I saw this one hidden next to some at the store I got it at. LOL )
-Klax
-R.B.I. Baseball (I'm not really interested in video game baseball, but it was 50 cents, so I figured what the hell)
-Rolling Thunder (man, it was nice to cross this one off the want list. :) )
-Super Sprint

Among the stuff I don't own, I'm mostly interested in Alien Syndrome and Road Runner, though there's some other stuff I wouldn't pass up on the cheap. And if I ever get the chance to get Tengen Tetris...

[Barbarianoutkast85]

My favorite Tengen titles are: Tengen Tetris; Klax; Toobin'; Shinobi; Ms Pac-man; and Pac-man. I hope this information helps, and that you dont already own the Tengen games I mentioned.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Tengen Tetris to some is a holy grail of NES collecting. One of my first jobs as a "kid" was working at a mom-and-pop video store and I SWEAR that had an ORIGINAL NINTENDO-LICENCED (prior to Nintendo pulling the licence from Tengen for themselves) version with the standard NES cartridge shell ... and while I can't for the life of me find a picture of this version of the game online, my steel-trap-memory keeps telling me that they had one ... can anybody verify that the Tengen Tetris did exist for a VERY SHORT TIME in a grey NES shell?

Rolling Thunder, as many have stated is also a great port of the arcade version (if you don't mind the main characters legs looking a bit stick-ly) the gameplay is all there and it's pretty much jump-for-jump, duck-for-duck, door-for-door perfect.

I'll also second a vote for Klax as being a great arcade port, and a very under-appreciated 90's puzzler.

[shopkins]

My favorite Tengen game is Gauntlet. I worked on that for days until I finally beat it with the elf, then went back and beat it with the wizard. I didn't like the two warrior types.

I had Alien Syndrome as a kid. I got it for Christsmas and after getting over a little initial disappointment, I learned to like it. I had never played the arcade game so I had no basis for comparison as to how good a port it was.

[diskoboy]

Unless I'm blind - No one's mentioned Rampart. Or was this on the 16-bit consoles???

I love Rampart. One of the best aciton/puzzle hybrids ever made....

And I will also agree with everyone who voted for Klax.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

Unless I'm blind - No one's mentioned Rampart. Or was this on the 16-bit consoles???

I love Rampart. One of the best aciton/puzzle hybrids ever made....

And I will also agree with everyone who voted for Klax.

Rampart is one of my all-time favorites (and it's freaking GREAT online-multiplayer on PS3)

however Jaleco released the NES version (Which is pretty good despite being a bit easier than every other version ... I've actually surrounded the ENTIRE beginner area with castle walls, every bit of green land, it's pretty funny ... and totally impossible on any other version. I should do that again and take a picture sometime).

[Blitzwing256]

Tengen Tetris to some is a holy grail of NES collecting. One of my first jobs as a "kid" was working at a mom-and-pop video store and I SWEAR that had an ORIGINAL NINTENDO-LICENCED (prior to Nintendo pulling the licence from Tengen for themselves) version with the standard NES cartridge shell ... and while I can't for the life of me find a picture of this version of the game online, my steel-trap-memory keeps telling me that they had one ... can anybody verify that the Tengen Tetris did exist for a VERY SHORT TIME in a grey NES shell?

Rolling Thunder, as many have stated is also a great port of the arcade version (if you don't mind the main characters legs looking a bit stick-ly) the gameplay is all there and it's pretty much jump-for-jump, duck-for-duck, door-for-door perfect.

I'll also second a vote for Klax as being a great arcade port, and a very under-appreciated 90's puzzler.

The only grey cartridge version of tengen tetris that exists is a prototype of it.
nintendo produced the cartrdiges in house so theres no way copies of grey tetris could have made it out since the game never made it through licenecing from them.

[boatofcar]

I really like Pac Mania.

[InsaneDavid]

can anybody verify that the Tengen Tetris did exist for a VERY SHORT TIME in a grey NES shell?

No. Tengen only released three games that were officially licensed by Nintendo and there by were relased in the standard grey shell: Pac-Man, RBI Baseball, and Gauntlet. This was in 1988, their version of Tetris wasn't ready until 1989. Of course Pac-Man, RBI Baseball and Gauntlet were all later released in black unlicensed cartridges after Tengen built a clone of the 10NES security chip - the Rabbit chip - and went into producing cartridges themselves.

Then again, I still swear I once played a US release of Little Nemo the Dream Master that had the gorilla smoking a cigar. :)


The only grey cartridge version of tengen tetris that exists is a prototype of it.
nintendo produced the cartrdiges in house so theres no way copies of grey tetris could have made it out since the game never made it through licenecing from them.

I gotta start reading further down before responding to posts. LOL

My "Titles of Tengen" column at Retrogaming Times Monthly will be making a comeback in the November issue as the prototype of Xybots has been drifting around for awhile.

[DigitalSpace]

My "Titles of Tengen" column at Retrogaming Times Monthly will be making a comeback in the November issue as the prototype of Xybots has been drifting around for awhile.

Interesting. I'll be looking forward to it!

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

The only grey cartridge version of tengen tetris that exists is a prototype of it.
nintendo produced the cartrdiges in house so theres no way copies of grey tetris could have made it out since the game never made it through licenecing from them.
Thanks. Must have been a black cart version then (obviously).

[kainemaxwell]

My "Titles of Tengen" column at Retrogaming Times Monthly will be making a comeback in the November issue as the prototype of Xybots has been drifting around for awhile.

Sweet. Since I currently have all the unlicensed Tengen titles I'll have to take a look!

Off the top of my head, the ones I play most are:
Pac-Mania
Ms. Pac-Man
Rolling Thunder
Klax
Tetris

[josekortez]

Call me crazy, but I vote for Alien Syndrome.

[InsaneDavid]

Call me crazy, but I vote for Alien Syndrome.

You're crazy. :) But Alien Syndrome is still far better than Skull & Crossbones.

[Thrillo]

I'm currently making my way through Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It played it quite a bit when I was a kid, but I never had a serious urge to beat it until now. It's a pretty solid game: it has decent graphics with a unique 3Dish view, unobtrusive music straight from the movie, a nice serving of DPCM sound effects, flexible controls once you figure 'em out, and thrilling, open-ended gameplay.

And now that I think about it, it's as close to GTA as we'll ever get on a NES. What other NES game encourages you to explore big open levels, allows you to repeatedly beat up (whip) anyone you see and kill them if you want, enables you to literally hijack vehicles (minecarts) from unsuspecting people and drive or crash them at dangerous speeds, requires you to collect/use plenty of guns and bombs to pass levels and if you so feel like it to use them for random killing sprees, allows you to perform driveby shootings in a vehicle (minecart) for no good reason but fun, lets you perform silly vehicle tricks (ie. jump out of a speeding cart before it crashes into a victim), or just play the game properly? NES fans who like GTA will love this game :evil: .

Now for the bad part: wave 9 almost feels bugged since crossing the gigantic lava pit successfully is literally a matter of luck, and wave 10 was programmed by a sadist. You almost require a map to pass it (which you piece together throughout the game) seeing as how it's a total maze, and you can only see your map once :?. Luckily, modern technology takes care of that; you gotta love digital cameras :) . But even then, it's extremely unforgiving and it is quite easy to get stuck in an area. But don't let it scare you away, there's faqs for it if you feel like giving up.

Oh, and it's available on grey and black carts...you can choose between the professional official feel, or the rebel pirate feel :) .

[InsaneDavid]

I'm currently making my way through Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It played it quite a bit when I was a kid, but I never had a serious urge to beat it until now. It's a pretty solid game: it has decent graphics with a unique 3Dish view, unobtrusive music straight from the movie, a nice serving of DPCM sound effects, flexible controls once you figure 'em out, and thrilling, open-ended gameplay.

And now that I think about it, it's as close to GTA as we'll ever get on a NES. What other NES game encourages you to explore big open levels, allows you to repeatedly beat up (whip) anyone you see and kill them if you want, enables you to literally hijack vehicles (minecarts) from unsuspecting people and drive or crash them at dangerous speeds, requires you to collect/use plenty of guns and bombs to pass levels and if you so feel like it to use them for random killing sprees, allows you to perform driveby shootings in a vehicle (minecart) for no good reason but fun, lets you perform silly vehicle tricks (ie. jump out of a speeding cart before it crashes into a victim), or just play the game properly? NES fans who like GTA will love this game :evil: .

You have to be freaking kidding me. The game is HORRIBLE and even worse when you compare it to the arcade game that it was supposed to be a port of.


Oh, and it's available on grey and black carts...you can choose between the professional official feel, or the rebel pirate feel :) .

The standard grey licensed version was NOT published by Tengen but instead through Mindscape. Same game, yes, but it doesn't count as a licensed Tengen release.

[sav127]

I'm a moderate fan of the Tengen Black carts, as I have about 8 of them.

I like

Super Sprint
Ms. Pac Man
Rbi Baseball 2 (Amazing Game)
Rbi Baseball (great because it has the 86' Mets)
Vindicators

[ubersaurus]

Pac-mania was always my favorite Tengen release. Gauntlet and Klax were pretty awesome too, but Pac-Mania is the one I always go back to first.

[Thrillo]

You have to be freaking kidding me. The game is HORRIBLE and even worse when you compare it to the arcade game that it was supposed to be a port of.

The standard grey licensed version was NOT published by Tengen but instead through Mindscape. Same game, yes, but it doesn't count as a licensed Tengen release.
I don't see how the game is horrible: I'll admit that some parts of it are simplistic, and that it doesn't pull off wonders with the hardware, but the gameplay is good in my eyes. As for being a poor port, well, IIRC the arcade game had odd diagonal viewing angles, which is always a pain to pull off on '80s consoles. They had to adapt to hardware limitations, and I feel that Tengen did it well. I say it's a much better choice than simply recreating it as a generic sidescrolling platformer, which so many TV and movie licensed games were like in those days.

I forgot that the grey cart was published by Mindscape. The title screen indicates that it was developed by Tengen, so I count it as a Tengen game. And you can still play the game on either a grey cart or a black cart...