{"id":17031,"date":"2017-11-10T00:01:13","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T00:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=17031"},"modified":"2017-10-11T16:56:21","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T16:56:21","slug":"the-games-of-the-famicom-classic-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/10\/the-games-of-the-famicom-classic-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"The Games of the Famicom Classic Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As much as I like Nintendo, they have made quite a few mistakes as a game company.\u00a0 Some are big, like the Virtual Boy and using cartridges on the N64.\u00a0 And some are not quite so big.\u00a0 One of those \u2018not quite so big\u2019 mistakes I feel is how they released the NES Classic Edition last year.\u00a0 For those who don\u2019t know, the NES Classic Edition was a smaller console that looked like the 8-bit NES and had 30 games on it.\u00a0 But Nintendo didn\u2019t make enough and it\u2019s very hard to find.\u00a0 Even I don\u2019t have one!\u00a0 I know Nintendo recently said they would make more and release them next summer, but we\u2019ll just have to see about that.\u00a0 So when I saw where I could order the Famicom Classic Edition online for nearly retail price, I decided to import that instead.\u00a0 The Famicom was the Japanese version of the NES.\u00a0 Their Classic Edition has most of the same games as the NES one, but with a few changes here and there.\u00a0 So in this blog, I\u2019m going go over the Famicom Classic console, the games on it, and at the end I\u2019ll share some good news related to this topic!<\/p>\n

But first, here are some pictures.\u00a0 First is the front of the box.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I took a picture of the side of the box because I thought it was interesting that they had a photo with cartridges in it.\u00a0 I wonder if this confused some Japanese consumers into thinking you could use cartridges for this.\u00a0 Famicom game cartridges were smaller than NES ones and came in lots of different colors, too!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The back of the box shows the artwork for all the games included on the console.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here it is out of the box.\u00a0 Small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So there are three main problems I have with the Famicom Classic Edition.\u00a0 The original Famicom had slots to put your controllers in, and the cords were attached to the console.\u00a0 The Classic Edition is like that, too.\u00a0 So one good thing is that you get two controllers while the NES Classic only had one.\u00a0 But since the Famicom Classic is smaller, so are the controllers!\u00a0 They\u2019re a little hard to hold being so tiny!<\/p>\n

Another problem is simply cosmetic.\u00a0 The second player controller on the original Famicom had a microphone on it.\u00a0 The most famous use of this microphone was in Zelda, where you could defeat the Pols Voice enemies by shouting into the microphone.\u00a0 Well the Famicom Classic has a little grill on the second controller like it\u2019s a microphone, but there is no microphone on that thing at all.\u00a0 It\u2019s just there for decoration.<\/p>\n

The final problem I had was it didn\u2019t come with an outlet plug.\u00a0 It has a USB connector, but no plug.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if most Japanese houses have USB outlets on their wall sockets, but I don\u2019t have any in my house!\u00a0 I was worried about using my USB to plug converter on my phone, but luckily I got something that solves that problem and we\u2019ll talk about it at the end of the blog, since it relates to that piece of good news I was talking to you about earlier.<\/p>\n

You know what I think Nintendo should do?\u00a0\u00a0 They should release a Switch cartridge (or a 3DS one) that has all the NES Classic Edition games on it since the actual console is so hard to get.\u00a0 I think it would still sell well.\u00a0 Heck, I\u2019d even get it just to have these games on a portable system.\u00a0 I know you can say they\u2019d just release these separately on Virtual Console, but since they\u2019re doing those Arcade Archives and Classic Edition consoles, and they haven\u2019t announced a Virtual Console service nearly a year after the Switch\u2019s release, it makes me wonder if they\u2019ll really have a Virtual Console at all.\u00a0 Who knows?\u00a0 Anyway, on to the games!<\/p>\n

Super Mario Bros.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I actually first played this game in the arcade, not on the NES.\u00a0 It\u2019s a pretty good game for the time, but it\u2019s actually not the game that made me want a NES.\u00a0 I just don\u2019t like this game as much as most people think I would.\u00a0 I read that in Japan, they had planned for this to be the last hurrah for the Famicom before they went onto make games for the Disk System.<\/p>\n

Super Mario USA<\/strong><\/p>\n

So we all know the story about how our Mario 2 is not Japan\u2019s Mario 2.\u00a0 I\u2019m actually kind of glad we never got the TRUE Mario 2, as I consider that more of a harder expansion pack than a sequel.\u00a0 I\u2019m a little surprised the Famicom Classic doesn\u2019t have the real Mario 2, but I\u2019m glad it has Mario USA instead.\u00a0 Later on in Japan, they ported our Mario 2 back to Japan under the title Super Mario USA.\u00a0 And it\u2019s pretty much the same game as what we got.\u00a0 I figured they lost the license to the characters who were originally in Doki Doki Panic, what would become our Mario 2, as they were from a TV channel festival in Japan.\u00a0 So that\u2019s probably why that one\u2019s not on this console.<\/p>\n

Super Mario Bros. 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m about to say something that\u2019ll make everyone hate me.\u00a0 I actually like Mario 2 (USA) more than Mario 3.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get me wrong, I still think Mario 3 is a very creative and influential game.\u00a0 I just prefer playing 2.\u00a0 The Japanese version of Mario 3 has a few changes over the US version.\u00a0 Most significantly, when you have a power-up like a raccoon tail or animal suit, in the US you\u2019d go back to Super Mario if you got hit.\u00a0 Well in Japan, you would go back to Small Mario, so the game is significantly harder.<\/p>\n

Mario Bros.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably the only Mario game where he actually does some plumbing, although it\u2019s really more like pest control.\u00a0 It\u2019s an all right game, but it\u2019s been done to death on the Mario Advance titles.<\/p>\n

Donkey Kong<\/strong><\/p>\n

I read somewhere that the Famicom was originally designed to play a near arcade perfect version of Donkey Kong.\u00a0 And yet they still omitted the cement factory level.\u00a0 But then, for 1983, when the Famicom was released in Japan, it\u2019s still a pretty darn good arcade port.<\/p>\n

Ice Climber<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think the only reason why people remember this game is the characters were in Super Smash Bros.\u00a0 The game itself isn\u2019t that good, thanks to clunky jumping controls.\u00a0 Interestingly enough, since this is the Japanese version, the enemies that rebuild the blocks you break are seals, not those snow monster things they changed them to for the US.\u00a0 I guess they felt the US wouldn\u2019t like hitting seals.\u00a0 But you don\u2019t really kill them.\u00a0 When you hit them with your hammer, they just waddle away really fast.<\/p>\n

Excitebike<\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember this game being fairly popular when I was a kid.\u00a0 Although I think I mostly just enjoyed making my own tracks.\u00a0 I played it at friends\u2019 houses and even saw it in arcades a few times.\u00a0 But I never owned it.\u00a0 When my brother Jeff was old enough to enjoy games, he played Excitebike on GameCube Animal Crossing and LOVED it.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of his favorite retro games!<\/p>\n

Balloon Fight<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is pretty much Nintendo\u2019s answer to Joust, except you\u2019re flying on balloons instead of ostriches.\u00a0 I know people say this was one of Satoru Iwata\u2019s early masterpieces, but honestly I don\u2019t remember playing it much and I didn\u2019t know anyone who had it back then.\u00a0 Plus I just like Joust better.\u00a0 Sorry Iwata.<\/p>\n

Dr. Mario<\/strong><\/p>\n

This puzzle game has always been pretty popular.\u00a0 Ever since the NES it\u2019s been ported to nearly every other Nintendo system in some form or fashion.\u00a0 Up until a few years ago, I didn\u2019t know there was an arcade version of Dr. Mario, but once I found out, I saw it everywhere.\u00a0 How did I miss that?\u00a0 Dr. Mario is also one of my mom\u2019s favorite games.<\/p>\n

Kirby\u2019s Adventure<\/strong><\/p>\n

This game is a masterpiece and one of the NES\u2019 crowning achievements.\u00a0 Believe it or not, I didn\u2019t play it when it first came out on the NES.\u00a0 I was too into SNES games and I wasn\u2019t a Kirby fan yet.\u00a0 The game that made me a Kirby fan was actually Kirby\u2019s Dream Course on the SNES.\u00a0 But once I was a Kirby fan, I did go back and play this one when I got the chance.<\/p>\n

NES Open Tournament Golf<\/strong><\/p>\n

I never played this one back in the day, but we did have the older NES Golf game and it was one of the few NES games my dad would play.\u00a0 I asked my dad if he wanted NES Open Tournament Golf for Father\u2019s Day when it came out, but he declined.\u00a0 He was happy playing the old Golf game anyway and the new one was kind of expensive for a kid to buy.\u00a0 Mario wears an American flag themed outfit in this one and it\u2019s also one of his alternate outfits in one of the Super Smash Bros. games.\u00a0 I also read that many of the golf courses in Wii Sports and its sequels were based on these two NES golf games!<\/p>\n

The Legend of Zelda (Disk System)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first Zelda title was the game that made me want a NES, not Super Mario Bros.\u00a0 I was so enthralled with the fact that you could save your game!\u00a0 To this day, the original NES Zelda is probably in my top three favorite Zelda games, right after Link to the Past and Link\u2019s Awakening.\u00a0 In Japan, the game first came out on the Disk System, which was an add-on for the Famicom that let you play disk games where you could enjoy bigger adventures and save your progress.\u00a0 Nintendo put four of those Disk Games on the Famicom Classic Edition, and this is one of them.\u00a0 They even made the emulation have the Disk System startup screen and loading times!\u00a0 The Disk System had one extra channel of sound, so some of these games had different sound effects and instrumentation in the music.\u00a0 I do like the bells they added to the title screen in this version, but other than some different sound effects, I didn\u2019t really notice anything different about it.\u00a0 It is kind of neat to play one of my favorite Zelda games in a different way, though.\u00a0 But since all the menus are in Japanese, I haven\u2019t figured out how to save my games yet.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure it\u2019s easy to do once I figure out how.<\/p>\n

Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (Disk System)<\/strong><\/p>\n

This game has different sound effects and graphics than the version we got in the US, but that\u2019s all I noticed.\u00a0 Sorry fans, but Zelda 2 is probably one of my least favorite Zelda titles.<\/p>\n

Metroid (Disk System)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Instead of passwords like what we got, the Disk System of Metroid has a save file screen like Zelda.\u00a0 And aside from some different sound effects, everything seems to be the same to me.\u00a0 I played the game a few times when my friends would rent it and I\u2019d go over to visit.\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t really get into Metroid games until Super Metroid on the SNES.<\/p>\n

Castlevania (Disk System)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The last Disk System game on here is a third-party game: Castlevania.\u00a0 It has the same save file screen like the others, but aside from loading times, I didn\u2019t notice anything different about this version. In the US, you couldn\u2019t even save your game AT ALL!\u00a0 I never was into Castlevania, but I knew a lot of people who had this game on the NES.\u00a0 It was very popular, and still is to this day.\u00a0 The game has even had two animated series: Captain N and the new adult cartoon on Netflix.\u00a0 I wonder if I would\u2019ve been more into Metroid and Castlevania on the NES if I could save my game like Zelda?<\/p>\n

Rockman 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking of third-party games, I\u2019m glad they put a good number of them on this Classic Edition because back on the NES, I mostly played third-party games over Nintendo\u2019s own.\u00a0 And most of those were from Capcom, especially their Mega Man and Disney games.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I was more excited when Capcom announced The Disney Afternoon Collection than I was when Nintendo announced the NES Classic.\u00a0 And I was way more into Mega Man than Mario.\u00a0 While my favorite is Mega Man 3, I can see why most people like 2 the best.\u00a0 It is pretty darn good.\u00a0 Aside from the title change, not much difference from this and the US version.\u00a0 We got a difficulty selection, but they didn\u2019t.\u00a0 It was always set on \u2018difficult\u2019 for them, but aside from some enemies being tougher and bosses taking more hits, it\u2019s not really that much different.<\/p>\n

Ghosts N Goblins<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another Capcom NES game.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a very good port, though, and I was never that much into the series anyway.\u00a0 One of my friends had it so we did play it quite a bit for a while.<\/p>\n

Gradius<\/strong><\/p>\n

Konami was another king of third-party games in the US.\u00a0 In fact, they made so many games they had to form a second company called Ultra in order to get around Nintendo\u2019s rules about limiting how many games a company can release in a year.\u00a0 I guess Gradius is a pretty good port of the arcade game, but I was more into Life Force as a kid.\u00a0 Too bad we never got Gradius 2 on the NES, that was a pretty impressive 8-bit port!<\/p>\n

Super C<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure why the NES Classic Ediiton has Contra while the Famicom Classic has only its sequel.\u00a0 I do remember both games being pretty popular, though.\u00a0 I played both quite a bit at my friend\u2019s house.\u00a0 They\u2019re tough as nails run and gun games, but still somewhat fun with a friend and the Konami code.\u00a0 Impressive graphics and music, too.<\/p>\n

Yie Ar Kung Fu<\/strong><\/p>\n

This Konami game is exclusive to the Famicom Classic.\u00a0 It was originally in the arcade and was a fighting game.\u00a0 I remember playing it a lot on my Apple ][+.\u00a0 People credit Karate Champ as being one of the first fighting games, but I don\u2019t know why more people don\u2019t mention this one.\u00a0 Some say it\u2019s not a very good game, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s THAT bad.\u00a0 I do really like its sequel, though.\u00a0 It was called Shao-Lin\u2019s Road in Japan and Kicker in the US.\u00a0 It played like a cross between Mappy, Bubble Bobble, and Kung-Fu Master.<\/p>\n

Pac-Man<\/strong><\/p>\n

Namco was one of Nintendo\u2019s big third-party developers on the Famicom at first, but got frustrated with Nintendo\u2019s rules on limiting third-party releases.\u00a0 So that\u2019s why you saw a lot of their later titles on the TG-16 and the Genesis.\u00a0 This really isn\u2019t a very good port of the arcade game, but I guess when it was released on the Famicom in 1984, it was pretty decent.\u00a0 We never got it in the US until 1988 under the Tengen label and later in 1993 under the Namco brand.\u00a0 So by then it was showing its age.<\/p>\n

Galaga<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aside from some missing colors, I guess this is a pretty decent port of the arcade game.\u00a0 Interestingly enough, Galaga was published in the US by Bandai, which would be foretelling since Namco and Bandai have now merged.<\/p>\n

River City Ransom<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is one of the games that\u2019s on the Famicom Classic, but not the NES one.\u00a0 Which is surprising because River City Ransom was pretty popular in the US, if I\u2019m not mistaken.\u00a0 Heck, they even made a reference to it on one of the episodes of the DuckTales reboot.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t play it much on the NES or the GBA remake because of the clunky menus, but Natsume published a reimaging of it on 3DS last year called River City Rumble that was way better.\u00a0 Anyway, did you know that River City Ransom is actually a sequel of sorts to the arcade game Renegade?\u00a0\u00a0 In Japan, this game is not called River City Ransom, but rather Kunio-kun\u2026Nekketsu, something or another.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t feel like remembering such a long name.\u00a0 The makers of this game, Technos, published TONS of games starring Kunio, a high school dude who gets in a lot of fights, but he has a good heart and only fights to protect his friends and school.\u00a0 There have been TONS of Kunio games in Japan and some have even made it to the US.\u00a0 Essentially this one\u2019s a beat \u2018em up with RPG elements.\u00a0 I do like how the characters look, too.<\/p>\n

Crash and the Boys Prequel<\/strong><\/p>\n

No that\u2019s not the name of the game, I just didn\u2019t feel like having to remember another long Japanese title.\u00a0 Anyway, this is another Kunio game from Technos.\u00a0 When Kunio isn\u2019t beating up bad guys, he likes to compete in lots of school sports.\u00a0 Some of the sports games include dodgeball, soccer, hockey, and track and field events.\u00a0 Some of those games even made it to the US, like Super Dodge Ball and World Cup Soccer.\u00a0 One of the track and field games that came to the US was called Crash and the Boys Street Challenge.\u00a0 I thought the game on this collection was that game we got, but it turns out we got the sequel to what\u2019s on this collection.\u00a0 You mostly just run races around urban settings, but you can still smack your competitors around like in River City Ransom.\u00a0 Of all the Kunio sports games they could\u2019ve had, I wish they would\u2019ve put in Super Dodge Ball instead.\u00a0 Up until Wii Sports came along, Super Dodge Ball was my all-time favorite sports video game.<\/p>\n

Double Dragon 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the last game from Technos on here.\u00a0 In a way, it\u2019s also related to the Kunio games because it was Technos\u2019 attempt to make a Kunio style game to appeal to a western audience.\u00a0 And I think they succeeded, don\u2019t you?\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t too big into Double Dragon back then, though.\u00a0 I was more into Final Fight, myself.<\/p>\n

Ninja Gaiden<\/strong><\/p>\n

This game was super popular on the NES.\u00a0 My friends and I rented it and the sequels a few times.\u00a0 This was one of the first games to really implement cut scenes frequently.\u00a0 There was nothing like it at the time so it was really innovative.<\/p>\n

Solomon\u2019s Key<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another game from Tecmo, the same folks who did Ninja Gaiden.\u00a0 Even though this is only on the Famicom Classic and not the NES Classic, it was actually released in the US as well.\u00a0 It\u2019s a puzzle game where you create blocks to climb and block enemies.\u00a0 It\u2019s a super fun game, but also really hard!\u00a0 There was a sequel on the NES much later called Fire N Ice.<\/p>\n

Tsuppari Oozumou<\/strong><\/p>\n

The last game from Tecmo, this one is a Sumo wrestling game.\u00a0 In the US, football is popular so we got Tecmo Bowl on the NES Classic.\u00a0 But in Japan, Sumo is popular so I guess that\u2019s why they got this.\u00a0 It\u2019s all in Japanese so I don\u2019t know what to do, so I just mash buttons a lot.\u00a0 The 8-bit Sumo guys look really funny, like little happy Stay Puft marshmallow men.<\/p>\n

Atlantis no Nazo<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another Japan exclusive title, I think it loosely translates to \u201cMystery of Atlantis.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a 2-D platformer where you play as an explorer and must navigate obstacles, gather treasure, and defeat enemies with your bombs.\u00a0 It\u2019s a super hard \u2018one hit and you die\u2019 kind of game (even your own bombs can kill you), with lots of obtuse secrets.\u00a0 Reminds me of super hard games like Spelunker or Super Pitfall.\u00a0 Actually I\u2019m a little surprised that Spelunker isn\u2019t on here, as it has kind of gained a cult following in Japan.\u00a0 I also read that this game was going to be released in the US under the name Super Pitfall 2.\u00a0 It makes me wonder if the first game was popular enough to warrant a sequel, but since that never happened, I guess it wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 This game was published by SunSoft, by the way.<\/p>\n

Final Fantasy 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

And the final game is Final Fantasy 3.\u00a0 On the NES Classic Edition, we got the first Final Fantasy.\u00a0 We never got 2 and 3 on the NES, because by the time we got the first game, those others had already been released in Japan and they were working on the fourth one!\u00a0 Most of the games on this collection you can play without knowing any Japanese.\u00a0 But this is not one of them!\u00a0 I know we got a remake of FF3 on the DS, but it would be kind of nice to play it in its original format.\u00a0 Yeah, I know, fan translation and blah blah blah, but I like to keep things legal and stuff.<\/p>\n

And those are all the games.\u00a0 It\u2019s a neat console, but I certainly wouldn\u2019t pay a scalper\u2019s price for it.\u00a0 Let me know what you think about all this.\u00a0 Oh yeah, my good news!\u00a0 Even though I didn\u2019t get a NES Classic Edition, I DID manage to get the SNES Classic Edition for my birthday!\u00a0 I\u2019ll be sure to write a blog about that, too, in the coming weeks!\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As much as I like Nintendo, they have made quite a few mistakes as a game company.\u00a0 Some are big, like the Virtual Boy and using cartridges on the N64.\u00a0 And some are not quite so big.\u00a0 One of those \u2018not quite so big\u2019 mistakes I feel is how they released the NES Classic Edition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17031"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17033,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17031\/revisions\/17033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}