Tag Archives: early

The Legend of Zelda, NES

1986 saw the release of the original The Legend of Zelda on the NES, although it wasn’t on cartridge – it was on floppy disk. Specifically: for the Nintendo Famicom Disk System (FDS).

A cartridge version, with battery backup-up saves, was released in North America in 1987.

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Dragon Warrior, NES

Developed by Chunsoft and released for the Famicom by Enix in 1986, Dragon Quest was a landmark moment in video game history.

Dragon Warrior is the American NES release of Dragon Quest, translated into English and tweaked here and there (I say “tweaked here and there” but the US version had battery back-up saves and the Japanese version used password saves, so there was a big difference there), and released by Nintendo in 1989. These grabs are from the later North American English language release.

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Excitebike, NES

Nintendo‘s fun motocross racing game on the NES, Excitebike, was designed by legendary Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto.

Excitebike was a launch title for both the Japanese and American release of the Nintendo Entertainment System video game console, in 1984 and 1985 respectively.

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Penetrator, ZX Spectrum

Penetrator is a side-scrolling shooter, developed by Philip Mitchell and Veronika Megler (as Beam Software) and published by Melbourne House in 1982.

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Black Crystal, Commodore 64

Black Crystal is infamous for being an overpriced and under-produced RPG from the early days of home computing.

This Commodore 64 version plays pretty much the same as the ZX81 and ZX Spectrum versions, in that: it’s absolutely awful and will have you both tearing your hair out in minutes, and also wondering who on earth would make such a game…

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Black Crystal, ZX Spectrum

Black Crystal is infamous for being an overpriced and under-produced RPG from the early days of home computing.

The first version of Black Crystal was the ZX81 version, which was designed and programmed by Roy Carnell and Stuart Galloway and released in 1982. A ZX Spectrum version followed in 1983, then a Commodore 64 version later in 1985.

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