Tag Archives: Nintendo Entertainment System

Paperboy, NES/Famicom

The Nintendo Entertainment System port of Paperboy was developed by Tengen and published by Mindscape in 1988. And it is not a bad conversion, all told. That said: it’s nothing special either. It’s certainly not as good as the excellent Master System version, which was its main competitor in its generation.

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Maniac Mansion, NES/Famicom

The NES/Famicom version of Maniac Mansion was developed and published by Jaleco in 1990 and is still worth playing today. It’s a fine port of a great game and translates well enough to Nintendo‘s machine that it arguably plays even better than the C64 original (although many will cry “Sacrilege!” to that).

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Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, NES/Famicom

Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! was developed by Nintendo R&D3 and was first published by Nintendo in 1987. It is considered by many to be one of the greatest boxing video games ever made, with well-animated cartoon-style characters and an intuitive and responsive control system.

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Kid Icarus, NES/Famicom

Developed by Nintendo R&D1 (with assistance from Tose Co. Ltd.), and first released for the Famicom Disk System by Nintendo in 1986, Kid Icarus is a cult classic scrolling platform game that is known for its high level of difficulty. The original Japanese title for the game is “Hikari Shinwa: Palthena no Kagami“. An NES cartridge version, with a different ending, an English language title screen and staff credits, was released in 1987.

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Dropzone, NES/Famicom

Archer MacLean‘s classic side-scrolling shooter, Dropzone, was converted to the NES/Famicom by Eurocom Developments and it is an excellent adaptation of this fast-moving Defender derivative.

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R.C. Pro-Am II, NES/Famicom

This 1992 sequel to R.C. Pro-Am was once again developed by Rare, but this time was published by Tradewest (not Nintendo), and is pretty much the same kind of game as before: a scrolling isometric racing game featuring small, remote-controlled cars.

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R.C. Pro-Am, NES/Famicom

Rare‘s R.C. Pro-Am is a classic isometric racing game that was published by Nintendo on the NES in North America and Europe in 1988.

In it you race remote controlled cars around tracks in order to win points and stay in the championship. If you drop too low in the rankings then you are eliminated from the game and must start again.

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Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu, NES

The Famicom/NES version of Jackie Chan’s Action Kung Fu was developed by Now Production (who made Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti and Splatterhouse 3, among others) and was published by Hudson Soft in 1990. It’s a side-scrolling beat ’em up with platforming elements based around the famous movie actor Jackie Chan.

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Dragon Warrior IV, NES

Dragon Warrior IV is the localised American version of Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen. It’s an RPG, developed by Chunsoft and initially published by Enix in 1990 in Japan (and 1992 in North America).

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Snake’s Revenge, NES

Snake’s Revenge is a sequel to Metal Gear that was developed specifically for the North American and European NES markets by Konami and Ultra Games. It first came out in North America in 1990, and in Europe in 1992. Why there was a two-year gap between those releases is anyone’s guess.

Hideo Koijima wasn’t involved in the making of Snake’s Revenge and it is considered ‘non-canonical’, but he did make Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake for the MSX in response to it. I’m guessing that he wasn’t particularly enamoured with the idea of another team working on his signature series, but ultimately he (rather diplomatically) says that Snake’s Revenge is “not a bad game“.

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