November 17, 2011 at 01:05Games that squeezed the maximum out of NES (part 3, final)
- Transfer
The end of the translation of the review of the most advanced games for NES.
First part.
The second part of.
In the third version of the gothic action movie Castlevania Konami shoved a very voluminous game and a couple of chips of its own production onto the cartridge. This allowed the game to flaunt beautiful visual effects such as rotating objects and simulating perspectives. The graphics have also been redesigned and can be called its best graphics for NES in general. Background decorations contain many animated tiles that fill the game with a sinister atmosphere. Some game scenes carry insidious surprises: automatic scrolling, incoming water, crumbling bridges and crumbling towers will keep the player awake.
Konami has squeezed the most graphics out of NES, allowing us to enjoy the nuances of mud-stained glass, moss on stones, eerie swamp fog, frightening shadows, decayed trees, and spectacular flashes of light.
Here the game has stepped far ahead compared to Castlevania 2, where the backgrounds often repeated each other. Enemies and bosses look much better than in the previous parts (although, there they were already very good for their time). The animation has become much more beautiful, this time the developers did not manage, as usual, with one or two frames.
The Famicom version (Family Computer - the Japanese version of NES), known as Akumajou Densetsu, used additional audio channels provided by the VRC6 chip. Several other Konami games also use this chip, but Famicom alone can use its sound capabilities.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse online here .
The game looked fabulous and sounded for the time when it saw the light. 16-bit systems then only made their first steps in the gaming market, and the best compliment that Blaster Master can award is that it looked almost like a 16-bit creation. Exploding enemies are very well designed, and the bosses at the end of the levels are like your mammoths. The level of detail in the side-view levels has surpassed any other 8-bit generation game.
Sunsoft developers, like no other, were able to create tile decorations for any NES game. Blaster Master looks like 2 different games in one, thanks to a mixture of levels with a view from the side or from the top.
One gets the feeling that the character is thrown into the world of Megamen, then into the world of Zelda. The music, by the way, is also decent, although Blaster Master is inferior in this respect to many games, at least to the same Megaman.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Blaster Master online here .
SNK is mostly known for its fighting games and Metal Slug. But it is surprising that one of the company's first successes was an RPG for NES, which competed with Zelda in terms of gameplay and technical implementation.
Despite the excellent quality, Crystalis did not gain mass popularity, although today it is considered a cult classic among fans of NES. Already at that early time, SNK mastered the capabilities of the console in full, and created colorful games that are valued not only for their beauty, but also for the exciting gameplay.
The sprites in the game are well detailed, although relatively small according to the laws of the genre. The animation during the adventures is so good that even The Legend of Zelda looks slightly outdated against its background. In general, the visual environment in the game looks more natural than you would expect from a game on NES.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Crystalis online here .
This fun game with a touch of insanity was underestimated by the general public. Like many of the latest NES games, Little Samson boasts eye-catching graphics and fluid animations. The sprites of the characters themselves are not very impressive by themselves, but when the characters move, it becomes clear that the developer first of all worked on the ease of their actions, and not on the photographic quality of the image.
But the background scenery is colorful and detailed. This more than compensates for not too refined character sprites.
Taito controls the frame rate and the speed of updating sprites, which is very important for some battered shootouts.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Little Samson onlinehere .
Prince of Persia was a revolutionary game when it was released for Apple II in 1989, but its realistic graphics remained a technical phenomenon during the release of its port for NES. The transferred game looks very similar to the original, but on some locations scrolling is used, since they do not fit the entire screen. Nevertheless, trembling takes from the sight of this classic, which works perfectly for the old NES.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Prince of Persia online here .
The action of the most advanced racing game on NES takes place, oddly enough, not on the roadway, but in the snow. Slalom is another early game for NES that expanded the minds of players and developers. It was released in 1987, and became the first Rare game published for NES. This was the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration.
The main key to successful gameplay in the game was its snowy scenery. By simply placing moving white stripes in the gray area of the roadsides, Rare programmers achieved incredibly natural and fast-paced gameplay.
Add the bumps of the slope, flagpoles, snowmen, some sleigh guys and the endless breakthrough of other slalomists here, and we get quite tense rides at the exit. Although the game used approximately the same development methods as in other pseudo-3d races of that day, almost nowhere else was there such a sense of speed as in Slalom.
It was also the first NES game to use split screen for two-player play, which in itself was a big step forward.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Slalom online here .
Looking at the 3-D World Runner gameplay, Sega Megardrive / Genesis fans will note its similarity to Space Harrier. The graphic style and technique are very similar, but here the player is not allowed to fly - you can only run. Nevertheless, the effects of pseudo-3D are excellent, given that they are made on the NES platform, and were developed in 1987.
But the game is especially different. It has a 3d-video mode, which requires the presence of red-blue 3d-glasses. The mode is activated by pressing "SELECT", and this detail allows the game to far outrun all competitors in the genre.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play 3-D World Runner online here .
A year after the release of 3D World Runner, a new game called Cosmic Epsilon raised the bar in the development of games of its genre. With her release, the Space Harrier clone for NES was finally moved from the position of leader of the genre.
I must say that the colors were not as vibrant as in 3D World Runner, as well as the scenery was not worked out in detail. But the game allowed to fly and engage in firefights with enemies, and to do it beautifully and effectively.
To add sparkle, several beautiful animated videos have been added to the game.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Cosmic Epsilon online here .
In 1992, a year has already passed since the release of Super Nintendo, but this did not stop some developers who want to create games for the ever-young NES. Of course, by that time most of them had already sniffed gunpowder in game-making under Nintendo. Many were able to squeeze everything to the last bit to make their games not look dull shame against the backdrop of the latest 16-bit shares.
Moon Crystal is a horizontal scrolling platformer that stands out with its exquisitely smooth animation. Of course, she does not reach the rotoscopic Prince of Persia animation in this regard, but still leaves most of the 8-bit platformers far behind. The game also boasts anime style videos, as if taken from Turbografx-16 games. It’s clear that the animation there is quite simple, but for NES games this was not typical.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Moon Crystal online here .
Released in 1988 (this is in Japan, in 1989 for the United States), the third part of the cult series for several generations led to a rethinking of the limitations of NES. It seems that Nintendo engineers at the design did not even realize that they could create something similar on their console. The game simply gushes both with colors and with a graphic setting and simultaneously sets for platformers, and for all NES games in general, an unprecedented high bar for its depth and scope. The game did not leave indifferent, probably, not a single gamer, so it was stunningly good for the date of its debut. In the USA in 1989, SMB3 even penetrated the script of the film “The Wizard”, and became one of the key elements there.
A great variety of game levels are scattered across eight game worlds, each of which has its own unique theme and style. While all games at that time used only either vertical or horizontal scrolling, the third story about Mario allowed him to fly and jump in any direction, including diagonally.
To once again appreciate how far development for NES has gone by then, keep this in mind: the very first part of Super Mario Bros, for fun, is included in SMB 3 as a built-in mini-game.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Super Mario Bros 3 online here .
This is a rather eccentric game (which is worth at least the introductory video), where the gorilla rides a surf and skate on locations that are not easy for such exercises. The first thing that catches your eye: the game looks like someone was trying to shove Donkey Kong Country into a cartridge for NES (later, Chinese pirates clumsily tried to do it). The developers created a lively and well-animated environment.
The gameplay itself is rather unusual. One involuntarily begs the comparison of Thrilla's Surfari with any of the Tony Hawk versions for Gameboy Advance, only mixed with a traditional platformer. The physics and tricks in the game, of course, are inferior to Tony Hawk, but given the age and the fact that the game is ultimately a platformer, they are good.
For example, depending on the speed and the fall vector of the hero, he can simply fall, or scatter to parts, as after fatality in Mortal Kombat.
During the game, the speed of maneuvering is increasing. At the last levels, NES even starts slightly buggy, but the speed does not suffer.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Thrilla's Surfari online here .
The Solar Jetman gameplay was considered old-school even during the old-school NES, but the graphic part of the game was one of the most advanced efforts of Zippo Games and Rare. The basis of the steepness of this shooter lies in his excellent physics, like his predecessors - Thrust and Gravitar. The player’s ship moves in a vacuum, so in order to stop, you need to apply acceleration in the opposite direction to the movement. Since the ship in addition is constantly affected by the force of gravity, a quiet flight in the game is impossible, you need to carefully maneuver all the time.
Although the physics in Solar Jetman is simply outstanding, character animation is not far behind. The sprite design is relatively simple, but in dynamics they create a realistic illusion of rotation in three dimensions.
Watch the gameplay here.
You can play Solar Jetman online here .
This Konami RPG was released only in Japan. Although the game has not become an example of good gameplay, it is primarily pleasing with its unique sound qualities. Lagrange Point is the only game using Konami's VRC7 sound chip, which produces unusually high quality sound, roughly equivalent to Sega Megadrive / Genesis. Since the game came out at the sunset of the era of 8-bit consoles, and in addition used advanced iron, no one undertook to localize it for Western countries.
Mention should be made of the detailed animated videos accompanying the script for this RPG.
Watch the gameplay here .
Let's face it, the gameplay in this game is poor, but the developers are sorry for the fact that they made it look good (comparable to the arcade original).
Since NES could not produce, as in the original, a full-fledged video, huge sprites were used in an attempt to make such an impression. Although the goal was not completely achieved, the result is still surprisingly good for the 8-bit NES hardware. The jumps look rather baggy, but in general the character moves smoothly and pleases the eye.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Dragon's Lair online here .
First part.
The second part of.
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Release Date: 1990
Technical features:
- A large number of effects of rotation of objects
- Imitation of perspective
- Additional sound channels thanks to Konami sound chip VRC6
What is so special about it:
In the third version of the gothic action movie Castlevania Konami shoved a very voluminous game and a couple of chips of its own production onto the cartridge. This allowed the game to flaunt beautiful visual effects such as rotating objects and simulating perspectives. The graphics have also been redesigned and can be called its best graphics for NES in general. Background decorations contain many animated tiles that fill the game with a sinister atmosphere. Some game scenes carry insidious surprises: automatic scrolling, incoming water, crumbling bridges and crumbling towers will keep the player awake. Konami has squeezed the most graphics out of NES, allowing us to enjoy the nuances of mud-stained glass, moss on stones, eerie swamp fog, frightening shadows, decayed trees, and spectacular flashes of light.
Here the game has stepped far ahead compared to Castlevania 2, where the backgrounds often repeated each other. Enemies and bosses look much better than in the previous parts (although, there they were already very good for their time). The animation has become much more beautiful, this time the developers did not manage, as usual, with one or two frames. The Famicom version (Family Computer - the Japanese version of NES), known as Akumajou Densetsu, used additional audio channels provided by the VRC6 chip. Several other Konami games also use this chip, but Famicom alone can use its sound capabilities.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse online here .
Blaster master
Release year: 1988
Technical features:
- Cute tile background scenery
- Detailed study of explosions and animations
- Big growth bosses
What is so special about it:
The game looked fabulous and sounded for the time when it saw the light. 16-bit systems then only made their first steps in the gaming market, and the best compliment that Blaster Master can award is that it looked almost like a 16-bit creation. Exploding enemies are very well designed, and the bosses at the end of the levels are like your mammoths. The level of detail in the side-view levels has surpassed any other 8-bit generation game. Sunsoft developers, like no other, were able to create tile decorations for any NES game. Blaster Master looks like 2 different games in one, thanks to a mixture of levels with a view from the side or from the top.
One gets the feeling that the character is thrown into the world of Megamen, then into the world of Zelda. The music, by the way, is also decent, although Blaster Master is inferior in this respect to many games, at least to the same Megaman. Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Blaster Master online here .
Crystalis
Release Year: 1990
Technical features:
- Creative approach to working with color
- Detailed scenery
What is so special about it:
SNK is mostly known for its fighting games and Metal Slug. But it is surprising that one of the company's first successes was an RPG for NES, which competed with Zelda in terms of gameplay and technical implementation. Despite the excellent quality, Crystalis did not gain mass popularity, although today it is considered a cult classic among fans of NES. Already at that early time, SNK mastered the capabilities of the console in full, and created colorful games that are valued not only for their beauty, but also for the exciting gameplay.
The sprites in the game are well detailed, although relatively small according to the laws of the genre. The animation during the adventures is so good that even The Legend of Zelda looks slightly outdated against its background. In general, the visual environment in the game looks more natural than you would expect from a game on NES.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Crystalis online here .
Little samson
Release year: 1991
Technical features:
- Smooth character animation
- Strikingly detailed and colorful scenery
What is so special about it:
This fun game with a touch of insanity was underestimated by the general public. Like many of the latest NES games, Little Samson boasts eye-catching graphics and fluid animations. The sprites of the characters themselves are not very impressive by themselves, but when the characters move, it becomes clear that the developer first of all worked on the ease of their actions, and not on the photographic quality of the image. But the background scenery is colorful and detailed. This more than compensates for not too refined character sprites.
Taito controls the frame rate and the speed of updating sprites, which is very important for some battered shootouts.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Little Samson onlinehere .
Prince of persia
Release Year: 1992
Technical features:
- Extra large sprites
- Smooth animation
- Detailed animated backgrounds
What is so special about it:
Prince of Persia was a revolutionary game when it was released for Apple II in 1989, but its realistic graphics remained a technical phenomenon during the release of its port for NES. The transferred game looks very similar to the original, but on some locations scrolling is used, since they do not fit the entire screen. Nevertheless, trembling takes from the sight of this classic, which works perfectly for the old NES. Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Prince of Persia online here .
Slalom
Release Year: 1987
Technical features:
- The first game for NES, allowing you to play together on a split screen.
- Amazing sense of speed
- Very smooth animation
- One of the first attempts to imitate 3-D
What is so special about it:
The action of the most advanced racing game on NES takes place, oddly enough, not on the roadway, but in the snow. Slalom is another early game for NES that expanded the minds of players and developers. It was released in 1987, and became the first Rare game published for NES. This was the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration. The main key to successful gameplay in the game was its snowy scenery. By simply placing moving white stripes in the gray area of the roadsides, Rare programmers achieved incredibly natural and fast-paced gameplay.
Add the bumps of the slope, flagpoles, snowmen, some sleigh guys and the endless breakthrough of other slalomists here, and we get quite tense rides at the exit. Although the game used approximately the same development methods as in other pseudo-3d races of that day, almost nowhere else was there such a sense of speed as in Slalom.
It was also the first NES game to use split screen for two-player play, which in itself was a big step forward.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Slalom online here .
3-D World Runner
Release year: 1988
Technical features:
- realistic pseudo 3d
- real 3D video mode (3-d glasses required).
What is so special about it:
Looking at the 3-D World Runner gameplay, Sega Megardrive / Genesis fans will note its similarity to Space Harrier. The graphic style and technique are very similar, but here the player is not allowed to fly - you can only run. Nevertheless, the effects of pseudo-3D are excellent, given that they are made on the NES platform, and were developed in 1987. But the game is especially different. It has a 3d-video mode, which requires the presence of red-blue 3d-glasses. The mode is activated by pressing "SELECT", and this detail allows the game to far outrun all competitors in the genre.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play 3-D World Runner online here .
Cosmic epsilon
Release year: 1989
Technical features:
- replayes the great and terrible Space Harrier (NES version) in his own field.
- pseudo-3d graphics with nice-looking shootout graphics
- smooth animation
- beautiful animated videos
What is so special about it:
A year after the release of 3D World Runner, a new game called Cosmic Epsilon raised the bar in the development of games of its genre. With her release, the Space Harrier clone for NES was finally moved from the position of leader of the genre. I must say that the colors were not as vibrant as in 3D World Runner, as well as the scenery was not worked out in detail. But the game allowed to fly and engage in firefights with enemies, and to do it beautifully and effectively.
To add sparkle, several beautiful animated videos have been added to the game.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Cosmic Epsilon online here .
Moon crystal
Release Year: 1992
Technical features:
- detailed and smooth character animation
- impressive animated style videos
What is so special about it:
In 1992, a year has already passed since the release of Super Nintendo, but this did not stop some developers who want to create games for the ever-young NES. Of course, by that time most of them had already sniffed gunpowder in game-making under Nintendo. Many were able to squeeze everything to the last bit to make their games not look dull shame against the backdrop of the latest 16-bit shares.Moon Crystal is a horizontal scrolling platformer that stands out with its exquisitely smooth animation. Of course, she does not reach the rotoscopic Prince of Persia animation in this regard, but still leaves most of the 8-bit platformers far behind. The game also boasts anime style videos, as if taken from Turbografx-16 games. It’s clear that the animation there is quite simple, but for NES games this was not typical.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Moon Crystal online here .
Super mario bros 3
Release Date: 1988
Technical features:
- powerful palette
- detailed sprites
- diagonal scrolling
What is so special about it:
Released in 1988 (this is in Japan, in 1989 for the United States), the third part of the cult series for several generations led to a rethinking of the limitations of NES. It seems that Nintendo engineers at the design did not even realize that they could create something similar on their console. The game simply gushes both with colors and with a graphic setting and simultaneously sets for platformers, and for all NES games in general, an unprecedented high bar for its depth and scope. The game did not leave indifferent, probably, not a single gamer, so it was stunningly good for the date of its debut. In the USA in 1989, SMB3 even penetrated the script of the film “The Wizard”, and became one of the key elements there.A great variety of game levels are scattered across eight game worlds, each of which has its own unique theme and style. While all games at that time used only either vertical or horizontal scrolling, the third story about Mario allowed him to fly and jump in any direction, including diagonally. To once again appreciate how far development for NES has gone by then, keep this in mind: the very first part of Super Mario Bros, for fun, is included in SMB 3 as a built-in mini-game.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Super Mario Bros 3 online here .
Thrilla's surfari
Release Date: 1992
Technical features:
- realistic physics
- vibrant colors and believable shadows
- fast gameplay with many obstacles without brakes
- exploding monkeys
What is so special about it:
This is a rather eccentric game (which is worth at least the introductory video), where the gorilla rides a surf and skate on locations that are not easy for such exercises. The first thing that catches your eye: the game looks like someone was trying to shove Donkey Kong Country into a cartridge for NES (later, Chinese pirates clumsily tried to do it). The developers created a lively and well-animated environment. The gameplay itself is rather unusual. One involuntarily begs the comparison of Thrilla's Surfari with any of the Tony Hawk versions for Gameboy Advance, only mixed with a traditional platformer. The physics and tricks in the game, of course, are inferior to Tony Hawk, but given the age and the fact that the game is ultimately a platformer, they are good.
For example, depending on the speed and the fall vector of the hero, he can simply fall, or scatter to parts, as after fatality in Mortal Kombat.
During the game, the speed of maneuvering is increasing. At the last levels, NES even starts slightly buggy, but the speed does not suffer.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Thrilla's Surfari online here .
Solar jetman
Release Year: 1990
Technical features:
- very believable physics
- smooth animation
- pseudo 3-d rotation
- detailed study of video inserts
What is so special about it:
The Solar Jetman gameplay was considered old-school even during the old-school NES, but the graphic part of the game was one of the most advanced efforts of Zippo Games and Rare. The basis of the steepness of this shooter lies in his excellent physics, like his predecessors - Thrust and Gravitar. The player’s ship moves in a vacuum, so in order to stop, you need to apply acceleration in the opposite direction to the movement. Since the ship in addition is constantly affected by the force of gravity, a quiet flight in the game is impossible, you need to carefully maneuver all the time. Although the physics in Solar Jetman is simply outstanding, character animation is not far behind. The sprite design is relatively simple, but in dynamics they create a realistic illusion of rotation in three dimensions.
Watch the gameplay here.
You can play Solar Jetman online here .
Lagrange point
Release Date: 1991
Technical features:
- uses Konami's VRC7 sound chip
- sound quality comparable to games for Sega Megadrive / Genesis
- beautiful animated videos
What is so special about it:
This Konami RPG was released only in Japan. Although the game has not become an example of good gameplay, it is primarily pleasing with its unique sound qualities. Lagrange Point is the only game using Konami's VRC7 sound chip, which produces unusually high quality sound, roughly equivalent to Sega Megadrive / Genesis. Since the game came out at the sunset of the era of 8-bit consoles, and in addition used advanced iron, no one undertook to localize it for Western countries. Mention should be made of the detailed animated videos accompanying the script for this RPG.
Watch the gameplay here .
Dragon's lair
Release Date: 1990
Technical features:
- very large sprites
- smooth animation
- detailed animated scenery
What is so special about it:
Let's face it, the gameplay in this game is poor, but the developers are sorry for the fact that they made it look good (comparable to the arcade original). Since NES could not produce, as in the original, a full-fledged video, huge sprites were used in an attempt to make such an impression. Although the goal was not completely achieved, the result is still surprisingly good for the 8-bit NES hardware. The jumps look rather baggy, but in general the character moves smoothly and pleases the eye.
Watch the gameplay here .
You can play Dragon's Lair online here .
