Games squeezed out of NES maximum (part 1)

Original author: racketboy
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You recall the games that you flirted with on NES (popularly known as “Dendy”), and you wonder how much, compared to modern times, the game library of those times was simple and even primitive. However, if you delve into the archives of the cartridges well, you can find surprisingly many games with excellent graphics and outstanding sound that you never expect to see on such a weak console.

NES, like its many clones, has been popular in the world for a decade, so igrodely had the opportunity to pump skills in the development for it, and squeeze the maximum out of the old woman, up to the last miserable bit. Below is an overview of the most sophisticated and technically advanced games for NES, made by a respected racketboy.

This is the first part of the translation, continued hereending here .



Kirby's Adventure

Kirby's Adventure


Release year: 1993

Technical features:

  1. Excellent color work.
  2. Eye-pleasing flowing animation.
  3. The largest (in terms of data volume) licensed game for NES. A 6 megabit cartridge is used.

What is so special about it:

"Kirby" of those games that were born in the era of the rising popularity of 16-bit SNES - the heiress of the fame of the Nintendo Entertainment System. Many fans have already started collecting cartridges for SNES, and no one would have paid attention to Kirby if it had not been done at the highest level. Kirby's Adventure is a humorous and addictive game that looks like one of the early 16-bit games, but with a stripped down color palette. This makes her similar to Super Mario Bros 3, but Kirby has an advantage over Mario 3 in the amount of ROM-memory on the cartridge (which makes itself felt).



Kirby's Adventure
The developers, apparently, knew that the last super hit for NES should come out of their hands, so they polished it to a mirror shine. The graphics are such that it casts doubt on the 8-bit platform. The painstaking work done by the authors is akin to shoeing a flea in an effort to do incredible things to the limit.
Kirby, the protagonist of the game, is an energetic pink smesharik, his adventures take place in richly colored worlds. The richness of colors is not achieved by imitating a 16-bit palette. The developers just tried to make 8-bit graphics as beautiful as possible. Deep elaboration of the details allowed making the movements of the characters surprisingly smooth.

Kirby's AdventurePerhaps the biggest strength of the game is the background graphics. Compared to many other NES games, the scenery at Kirby really excels . For example, at one of the levels, the action takes place in the forest, but at the same time, the ocean laps somewhere in the distance. In some scenes, in addition, there is a nifty parallax background scrolling. Particularly worth mentioning are short humorous scenes about the exploits of Kirby, which are played before each level.
All of these items, stacked together, leave an excellent impression of the game.



Video gameplay can be seen here .
You can play Kirby's Adventure online here (Java required).


Battletoads

Battletoads


Release year: 1991

Technical features:

  1. Large sprites with impressive animations
  2. Scrolling and rotating background in pseudo-3d
  3. A large number of different levels
  4. Creative approach to the graphic component of the game.

What is so special about it:

BattletoadsThis advanced scuffle from Rare was and remains one of the most fun games on NES. A vigorous mix of ninja turtle burnout with Double Dragon-style gameplay, BattleToads has brought a number of fresh finds. Recall at least vertical scrolling levels where cylindrical background objects move in pseudo-3d. Rides on flying motorcycles plunge into the gloom of inexperienced players, and experienced cause adrenaline intoxication. By the way, not least because of these races, BattleToads is considered almost the most difficult game on NES.
The originality of each of the 12 levels makes one doubt whether the 8-bit game is in front of you. One needs to descend into the abyss on a rope, then accelerate to the speed of light on a flying motorcycle, then climb up the backs of rapidly crawling snakes,Battletoadssuddenly appearing and disappearing into the apertures of the walls, then climb a giant tower that rotates in three dimensions in the direction of travel. This made her one of the best in its weight category.
An important feature is the variety of amusing ways to end your enemies. When a head is hit with a take-off run, metamorphoses occur with fighting toads: either mutton horns will grow, then a helmet for a crushing attack will appear on the head. Sometimes a character can grow a huge fist, or rather to beat the enemy. During the descent into deep holes, the heroes can turn into a lump and work as a ram. To implement each of these effects, cunning graphic tricks are used, which, by and large, have never been used by anyone else.Battletoads
It should be noted that the continuation of this game, Battletoads 'n' Double Dragon, was released 2 years later, in 1993, but, in my opinion, it does not even reach the first series in terms of graphics (perhaps the developers were too busy porting the game on 16-bit platforms) (Brothers! He says heresy! BattleToads 'n' Double Dragon is the best ever game that washed even its 16-bit clones! - approx. per.) .
Video gameplay can be seen here .
You can play Battletoads online here (Java required).



Crysis force

Crisis force


Release year: 1991

Technical features:

  1. An insane amount of moving objects on the screen.
  2. Parallax scrolling in great abundance
  3. Interesting sprite animation effects, including pseudo-3d rotation
  4. Huge bosses
  5. Nice animation of video screensavers


What is so special about it:

Crysis forceSome believe that TurboGraphx-16 is the only 8-bit on which there were really cool shootemups. Such people need to play Crisis Force and repent. This classic shooter is often called Axelay for Dandy, and it lives up to its honorary title. Konami created a game with graphics no worse than that of 16-bit competitors in terms of scrolling backgrounds and large sprites. The first time I saw this game, it shocked me ... I never saw NES able to do such things. Some tricks, such as parallax scrolling, are truly on par with megadrive shooters.

Video gameplay can be seen here .
You can play Crysis Force online here. (Java required).



Recca Summer Carnival '92

Recca Summer Carnival '92


Release Year: 1992

Technical features:

1. Awesomely fast gameplay.
2. Thousands of simultaneously moving objects
3. Smart graphic effects of the background
4. Great sampled sound.

What is so special about it:

Recca Summer Carnival '92This is not a shootemup, but sheer madness. You don’t often come across a game with such a crazy action on the screen. True, only Japanese gamers could enjoy it on real hardware, they were not sold anywhere else.
In general, game sprites are pretty simple, but the backgrounds and bosses look pretty decent. There are levels where the graphics are built on unexpected effects. As a result, you don’t know what explodes the brain more: enemy heavy fire or visual features of levels.
Particularly distinguished sound in the game. The full power of 4-channel sample audio is used, resulting in rarely achieved sound on NES. By the way, the soundtrack in the trance / techno style was very advanced for the beginning of the 90s, and it perfectly suits the gameplay. Recca Summer Carnival '92


Video gameplay can be seen here .
But playing Recca Summer Carnival online is nowhere to be done. At least I don’t know where this magical opportunity is provided. Maybe the public will tell?
UPD :: You can now play online here .



To be continued.

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