Galaxian had a direct impact on the design goals of the Famicom, so in a way Namco helped to sire one of the most important video game consoles. Many of the older games on this list were the first in-house ports developed by Namco.
The closest to a truly arcade accurate port on the Famicom, owing in no small part to the age and simplicity of the game. It's a more aggressive Space Invaders, plays and sounds wonderful.
Because nothing can be simple, this is specifically for the Tengen-developed 1990 release of Ms. Pac-Man. Two-player support, great sound, full arcade attract screen, faithful recreations of mazes with the best scrolling implementation of almost any Pac-Man iteration, and the added novelty of those stupid Tengen cartridges. Put the 1993 Namco port below Dig Dug.
A fine port, diverges in terms of sound and color from the arcade original and introduces the vertical column for scores and the like also present in Galaga. Good enough to receive four separate releases over nine years, which is fucking wild.
There is reason to believe Xevious was Namco's best selling Famicom game without the words "Family Stadium" in the title, and it certainly earns it stripes. The first vertical shmup on the system, Famicom Xevious retains a great deal of the arcade experience.
Not bad at all. Uses a similar vertical column to track score and other information ala Famicom Pac-Man. My complaints mostly come down to the difference in sound quality between this and the arcade original, which had an almost organ-like quality. Still good enough for the NES Classic Mini.
There are bigger, deeper games below this one but I have to put Dig Dug II this high for being a really great conversion all around. It's colorful, hews very closely to the arcade original, plays like a champ.
The previous internally developed Famicom games by Namco were Warpman and Battle City. This is such a quantum leap in scale over both of those titles, it's wild. It's a space combat sim with a starfield map, an attempt to simulate six degrees of freedom flight, all done on a 40 kilobyte cartridge with zero expansion chips or mappers. For ambition alone it must rank highly; as it happens the game holds up alright as well. Very import friendly.
As cryptic as it ever was, but it ranks this high for improving on the arcade original by adding a continue function (likely a first for the FC/NES) and increasing Gilgamesh's default speed. It's also massive by the standards of the day.
The biggest change here is the loss of one of six floors from the arcade original. Still solidly in good territory here, this is a fine conversion overall.
Not a Namco arcade title, and not developed by Namco (or Data East!) but published by Namco in Japan. Sakata SAS upped the amount of enemy hot dogs on the boards which makes this harder than you'd like, but otherwise they did a great job converting one of Data East's best games to the platform. Their first game as well!
Less abrasive music than the arcade original, plus the addition of an actual jump button (versus jamming up on the joystick) and a discrete inventory management system make this the definitive version of Dragon Buster. Still has one of the worst swords you ever did see though!
Famicom only until the Virtual Console releases of this port over twenty years later, this was certainly the best home conversion of Dig Dug. Strange choice to go with a black sky instead of a blue one, and the colors are a little muddy due to the Famicom's color space.
Of a kindred spirit with Warpman, released in the same mid-1985 crease as a retread of what was even at the time an old ass arcade game. This one at least manages to be clear, legible, and easy to understand. Shoot other tanks, protect your flag. Has a level builder mode to add some replayability.
For a game that ran on the Namco Pac-Land hardware (like Dragon Buster) this is surprisingly good. The game itself remains mediocre, to be clear, but the worst thing going here is a less colorful palette. All 32 levels included.
A gentle remake of a 1981 arcade shooter with a little added color and a few new enemy types. The "warp" component of the game, moving between Nintendo Sheriff and Bomberman-esque game modes, is just confusing and pointless. Not an abominable piece of shit but one of the the weakest "pure" Namco arcade game on the platform.
It's late 1985, and it feels like Namco has already tapped out the Famicom in terms of how well it can handle direct arcade conversions. The delta between the ARC release and this visually is the largest to this point, and it defaults to using A/B to move left and right with the D-Pad to jump. Anything below this is squarely in "bad" territory.
