by mento
Hey folks. If you frequent any retro-gaming sites, you'd know that the Famicom - the Japanese equivalent of the NES - turned 30 this week. While its American 30th birthday is a couple years off, it's still an important milestone in this great medium of ours. I don't need to tell you that the NES more or less resurrected the console gaming industry after the big crash of '83, and it all began 30 years ago.
As such, I've been wracking my brain on how to do a proper NES-based list for this red-letter day. I mean, beyond putting 30 items on it. I figured that much out at least. So I've elected to highlight thirty Famicom games that are so obscure that I actually had to add them to the wiki myself, and have included a little bit of history for each of these esoteric little beauties. It's worth remembering that while there were around 700 NES games, there were more than a thousand for the Famicom and nearly 200 more for the Famicom Disk System, so that's almost double the releases all told. A lot of weird shit exists beyond that language barrier.
Final Note: I can't stress enough how great Chrontendo is as a documentary on old Nintendo tapes and the era of gaming surrounding that console. It's why I managed to fill out so many Famicom pages, after all. That might sound vaguely plagiaristic, actually, so I think I'd be better off keeping that quiet. None of you read this paragraph, all right?
Showing 1-10 of 30 items
Start this list off right. Koneko Monogatari is a Famicom Disk System game - which means it was sold on a two-sided disk that would be read by a peripheral that you could buy and attach to the Famicom - that is a rather inoffensive but dull platformer starring a cat. This cat just so happens to be Milo, of Milo and Otis fame. A video game based on that adorable movie. Curiously, you could summon Otis to help you, but he would instantly kill you if you touched him. Best friends forever, my kitten caboose.
Cleopatra no Mahou is an odd cross of an adventure game and a turn-based RPG akin to something like Final Fantasy. In fact, funny I should mention that series of angst and belts, because this was one of the pre-FF Squaresoft projects. That is, back when they were a struggling company of developers that included Uematsu and Sakaguchi, who both worked on this game. The game itself is nothing to write home about, but it's a neat "before they were famous" curio.
You might recognize several items on this list from the Japanese TV show GameCenter CX, busily being translated into English by talented subbers the 'net over. Paris-Dakar is a remarkable game for how absurdly weird it all is. It actually begins like an adventure game where you have to figure out how to get a rally car and be sponsored for the race, and every subsequent stage is different. Track that episode down - it's a good one.
Talking of weirdness, this banal space shooter was actually funded by the Japanese equivalent of the IRS and given away to schoolchildren. Every so often it pauses the action to give you multiple-choice trivia questions which may or may not have anything to do with the Japanese economy. Your final score is calculated on an accounts report sheet. So odd.
Shadow Land (or Youkai Douchuuki) is a side-scrolling platformer we in the west only saw in the Arcades. In Japan, it was available for a few home consoles and was a bit grittier besides. Vaguely similar to the eccentric Monster Party, it features a young boy that is trapped in Hell and fighting to get out. It's another game that was featured on GameCenter CX and has some of the grimmest endings you'll ever see in a kiddie game.
A sentient tomato with a pair of sneakers which he uses to move and attack. Not even the weirdest part. The weirdest part is that you control these feet independently and need to simulate walking with the gamepad in order to get anywhere. So a bit like QWOP, then, only with a sentient tomato.
Super Monkey Daibouken is so infamous I was surprised we didn't already have a page for it. Often lauded (if that's the right word) as the absolute worst Famicom game of all time, it had a legendary run on GameCenter CX as part of a recurring feature where Arino rang up regular Japanese citizens to help him make sense of the game. They were rarely any help whatsoever.
Another GCCX episode and an early Konami game. It's based on a manga by Osamu Tezuka, the "godfather of manga" and creator of Astro Boy. It's actually not too bad, either, if a bit easy and convoluted at times. The way your character could build little bridges with blocks made it kind of interesting.
Just throwing another odd duck in here for color. Hikari Genji was a Japanese boy band who often used roller skates as part of their act. One or more of them were also probably molested by their manager, who got embroiled in a scandal similar in scope and nature to that of the UK's Jimmy Saville. It's one of those wish fulfillment dating games like No*Ri*Ko and several other idol-starring adventures. You score a date by bringing them back their roller skates. I dunno, after a while this all starts to sound normal to me.
This is an adventure game which is basically impossible to play without knowing Japanese, since you're challenged by your tutor with trivia questions whenever you try to leave an area. I mention it because it appeared in that Mailbag where Ryan got all those Famicom games, and paused briefly to discuss this mysterious "girl and her dog" cart (full disclosure: That's not a girl, but rather Little Lord Fauntleroy. This is in fact a game based on a serial anime based on that 1885 book by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Yep.)
