It's like in 1986 Nintendo said, "You know that thing Hudson did with the insanely hard sequel to Lode Runner, let's do that with Super Mario Bros. 2: Lost Levels."
A weird bit of esoteric trivia about Championship Lode Runner: Although most of the assets are identical to Hudson's original Lode Runner release on Famicom, the music is actually ever so slightly different. It's not something you would notice right away, but the music is tuned differently in Championship Lode Runner; without getting into the technical weeds, the changes make the music a little more in tune in the key of C major, and all of the music in the game is in C major. The musical tuning used in the original Lode Runner is more or less identical to what Nintendo used in their earliest first-party titles; however, after Hudson made this adjustment to their tuning for a bunch of their 1984/1985, Nintendo would eventually adopt Hudson's tuning for the first time in Super Mario Bros.-the music for which is mostly in the key of C major. I realize most people might not find this especially interesting, but those out there who are musically inclined, it's an curious little factoid.
One way to tell NES Soccer isn't a 100% accurate representation of the sport we call football: In the real deal, there’re no cheerleaders during the half-time break.
So I guess the Famicom version of Space Invaders is the Japanese equivalent of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600? Take a mega-hit arcade game, port it to the most popular console and completely botch it. And funny enough if you want a good home version you switch those platforms - Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 and Pac-Man on the Famicom.
You know, when I had no frame of reference I honestly liked the 2600 Pac-Man. It was the first version i remember playing. Now it's just kinda funny to boot up every so often for that ridiculous "BONK BONK BONK!" noises moving around the maze.
C'mon, it's not THAT bad. Atari Pac-Man contributed significantly to Atari's overall declining reputation in the North American consumer market, if it hadn't actually been the tipping point that started the decline. Space Invaders for Famicom was popular enough to get later reprints with Taito's modern logo on the cartridge. Even the invaders march sound is there, but it's not as cool as other platforms. The issue really is the conversion just could have been better in retrospect, particularly with the graphics. Disappointing maybe, but still very playable.
Nice to see that the SG-1000 came a little ahead on the Space Invaders ports. Looking forward to the look at Championship Lode Runner for SG-1000 soon-ish. And Konami in the next episode is nice.
The weirdest thing about Famicom Space Invaders is that it's not a port of Space Invaders: it's a port of Space Invaders and Space Invaders Part II. The catch is you have to be able to beat eight stages of pretty bad Space Invaders, then a whole new title screen comes up and the game starts over from the first board of Part II. It's one of the strangest things I've encountered on the Famicom...
@@JeremyParish the most i found is that a random company named MSI entratainement used this specific rom for a space invaders plug and play that made everything look as if it was sneezed over while the tint was off balance... it also has the stick on the right side for no reason
@@almightycinder The lack of a He-Man game on NES is understandable. Sales of Masters of the Universe toys dropped precipitously in 1987, around the same time as the NES became established as a success in North America. The original Masters of the Universe toy line ceased production in 1988. North America probably didn't receive a Transformers game for the NES because the Transformers games released for the Famicom in Japan were awful and the property's popularity declined in the US in the late 1980s. The NES did receive two games based on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, as that toy line lasted until 1994.
Your channel is underappreciated but I've noticed your Sub count is growing fast...I like your work and you have a new angle on the tired retro review/history format as well as a high standard for production sir...I predict you almost if not making 100k subs by new year.
It might be that Nintendo are reporting the PAL year for Soccer. The boxes for my Mattel PAL AU copies of Golf, Excitebike and Duck Hunt are all copyright 1987 - unfortunately my Soccer cart doesn't have a date on it. The screenprinting on the circuitboard inside the cart says 1986 though,.
There is one detail about Famicom Space Invaders that is worth mentioning: The Famicom version actually contains Space Invaders AND Space Invaders Part 2. If you play the game past about round 10 then Part 2 kicks in, so you'll shoot an invader only to have it split into two smaller invaders and also the space ship will drop/replace missing invaders as it passes by. This may not be enough to redeem the game to some but for me I find that it makes for a home port of a very simple game and adds in the additional elements necessary to keep things from getting TOO monotonous.
Great video! Just a note- there was a computer game around this same time called Thexter that was very similar contextually- robot mode and flying mode. Curious what was the first. It was quite a bit more complex than this though. I played it on the Apple IIgs.
@@JeremyParish Of course you're already on it- I shoulda known! It's a fantastic game- the music on the Apple IIgs version (from Moonlight Sonata intro to the level music) especially. I'll be looking forward to seeing it! Thanks!
the original jetfire toy was NOT a mold takara ever sold. he (and several other toys from the early years) were licensed to hasbro by bandai, who brought the designs from takatoku after _they_ went under. and of course, screw harmony gold.
Did any game on Famicom successfully navigate the "transformation" gimmick into something interesting? Character swapping for sure (see Little Samson), but I can't think of anything with explicit Transformers-like mechanics that didn't just feel like trudging busywork limiting you from better gameplay.
If you think about the various power-ups in Super Mario Bros. 3 as "transformation," I'd argue yes: there's a huge difference between small Mario and Frog Mario, for example. It's still "Mario," but they behave completely differently. Blaster Master might be another.
The Guardian Legend starred a humanoid female robot that transformed into a spaceship. The player explored top-down labyrinth sections on foot and turned into a spaceship for vertically scrolling shooter sections.
Atari 2600 space invaders was arguably a better port than the Nes IMO...and I vaguely remember it being a pack-in title in one of the many iterations they sold them in...Ataris original gray box units,Sears Telegames,the 50$ mini reworked counsels, (See against the proverbial ropes) IDK it could be my imagination.
Konamis Soccer for MSX 1985 within the limitations of the hardware looks and plays like a conversion of Soccer even down to the same layout of the options screen. I am wondering if it was programmed by the same team. The players on the MSX game look like Mario
I've had the patience to give Space Invaders a try. I was surprised to see that after a few levels it goes into Space Invaders Deluxe levels, complete with inflating aliens and super UFOs. I'm kinda confused as to why the game wasn't titled as such.
That Space Invaders port is shameful. Even the 2600 port seemed better than this. Just goes to show, Tose only produces quality in line with budget and direction.
In short: Cast Harmony Gold into the fires of Mt. Doom. Not only did their meddling do _this,_ but it also had a less than appreciated affect on Battletech and the reputation of anime throughout the 80s and 90s. Carl Macek was the butcher, and even if he wasn't directly responsible; he is now _iconic_ of the complete disdain many early western localization had towards their source material (including Bowdleriseing) to the point of earning a lexicological term: Macekre. Harmony was a prototype for the Fox studio 4Kids, whose c-suites both saw the material as cartoons for dumb children; this reinforced the "idea" that all animation was for children. Sorry, rant over.
@XanthinZarda Back in the day, Robotech was seen as evidence that cartoons could be targeted for a more mature audience. The body count was ridiculous. And there were a lot of other things that made you wonder which censors slept through the approval process. There's no way it would have been approved by 4kids.
Robotech wasn't the first anime series that was heavily edited for North American audiences. Previously, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman was adapted as Battle of the Planets, Space Battleship Yamato became Star Blazers, and Beast King GoLion became the Lion Force episodes of Voltron. Compared to those other shows, Robotech did a relatively good job of preserving the source material's mature subject matter and telling a coherent story, despite being edited together from three unrelated anime series.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 Yeah. It's easy to hate on Robotech today, but at the time, it was pretty groundbreaking. Beyond the deaths and sexuality, it also had some intellectual content - compared to other SatAM shows - with the characters having relatively deep discussions of the impact of warfare, when violence is justified, and soforth. I tend to think it's one of the shows that kicked off the western interest in anime in the first place. (And for all the changes they made, just look at what happened to Sailor Moon a decade later...)
It's like in 1986 Nintendo said, "You know that thing Hudson did with the insanely hard sequel to Lode Runner, let's do that with Super Mario Bros. 2: Lost Levels."
A weird bit of esoteric trivia about Championship Lode Runner:
Although most of the assets are identical to Hudson's original Lode Runner release on Famicom, the music is actually ever so slightly different. It's not something you would notice right away, but the music is tuned differently in Championship Lode Runner; without getting into the technical weeds, the changes make the music a little more in tune in the key of C major, and all of the music in the game is in C major. The musical tuning used in the original Lode Runner is more or less identical to what Nintendo used in their earliest first-party titles; however, after Hudson made this adjustment to their tuning for a bunch of their 1984/1985, Nintendo would eventually adopt Hudson's tuning for the first time in Super Mario Bros.-the music for which is mostly in the key of C major.
I realize most people might not find this especially interesting, but those out there who are musically inclined, it's an curious little factoid.
The "99 in 1" retrospective continues
One way to tell NES Soccer isn't a 100% accurate representation of the sport we call football: In the real deal, there’re no cheerleaders during the half-time break.
I mean sometimes there are, if by cheerleaders, you mean oranges and weird mystery meat pies.
Absolutely true
The savage fans don’t kill refs for blowing calls or goalies for letting one get by.
@@FallicIdol Ah, yes... what would football be without hooligans? Sterile, predictable, and boring as American -rugby- football, that's what.
@@thedeadpoolwhochuckles.6852 Just like any Twitch streamer or RUclipsr 😃
11:09 "My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past" Having a love of vintage games, that hit closer to home than I care to admit.
So I guess the Famicom version of Space Invaders is the Japanese equivalent of Pac-Man for the Atari 2600? Take a mega-hit arcade game, port it to the most popular console and completely botch it. And funny enough if you want a good home version you switch those platforms - Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 and Pac-Man on the Famicom.
You know, when I had no frame of reference I honestly liked the 2600 Pac-Man. It was the first version i remember playing. Now it's just kinda funny to boot up every so often for that ridiculous "BONK BONK BONK!" noises moving around the maze.
C'mon, it's not THAT bad. Atari Pac-Man contributed significantly to Atari's overall declining reputation in the North American consumer market, if it hadn't actually been the tipping point that started the decline. Space Invaders for Famicom was popular enough to get later reprints with Taito's modern logo on the cartridge. Even the invaders march sound is there, but it's not as cool as other platforms. The issue really is the conversion just could have been better in retrospect, particularly with the graphics. Disappointing maybe, but still very playable.
all this chatter about form-changing robots had me wondering when THEXDER arrives, turns out that would be 1985
Nice to see that the SG-1000 came a little ahead on the Space Invaders ports. Looking forward to the look at Championship Lode Runner for SG-1000 soon-ish. And Konami in the next episode is nice.
It's nice to see what Sega did that Ninten-didn't!
Wasn’t expecting Kaizo Loadrunner
The weirdest thing about Famicom Space Invaders is that it's not a port of Space Invaders: it's a port of Space Invaders and Space Invaders Part II. The catch is you have to be able to beat eight stages of pretty bad Space Invaders, then a whole new title screen comes up and the game starts over from the first board of Part II. It's one of the strangest things I've encountered on the Famicom...
Wow, I tapped out at five stages. I didn’t find anything about this in my reading! Because there’s very little about this release in English…
@@JeremyParish the most i found is that a random company named MSI entratainement used this specific rom for a space invaders plug and play that made everything look as if it was sneezed over while the tint was off balance... it also has the stick on the right side for no reason
Sorry, WHAT? I had no clue! But then I've never been any good at Space Invaders.
I was going to do this after watching your video just to see you here nice
We played Lode Runner Editor mode as a two player game much like Mario Maker today.
The robot on the box art for Formation Z sure looks like it's heavily "inspired" by Mospeada's Legioss.
It just gets worse and worse!
Incredible as always, Jeremy!
I wonder if Jaleco's practice of printing the back of the box upside down was called Formation J when printing and affixing the box labels.
Formation FU, I think
You’re the best at what you do
Jetfire is the single greatest toy of all time.
*_And the Invaders marched relentlessly forth._*
You're a real OG if you get that reference.
It is insane to me that there were more Macross Games that were made and not Transformers.
There's a lot of 80's properties that are weirdly absent on the NES. No He-Man, but there's Platoon, because all the kids loved Platoon.
@@almightycinder 🤣 It is like capitalism slipped in side ways when in came to vgs.
@@almightycinder The lack of a He-Man game on NES is understandable. Sales of Masters of the Universe toys dropped precipitously in 1987, around the same time as the NES became established as a success in North America. The original Masters of the Universe toy line ceased production in 1988.
North America probably didn't receive a Transformers game for the NES because the Transformers games released for the Famicom in Japan were awful and the property's popularity declined in the US in the late 1980s.
The NES did receive two games based on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, as that toy line lasted until 1994.
Your channel is underappreciated but I've noticed your Sub count is growing fast...I like your work and you have a new angle on the tired retro review/history format as well as a high standard for production sir...I predict you almost if not making 100k subs by new year.
It might be that Nintendo are reporting the PAL year for Soccer. The boxes for my Mattel PAL AU copies of Golf, Excitebike and Duck Hunt are all copyright 1987 - unfortunately my Soccer cart doesn't have a date on it. The screenprinting on the circuitboard inside the cart says 1986 though,.
There is one detail about Famicom Space Invaders that is worth mentioning: The Famicom version actually contains Space Invaders AND Space Invaders Part 2. If you play the game past about round 10 then Part 2 kicks in, so you'll shoot an invader only to have it split into two smaller invaders and also the space ship will drop/replace missing invaders as it passes by. This may not be enough to redeem the game to some but for me I find that it makes for a home port of a very simple game and adds in the additional elements necessary to keep things from getting TOO monotonous.
This version is super hard, so bless anyone who made it far enough to discover that.
Great vid as always! Sucks to see the Famicom port of Space Invaders was a letdown.
Great video! Just a note- there was a computer game around this same time called Thexter that was very similar contextually- robot mode and flying mode. Curious what was the first. It was quite a bit more complex than this though. I played it on the Apple IIgs.
Thexder will be putting in an appearance here next year!
@@JeremyParish Of course you're already on it- I shoulda known! It's a fantastic game- the music on the Apple IIgs version (from Moonlight Sonata intro to the level music) especially. I'll be looking forward to seeing it! Thanks!
the original jetfire toy was NOT a mold takara ever sold. he (and several other toys from the early years) were licensed to hasbro by bandai, who brought the designs from takatoku after _they_ went under.
and of course, screw harmony gold.
Did any game on Famicom successfully navigate the "transformation" gimmick into something interesting? Character swapping for sure (see Little Samson), but I can't think of anything with explicit Transformers-like mechanics that didn't just feel like trudging busywork limiting you from better gameplay.
If you think about the various power-ups in Super Mario Bros. 3 as "transformation," I'd argue yes: there's a huge difference between small Mario and Frog Mario, for example. It's still "Mario," but they behave completely differently. Blaster Master might be another.
The Guardian Legend starred a humanoid female robot that transformed into a spaceship. The player explored top-down labyrinth sections on foot and turned into a spaceship for vertically scrolling shooter sections.
Oh I remember playing formation Z on one of those cheap famiclones inside a controller shaped like an N64
Championship Lode Runner was the first NES/Famicom game to scroll both horizontally and vertically.
Bungeling Bay was last episode.
@@JeremyParish You're absolutely right, whoops.
Nice! Not quite as flashy as metal gear or Super Mario 3.
Awesome content, as always.
Champ load-runner was just as hard on pc. Mine was an IBM PCjr 128k but with the bad CGA monitor and graphics. We could save our levels to disk.
Fantastic episode!!
Atari 2600 space invaders was arguably a better port than the Nes IMO...and I vaguely remember it being a pack-in title in one of the many iterations they sold them in...Ataris original gray box units,Sears Telegames,the 50$ mini reworked counsels, (See against the proverbial ropes) IDK it could be my imagination.
Konamis Soccer for MSX 1985 within the limitations of the hardware looks and plays like a conversion of Soccer even down to the same layout of the options screen. I am wondering if it was programmed by the same team. The players on the MSX game look like Mario
Probably. Lots of SG-1000 games showed up on MSX.
@@JeremyParish yes many of them were ported. But not many companies copied first party Famicom games and got away with it
I've had the patience to give Space Invaders a try. I was surprised to see that after a few levels it goes into Space Invaders Deluxe levels, complete with inflating aliens and super UFOs. I'm kinda confused as to why the game wasn't titled as such.
No kidding? Huh. I could never get far enough in this version to reach that part.
great video
I dunno, I’d rather play NES Soccer than Fifa 22
I've seen it argued that Robotech is thematically superior to its source animes.
Space invaders still kick ass. 😀👍🎮
Not this version, tho
@@JeremyParish ok thanks for telling me.
I did! In the video!
@@JeremyParish ok it makes sense.
Kick master for nes
If you change you shape, isn't it Deformation Z?
11:57 Why does this Mame version has wrong sound effects?
It’s not MAME, it’s from a MiSTer.
I noticed that as well. That shooting sound effect is horrible.
Seems like Jaleco stole that 'point the nose to aim' mechanic from Sunsoft's Markham, which sucks for them cos that's the only gimmick Markham has. 😄
I was gonna say "Sky Kid" but wow that was a 1985 release in arcade? Seems... older.
Great video as always, but I still miss the Evangelion ending
I don't miss copyright strikes
formation z is one of those many weird famicom games i had, like astro robo sasa (i could never get past level 7 or so)
We had Deceptor on Commodore 64.
Well done?
That Space Invaders port is shameful. Even the 2600 port seemed better than this. Just goes to show, Tose only produces quality in line with budget and direction.
In short: Cast Harmony Gold into the fires of Mt. Doom. Not only did their meddling do _this,_ but it also had a less than appreciated affect on Battletech and the reputation of anime throughout the 80s and 90s. Carl Macek was the butcher, and even if he wasn't directly responsible; he is now _iconic_ of the complete disdain many early western localization had towards their source material (including Bowdleriseing) to the point of earning a lexicological term: Macekre.
Harmony was a prototype for the Fox studio 4Kids, whose c-suites both saw the material as cartoons for dumb children; this reinforced the "idea" that all animation was for children.
Sorry, rant over.
Much anger I sense in you
@XanthinZarda
Back in the day, Robotech was seen as evidence that cartoons could be targeted for a more mature audience.
The body count was ridiculous. And there were a lot of other things that made you wonder which censors slept through the approval process. There's no way it would have been approved by 4kids.
Latent Loathing, not anger, Mr. Parish. Basically for everything good they did, they did something bad to make up for it.
Robotech wasn't the first anime series that was heavily edited for North American audiences. Previously, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman was adapted as Battle of the Planets, Space Battleship Yamato became Star Blazers, and Beast King GoLion became the Lion Force episodes of Voltron. Compared to those other shows, Robotech did a relatively good job of preserving the source material's mature subject matter and telling a coherent story, despite being edited together from three unrelated anime series.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 Yeah. It's easy to hate on Robotech today, but at the time, it was pretty groundbreaking. Beyond the deaths and sexuality, it also had some intellectual content - compared to other SatAM shows - with the characters having relatively deep discussions of the impact of warfare, when violence is justified, and soforth. I tend to think it's one of the shows that kicked off the western interest in anime in the first place.
(And for all the changes they made, just look at what happened to Sailor Moon a decade later...)