NES Works Gaiden

By patron request, a follow-up to last week's look at Super Mario Bros. in the form of a look at the sequel to Super Mario Bros., more or less. Yume Kōjō Doki Doki Panic is probably the best-known Famicom Disk System release of all time, and all because its relationship to Super Mario Bros. 2 rendered countless American childhoods a lie...

You've seen the NES lineup for 1985, when the console debuted in America. Now compare those sixteen games to the nine contained in this episode, which explores the equivalent launch time frame for the console's Japanese birth as the Family Computer back in 1983. How different were the early days for the console in its two biggest territories?

As a preface to Good Nintentions 1986, here's a look at an early 1986 game thaaaaat never actually came to the U.S. on NES and is therefore ineligible for normal coverage. Yes, it's Konami's The Goonies, the oddly missing link to The Goonies II that Americans only ever saw on PlayChoice-10.

By request of David Morton, a look at a game that wouldn't normally have come up in Good Nintentions: Konami's Bio-Miracle Bokutte Upa. A charming little platformer, the most fascinating thing about it may be the way it deftly combines elements from games that had come before it while also including mechanics and aesthetics of classics that would show up months or even years after its debut. Not bad! Definitely worth tracking down on Wii Virtual Console.