NES Works Gaiden

35 years ago this week, Nintendo launched the Disk System expansion for Family Computer—one of the most important (and one of the few successful) console add-ons ever. Boosting the power, capabilities, and storage capacity of the Famicom, the Disk System helped usher in a new generation of console games... and then, console games caught up with the Disk System, rendering it obsolete. Nevertheless, in its brief lifetime, the FDS gave us major franchises like Zelda, Metroid, and Castlevania, while also changing the way players interacted with their television games. This episode pays tribute to the Disk System and its impressive legacy.

We move along to 1984 and the first wave of Famicom releases. All but one of these titles have already put in an appearance on NES Works proper as entries in the 1985 and ’86 Black Box NES launch rollout catalog, so the first half of this episode is simple a recap and reminder to give a sense of these games' place in the context of their 1984 debut in Japan. The second half, however, downshifts into low gear to take a leisurely cruise through a game that is generally regarded as a joke (thanks to its title) outside of Japan, when it's regarded at all: Hudson's Nuts & Milk. My hope is that after viewing this episode, you'll have a better appreciation for the place Nuts & Milk holds in video game history—not simply for how it represents a key change for Nintendo's business model, but also for how radically Hudson reinvented it to appeal to Famicom consumers. (You may, of course, continue to chuckle at its name. Titter, even.)

Another step along the Road to NES Works this week as we look again at the next round of software releases for Nintendo Famicom. Unlike last time, only one of these games made its way to the U.S. on NES, the other two (Galaxian and Devil World) seemingly being skipped over due to datedness and, uh, satanism? What was this, 2021?

Two Nintendo games and two Namco (Namcot??) titles this week to bring Famicom's 1984 lineup streaking toward its finale. I'm not sure any of these games will set anyone's heart on fire here in 2021, due to (1) the kinda mundane nature of Nintendo's releases and (2) overexposure to Namco's games. But pretend you are a small child in 1984! In that context, these games are pretty great. Except Mahjong. No child wants that.

1984 comes to an end for the Famicom with a trio of releases that American fans will recognize from the Black Box launch era of the NES. Arriving singly in 1984 rather than en masse a year or two later amidst dozens of other games with a similar visual vibe, benighted NES releases Urban Champion and Clu Clu Land stand up a bit better here. (Excitebike, of course, rules no matter what the context.) Also this episode, Namco's Mappy brings the company's most uninspired mascot of the early ’80s to Famicom in another respectable home adaptation that flatters the Famicom hardware when held up against contemporary conversions. And that's it for Nintendo and Sega's ’84 offerings! When NES Works Gaiden resumes later this year, we'll be in the heady days of 1985.

You'll notice a change in the hosting segments this week, as I've begun broadcasting them from the year 1994—I'm taking a sort of "man on the scene" approach from now on, except in terms of time rather than space. Apologies about the visual fidelity, but we didn't have high-definition digital cameras back then. Or in fact consumer-grade digital cameras, period. Before we continue with the Sega and Nintendo stuff, Atari deserves a brief stopover to see what the 7800 was up to for the first half of 1988. As it turns out, the answer is "not a whole heck of a lot." Happily, the one game to ship during this period—Lucasfilm Games' Ballblazer—has more than enough history and content behind it to support most of this episode before we jump into summer ’88 and, ironically, Winter Games from Epyx.

The other two mid-’88 releases for Atari 7800 consist of yet another computer port and—wow!—the console's first original creation. Although this original creation ended up being ported to several other Atari systems, which rather undermines its exclusive appeal. Still, it's good to see a game on 7800 that hadn't already shown up in arcades and on computers four or five years earlier, you know?

By patron request, this week's video shifts up the temporal alignment of the NES Works Gaiden series to leap forward from the end of 1984 for Famicom to the end of 1992?! Yes, that's right, we spring forward in time here to look at the Japanese equivalent of the Aladdin Deck Enhancer, except one reliant on an even bigger gimmick than simply packing in universal game chips in order to accept smaller, less expensive sub-cartridges. Bandai dared to push the bleeding edge of what the market would bear here by forcing players to make use of collector cards emblazoned with bar codes in order to be able to play their video game at all. It's a bold innovation! And a terrible one! Learn all about it here.

By request of Joseph Adams, I've attempted this episode to explore the history of (and explain the concept of) devices powered by NES-on-a-chip tech. I'll admit up front that this is by no means a definitive or comprehensive history, as a considerable portion of this topic falls into poorly documented spaces: Unauthorized clone consoles, piracy-focused devices, and ventures in territories veiled behind other languages and cultures (not to mention less methodical documentation than you see for mainstream Western/Japanese consoles like the NES itself). Hopefully I've still assembled an accurate and interesting enough narrative to justify the time and research involved...

By request of Peter LaPrade, this week brings us another look at a Famicom Disk System exclusive that ended up being stranded in Japan until fairly recently: Nintendo's own Nazo no Murasame-jou. A brisk, challenge action title with a structure loosely patterned after The Legend of Zelda, Nazo no Murasame-jou seems like the kind of thing that probably would have done fairly well for itself had Nintendo localized it alongside their other FDS titles (Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, and Volleyball) in mid-1987. Instead, it languished in Japan for decades, though it has exerted a small presence on modern games like Smash Bros., meaning you could be more familiar with this game than you realize.

1985 starts the Famicom on some familiar footing with a couple of future Black Box releases (one great, one meh); two shooters previously seen on SG-1000; and a Commodore 64 conversion from Hudson that would show up on NES under the aegis of its original publisher. No big surprises here (including the apparent Nintendo debut of TOSE, and the fact that the games previously seen on SG-1000 fare a lot better on Famicom), but that won't be the case for long. By the midpoint of 1985, the Famicom library will look wildly different from the NES's as more third parties (and, specifically, more third parties of wildly variable quality) stake their claim on NES.

It feels like Famicom is kind of playing catch-up with SG-1000 this episode, as every game appearing here arrived on shelves in the wake of a Sega-published equivalent—either the exact same game (as in Space Invaders), one exploring the same root concept in different ways (Soccer), or a game with almost suspicious conceptual and mechanical similarities (Formation Z). Of course, the Nintendo version of these games absolutely eclipsed Sega's, right? Well... maybe not always.

Halloween season is upon us, and you know what that means: Where other people decorate their homes with cobwebs and giant skeletons, I decorate mine with a Castlevania-related video. This time around, it's a look at a Castlevania spinoff called Kid Dracula. Well, technically, this video is about Akumajou Special: Boku Dracula-Kun! But it's Kid Dracula. It's a little bit Castlevania, a little big Mega Man, and just a few minor quirks shy of being an all-time Famicom classic.

An 8-bit heavy hitter makes its Famicom debut, right around the same time as they first dipped a toe into the SG-1000 market: Konami, eventual creators of Castlevania and Contra, here still a mere stripling of a home games developer. As on Sega's platform, Konami made its debut in Nintendo-land with two games, though I would say both turned out far better than their SG-1000 counterparts. I mean, nobody's going to fall in love with Yie Ar Kung-Fu here in 2021, but Antarctic Adventure (or Kekkyoku Nankyoku Daibouken, if you want to be formal about it) is a good time for all. Less so the third entry in this episode, Jaleco and TOSE's dire rendition of UPL's Ninja-kun.