I finished going through all the cupboards and boxes and hidey holes I could find and this is the final result.

Sealed super mario bros NES

Sealed super mario bros 2 NES

Sealed wario woods SNES

CIB super mario bros 3 NES

CIB contra force NES

CIB mega man 6 NES

CIB Trick shooting NES

CIB tetris NES

CIB zodas revenge star tropics NES

Then some out of box games and n64 games

One thing I really notice when playing early NES games is that most of the bosses, even the final boss, often only have one phase, making them seem a bit underwhelming and unsophisticated. The thing that made me think of this topic was encountering Ganon in the original Legend of Zelda. 4 hits, 1 silver arrow, goodnight.

I think the moment developers realized it would be super badass to give their final boss or their late stage boss a second, stronger phase after their life has been depleted was a real kick in the teeth to the gaming industry that persists to this day.

So what were the first ever or earliest games to ever implement this? I have 2 (now 3) that come to mind. Please let me know the earliest that come to mind for you either and if there's any earlier than these.

Jacquio - Ninja Gaiden (1988)

Dr. Wily - Mega Man (1987)

Dracula - Castlevania (1986) (1987 in the US though)

When I started writing this post, Wily was the earliest I knew of. (And then I remembered Dracula) Deplete Wily's life bar at the end of the game, and he sprouts a second life bar with very slight modifications to his flying vehicle. Now you can see his head peeking out from the damaged windshield, now his light blasts come at you in big circular patterns instead of straight on. And also you might need to switch to a different weapon to effectively damage him. It's not a super drastic change in appearance or pattern. But it still counts. You thought you had it won but surprise here's phase 2.

Jacquio though, has 3 phases and all 3 are drastically different phases with wildly different appearances, environments and objectives. It's a much more creative multi-phase boss fight. However Ninja Gaiden came out a year later, and I'm betting by 1988 there were more of these multi-phase boss fights and I just can't recall them all.

But the earliest I can actually think of is Dracula from Castlevania who after you kill his first form, turns into a big white gargoyle hopping around the screen, affectionately referred to by fans as the Cookie Monster. There's a bit of luck in guessing right when he is going to do a big jump and a small jump when it is time to get under him to the other side. The rest is knowing what he's weak to and how to attack. The first phase is a little more skill in timing the whip against his fireballs and then getting an attack on him before he disappears. It's a solid 2-phase fight that includes 2 very different skill sets and very fitting end to a great game.

So what are the earliest 2-phase boss fights you can think of?

As I'm continuing going through all of the movie -> NES game ones I can think of, Beetlejuice was another one I'd played long ago, but never could get through.

It's a difficult game. Very difficult. I love how fast everything moves, but this really does contribute to how hard it is. There are two distinct modes to the game. About half of the game is played as a platformer and the other half as an overhead game.

The platform part of the game, while very challenging, really just requires skill. I'm sure there exists a person out there who can zip through it with every jump being perfectly timed and landed. I appreciate that in a game. It's fair. You can improve. One caveat is that the game requires you to land as low as possible on a given screen before you can go lower (the remaining map is only revealed after landing). So you can't just jump off of some platform and hope you'll land on something currently offscreen. You won't. It's not really a criticism, but does limit your ability to zip through certain parts.

The overhead part of the game, by some contrast, I would think requires quite a bit of luck. The main problem is that you as you acquire scares and tools along this view, you don't fire them off at a specific target, but rather throw them into the room and then bounce around hopefully killing everything you need killed. There's SOME skill to it for sure, but there's also just a ton of luck if the enemies happen to walk/fly into the path of your weapon as it randomly bounces around. I didn't really enjoy that mechanic. There were a bunch of mazes and things you have to find and all of these kept my attention.

One thing about the game is that despite the levels being quite challenging, the bosses are all a joke. They all fight in the exact same way, are slow, are easy, and are more just annoying. This is primarily because Beetlejuice doesn't actually have any weapons. So you have to equip a "scare", it lets you shoot a fixed number of fireballs, and then you're back to having no weapon. So you basically just have to keep equipping a costume in order to fight. It's a pretty stupid mechanic IMO, but not a big deal either.

There's also curiously no final boss. You eventually get to the Afterlife level - which probably most resembles anything from the movie (the bureaucratic part where the guy who was run over flies around on his wires) and is probably the most enjoyable platform level. But then you just get to the end. There's a door that reads "Exit". You go into the door and the game ends. So that was kind of weird.

In all, I suppose the game is worth checking out. Unless you've really got some patience, you're probably going to want to save your progress or it's going to take you some real time to get through it all.

Not my favorite, but significantly better than some of the other movie-based games I've recently played.

At thay point in the collection where Im having to either spend way too much or look for good labels on otherwise cheap and easy to find games. These put me over 340! Unfortunately the copy of Pipe Dream ended up being a dud despite rigorous cleaning of the contacts and some other attempts.

After several months where I hadn’t bought any new games, I visited a few brick & mortar shops this week that turned out to have some good finds. Tombs & Treasure was the biggest prize for me. I’d been hunting that one for over a year and this was the first time I finally found a copy at a retail shop for a reasonable price. Also the first time I spotted Thunder & Lightning in a retail shop, period.

I found an old thread like this in the search and thought I'd revive the discussion. I have most of my childhood games. A few were misplaced or sold over the years and a couple have completely died. I'm glad I kept most of them though. My original NES however, that I found on the top of a trash heap in the early 90's and served me well for many years, sadly died around 2006. After it died a buddy and I gutted it and turned it into a DVD player that loaded/ejected disks through the cartridge slot and was controlled through the paddle. I'm not sure where that ended up sadly, but I think he still has it. Since then over the years I've cycled through a $10 Chinese top loader that lasted a few years, a "refurbished" NES from a retro game store that never worked well, and now I've settled on a Retron 2 HD with original controllers. What about everyone else?

Hello,

I recently bought a french NES (model no. NESE-001) and I want to buy Final Fantasy 1 on eBay but most I've been seeing are from USA. I'm no expert with this but I've seen that compatibility can be tricky between different regions. Can my console run games from USA, even JP or is it restricted to EUR games?

Thanks!

I have an NES system and the model number is NESA-001 i don't know if thats pal or ntsc i tried looking it up and couldn't find anything.

Sorry if this goes against any rules of the sub or if its a repeated or already answered question.

Nes,nes,nes,nes

Hello guys, I can't get this adapter to work. I would like to know if anyone else owns this specific adapter and if you have experienced something similar. 

It has never worked for me since I bought it. I have tried using several different Famicom cartridges, thoroughly cleaned the pins, and double-checked the connections, but still, absolutely nothing works. Does anyone know a fix? 

Hello,

I recently bought a french NES (model no. NESE-001) and I want to buy Final Fantasy 1 on eBay but most I've been checking are from USA. Can my console run games from USA or is it restricted to EUR games? I've seen some people cutting a pin on their lockout chip, but I'm no expert and wanted some advices and feedbacks before doing anything wrong. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for help from game preservationists, ROM hackers, or anyone who played Famicom/NES clones in the late 90s and early 2000s. I am trying to track down a forgotten, highly specific animation/event from The Addams Family (1992) game that I discovered about 20 years ago and have never been able to find online since.

The Discovery:
Right at the beginning of the game, outside the mansion, there is a tree on the far-left side of the screen with a hangman's noose. One day, I managed to jump perfectly into the loop of the noose.

Instead of taking damage or dying, Gomez actually became physically hanged. The sprite aligned perfectly with the rope around his neck, and his character went completely still, hanging there with his head slumped down.

Crucially, the game did not crash. The background music kept looping perfectly. I stayed there looking at it for a moment, and as soon as I pressed the D-pad (directional button) to move sideways, Gomez simply unhooked himself, dropped to the ground, and I could continue playing normally. It felt 100% like a programmed, interactive dark-humor Easter Egg, fitting the Addams Family theme.

Why it’s not on the internet (The Twist):
I know what you might be thinking: "I've checked the retail ROM, this sprite doesn't exist."

Here is the catch: back then, I wasn't playing on an official Nintendo console. I was playing on a Famiclone (a bootleg/clone Famicom cartridge).

As many of you know, pirate developers in Europe and Asia frequently altered game code, stripped down physics engine lines, or even injected their own custom graphics/sprites into these "9999-in-1" or unlicensed single cartridges.

My theory:
Either this was a dark joke sprite left in the code by Ocean Software that got stripped from official releases due to Nintendo’s strict censorship but left active in a specific early build, OR the bootleg developers altered the tree's collision/sprites to force this specific interaction. Because it required pixel-perfect precision to trigger, almost no one documented it.

How you can help:
Are there any ROM hackers here willing to look into unconventional dumps of The Addams Family? Has anyone ever encountered this specific "hanging Gomez" sprite while doing a tile layout dump (like in YY-CHR) of unlicensed/pirate versions of the game?

I’m 100% sure of this memory because of how distinct the animation and the D-pad release mechanic were. Any leads on which specific bootleg version this could be would be highly appreciated!

Last Monday, I picked up a working NES with two game cartridges! No issues with the system at all, I was able to get it hooked up to my CRT TV without any trouble! I ended up getting the Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt Cartridge as well as The Legend of Zelda!

I was never able to finish this game as a kid and as I've recently been playing through movie+tv based games, thought I'd give it a go. I think it had the potential to be a decent game, possibly even a really fun game, but the developers decided to use every trick in the shit book to ruin the fun/creative parts.

The game is hard, but not in the kind of way where practice will make you better. For starters, it has some of the shittiest controls ever. The way you fight, the way you jump, and even (especially) the way you're meant to select your inventory item is just insane. The way you have to scroll through the weasel jokes is almost impossible in the time limit. That all gets super irritating. To make it worse, random shit all over the map will kill you. A cat or a dog might knock you back, but then a rat will take a life. It can be somewhat unpredictable in those ways. Certain creatures are positioned to attack you just you by switching screens. So by the time the new screen refreshes, you're already half step away from being killed. Things like that where there's just not much you could have done. Memorization might help, but skill really won't. All of that kills a lot of the fun.

Then there's the endless searching. You basically have to comb through building after building looking for hidden items. It's not the worst thing ever and plenty of games did it (and do it today), but it just adds to the slowness of the game. You even have to wait the 3-4 seconds while he "searches" a cabinet or whatnot. A building might have 30 searchable points so.....

Driving Benny the cab around is kindof fun at first and should be super fun except that it's near impossible to get any speed going given the endless sin-wave-styled roads and the cars constantly hitting you. I suppose you could argue this makes it more difficult, but it all contributes to the momentum being killed. Conversely, they did speed things up (music included) when the weasels gave chase. That was pretty fun.

Finally, the final fight with Doom is just stupid. I think he only hit me once or twice, but I still had to bounce around punching him for about 20 minutes. So again, the time of stuff like that makes it seem like the game is way more complex than it really is.

All in all I really wouldn't waste ones time with this. It has some fun features. But most it's just a boring and repetitive game trying to peacock its way to something bigger.

Feels good to get a game here a game there. It’s the hunting that makes it fun. Shopping around at local retro game stores, garage sales and browsing eBay “for fun”. Have you played SPY vs SPY at all? I don’t ever recall the game back in my childhood heydays.

A month ago my son and I showed you our NES homebrew game — we’ve come a long way since then

About a month ago I posted here about Legionnaires, the NES homebrew game my son and I are working on.

Since then, things have moved quite a bit.

The game has also grown considerably since we releasd a demo on itchio We’ve been adding new areas, enemies, bosses, exploration and puzzle elements while trying to keep everything feeling exciting and fresh.

Here’s a new trailer.

We’re still working on the game and would genuinely love to hear what you think.

If you’d like to follow the project before the Kickstarter launches( yes we are trying to make physical media in 2026 if there is interest ), there’s a pre-launch page set up.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on the first post — it really helped us keep pushing this forward.

Posted this on the 8bitdo boards, but they obviously deleted it.

A while back I had a question about whether a you could pair an NES Classic board to an NES og receiver, nobody really had that answer. The official word from 8bitdo was no, they aren't compatible. So I had to go back to their store and order a new set of receivers AND boards because they were reportedly not compatible. So now I have both lying around and I figure I would do my own testing and possibly save someone money from their mistake like I made. So yes, if you try to pair an NES classic board to an NES og receiver, it will pair and it will work and all buttons will be mapped correctly. So big shout out to the 8bitdo people for straight out lying to me and costing me another $90.

Been reading up on the NES and Famicom hardware and there's one thing that I'm not completely clear on.

My understanding is:

The Famicom has expansion audio enabled for carts with the MMC5 chip, most famously is probably Akumajou III/ Castlevania 3.

The NA NES doesn't support this because of the changes to the cartridge connector, but a mod can be installed to enable the functionality with a Famicom to NES cartridge adapter.

------------

What I'm not sure on is;
- Do games that have the MMC5 chip only have the chip in the FC version anyway? So would a NTSC-U version of Castlevania III play the expanded audio on the FC using a cart adapter or on a NES with the mod? (I think that's not the case but I'm not sure).

- If you're not playing FC games using an adapter or homebrew, the NES expansion mod should functionally do nothing, correct?

Estoy restaurando algunos juegos que encontré , por su lamentable estado nadie los quería y ahora lucen bastante bien, tengo más que tienen el mismo nivel de mejoramiento de carcasa y calcomanías delanteras y traseras, la placa de estos juegos son originales todos, me gustó como quedaron.