8-bit classics/disappointments

[Marc]

Yes, I think R-Type is the game I played the most versions of. I played arcade, PCE, SMS, Amiga, Atari ST, C64, GameBoy, Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions of it. The Amstrad CPC version is awful and the Atari ST version is flawed because of choppy scrolling, but the other ones are all great fun, although some of them are not really close to the arcade original.

That story about this demo version of C64 R-Type sounds intrigueing. I'd love to play it sometimes. How much of the game was in it (how many levels, etc.)?

Yeah, me too. It was a demo of the complete first level. The sound was missing, and if I remember rightly you couldn't kill the boss becase there was no collision detection on it. That demo on C&VG was the only thing I ever saw of it, so whether it was developed any further or not I have no idea. I'm gonna check my old issues of Games TM, because I'm sure I remember an article about a web site that tracked down lost, missing or incomplete C64 games, a site like that must have more info on it. Wll let you know what I dig up.

[BrianC]

Double Dragon 3 NES is just extremely hard. Defeating enemies takes practice and mastering the moves (and there are some very nifty ones like the mid air hairpull). Despite the difficulty, the game is much better than the arcade Double Dragon 3. Also, beating the bosses is very rewarding since you get to play as some of them after you beat them. I recommend giving the game a chance, though getting past the levels will take more than a few.

I actually liked the NES Double Dragon 1 quite a bit. That experience system is limiting and the lack of two players during the main game is disappointing, but the revamped levels more than make up for it.

I love Battletoads too. Though the NES version is better, I also like the first GB game quite a bit. That one even has a shmup level.

I used to play the NES version of Marble Madness quite a bit. I didn't even know about the arcade game when I first played it, but I did love the game. It's interesting how the NES port was designed by Rare.

I used to play Jumpman on PC quite a bit. The PC port didn't look as good as some other versions, but it still played great. That is one fun game.

Lone Sage, you were disappointed with Clash at Deamonhead too? I read a review of it in NP and expected it to be this really cool game, but when I actually played it, I was let down. It was the only NES game to make me cry (don't ask).

While Natsume didn't make an actual sequel to Shadow of the Ninja, they did make a psuedo sequel to it for GBC called Return of the Ninja. They also made that nifty Ninjawarriors SNES game. The GB b/w Ninja Gaiden actually plays a bit like Shadow of the Ninja and there have been many rumors about the game reguarding this.

[adam76]

Auf Widersehen Monty is the best game featuring Monty IMO. The music also is AWESOME, it's among my personal top-10 best videogame music ever .

Did you ever finished the game with invecibility, Adam? Even then, the game still would take a couple of hours to finish

No chance mate, i think that i was about 11 when this came out and had the attention span of someone 5yrs my junior(an affliction i still suffer from). That, coupled with the fact that you could fit upwards of twenty speccy titles on a 90min blank tape meant that no game was ever given the attention it deserved!

You're spot on about the size of the game though, it was bloody HUUUUGE!

[LoneSage]

While Natsume didn't make an actual sequel to Shadow of the Ninja, they did make a psuedo sequel to it for GBC called Return of the Ninja. They also made that nifty Ninjawarriors SNES game. The GB b/w Ninja Gaiden actually plays a bit like Shadow of the Ninja and there have been many rumors about the game reguarding this.

Yeah, I know about that Ninja Gaiden Shadow for the GB. Check out 1UP.com for its review, it gives a lot of detail to the similarities and stuff between it and Shadow of the Ninja; the main boss, for instance, is still Lord Garuda Tecmo coulda gotten away with murder back in the day, I tells ya.

As for Natsume developing The Ninja Warriors, are you sure? I've always thought it was Taito. I know it was an arcade original and also got a Sega CD port (I own the SNES version, awesome game).

Disappointed with Clash at Demon Head? Yea, a bit. But still, that branching level system and the humor was top-notch for the NES.

Also, I have to give mad props to a bunch of SNK games pre-Neo Geo on the NES...Iron Tank, POW, Guerrila War (as someone mentioned) are all great games that not many people take notice of. POW's easily one of the best beat em ups for the system.

[Shatterhand]

Shatterhand -- Yes, this game rocks so much face it isn't funny. Definitely worthy of a sequel, true shame we never saw one on the SNES. I was way happy when I saw a certain Brazilian sporting the title as his username

Nice list of NES gems there. Shadow of the Ninja and Shatterhand don't get anywhere near the attention they deserve, IMHO.

So I don't get the attention that I deserve?
(God, I always make that unfunny joke when someone mentions NES's Shatterhand)

Both Shatterhand and Return of Ninja are indeed awesome. Shatterhand even more, I'd say it's among the top 5 NES games...

LoneSage, if you like McKids on the NES... you should try McDonald's Land:
http://hol.abime.net/2429
It's the same game, but on Amiga, a 16 bits system. This game indeed is AWESOME, and incredibly unknown.

Double Dragon 3 on NES sucks. Well, it sucks in every system (IMO the worst game in the whole series by far), but the NES versions sucks even more.


And Auf Wiedersehen Monty... I played that game on MSX, with invencibility, infinite lives and every kind of poke I could get my hands on it.. still I COULD NEVER FINISH THE DAMN THING. Each area where you need an item, the item usually is in the OTHER SIDE OF THE GODDAMN MAP. That was common in Gremlin Graphics games - Anyone ever played Jack The Nipper 2? GODDAMN that game is BIGGER than that Monty game.

And talking about Jack the Nipper... the 1st one was classy stuff. It's a big shame it's so unknown... it has a few flaws, if the game was a little more tweaked, it would be a HUGE classic nowadays.

And as I talked about Double Dragon earlier in the post... my biggest dissapointment in the 8 bits era was Double Dragon for the MSX. It was EXPECTED... and we got a CRAP ZX-SPECTRUM PORT..... with NO SOUND, HORRIBLE GRAPHICS, SLOOOOOOWWWWW AS A SNAIL... we deserved better.... we really did.


Wow.. big post... i'll shut up for now

[BUHA]

man, you wanna see a bad double dragon port, i had a 4 color Tandy 1000 version of it with no sound. i used to actually play games on that thing. and double dragon 2 was one of the games i had for it. it was like playing it underwater. never made it past the 1st level because it was so slow and would probably take you all day just to do that, if you could control it with the weird ass numpad control scheme

[Marc]

And Auf Wiedersehen Monty... I played that game on MSX, with invencibility, infinite lives and every kind of poke I could get my hands on it.. still I COULD NEVER FINISH THE DAMN THING. Each area where you need an item, the item usually is in the OTHER SIDE OF THE GODDAMN MAP. That was common in Gremlin Graphics games - Anyone ever played Jack The Nipper 2? GODDAMN that game is BIGGER than that Monty game.

And talking about Jack the Nipper... the 1st one was classy stuff. It's a big shame it's so unknown... it has a few flaws, if the game was a little more tweaked, it would be a HUGE classic nowadays

Forgotten about those myself, love the pair of 'em as a kid.
And Double Dragon was the recepiant of probably the largest number of piss-poor conversions of any arcade game ever. That or Out Run.

[Shatterhand]

Do you rememeber Jack The Nipper 2? Did you ever managed to raise TWO points in your naughtyometer?

I sometimes managed to raise only one point. And I had an infinite lives and infinite ammo poke for it. I think it would take more than 10 hours to finish that game, and it had NO SAVE FEATURE....

[Marc]

Do you rememeber Jack The Nipper 2? Did you ever managed to raise TWO points in your naughtyometer?

I sometimes managed to raise only one point. And I had an infinite lives and infinite ammo poke for it. I think it would take more than 10 hours to finish that game, and it had NO SAVE FEATURE....

If I remember rightly, I got nowhere on either of them. Just loved exploring the second game, it was really well designed and fun at the time. Hmm.. maybe I'll leave that as a fond memory rather than re-visit?

Anyone ever get into the Freescape games? Thought Driller was slow and boring, but Dark Side and Castle Master were really atmospheric, now they pushed the 8-bits hard.

[Herr Schatten]

Do you rememeber Jack The Nipper 2? Did you ever managed to raise TWO points in your naughtyometer?

I remember nearly beating it once. My naughtyometer was almost full, only one or two points missing. If you know what to do, the tasks are not that hard to accomplish. Now, finding out what to do in the first place, therein lies the challenge. And of course, there are some tasks where you have only one try. That's the main reason why I never completed the game.

[chtimi-CLA]

the problem with playing 8bits game today is that they often have aged badly. but not all of them, for example on SMS we have :
-all wonderboys (wonderboy, monsterland, the dragon's curse)
i prefer the SMS monsterland over the PCE one, it has the true sprites instead of the ridiculous ones from that anime series, i forgot the name. it's also easier, but the difficulty is just right imo. same for dragon's curse.
-alex kidd in miracle world: no news of the rumored sega ages remake, but it's probably for the best considering the worse than shit job sega did on sega ages (except fantasy zone)
-captain silver : very good but don't get the us version which is butchered (missing levels, etc..). i briefly played the pcb and remember preferring the SMS version
-kenseiden: why was there never a sequel?
-fantasy zone 2: the best fz

[BrianC]

I'm not completely sure about Natsume developing Ninjawarriors SNES, but I thought I remembered reading that they designed it. I think it was either Nintendo Power or Video Games magazine where I read it.

The thing about Double Dragon III NES is that it's an extremely hard game, but I like it better than the arcade DD3 becuase it has all the moves available from the start, a good variety of weapons to use, and longer levels. The fact that has only one life, is very difficult, and has a megaman like status menu for selection have turned more than a few people off the game, though.

Double Dragon may have gotten a lot of poor conversions, but the NES versions (though the third is hit or miss and the experience system turned many off from the first DD for NES), the SMS version, and the PCE CD version of DD2 turned out great (from what I heard). The Atari 2600 DD is laughable, but Atari 7800 one turned out better. The GB b/w version is good, but a bit odd. The GB DD2 is actually a Kunio game in disguise and plays a bit like Renegade. The Game Gear Double Dragon doesn't play much like Double Dragon at all (Double Dragon with a gun weapon?) and isn't very good. The Gameboy Advance Double Dragon is just plain awesome and is actually better than the original IMO.

[snap monkey]

Metal Storm -- Incredible Irem classic where the gravity could be changed at the whim of the player. Simply amazing game, it's hard to categorize it into just one genre.

Yeah, Metal Storm is the shit, no argument there.

Holy crap! I remembered playing this back in gradeschool and had totally forgotten the title, been trying to remember what it was called for years. It's even better than I remembered it. Though I suppose finding an actual cartridge would be damn near impossible...

[BrianC]

Metal Storm -- Incredible Irem classic where the gravity could be changed at the whim of the player. Simply amazing game, it's hard to categorize it into just one genre.

Yeah, Metal Storm is the shit, no argument there.

Holy crap! I remembered playing this back in gradeschool and had totally forgotten the title, been trying to remember what it was called for years. It's even better than I remembered it. Though I suppose finding an actual cartridge would be damn near impossible...

There are some on ebay for cheap.

[snap monkey]

Wow, so there are! I'll have to look into that soon.

[nullstar]

The five 8-bitters I played mostly were: C-64, Apple II, CP/M (OS on several platforms I had), SMS, and NES, (The woeful thing from the 8-bit era is that I had to generally sell one system to get the next, so I no longer have these systems...and it's more "what would I play if I could" vs. what I really do still play.)

C-64

• Actually probably nothing. Wouldn't mind giving Laser Squad a go, however.

Apple II

• Karateka (Also available for Famicom and probably C-64)
• AE (Compile(!) game: protoshmup but the aliens are stingrays that fly in/out of screen in patterns)

CP/M

• Ladder. (Pitfall meets Donkey Kong meets Jumpman...in ASCII: a Java version exists)

SMS

• Phantasy Star -- I just don't have the patience for it now...
• Golden Axe Adventure ?

NES

• Batman (can't believe all the other mentions but not this one)
• Shadow of the Ninja (seeking a copy)
• Shatterhand
• Metal Storm (seeking a copy)
• Strider (I might hate this if I played it again...but would still buy it)
• Crystalis (way better than LoZ)
• SMB/Mega Man/Zelda II/Metroid...but I've got the SNES/GC/GBA compilations/remakes; I'm probably forgetting a lot of stuff for this sytem...

Just thinking here: I never had a chance to really play Kubuki Quantum Fighter. How does it stack against the other platformers everyone here seems to agree on?

[Shatterhand]

Do you rememeber Jack The Nipper 2? Did you ever managed to raise TWO points in your naughtyometer?

I remember nearly beating it once. My naughtyometer was almost full, only one or two points missing. If you know what to do, the tasks are not that hard to accomplish. Now, finding out what to do in the first place, therein lies the challenge. And of course, there are some tasks where you have only one try. That's the main reason why I never completed the game.

In Jack the Nipper TWO? I had a map of this game published in a magazine.. it was BLOODY HUGE, and every item you needed in a specific room was usually in the OTHER SIDE of the map, and what with you only being able to carry one item at time....... it was too damn frustrating. I remember some areas were very well designed, but the game overall was too much frustrating and big for my liking. Man, if you managed to raise you Naughtyometer THAT high.. congratulations, you get all respect from me.

Now, Jack The Nipper ONE... this one was GREAT stuff... it made a lot more of sense (You just has to piss your family, friend and neighborhood, not some crazy african indian in the middle of the jungle), it was a lot more doable. I managed to raise my Naughtyometer above 80% in that one, getting real close to finish it. Like I said before, if this game had a few tweaks in gameplay, I bet it would be a big 8 bits classic today.

Some stuff was just great, like blowing up your dad's credit card account, destroying the dishes in restaurant, make all clothes in the laundry dirty, and the coolest of all, transform all plants in the garden in mutant plants!


Nullstar, Laser Squad is great stuff. I played it a lot on my MSX... you probably have already played UFO: Enemy Unknown, right?

[nullstar]

Nullstar, Laser Squad is great stuff. I played it a lot on my MSX... you probably have already played UFO: Enemy Unknown, right? :D

You know they just released Laser Squad Nemesis as a standalone product?

But, yeah, I was huge into UFO: EU/X-Com -- man, it really doesn't seem like it's been 10 years (think I played it every day from fall 95-to summer 96). Enjoyed the original most of all; Apocalypse was decent but they broke as much as they added, and the levels were simply too complex for a real-time mode...and too time-consuming to realize substantial progress with turn-based unless you dedicated about 8 hours a day. ;)

[Shatterhand]

Yes, I didn't enjoy Apocalypse either.

Isn't Laser Squad Nemesis supposed to be played by e-mail? This alone made me feel the game isn't my cup of tea...

I played a hell lot of UFO too, but I never liked it as much as I liked Laser Squad back in the day. I must have played the mine mission (The one where you have to save 3 hostages in a mine) and the Assassination one (The 1st one) hundreds of times ...

[Shatterhand]

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but I've been wanting to talk about so many 8 bits games that are so UNKNOWN... its so unfair, some games need to be known.

There was an MSX game that I used to play, which was a direct Spectrum port. It was also available on the Amstrad, and it was made in Spain. But I think it wasnt made neither by Dinamic or Topo Soft, which were the big names in Spain at that time.

The name of the game is Captain Trueno. It was one of those "2 parts" games that were so common back at those times.

In the game, you control 3 characters, and you can change in any of the them at any time. You control them like its just 1 character (You "morph" into the other character when you change). They are

Trueno - He can use swords, he can do low jumps, and he has average speed
Goliath - He has a strong punch, and when he jumps, the earth shakes and everything on screen is killed. But he CANT MOVE.
Crispin - He is fast, small and jumps very high, but he has no weapons.

The 1st part of the game is in a big castle, and there are lots of puzzles to solve. This part is GREAT stuff, the puzzles are all well thought, but never too hard that you end up stuck for too long. You have to know where to use each character wisely to get past each part. There are lots of cool enemies, and many memorable sections. Captain Trueno can swing his sword to kill enemies, while bigger enemies can only be killed by Goliath's punch.

The 2nd part is even better, here you have your normal platform game.. you just have to run from left to right, up until the end of the stage. Here Trueno actually SHOOTS his swords, and you can get power ups to get bigger and better swords. The level design here is AWESOME, and you have to do quick switches of characters all the time... Goliath can be used as a smart bomb (His jump kill all enemies on screen), but many times his jump also DESTROYS the ground, and you fall and die, so you have to know how to use it properly. I remember there were parts where you had to do a quick run with crispin, to make a long jump and BEFORE landing switch to goliath so you fall already killing a bigger enemy, and just after this you are attacked by quick birds, so you have to switch quickly again to trueno to shoot them.

The action is so fast and furious, it doesnt seems like a spectrum game at all.

This game was widely UNKNOWN even back at its time. I couldnt even find decent screenshots of it on internet, the only one I found is in this page:
http://www.thirteenth-planet.com/comput ... istory.htm (its the second game).

People please, pay attention to this game now. Its too much unfair to let this game be completely forgotten...


Ill come back later with more top games that are forgotten from the 8 bits era.

[Shatterhand]

Sorry for the double post

just found out a better screenshot and a small review for the CPC game:

http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/c/

and it was by dinamic actually. Oh, I WANT to play that CPC version, it shcoked me to see that screenshot with so many colors, compared to the spectrum one...

edit:

found more screenshots

http://www.cpczone.net/index.php?game=1768

[howmuchkeefe]

Disappointments?

Ultima: Exodus, for NES. I remember reading about the game in Nintendo Power, and I was very eager to play it. Multiple character classes? Non-linear gameplay? Man! It sounded so much better than Dragon Warrior.

...and it turned out to be one of the worst games I have ever played in my entire life. This is the game experience: Unrelenting dullness punctuated with interludes of monotony, and all the while you are tortured by some of the most sadistic, repetitive music ever conceived. Wow.

I actually beat the game, but it was tough going. I felt that I deserved oral sex for my accomplishment, but there was no number to dial, no address to mail a screenshot to in order to receive any such coupon; just the endorphin rush you get when you're suddenly freed from painful stimuli.

[K-J N.]

Try some of the games released the last coupple of years as well.

Metal Warrior 4 - Agents of Metal (C64) is a great one. It's a side scrolling action / adventure game with some RPG elements, nice story with multiple endings, 21 different weapons and you can save anywhere. There is definatley some influences from Deus Ex and other modern PC games here.
Download the game
and the manual

Herr Schatten wrote:

The C64 R-Type is another game I like to play now and then. It contains so many changes to the original that it's quite a different experience. (And it's much easier than every other version.)

Did you ever play the original version? Before the game was released, C&VG mag gave out a bright yellow cassette with demo's of Spectrum and C64 R-Type on there. The C64 version on that tape was completely different to the Rainbow Arts version that was eventually released. There was no sound on there, but (do bear in mind I haven't seen this version since I played this demo some, what, 20 years ago? Sheeeit!) I'm sure I remember it being closer to the coin-op both graphically and gameplay-wise. Don't know who developed it or why it was scrapped, would love to know if it was ever finished or still exists anywhere.

Classic story. Rainbow Arts releases Katakis. Activision forces Katakis of the market due to it's similarity with R-Type which they have the home computer rights for. Activision likes what they see in Katakis though and hires the same programmers to do a C64 version of R-Type because the current one they have in development is taking to long time. Unfortunately the new version has to be finished in just six weeks(!) which probably explains some of the changes. With more time it could have been so much better.

Games That Werent 64 has more info on the cancelled first version. You can read it here.

Do you rememeber Jack The Nipper 2? Did you ever managed to raise TWO points in your naughtyometer?

I remember nearly beating it once. My naughtyometer was almost full, only one or two points missing. If you know what to do, the tasks are not that hard to accomplish. Now, finding out what to do in the first place, therein lies the challenge. And of course, there are some tasks where you have only one try. That's the main reason why I never completed the game.

In Jack the Nipper TWO? I had a map of this game published in a magazine.. it was BLOODY HUGE, and every item you needed in a specific room was usually in the OTHER SIDE of the map, and what with you only being able to carry one item at time....... it was too damn frustrating. I remember some areas were very well designed, but the game overall was too much frustrating and big for my liking. Man, if you managed to raise you Naughtyometer THAT high.. congratulations, you get all respect from me.

I enjoyed just walking around and exploring the game. Here is a nice screenshot map of the C64 version.

http://www.zzap.wide.it/mappe/jack2/explorer/mappa.htm

Solution to the puzzles can be found here.

[Marc]

Thanks for the R-Type info man, was starting to think I'd never be able to prove that it actually existed to anyone. I still think the original version was the more promising of the two, but I guess we'll never know.

Shatterhand, you've made Captain Trueno sound so cool I'm gonna have to try it out.

Anyone remember Crosswise and Sidewise? I remember enjoying both on Spectrum, but haven't been to check them back out yet.

Any Stunt Car Racer fans? Classic of its day, still plays well now.

[Kiken]

I can't believe that nobody has mentioned the following:

Mega Man 2/Rock Man 2 (NES/FC):

Thankfully a tad easier than the first and it has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard come out of the Famicon/NES. No matter how dated the visuals are, there's just something about this game that makes it a joy to play everytime.

River City Ransom/Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (NES/FC):

I think this is more enjoyable as a team-game than in single player, but still mindless fun.

Life Force/Salamander (NES/FC)

Even though a rather huge departure from the arcade original, it was still a fantastic title.

Salamander (PC-Engine)

Much closer to the arcade original than the NES/FC rev, and still one of my all-time favourite Hu-Card games.

[Shatterhand]

Reading that guys talking about Jack The Nipper 2 gave me 2 conclusions

The game indeed is stupidly hard. Everyone is complaining how freaking hard is to do all the naughty stuff you have to do in a proper order.

And also it seems like the C64 version is different to the Spectrum/MSX version. I dont remember having any other weapon than coconuts in the speccy version. Also, in that forum they talk about a "scroll bug", and I am pretty sure the game did NOT scroll in the speccy version.

I'll check out the C64 version.

I saw the CPC version of Jack The Nipper 1, and like with Captain Trueno, it amazed me to see the game with all those colors.

[Herr Schatten]

I saw the CPC version of Jack The Nipper 1, and like with Captain Trueno, it amazed me to see the game with all those colors.

Yes the CPC could do some amazing graphics. Those colours were just beautiful. Check out Trantor - The Last Stormtrooper and the wonderful conversion of Gryzor/Contra. Then compare them to the C64 versions. Ugh.


I just downloaded and tried out the alternative version of C64 R-Type and it looks indeed very promising and copies the gameplay of the original R-Type well. However, I think the released version is technically better and I do believe it could have turned out just as great gameplay-wise if it hadn't been such a rush job. Well, we'll never know, right?

[Shatterhand]

Actually, what really pisses me is that both Jack The Nipper AND Captain Trueno could had be done in a MSX using all its colors, and it would look better than the CPC version for sure. Its a shame most european developers, instead of making a PROPER msx version of their games, they just made direct ports of the spectrum versions...

I know, for example, that a colorful Silent Shadow would be only possible in a MSX 2 (On an MSX 1, with 2 colors, the game already runs at a pathetic frame rate), but some games could be done nicely. Jack The Nipper doesnt have scroll, it does not have many things moving on screen, and its not blazing fast... the game COULD HAD used the MSX pallete, instead of being just a direct, color-less port of the spectrum version.

And don't even get me started on MSX Double Dragon.....

[Neon]

Mega Man 2/Rock Man 2 (NES/FC):

Thankfully a tad easier than the first and it has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard come out of the Famicon/NES. No matter how dated the visuals are, there's just something about this game that makes it a joy to play everytime.

River City Ransom/Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (NES/FC):

I think this is more enjoyable as a team-game than in single player, but still mindless fun.

Why the NES versions over the Genesis/PCE versions?

On the subject of old computers, I remember liking our Apple IIe a lot when I was young, before it broke. Wings of Fury was probably my first shmup...

Anything else generally considered worth trying for that system?

[Danny]

Double Dragon 3 (NES)

WTF i STILL can;t get past the 1st level on this damn game!!! WHY IS IT SO HARD!? am i doing something wrong!? seriously, i can't do a damn thing on this game. i thought i just sucked when i played it when i was little, but i still suck at it. ive never even SEEN anybody beat the first level. me and my friend tried it and got to the boss but we never could do it. we must be doing something wrong.

HAHAHA one peice of advise... whore the jumping/running attacks, no seriously any other moves will just get you killed unless it a move concerning shoving a knife in somebody's face.

If you thought DD3 on the NES was bad you should of played the orignal arcade version, the NES verson is considered a godsend comapired to that unplayable jerky peice of crap, the game simple to smacked of greed hell YOU HAD TO PAY REAL MONEY FOR EXTRA WEAPONS AND MOVES!?!?!