Japanese made games usually take all the spotlight in any NES library discussion. So let's talk about American and Euro made ones itt. Which ones are your favorites? Bonus points: no Battletoads
Westerner didn't know how to make good action games until Donkey Kong country/5th gen
For me, it was Astérix
And by the same devs, The Smurfs. Other versions like GB/SMS might be more complete, but at least this one doesn't have the bullshit rotating log level.
The only RPG released on NES but NOT on Famicom. It's an okay dungeon crawler, not much to it, except for the fact that it's 4 players compatible. I pity the players stuck with physical attackers though since their options are choosing between "attack" and "attack". At least they can map out the floors while another player is roaming around, I suppose.
>>12596374I generally agree but there is at least 1 good platformer made by westerners: MC Kids.Laugh all you want about it being a Mcdonald's game, compared to any other western platformer, this one has very good and responsive controls, and neat level layouts that provide fun platforming and exploration, without it being too maze-like or unfocused.It's not a masterpiece or anything but I think it deserves a recognition, even if a lot of it feels copied from SMB3, there's nothing wrong about copying the best, and also I think it has its own charm in terms of graphics and music, it's a very neat game. There's a developer interview where he explains this was actually a sort of passion project, he actually tried to make a good game and not just a low effort cash grab. And ironically, McD betrayed them by not really promoting the game as much as they promised.Do not play any of the ports which were made by different people, they are all bad. Play the NES MC Kids.The Genesis sequel was also made by a different dev (Dave Perry of EWJ fame actually, so you know what that means, neat graphics but subpar controls and design)Also IMO DKC doesn't count 100% because it has japanese supervision.
>>12596369The NES port of Elite is pretty good.
Super Off Road. The single player can be bullshit at times because sometimes the AI decides that it can't be beaten so you have to settle with the 2nd place and make up for it in other courses; but it was a birthday favourite due to also being 4 players compatible, which not even the 16 bit versions support.
>>12596415When it comes to pure platformers on NES (and not action platformers like Mega Man/Castlevania), this is one of the best ones after the SMB and Adventure Island franchises
>>12596431I think there's a bunch before MC Kids, like Chip & Dale also use the grab n' throw mechanic taken from SMB3 that MC Kids also use.But, yeah I think MC Kids is still a very good game that's often ignored because of being a licensed McD game.
Back then everybody played Skate or Die at least once
RC pro am was am exceptionally good vehicle warfare game.Ro k n roll racing was like a remake of if for SNES but RC Pro Am was harder and had more genuine racing.
>>12596446I owned it. We used to have competitions with like 5 or 6 kids or just me and a buddy. It was cool how it scaled for those who had more friends.
Except for the bosses, Jurassic Park is pretty fun. Some of the ? boxes explode in your face but you can learn which one do, they're not randomized (in fact I have it all mapped out)
>>12596465Prime crichtoncore
>>12596446The NES port was done by Konami Japan and so was it's Winter sport spinoff.Skate or Die 2 on NES was entirely American and it sucked.
>>12596478I didn't know that
>>12596374besides 90s rare they never figured it out
>>12596493It's okay, the Konami ports weren't all great either, semi playable except for the big ramp part and good OST arrangements with some unique Konami tunes, but that's about it.Now on topic, there's Marble Madness on the NES, port done by RARE of course.
Pretty much the very few good to passable non japanese made NES games were done by RARE and some ain't really that good, the LJN games they did per say.....
>>12596369There are barely any. 90% of the good western developers post crash until the 2000s were on the computer scene. And the ones making console games were making sports and licensed slop, as you can see by this thread.
Wizards an Woyers is generally good even though every game in the series kinda sucks in certain ways.Klax is fun enough, and the soundtrack on the NES version is a miracle.Maniac Mansion has to be close to the top among these games, quality-wise.I wanted to say Die Hard because I like it and it feels clunky in an American way, but apparently it was developed in Japan.Solstice is really fun for the right kind of person.Ghoul School is about as ugly and awkward as a game can get while still being quite good.Of course with a fair number of crappy non-Japanese NES games you at least get the benefit of amazing music, thanks to David Wise, Follins, and a few other random chiptune prodigies. Skate or Die 2 is strong in this respect, if in no other.
>>12596369Now that they're dying off, I realize we were too hard on hippies. They were fun.
>>12596790All of hippie culture was literally a CIA psychological operation
>>12596369RC Pro-Am is godlike.
>>12596838still just RARE, they pretty much made all the non shitty non japanese NES games.
>>12596817Was American Transcendentalism also a glowop? At least hippy movement raised the birthrate
T&C Surf Design is tits.
Some of my favorites:NightshadeTom & JerryTengen TetrisRampartPro Am IIEliminator Boat DuelSnake Rattle & RollSuper Robin HoodDick TracyAlien 3Marble MadnesNigel Mansell's: World Championship RacingThese are jank but I still like them:Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister SixRobocop 3Wolverine
>>12596374Williams was doing exceptional action games in the early 80s. Play Robotron 2084 or Joust some time.
>>12596374You mean, Doom
>>12597171NES Tom & Jerry is fun, fun fact: the NES is still in the DOS port
You did beat the hardest racing game on the system didn't you?
>>12597171>>12597326I also think SNES T&J is worth mentioning as a surprisingly decent western platformer.Controls are mostly fine and snappy, and it also has a hidden mechanic to jump higher, you have to jump once, then as you land on the floor, immediately jump (and maybe hold the button?) again in order to get a sort of spring effect and do a higher jump.Levels are mostly straightforward and while enemy behavior isn't as cohesive as it could be, it's still mostly fun and engaging.It's mostly a fine game and a rare case of a western platformer being actually not bad, my only complaint is some questionable blind jumps on the toy level, I think it was the 2nd or 3rd toy level that has some janky design, but the rest of the levels are fine.Bosses are also engaging and creative.It's short and the game only really has 2 music tracks, very rudimentary with only 2 audio channels, however... I kind of like the 2 tracks that are there, as crude and lo-fi as they may be.
>>12596790Hippies were fucking retards and the ones that didn't eventually straighten out ended up smoking crack in the 80s, shooting heroin, and dying of AIDS. The hippy movement was just a slow suicide.
>>12597072>Made by ATLUSTryy again.
>>12596369I was weirded out by how good Battletoads is as a game after only knowing it as a meme for most of my life. Just speaking in terms of obvious quality without considering the difficulty and how that impacts an experience overall. I was expecting like Silver Surfer going into it.
>>12597351>CodeMasters/CamericaI forgot about this and Big Nose the Caveman, too bad anything else was shit.
>>12598926That's trueRareware seem like the only western studio of the time to really understand japanese action gamesBattletoads feel like a japanese game from a great company like Capcom/Namco/Konami...
>>12598951When I was a kid I thought Battletoads was probably an actual TV cartoon ripoff of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and NES Battletoads was a licensed game. Very easy to believe it must be shit looking at it on the shelf of the games store.
>>12596929That happened before "glowies" were really a thing. American Transcendentalism, or the second great awakening, was largely influenced by masonic interests, about as close as you can get to glowie territory in the 19th century.
>>12596374Agree for console games aside from a very, very small amount of exceptions. They had some great arcade games though, specially early on.
>>12596790You just haven't deal with one in a long time.
