Games That Don't Push The Limits of the NES (For Interesting Reasons)

[@Sheevlord]

While the Action 52 games indeed reuse a lot of the code it doesn't save up storage space. To the surprise of no-one that cartridge was released in an unpolished state, and no optimization for size was done. A lot of code duplicates can be found all throughout the ROM without any attempt to consolidate them. This would've probably be done in the later stage of development if the team was given enough time to optimize and polish the game, which obviously didn't happen.

[@chainswordcs]

the youtube channel "Displaced Gamers" has a great video on the topic, though it's not a complete deep dive (like a full TCRF article would be) and more of a vertical slice deep dive into some interesting examples. yeah, lots of copy-pasted code, often with small edits intermixed. if the dev team were given more time they could have done a lot of de-duplication. or hell, if they were given a reasonable amount of time and a reasonable project goal they wouldn't have had to take such quick and dirty shortcuts in the first place.

[@DeadKoby]

Yeah... but it's got a giant cheetah jumping over Saddam Hussain.

[@whatr0]

Action 52 was largely a management problem cause the guy running the project did NOT understand how game development worked in the slightest and gave the small team THREE MONTHS to do the entire thing. They basically had no time for optimization and QA which is why it's such a buggy unoptimized mess. Kind of a similar debacle to the Doom 3DO port where it was spearheaded by someone who had basically no knowledge of game development assuming it was a lot easier and less time consuming than it actually was.

[@chrismcovell]

Cheers once again for mentioning Solar Wars! I originally released it in November 1999, not 2001. I did fix a title screen scrolling glitch and controller input bug, and that's the 2001 version that you can find. Oh, and Mouser was by *Tony* Young.

[@W3Rn1ckz]

So, galaxian didn’t push the NES’s limits… it defined them.

[@3rdalbum]

Action 52 does not reuse code - by that I mean that every game is self-contained. Although many games have the same poor controls and glitches, they each have a copy of the same code, they don't call a single common version of the code.

[@davidmcgill1000]

Can't imagine them even succeeding making it reuse code. That'd require portable executable code and a linker to build the relocations. Surely they weren't building every game at the same time after all. Just doesn't sound like something you'd see being done on an NES from that particular company.

[@vytah]

​@@davidmcgill1000every bankswappable game was from the viewpoint of the console multiple games reusing code, there's nothing that requires any complicated tools, you just need to assemble each bank to a fixed memory location and that's it.

[@reeyees50]

I thought it recycle assets, sound effects, and game modes

[@allideni836]

@@reeyees50 It does and it doesn't. It reuses duplicates of the same assets.

[@hobbified]

It saves *work*. By 1991, the extra ROM cost absolutely nothing, while paying programmers is expensive.

[@HotelDon000]

Getting drunk and staying up until 4am finally pays off!

[@donpalmera]

you are so kewl dude. I hope your mum doesn't find out you've been drinking her miniatures and putting them back full of water.

[@yasin_GD]

Are you Aussie

[@ZeusTheIrritable]

​@@donpalmera Strong words for someone with that profile picture.

[@gluttonousmaximus9048]

@@yasin_GD Aussie sees this at about 9PM

[@Ty-Jack]

Nope L0L

[@OtakuNoShitpost]

16:15 For anyone confused about how this is possible even in theory: theoretical computer science assumes infinite (or at least, sufficiently arbitrarily large) available memory. To be more self-satisfyingly specific, turing completeness which he mentions here means that a machine can perform any calculation that a turing machine can perform. A turing machine is an abstract model of a computer in which a head moves along an infinite tape divided into cells. At each cell, the machine will read the tape and perform an action based on its current state. The current state will specify what symbol to write back onto the tape, which direction to move, and what the new state will be on the next step. Thanks to some complex math, this machine was proven to be able to compute a solution to any problem that has a computable solution (so no, it can't compute why my wife left me). Because any two processors are both turing complete (or at least, any worth using), then given enough time and memory, both processors will be able to compute solutions to any given problem. Which is all a long winded way of saying, the NES can do this because it has orderds of magnitude more resources available than an intellivision, such that having to split everything into high byte and low byte operations doesn't really make that much of a problem EDIT: woops, I was thinking of the Super Nintendo. NES only has 1KB more than the intellivision (which admittedly is still twice the RAM), so Im actually going to change my answer to be black magic. They're using demons as extra RAM

[@ColasTeam]

I was about to say, the NES is not that much more powerful than the Intellivision. So it's an insane achivement.

[@MrMegaManFan]

I wasn't aware there was a "Classic Series" version of Mario Bros. until now and having just fired it up in an emulator I can only say WOW. THIS is the version everybody should have gotten. Thank you sir!

[@toastrave7820]

i swear i''ve seen you on RndStranger

[@KrunchyTheClown78]

If you think that version is good. Someone did a complete remake of Mario Bros on the Atari 7800 that blows away the NES, and even the arcade version.

[@jesusramirezromo2037]

​@@KrunchyTheClown78 well it's a modern remake

[@KrunchyTheClown78]

@@jesusramirezromo2037 it is, but it's arcade perfect, and has better, more colorful graphics. Beautiful for the 7800.

[@Eireman_on_Twitch]

The reason why the 8-bit 6502 in the NES could do so well with Intellivision games is that the GI 1610 CPU was a VERY early venture into 16 bit computing on the micro scale. It was clocked at 2.2Mhz, but was a double cycle clock, meaning it read commands on one cycle, then output the next, and vice verse, meaning an effective 1.1Mhz realistic clock by modern standards. The fast logic of the 6502 (which clock for clock can meet an Intel 8088 in pure computing speed) meant even though 16 bit commands took 2 clocks to process, it was STILL able to hit a neat balance to the GI CPU in overall performance. The 6502 and its 16-bit successor, the 65C816, were amazingly capable processors and sadly saw no more development because the IBM cloning scene grew too quickly as home users wanted something at home that could run the software the IBM on their desk at work could.

[@johnlewisbrooks]

What blows my mind is that a few seconds of mp3 music is bigger than nearly 3 dozen of these games memory wise. The technology we have is truly INSANE.

[@seamusoblainn]

Or how impressive it is that code can get so much from so little

[@mickael486]

@5:35 wow. I had no idea that they changed Mario's jump physics in 1993 for the Famicom. I always thought that change only came with the Game Boy Advance Super Mario Advance versions of the Mario Bros. that was included. Unfortunately, the arcade cut scenes were not included on the GBA.

[@unnamedlucario]

the one shown in this video is the "Mario Bros. Classic" for the european nes pal which was made in 1993, there were no US version with fixes in japan theres a fds game called kaettekita mario bros from 1988 where you can play this version with fixed jump physics and sprites with ntsc speed

[@SumeaBizarro]

One homebrew game I find impressive is Micro Mages that is modern 40kb constrained NES title that has 4 player multiplayer, cool gameplay loop, enemies, stages and so on. It is definitely "Push some other kinds of limits" game for the library.

[@3dmarth]

I would have been totally fine with a "games that don't push the limits" video that was played straight, but you managed to subvert expectations and make something more strange and maybe even more interesting!

[@blakenaftel3637]

15:26 There's a homebrew of Super Mario Bros. for the Intellivision which manages to be, well, literally the best thing anyone has ever created for the platform, far exceeding what I personally thought the Intellivision could even do. I wonder how well that would run in this Intellivision emulator for the NES. The emulator is doing fine with contemporaneous games, which rarely if ever exceeded 20 fps, but the SMB homebrew manages to eke out the 60fps that I used to think the Intellivision was incapable of providing. I have a feeling the emulator is inherently leaning on the low performance of vintage games and would choke if it were fed something that pushes the Intellivision properly.

[@johneygd]

I,ve seen it and it is fantastic. The intelevision definitely needs more games like this😁

[@JH-pe3ro]

My recollection of the Intellivision(from reading developer info, though never going hands-on) is that it provided, essentially, a whole game framework in ROM called "EXEC" (Executive), which dictated some of the look and feel of the games, including framerate. It was a useful framework for the time since it reduced the space requirements and development time for the game carts, and there were plans to expand on it in future revisions of the hardware. Homebrew could ignore this and start from scratch, of course, and I think that's why it runs faster. But it would also mean that a NES emulator is likely to work by translating the CP1610 instruction set to 2A03, and then patching calls to EXEC into its own I/O system, which would also disqualify the homebrew. This strategy wasn't too unusual during the 80's, either - there were many games ported between the various computer platforms with a combination of instruction set compatibility and I/O call patching. It only became a problem if the graphics system was particularly demanding, but for a lot of those quick-and-dirty ports, they dropped framerate on the floor and let it run at whatever speed it would.

[@DuckAlertBeats]

@4:00 Galaxians. Genuinely impressive how many of those shots you managed to squeeze through the small slivers of space *between* the enemies there :)

[@Dwedit]

In Galaxian, the enemy formation stops moving if moving would make them enter the path of your shots. That's why you often shoot right between them.

[@DuckAlertBeats]

@Dwedit Hey speak for yourself :) But yeah that's interesting, it explains a lot

[@P-_-S]

One theory I had about the use of the VCR7 chip in Tiny Toons 2 Japan (that seems to quickly fall apart under scrutiny), was that as it was released 2 years into Super Famicom's life, Konami had left over boards in inventory with those chips and was just trying to use them up to clear their old stock rather that produce more boards. However, knowing that the only other VCR7 game out there was Lagrange Point, I looked up both carts on NESCartDB, and not only are the boards totally different sizes (Lagrange Point is a tall board with a cart size more typical of an NES game than a Famicom), but the CHR and PRG chips are made by different manufacturers (LSI and Sharp for Lagrange's, and NEC and Ricoh for Tiny Toons 2) . Assuming that the NESCartDB info is accurate and there aren't other hardware variants of either game in production, the only component they share is the VCR7. I guess it is possible that they cancelled/changed platforms on another game in development that was going to use the VCR7 and similar ROM sizes to Tiny Toons 2, but didn't make the change until the carts were already mid-production, so they skipped the soldering step to connect the chip, slapped Tiny Toons 2 on it, and called it a day. Similarly, maybe they had more features initially planned for Tiny Toons 2 (like an enhanced soundtrack) that would use the chip, and they got worried it wasn't going to sell that late in the console's life, so they cut the budget/scope of the game and shifted those resources else even though the carts were already in production. We'll probably never truly know, unless someone who worked on it remembers and is interviewed about it at some point in the future.

[@mjdxp5688]

Fun fact, all three of the Galaxian arcade games were officially released on the NES. Galaga had an obscure sequel called "Gaplus" that wasn't very popular and didn't see much success and thus didn't really receive any home ports, but later on as a bonus in Namco Museum Archives, a new official NES port was developed for it which is very well made.

[@EATABAGOFHELL]

15:24 oh hey I recognize that spaceship sprite; this game was also released as "Astro Blast" for the Atari 2600. Played with the paddle controller if I remember correctly.

[@Dwedit]

Solar Wars wasn't MMC3, it was CNROM (just 8K CHR switching). Easy mistake to make though, "Mapper 3" sounds like MMC3.

[@Sharopolis]

Yes I messed that up, thanks for pointing that out.

[@bland9876]

I heard that some plug and plays use NES on a chip hardware to run Atari or in television games And so that's kind of fascinating even though those definitely don't push the limits of the hardware and oftentimes they aren't as good as the original.

[@nodrance]

The 1kb NES game is a lot more impressive when you realize each instruction is 2-4 bytes, giving you 256-512 instructions to work with. And those are super simple ones, usually as simple as "compare this number to this other number" or "move this byte from here to here" I feel like if you threw out all the conveniences and graphics, and made a game of snake that only draws the snake and the fruit, 16x16 grid because there are 256 positions, you have to reset the console when you die, i think you could just barely squeeze it into 512 bytes

[@soundspark]

Running ASM routines in Family Basic probably is a reason Nintendo of America would never let it be imported.

[@KabukeeJo]

Donkey Kong the NES is so sad, it's missing the Cement Factory.

[@GXSCChater]

Nintendo officially fixed it on the 3ds virutal console , rom was extracted as well. It surprising how many official nes roms have been made by official companies, my favorite being Pacman championship by namco.

[@Dwedit]

The expanded version of Donkey Kong uses mapper 3 (CNROM), but it contains bus conflicts when it tries to bankswitch the CHR. Bus Conflicts happen when you try to write to a value in ROM space to perform the bank switch, but the value sitting in ROM does not match. That makes it not properly work on actual hardware or newer emulators which enforce bus conflicts.

[@GXSCChater]

​@@Dwedit thanks for the info, what a messy result to a common solution, I wonder if its been fixed.

[@ShanetheFreestyler]

I'm most intrigued by Nice Code's Intelevision and Atari 2600. The whole, "let's use an NES-on-a-chip instead of emulating original hardware" thing is bizarre. I'm not sure if it was even more cost effective since the Atari Flashback 2 was released a year later and used a newly developed VCS-on-a-chip meaning it could run original software and even be modded to accept original cartridges! On top of that, the Flashback 2 retailed at 30 bucks vs 45 of the original; so again I'm scratching my head on whether or not they thought it was cheaper or didn't think to design new hardware or what.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

The Flashback 2 was also the last time they used original hardware.

[@ShanetheFreestyler]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 Which is very unfortunate. They could've used it in the 2600+ to have it boot up faster and be 100% compatible with original cartridges instead of 99%. Of course, 99% is still a high percentage, the emulation is great as it should be, but they could've had 100% easily!

[@reeserivers]

I believe the "Classic Serie" version of Mario Bros. was also released in Italy, not just Germany - still pretty weird it only came out in those two countries though!

[@RawrX32009]

Now that you mention it I wonder what people think of Mario in Italy?

[@goatbone]

It wasn't released in Italy. Only a PAL B version exists. France or Spain or the Netherlands maybe.

[@goatbone]

And Nintendo of Europe was based in Germany which is why Germany specifically got some games that were Japan and Germany only.

[@jfwfreo]

My guess is that the Intellivision emulator on the NES uses some kind of re-compiler that translates Intellivision CPU instructions to NES CPU instructions.

[@Larry]

I thought Hydlide was the smallest ever cart on the NES?

[@BainesMkII]

Hydlide is 40KB, with 32KB of PRG ROM and 8KB of CHR ROM.

[@Larry]

@@BainesMkII Jeremy Parish lied to me!!!

[@Dwedit]

Not necessarily the smallest cart on the NES, but it was very unusual to have a Mapper 0 (NROM) game releasing in 1989. Three other mapper 0 games also released in 1989: Dig Dug 2, Bomberman, and Tengen Ms. Pac Man.

[@joec9958]

When I think about being a youtuber... The challenge of constantly thinking of engaging topics puts me off... Doing the negative of your previous videos - what a great way to double the number of topics 😂

[@dan_loup]

"Can it run galaxian" was in the past the "can it run crysis?" and the answer until the famicom was basically "it can try, but.."

[@Roxor128]

"Can it run Crysis?" is the late 2000s' "Can it run Doom?"

[@dan_loup]

@ Yep. Now the answer is yes to many, many, many things that probably shouldn't

[@bmwolgas]

Video suggestion: cut-scenes that push the limits of the NES (or at least look impressive). There's a bunch, for example, in Tecmo Super Bowl.

[@ProjektBurn]

Tiny Toons Adventures was one of my favorite games as a kid. Never knew there was a 2nd. But the 1st was right there with Duck Tales for able to keep me occupied and give my parents at least a weekend of silence. Then Contra, Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy were all "look at what I did!" type games before Megaman and Double Dragon were the binding topics of me and new friends who moved in across the street.

[@ShenDoodles]

Galaxian is one of my favorite retro games because it’s just Space Invaders but way more fun. There’s no much more to think about since the aliens are actively attacking you instead of just advancing.

[@trevorwiant8838]

I love this concept for a video. I hate to break it to you but I think you’re gonna have to do one of these for the Atari 2600 now. I gotta know what the least limit pushing games on the least limit pushing console are like man.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

Pong and Combat are the only two games that don't push 2600 limits.

[@everythingisterrible8862]

It doesn't really get lower than Pong and Combat. Since it was a barely an inch better than a pong machine, pretty much EVERYTHING above that had to push the console beyond its design. For the 2600, 'can be considered a game' is like my best praise I can give for the best of them. Enduro, Montezuma's Revenge etc.

[@holdingpattern245]

In a way the Atari is well suited for this since it has almost no native graphics hardware, I believe the programmer even has to code the outgoing video signal, obviously this has allowed for really impressive coding feats like "racing the beam" and pretty much everything that Activision has made, but it's also possible to go the other way and code something impressively half-assed to make the most possible room for other stuff; Adventure for example, which invented the common tactic of making the pixels massive.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

@@holdingpattern245 Rampage is a beautiful example of ambitious not giving a damn.

[@UltimatePerfection]

Regarding super maruo, that switch might be NTSC/PAL region switch so it works both on the original Famicom (which was NTSC-J) as well as most Famiclones (which were PAL in Europe). The code might be just doubled to handle both PAL and NTSC depending on the position of the switch.

[@DarkMoe]

from Argentina here, the market for original NES hardware was almost nonexistent, and there was a semi authorized clone called "Family Game" that was basically a japanese Famicom with some differences (mostly related to how the joysticks were plugged or wired into the console). This console was super popular in the early 90s. The cartridges were not the long grey nes ones, but the smaller famicon ones. About 99% of the cartridges were bootlegs, they came in lots of colors, never a box or a manual. Argentina is one of the most piracy countries in the world, there are so few people who got legit games, and a few big stores that sold them, still to this day. The PS1 and PS2 for example, already came chip modded for directly playing copied games. At one point, there were people in the customs offices that actually installed the chip in the PS1 for directly supporting the pirated games, since no one sold original PS1 games. It's a fascinating country with no laws, I inherited in the 90s a full set of PC games that was actually used in a typical copy store, consisting of around 1000+ floppy disks. You could find a lot of virus, but oddities as W95 in 28 disks, and Alone in the dark 3 somehow ripped and cracked to be in 30 disks, for example

[@Medniex]

Whoa! I didn't even knew that such sound enhancing chip existed

[@anactualmotherbear]

I believe the reason Konami used their VRC chips in various late-era famicom games because they just happened to have them around. There have been plenty of times where a Famicom game is actually made from old parts (even ending up with a two-color shell.) Konami definitely had spare parts left over from unsold games. Bio Miracle uses the VRC IV despite being a port of a Famicom disk game. Not even the late Castlevania rerelease cartridge used this chip.

[@iamdarkyoshi]

The NES on a chip is such a fascinating subject on its own. It's such a shame that it has the same horrible composite video defects of the real NES, plus a faulty sound generator...

[@KennytheHedgehog619]

had to do a double take on the title lol, interesting idea

[@striderskorpion]

I wouldn't call that the first bootleg, but rather the first unlicensed game (potentially first homebrew, depending on your definition). Bootleg games are associated with piracy, whether a copy of the original game (see multicarts), hacks of games (like the various "Mario" bootlegs), or pirate ports/demakes (e.g., Super Mario World on the Famicom).

[@RabbitEarsCh]

Lots of fun stuff in here, thanks for giving lots of screen time to these pioneers. Especially the Family BASIC games, which are in many respects similar to those in the European microcomputer boom, where the right kind of person could, with few resources, do amazing things.

[@KizulEmeraldfire]

The last Mapper 0 game released during the NESes' and Famicom's lifespans may have been the Classic Series Mario Bros. game - but there HAVE been some Mapper 0 games released since then; the most-recent release I know about being Micro Mages, released in 2019 by Morphcat Games. :)

[@emmastarr5242]

Hilariously, in modern times, Tiny Toons 2 gets cannibalized a ton to make English-flashed Lagrange Point cartridges. Hell, I'm sure at some point, Tiny Toons 2 will likely become the rarest Famicom cart out there, solely due to Konami's own practices. :P

[@xdarkjimmyx]

I’m from Argentina, and I indeed played the legendary Super Maruo when I was a kid 💪🏻

[@CassiusZedaker-pr7kc]

Plot twist: Super Maruo is a crypto-miner.

[@SimPiko]

9:07 ah yes, the "Magic Floor", logic game made by NoCash for NES... but also for PC10(NES based arcade), ZX81, Jupiter Ace, Atari 2600, SNES, Satellaviev BSX, Sony SuperDisc (the playstation prototype), Nintendo Super System Version (SNES based arcade), GBA, e-Reader, NDS and DSi. Oh, and there's also Gameboy port (with custom SuperGameBoy frame) but that one is made by tepples. You can move with D-pad between adjacent tile of either: one brightness level above (you score point/arrow is drawn on floor tile) or same brightness (no points/arrow). Holding A makes your character 'jump' over one square (still, the target square has to be a valid move: either same brightness or one step above(or loop around)) The goal is to find every possible move from darker tile to lighter one (or from brightest to darkest). bare in mind, you can only score once in one direction, (as in, if you already scored the move north arrow, you don't get another point/arrow for 'jumping' from same tile north) The GB port has neat lil' demo mode/tutorial explaining the rules more visually (and it's slight additions to the formula, like you don't need to find all arrows/possible moves and that you need to reach exit)

[@UltimatePerfection]

Regarding the Galaxian, I always liked the hack often known as "Speed Galx" on various multicarts that let you fire two bullets at a time and made player bullets much faster.

[@KrunchyTheClown78]

I hope you do another limit pushing video for the Atari 7800. The console with the most untapped power!

[@theyamo7219]

Action 52 = The NES version of Cascade Cassette 50. LOL

[@Jabjabs]

I will shoot from the hip here and wager that the Intellivision emulator is actually a static recompiler. So the code is technically ported via an automated function on the back end and then written to the cartridge/rom. There is still a lot of re-mapping to get it to match to the NES specs but it would explain how it would be done and run so well. Also the 8bit to 16bit thing isn't a big issue, the 8 bit CPU would just use a carry bit (an additional bit above the 8 bit register) and an additional cycle to handle the difference in the data set. Considering the Intellivision was sub 1Mhz, the NES CPU would probably make up the difference on that. It is the same way any processor can calculate any number, you just keep using carry bits and additional cycles. It is slower but extends functionality. Very neat.

[@BurnRoddy]

At least Galaxian had Nausicaa's Requiem. It must've been a neat way yo experiment with the sound chip capabilities.

[@mavadelo]

Lol,I saw Galaga and immidiatly heard the theme in my head.

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Something very ghostly about that little ditty on galaga

[@jeromeellsworth1320]

I always like your videos but this one is especially interesting. Nice work, and I look forward to watching similar videos for other consoles if you choose to make them.

[@Sharopolis]

Yes I think I will

[@michaelcalvin42]

I remember playing Mouser back on early NES emulators! Man, I had completely forgotten about it.

[@Smaxx]

Oh, wow, I never really looked at the Mario Bros release date. I remember seeing it appearing in a local toy catalogue and wished it for Christmas, expecting a new (Super) Mario Bros game. It was even cheaper than other games as far as I remember. I was kind of disappointed at first and the start menu (together with the box art) always gave me the impression it was actually one of the original black box games. It was old, but not in that way, which is something I just learned from this video.🤯 It was still fun, especially with two players, but now I guess I can just appreciate that one odd disappointing German Christmas gift way more, considering it's actually more rare than I thought? Wow… 🙂

[@noveltyman6723]

What's baffling me is that these NES ports of Atari 2600 games are made for the MMC3 mapper, despite not making use of any of its advanced capabilities. Or at least the rom inspection tool I used said they use MMC3.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

The first Flashback also had 7800 ports. The stock NES needs that boost.

[@OrangeHarrisonRB3]

Pac-Man was smaller and the Nintendo port was by Namco, but the NES release was delayed until the 90s so people mislabel it as unofficial. It had always exited on Famicom and (actually unofficial) Tengen cartridges.

[@mage1439]

You know a game's really on cruise-control when they're like, "you know what would be a good enemy for our aerial shooter? A piece of tin that keeps flipping over and over in the wind."

[@iocat]

i didn't honestly think there was anythig else I could learn about the NES, but this video proved me wrong! Thanks for a great video. My guess is the Intellivision emuator uses the same type of offline emulation used for the Phantasy Star Collection on GBA.

[@yoymate6316]

**Featured Games** 0:36 Galaxian 4:00 Mario Bros. (Classic Series) 8:05 NESnake 8:29 Pong 1K 8:38 Target Blitz 9:01 Magic Floor 10:34 Star Fight 11:56 Zacner 13:25 Zacner II 14:08 Metal Itou 14:59 Intellivision for NES 17:26 Famiclone-based retro plug-and-play systems 19:38 Super Maruo 21:30 Mouser 22:20 Solar Wars 23:19 Metal Slader Glory 27:41 Tiny Toon Adventures 2

[@returnofmerenguespersempre]

Wow that LagrangePoint really impressed me, never heard of it! Could you at some point make a list of (excellent) NES games that never made it to EU for one reason or another? Im thinking Sweet Home but that's only one on top of my head. Or maybe you already made one but I never found it? :D

[@henke37]

Switches on bootlegs are for tuning the lockout chip zapping circuit.

[@headbangersworld]

:D "Games That Don't Push The Limits" Great idea! :D

[@Dwedit]

"One Chip" cartridge still needs a lockout chip as well.

[@bitcores]

Not on the Famicom.

[@Pirateyware]

Super Mario Bros. is arguably one such interesting non-limit-pusher. In its own way, it does push the limits of the NES, but only the stock NES, as it's easily the most elaborate NES game to not use any memory mappers, and was developed to be Nintendo's "swan song" to the base Famicom hardware before moving on to the Disk System.

[@billcook4768]

The switch is probably there because they are using a bootleg cart. Some of the methods used to get around Nintendo’s lockout chip were finicky and needed to try different options to work.

[@AcornElectron]

Any chance of a video about the new stuff still being developed for these older systems? I saw Skate Cat at the last Play Expo and a few others that looked worth covering or investigation.

[@xyklapse]

Didn't Metal Slader Glory later get a port to the Super Famicom? Maybe someone insane could try to 'update' the game to use all of the MMC5's capabilities by using the Super Famicom version as a reference point...

[@andrewwelch5017]

7:17 Not sure if you misspoke but the cartrige was 2 megabits (256 kilobytes), not 2 megabytes.

[@Sharopolis]

No it's definitely 2 megabytes or 8 megabits.

[@andrewwelch5017]

@@Sharopolis I stand corrected, you are absolutely right!

[@googleboughtmee]

14:58 people never link below when they say they're going to link below

[@Sharopolis]

Oops, sorted now, thanks!

[@Tolbat]

Wow I thought this channel went poof. Glad it's back on my feed

[@holdingpattern245]

I believe the NES processor is a 6502 thing, similar to the Apple II and Atari 2600 and VIC20 and c64, and the Intellivision uses a bizarre 16-bit processor from the 1970s (not related to later Motorola processors used by the Mac and Amiga and Genesis/Mega Drive). I assume that's why the ROMs are so different, the advantages of using assembly quickly evaporate when you're porting across machines like that, so perhaps the creators put their finger on the scale a little bit to avoid this issue.

[@cube2fox]

Never knew about the enhanced version of Mario Bros. Was it perhaps the base for the versions included in the Super Mario Advance games? I remember they had improved controls as well.

[@Smaxx]

Oof, Super Maruo is essentially Sven Bømwøllen long before its prime!😂

[@SkyCharger001]

perhaps the VRC7 and MMC3 had some points of compatibility that reduced the amount of recoding needed. (perhaps to zilch)

[@Slotmassacre]

So glad action 52 wasn’t $60. They would have sold the heck of them sub $60.

[@KingYoshi93]

When games that push the limits of the Nintendo DS? 👀

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

The DS is weird. You can create as much 3D geometry as you want, quads or triangles, but it only displays 2048 triangles, for example, per frame. After that, it's all invisible. I'd love to know why. Is it to prevent N64 quality frame rates? Or is it an accidental bonus?

[@russianmansmwc]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 I believe you can double the amount of tries at the cost of half the framerate (from 60 to 30). Some games utilize that. This trick can also be used to render 3D on both screens (normally DS can only render 3D on one of the screens)

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

@@russianmansmwc That trick works on other consoles, not the DS. (Other than games like Mario Kart doing a double display 3D engine in the reward cinema.) That hard limit per frame is what makes it unique, and its why you won't see many DS games stuttering from frame to frame. You gain nothing by doing it. Compare to the N64, where Ocarina runs at 20FPS, and Turok 2 isn't even pretending to run at a stable level of performance.

[@russianmansmwc]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 Huh, really? I always thought that was something you could do on DS, which would explain frame rate dips in some of the games that I've played. I thought the games had a dynamic way of slashing framerate to allow for more tries, but maybe I'm wrong (and its just poor coding... rip).

[@3dmarth]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 @russianmansmwc I've heard that claim as well. Apparently, it involves drawing half of the geometry in one frame, storing that in a buffer, and then rendering the rest of the geo on the next frame and layering that over top. Not sure how common that was, but whatever the DS is doing, I'm sure it's going over 2048 tris in some games. Plus, while a lot of DS games run at 60fps, a large percentage do not. PS: I've heard conflicting info on the DS's hard limit. Is it _actually_ 2048 triangles, or just 6144 vertices? (Those aren't the same thing!) From what I've heard, there's a vertex buffer in RAM that only holds 6144 vertices... if that really is the case, then games with high-poly models should be able to push well past 2000 tris, since one vertex is usually shared between tris, and the tri count can match or exceed the vert count in many cases.

[@0xPRIMEgs]

20:50 so... link to the "content"?

[@stevethepocket]

Good to see you've dropped your sponsor.

[@VyxiMainchannel35]

0:43 Japanese exclusive? I thought it was released in the US too (It did in Europe, but unofficially)

[@JamesTDG]

I am curious to know if we got any decent homebrew meant to take advantage of the MMC5 chip Edit: I went digging and found a version of SMAS that uses the MMC5 architecture, but finding anything else is hell to do

[@AnthyLoneExoria]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the music of Megami Tensei II.

[@DanTurner-x6z]

Hmm... No mention of Sly Dog Studio's 1K games series? He made 20 of those games!!!

[@liamh1982]

Super Maruo is probably just coded very inefficiently (understandably so considering the circumstances of its creation) to take up such a relatively large amount of ROM size.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

Super Mario Bros is very efficient for 1985.

[@liamh1982]

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 I mean the bootleg he starts talking about at 19:49 - the "catch the girl, avoid the dog" one.

[@skywalkerranch]

Great stuff. Thanks once again for all your efforts in making this, as it's greatly appreciated by myself and many others.

[@kez963]

Mrcro Mages is also only 40kb :D

[@uroborous01]

It was me. I suggested it.

[@cupuacu4life13]

i dont think galaxian is necessary exclusive to japan cuz we had it here in brazil

[@thegreathadoken6808]

Love you, Sharopolis. Cream of the crop!

[@MrGlasspider]

Yes! Finally! Video I've been waiting for!

[@childishbeat]

Wow. You managed to do the impossible.

[@UltimatePerfection]

This video seems like something that you should put on April 1st as a joke (but not really).

[@LeoStaley]

OK but galaxian seems to completely ignore the sprite limitations of the NES.

[@gluttonousmaximus9048]

If you use debug tools with NES emulators, you will see that the stars, the stray enemies and the bullets are on the sprite layer, while the other enemies in the formation and the player character are all technically background tiles.

[@LeoStaley]

@ I didn't realize nes could rewrite that much background that fast. Neato. New question, how the heck does faxanadu achieve 2 background layers on several levels, including the first one? There's a pillar you can walk behind, which shouldn't be possible on a screen with background you walk in front of.

[@DanTurner-x6z]

@@LeoStaley It's definitely not smooth in Faxanadu, the player character "pops" behind the background bricks, the moment you're even 1 pixel onto the pillar. I just went and checked, because I couldn't remember if they had used mask sprites, like the Dizzy games from Codemasters, did. They did not.

[@Dwedit]

@@LeoStaley It's not rewriting background that fast, it's just using split-screen scrolling.

[@nebins]

How many thumbnails does this video has 😭

[@Sharopolis]

Three. It's a new KZbin feature, you upload three thumbnails and it tests to see which one is best. The test is over now and the current one is the one that will be used.

[@elrickking9293]

Tetris???? Dr. Mario???? Side Pocket?????

[@瑟琴-w9i]

So good.

[@stephenmontgomery5807]

HAHA what a flip! I love this !

[@volo870]

Galaxian arcade machine has NOTHING incommon with NES: - Galaxian is z80 machine with 224 color RGB pallet. - NES is MOS6502 machine with custom 56 color prebaked NTSC pallet. If there are similarities of Galaxian with a game console - those would be with the Sega Master System. Did ChatGPT hallucinate this silly mistake into your script?

[@just_add_a_3]

He's not talking about the exact chips inside the console. He's talking about the rendering paradigm of having most of the graphics made up of discrete tiles and a tilemap to save on VRAM, which Galaxian is the first instance of.

[@Sharopolis]

They swapped the Z80 for a 6502, but it's well documented that Nintendo took a lot of inspiration from the Galaxian based machines of the time.

[@volo870]

@@Sharopolis Why do you keep deleting my replies? We cannot have a respectful argument, if I am being muted.

[@Sharopolis]

@@volo870 I've not deleted anything, I'm not even sure I could if I wanted to. No hard feelings at all from me, I welcome any comments!

[@volo870]

​@@Sharopolis I wanted to say that Nintendo indeed copied Galaxian, when making Galaxian clones (Space Firebird, Space Demon and Radar Scope). They accidentally made Donkey Kong based on that, but only to get rid of unsold cabinets. When designing NES graphics they had to start from TMS9918 specification and develop it into something more capable. Similar approach was taken by competitors with Master System and MSX2. NES has no Galaxian architecture whatsoever.

[@ninjapants7688]

Here's another cool NES game that doesn't push limits, but manages to be amazing because it's all crammed into 40k kzbin.info/www/bejne/kIi0YWhvZrV0rq8

[@Dwedit]

Micro Mages is indeed a great example of cramming a whole lot into 40K. Another game that crams a whole lot into 40K is Super Mario Bros. It has a huge set of levels, and basically no empty space left in the ROM at all. (Just a few game engine features that ended up going unused, such as momentum for spiny eggs, and a failed attempt at screen locking at the end of 1-2 and 4-2 unless you were at the top of the screen)

[@TheJinxCast]

I usually don't do this, but I'm going to say 'first comment' like the loser I am.

[@videogamebookreviews]

A winner is you.

[@crazyivan030983]

You're a winner :)

[@jeffrey44]

Don't put yourself down. You've achieved first. That's not nothing.

[@Reecetafarian]

I'm going to say it too in solidarity. First comment

[@greenmachine5487]

" I don't usually do this..." Sure. I haven't heard that before 😅

[@AcornElectron]

How Mario got the prominent position after the pre super Mario games is beyond me. Donkey Kong was decent but the others were real shiters.

[@everythingisterrible8862]

He was their mascot. The whole idea was to be like Popeye - you had this cast of characters, and they'd be re-used in completely different games. I guess in the long run the approach won out. Too many of the Sega arcade style games where you'd make something new from scratch every time never really became viable franchises..

[@belstar1128]

Mario bros from 1983 was good .