This Company Made Seemingly IMPOSSIBLE Games

When you think of impressive game companies, you might think of Konami, who was constantly pushing the hardware limits of the NES. But there was a lesser-known company doing the same thing: Sunsoft. They made some impressive games, and utilized enhancement chips, just like Konami did. But how did this all go down with Nintendo’s policies in the US? And how were their games as a whole?
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Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:59 Sunsoft’s Arcade Games
1:41 Early NES Games
3:48 Blaster Master
4:53 Batman
6:15 Journey to Silius
6:46 Gremlins 2: The New Batch
7:48 NES Mappers
8:40 Batman: Return of the Joker
10:16 Hebereke / Ufouria
11:43 Mr Gimmick
13:48 Conclusion
14:15 Outtro
Special thanks to the following users from pexels.com for the stock footage:
84LENS, 霍天赐, A frame in motion, Ahmet Akpolat, Andrew Hanson, Anna Hinckel, Anvar Tushakov, Artem Podrez, Caleb Oquendo, Cottonbro, Cristian Dina, Curtis Adams, DAV Grup 1, David McBee, Distill, Drones Scot, Edward Jenner, EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA, Ekrulila, Evgenia Kirpichnikova, Free Videos, George Morina, Glen McBride, Hirsh Philippe, Jack Sparrow, Joseph Redfield, Kampus Production, Kamrul Chowdhury, Karolina Grabowska, Kelly, Kindel Media, Ksenia Chernaya, MART PRODUCTION, Mikhail Nilov, Miguel Á. Padriñán, Mike B, Monstera, Nazim Zafri, Nicole Michalou, Pavel Danilyuk, Pete Wales, pickarick, Pixabay, Polina Tankilevitch, Pressmaster, RDNE Stock project, Ricky Esquivel, RODNAE Productions, Ron Lach, Ruvim Miksanskiy, Sora Shimazaki, Steve B, Thirdman,Tiger Lily, Tima Miroshnichenko, Tom Fisk, Tony Schnagl, Vlada Karpovich, Yan Krukov, Yaroslav Shuraev
Special thanks to streambeats.com for the music used in this video.
#nintendo #sunsoft #retrogaming

[@ecernosoft3096]

As someone who has programmed on the nes, *it’s harder than it looks to even achieve 4 way scrolling, much less of the non-glitchy variety without using extra RAM.* That was one of the reasons I switched over to 7800, however none of my games scroll there except It’s Cyrus Time 3.

[@pojr]

Is that why with games that scroll in 4 directions, you usually see weird residue on either the top or the side of the screen?

[@ninjaguyYT]

​@pojr there's a vid that I watch before yours (well, listened to, as I was driving) that explained it. It's called like "how does Mario fit in a 40kb rom" or something like that. It explained it.

[@ninjaguyYT]

​@@pojr"how nes games are still made in 40k"

[@nickfarace9339]

@@pojr yeah, they can only predraw 2 screens in one direction outside of a rare chip in some carts. That means, there is no extra drawn BG to scroll to in one direction, so it has to redraw one side as it wraps from the other. A lot of games tried to hide this single block of BG to mask this

[@TheNuje]

@@pojr Unless you add extra screen memory in the cartridge (for a total of 4 screens) you have to compromise, which even most games that scrolled in 4 directions did. You can make the leftmost 8 pixels invisible so the tiles always update in that blanked column as you scroll horizontally, but the NES background colours are bound to 16x16 pixel chunks. Best case, you don't see the actual tiles update, but the colours will still be wonky on the edges if the outgoing graphics don't use the same palette as the incoming ones. On old CRT TVs, you're unlikely to see the whole miscoloured (8x8 pixel) tile, but you might notice some artifacts. On modern displays, it's much more noticeable since you see everything.

[@johnrickard8512]

The extra channel you are hearing on Gremlins 2 is actually the NES's DPCM channel. While it is normally used for percussion, Sunsoft figured out how to squeeze a passable Roland slap bass through it, and many of their later titles use this.

[@pojr]

This is really cool. No wonder the game sounds like no other.

[@jc_dogen]

it's actually surprisingly easy to use the DPCM channel (load sample into a ram location, flip a flag in the apu, that kinda thing), I think the difference was that sunsoft was one of the few companies willing to dedicate cart space to multiple pitched bass samples. And they had great composers too.

[@johnrickard8512]

@@jc_dogen world class composers and developers. After all, those hardware tricks they always used didn't just help the music.

[@ClaudioBalbin]

These games look so good, that I almost thought they were modern games trying to mimic the NES style.

[@mistertagomago7974]

Ive thought that before myself.

[@nickfarace9339]

Batman specifically just had such freaking amazing use of color. That is a level of artistic direction that got more out of a 32 color palate TOTAL than you would ever think. The trick always was to abuse making black a transparent color on the background to sneak in 4 colors instead of the 3 plus a transparency. It just happened that Batman specifically lent itself well to having everything kind of fade into black in its visual design I guess.

[@dfloper]

@@nickfarace9339 I had that game as a kid on the NES when i first went to the sewerage level and saw all that spinning fans and water droplets i was amazed, buy the graphics and sound. I could not believe my games console could do this because previous games i had looked and sounded much much worse.

[@bes03c]

The speedruns of Mr Gimmick have an insanely high skill ceiling. They are amazing to watch.

[@uiopuiop3472]

i programing the skibiddy toilet gaeme in 2025!!! no waye nr molanson not tare!!! i am the skid

[@StormsparkPegasus]

Fun fact: The NES CAN handle the cartridges with audio expansion. But you have to do a hardware modification inside the system, basically jumper some traces together that were cut. Then you can run Famicom games with an adapter and get the extra sound channels.

[@AgentLazarus]

Fun Fact: Everyone already knows that and youre braindead.

[@mtunayucer]

audio mixing circuitry was reserved for the bottom expansion port.

[@AgentLazarus]

Fun Fact: You have no idea wtf youre talking about.

[@explorer9049]

@@AgentLazarus u mad bro?

[@MrFixer1983]

@@AgentLazarus Try google

[@aegisofhonor]

I consider Blaster Master to be bar none the best game on the NES with incredible graphics, sound, game play, and progression beats that hit all the right notes. It's a game that I always love going back to because it's so fun to play.

[@nickfarace9339]

One of the top games of my childhood. And looking back, its actually insane that came out in 1988. It accomplished so much, so much better, than almost anything at that time. While still also being a great game on its own.

[@DJ4461]

Agreed. Although the metal attacker (or, Sofia the 3rd) graphics could be better. A while ago, i actually tried to put a blaster master zero-style to the sprites.

[@gimcrack555]

Time to save my frog. I love Blaster Master. I was even able to finish the game. Had to watch YT videos how to beat the main bosses. To reset enemies, just walk back off the screen edge. You had to on some levels. That's the secret to able to finish this game and to obtain extra lives.

[@thesupervideogamenerdmore3171]

For me, it's a tie between Kirby's Adventure and Super Mario Bros 3

[@Hotobu]

LOL!

[@-Haskel]

"We have Turbografx at home" Turbografx at home:

[@battra92]

Gimmick is actually getting a US release on Switch.

[@DryPaperHammerBro]

@@doubleWmemesgyatt

[@SNARC15]

Released last year, as well as on Xbox and PS4/5

[@NightSprinter]

​@@SNARC15 and Steam, as I just made a comment on.

[@pojr]

Yeah this was an oversight of mine when I made the video. The game was released on switch in 2022. My bad.

[@LUCKO2022]

​@pojr It was released on PSN, Switch, Xbox Series and Steam 8 months ago.

[@kjetilfrugard8395]

How fitting that I got a mail today saying that my copy of Sunsoft Collection 1 on Evercade will be delivered during the night.

[@pojr]

Nice, that's incredible timing. Enjoy!

[@misterjonestech1611]

Blaster Master is, hands down, my favorite game for the NES. I rented it one weekend in high school then on Monday after I returned it I headed straight to a toy store and bought it. Everything about it is top notch. The fact that you have to beat it in one sitting made it far more challenging than any other game I owned.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

It's a Metroidvania, that beat out Metroid. It took Super Metroid to top it. The original name of the game is Super Planetary War Records: Metafight, and the original plot was based on an alien invasion. The US plot was added on to the intro and is really weird, compared to the original where you are just a soldier fending off an alien invasion. The Blaster Master Zero series is a sort of reboot of Metafight, while taking some elements of the US Blaster Master plot, but adapting them to the Metafight setting.

[@BlueMSX.]

Sunsoft really had so great stuff, late NES games are honestly insane with the effects they pulled off with those mappers. great video pojr!

[@pojr]

Thank you so much! And I agree 100%

[@ChevyTheCat]

Kirby's adventure comes to mind. seriously the final boss is so cool

[@ShamoaKrasieski-xm4ze]

It's a crying shame Uforia and Mr Gimmick were not released in North America.

[@pojr]

Absolutely, we really missed out for years.

[@otistically]

These guys and Hal Labs are like the Michelangelo of videogames, they usually take a very long time to make one, but when they release it's always a work of art.

[@MoonSarito]

Until that moment I had no idea that Mr Gimmick was released in Scandinavian territories and without the sound chip, this makes me wonder why they didn't take the opportunity to launch it in the Americas as well.

[@sr.metang8193]

It's the 90s. It probably was some disagreement with their USA and Japan divisions whether these kinds of games would sell or not. One thing I realized is that the EU version runs at 60Hz, and trying to emulate on a NSTC system causes the soundtrack to play at a lower pitch. With the lack of additional sound expansion chip, perhaps they were against releasing the game in the US if it didn't had the same level of sound fidelity? I don't know, there's a lot of things that could have happened.

[@SweetStevieAaron]

Never seen Uforia or Mr Gimmick before. They look technically excellent.

[@DE-GEN-ART]

download the rom for mr.giimmick you owe it to yourself to play it

[@pojr]

Absolutely, it's too bad the US didn't see these games until much later

[@LUCKO2022]

I have had those roms forever now including the rare NTSC Mr. GIMMICK. A prototype was found but not released. Then repo carts were made of it and someone ripped the rom from one of those since the prototype rom wasn't released. Either Way I still got it

[@mistertagomago7974]

Highly recommend them.

[@MJFallout]

Uforia is also such a different vibe for a platformer. Relaxing, wide areas, a bit floaty, also just so curious with stuff you find.

[@NightSprinter]

Good news, pojr: Gimmick is on Switch/Playstation/Steam as "Gimmick! Special Edition".

[@pojr]

Good stuff!

[@FeralInferno]

Yesss!! I love NES Sunsoft. The guy who composed Sunsoft's music definitely does not get enough credit.

[@huldu]

I heard they had a music composer that composed "real" music and then the team/person made their best effort in converting it to the nes. Absolutely amazing. Tim Follin(another great game music composer) was amazing when it came to nes music(and in general) BUT often his music doesn't feel like it belong in a game but more as a tech demo. This is where sunsoft really did great as their music felt like it a part of the game it was in.

[@BeefJerkey]

Journey to Silius. That soundtrack rocks.

[@commentidelloziopera]

Naoki Kodaka et al. for JTS and Masashi Kageyama et al. for Mr. Gimmick

[@phattjohnson]

@@BeefJerkey 100% Journey to Silius has the best soundtrack out of any game on NES, Master System or Genesis/MegaDrive. The tracks all actually have rhythm, basslines, tempo, and progression. I'm open to other suggestions if someone's got anything better.

[@pojr]

100%. They made some of the best music on the NES.

[@kultledern]

Nice video but I recommend using a de-esser on your vocals since you put a lot of power in yours s'es and f's. With headset on the sounds drilled into my ears

[@marcfuchs6938]

I didn't recognize anything like it, but also watched the video on normal speakers. In any case, I hope you never stumble upon some channel, which shows cat shorts with one of the most awful narrations I can imagine. The woman talks in a slightely annoying fashion, but what even kills my ears over the speakers are those unbearable, annoying S-sounds she does. It's like, the highest of all frequencies. It seems to me like this is a thing with some women. Some are making the S-sounds in a way, that they are very high pitched and in one way or another not only annoying, but hard to tolerate to the slightest.

[@rgerber]

haha its shifting my focus entirely on the S at the end of every sentence

[@JoeyJ0J0]

Mr.Gimmick is such a fun charming game, I am glad Sunsoft released it on modern systems, more people need to play it

[@pojr]

Yeah I'm glad it's getting exposure to more platforms

[@blackmesacake5361]

Sunsoft is a logo i remember very well from my Genesis childhood. Some great times with those games!

[@vdogaymer]

I always loved Sunsoft, I have no idea how they dropped off the face off the Earth once the 16 bit wars began, especially since all of their titles had a lot of TLC.

[@TheSlashTraxNetwork]

Man we gotta get you over 100k subs this is criminal!!!

[@pojr]

Aww thanks! That's definitely a goal of mine, whenever that happens.

[@retrojoe85]

Sunsoft is my favourite NES publisher, Journey To Silus and Batman are two of the best games ever made in history, plus their soundtrack are still phenomenal! Even Batman on Sega Mega Drive/Genesis got a top notch soundtrack. These guys deserve better recognition, I'm proud they landed among the Evercade licensers.

[@cjheeley]

Hi POJR, been watching your videos from the beginning. I've been binge watching your videos this afternoon as I had some free time. Your videos are the right length and very informative. Great work .

[@bdanka50]

Awesome video. Your content is always well thought out and informative. Thanks for your work!

[@pojr]

Really appreciate that, thank you!

[@N3Selina]

i love sunsoft's music esp.

[@ecernosoft3096]

Using the DPC channel to play actual notes instead of drums is especially unique!

[@phattjohnson]

@@ecernosoft3096 True innovation!

[@pojr]

100% agreed.

[@N3Selina]

@@ecernosoft3096 very! it seems that the original bass sample used might have been found too~

[@razcarsey6635]

0:55 I KNOW we're all here for that classic Pojr money shot 📸💸

[@catsaregovernmentspies]

😁

[@pojr]

How nice! Glad I can accommodate.

[@JS-uh1ly]

@@pojrnightmare fuel.

[@blankbruno70]

Another great video as usual @pojr! Thank you for covering Sunsoft on the NES. One of my favorite games on the NES was Journey to Silius which you mentioned. I really liked the game in general, and the music in particular on that one. Keep up the great work, and thanks again!

[@pojr]

Thank you!

[@alistairblaire6001]

I didn’t know about Gimmick until a couple years ago and I was blown away by the soundtrack. It’s about as good as the JP version of Castlevania III. But the game itself is insanely difficult.

[@The_Gallowglass]

Sunsoft had some of the best music, best looking graphics, and hardest games.

[@SylveonTrapito]

And I was just playing U-fouria 2. I´m so happy that old Sunsoft games are getting re releases or secuels.

[@goatbone]

What do you think of it? I am afraid to have a go because Ufouria was my favourite NES game growing up.

[@SylveonTrapito]

@@goatbone I think it's really cool! The graphics looks like some Yoshi like game, a blend of cotton and clay. The music are remixes of the classical themes and the humor is spot on.

[@pojr]

I haven't tried it yet, but I love the graphics style. Reminds me of Yoshis Island.

[@rtrojosh]

great video pojr! i've been watching since the color dreams video (i know, not very long), and you have had consistent quality all the way since. keep it up, you'll REALLY blow up some day!

[@pojr]

I appreciate you being here! Glad I can keep it as consistent as possible

[@tobypupzz7112]

I loved kangaroo on the 2600, I had no idea it was a sunsoft game. Purple Batman on the NES, what’s not to love 😁

[@pojr]

Actually, I'm with you on that. I didn't realize Kangaroo was originally made by Sunsoft until recently.

[@ChrisLincoln]

I'm really glad that Fantasy Zone kept getting ports, and is now included in lots of collections. Go give it a play

[@ktvx.94]

Streets of Desolation, Batman's stage 1 theme is one of my all-tme favorite songs period, not even just within games. It gives me chills just thinking about it.

[@KoopaMedia64]

It is true that Nintendo limited the mappers available to third party companies, but, there is an early exception to that for some reason. A few games like Gauntlet 1 and Ring King use the Namcot 108-series mapper chip. Yes these are NES games. Hebereke is probably pronounced as "Heh-Beh-Ray-Kay" Sunsoft using the FME-7 chip in an NES game is a jumping point for a future video you should do. In the last few years of the NES, Nintendo really loosened up and started letting third parties make their own cartridges, these companies include Sunsoft, Acclaim and Virgin.

[@seanoliver7162]

You have made my day I scrolled all this way just to see if someone corrected his pronunciation.

[@btr3k]

Great video as usual! For what it's worth (and sorry for the boring comment) - "Hebereke" is actually pronounced "Hey-bey-rey-key" (the symbols above it on the title screen at 10:17 are the characters for those sounds). It's a challenging representing other languages with English letters, but at least in Japanese whenever you see the English letter "e" it's always meant to represent the Japanese sound "eh".

[@joshcarriker6958]

Thanks for opening my eyes to several interesting games I have never heard of. Gimmick and Uforia really stood out to me and I'm definitely considering finding a method of playing these. Maybe Nintendo will add them to their online service one day~

[@SkyPalaceHub]

The former was actually re-released last year on modern hardware as "Gimmick! Special Edition". While the latter was re-released last month on Switch and PC (albeit, it's the original Japanese version, but there is an option within it to look at English translated versions of dialogue from the Japanese version)

[@johnathanstevens8436]

Gremlins looks like it reused Fester's Quest with different sprites.

[@pojr]

The style is similar, but Gremlins has better controls. Unlike Fester's Quest, you can walk diagonally and you can jump. I always found Gremlins more fun personally, but Fester's Quest is alright. I wanted to cover that game too, but the video was already too long.

[@3rdalbum]

Mr Gimmick's graphics look suspiciously similar to Kirby's Adventure. But it's clear that the legato notes in the music were specially there to show off the sound capabilities in the mapper!

[@pojr]

Yeah I definitely got Kirby vibes from the game, even just the way your character looks.

[@GrizonII]

Surprisingly Gimmick! actually predates the original Kirby's Dream Land by a few months, so arguably Kirby's graphics look like Gimmick!'s.

[@3rdalbum]

@@GrizonII Oh wow, I guess the game must have impressed somebody at HAL then!

[@invalid_user_handle]

You could suppose that they took advantage of the fact that the NES does best with a cel-shaded, more cartoonish artstyle, which both games ended up having.

[@Jolis_Parsec]

Might wanna include Rare in that list of developers pushing the NES hardware limits since I’ve always been impressed at how they implemented a primitive form of physics and gravity in a 2D space shooter/exploration game with Solar Jetman, even if they cheat a bit by having the objects freeze in place once you’re no longer towing them using the tractor beam.

[@Akutabai5]

Man, SunSoft is under rated. They're making some push back into gaming and now I'm actually excited

[@Trekeyus]

When I hear some stuff I think of their game boy game trip world

[@StrangeGamer859]

Man, the evolution from early NES games to late ones was insane. It barely looks like the same system.

[@jackplumley3308]

I listen to the Batman soundtrack pretty regularly. So iconic.

[@pojr]

Yeah it's one of the best on the NES.

[@soundspark]

First NES Batman sounds like they hadn't perfected their DPCM; it sounds a bit more Konami-like.

[@David2073]

At first I thought some of the games you showed were from the SNES, until you mentioned they were all on the NES. I am just mindblown.

[@goatbone]

13:39 If I remember correctly it was mostly because Sunsoft closed down their US branch at the time, and they were supposed to handle the release. I know for Gimmick it only received it's PAL release because a distributor pushed for it.

[@goatbone]

Also worth mentioning that Ufouria had two main characters changed (The cat became a dinosaur and bop louie became a human-looking thing).

[@TheBestYoutubChannelInTheWorld]

I inherited an NES from my aunt during childhood, it came with a bootleg '42 games in one' that she had acquired and both Iki and Arabian were featured on it, both are amazing titles. I preferred Arabian but Iki was one of the few non-linear (4 way scrolling) 2-player games which was kinda mind-blowing back then.

[@jno7]

Sunsoft were absolute legends that are way to underappreciated nowadays! Thank you so much for this Video. :3

[@the_primal_instinct]

I remember I was blown away when I first played Gremlins 2. It felt like a 16-bit game, and a good 16-bit game at that. I was wondering why were there so few games of that quality, not knowing about cartridge modificationas.

[@apr2499]

Great video! I’ll have to check out some of these games!

[@pojr]

Thank you!

[@RacerX-]

Awesome! I liked Sunsoft games too. Any plans for a follow-up for SNES and Genesis Sunsoft? Keep up the good work.

[@pojr]

Thank you so much! I really wanted to talk about sunsoft games on 16-bit consoles, but the video was already too long. Might be a good future video.

[@sboinkthelegday3892]

If you're able to do the research, a third episode could be Sunsoft between 2012-2024. Licensing Blaster Master Zero to Inti Creates off the heels of Mighty No. 9, and finally making their new youtube channel and company resurgence as an active dev and publisher. It's also notable that Inugami Korone streamed long, one-shot sessions of ActRaiser and Hebereke which both have since been remade for Switch. Sunsoft's return may have been influenced by this new consumer interest.

[@greensun1334]

Most of the time, Sunsoft made very good games. Also their SNES games are nice, for example the quite accurate port of World Heroes and one of the few non-crappy licensed games, Pirates of Dark Water. I always had the impression, there are talented people at work.

[@Retnaburn]

I loved Blaster Master so much. It was hard to resist taking advantage of the geneade pause exploit tho.

[@SolidIncMedia]

I still have fond memories of playing Aero The Acro-bat, a Sunsoft game for the SNES. It looked good, played quite nicely and had a good soundtrack. Unfortunately that was the only Sunsoft game I ever played, but I might have to suss out some of their NES / Famicom games, because they look great.

[@mbe102]

Gimmick! is so damn hard, but, fun, and a technical tour de force, FOR SURE! Trip World is something incredible to see on the Gameboy too.

[@Larry]

Sunsoft were also making a Superman game for the NES, but lost the license and turned the game into Sunman.

[@CarecaRetrogamer]

Guru Larry! Hello, you! Good thing that you mentioned Sunman, I was about to, when I saw ur comment... Cheers!

[@Larry]

@@CarecaRetrogamerNo worries! They also did Fester's Quest as a license.

[@CarecaRetrogamer]

@@Larry Oh, yeah! There's that one too... Man, I really miss your videos, they're really interesting! I hope u'll grace us with more content soon... Gotta luv ur accent! Cheers!

[@SoyLuciano]

And it was sadly shelved, although a prototype was later dumped.

[@CarecaRetrogamer]

@@SoyLuciano That's the beauty of the Internet, gamewise... Some games that would never be known, end up getting to the hands of the gamers...

[@Crvmbs]

I have been playing these games over the past week and I had to come back to say that you completely opened my mind to NES. I thought every game looked like the original Mario bros. I’ve been having so much fun playing ufouria I just unlocked the last character

[@mlewellyn]

This video is good but missed out on SunSoft's biggest win: they had a wider palette than most NES games. You touch on it with the palette colors, and that was the secret: they took advantage of how NTSC works to get additional colors and even some transparency effects. You will only see these colors via RF or composite video. Though the effects actually work better via the lower quality RF adapter. They basically abused system limitations across the board and that's a lot of why their games are so memorable. Another example of using/abusing the limits of NTSC is the IBM CGA palettes: if you use a CGA adapter via composite video, well-written CGA games look far more amazing than the crappy four color palettes that people associate with CGA via RGB.

[@JerryFlowersIII]

I really enjoyed this, they seem like a great studio. Surprised that I haven't really heard about them. I was only vaguely familiar with some of their games.

[@JerryFlowersIII]

Woah, I just assumed that recent sequel game was someone else getting the rights and making it but to my surprise Sunsoft is still active and they made it themselves.

[@D.S.handle]

Some of these games look like they are from another console. I remember playing The Return of the Joker on my counterfeit NES when I was a kid, the graphics and the music there were truly impressive.

[@Sinistar1983]

As a dev on the GBC I've been inspired by these late gen sunsoft titles. And I've studied them as I've been building my game Eternal Memory.

[@LeiteComManga_]

These games look so sick. Its almost like a snes game, or a nowadays game trying to look nes-like. I will totally play it. Super cool

[@Littleham117]

this video was actually really enjoyable!!! i didnt drop it after like 5 mins lol

[@ajackson1451]

Another great video pojr.

[@pojr]

Thank you!

[@GeovaneSanciniSR]

Sunsoft, along with Natsume are the unsung heroes of the NES. People praise Konami and Capcom, but some of the most amazing titles came from Sunsoft and Natsume. Also, the video is missing the fantastic Super Spy Hunter, and Sunman, which is a unreleased game that was supposed to be a Superman licensed game, then Sunsoft lost the license, reworked as Sunman, but the game never was released.

[@pojr]

Yeah I would have loved to have talked about Super Spy Hunter. There's a few I missed, but the video was already too long and I didn't have time for all of them. I didn't talk about Sunman Because Sunsoft didn't develop that one, it was developed by a small company called EIM. Plus, I did make a video about Sunman/Superman last year.

[@GeorgeNoiseless]

Also, the creators of the legendary SNES horror adventure game Clock Tower! They're still around, bless 'em.

[@Mantelar]

Blaster master was the dark souls of the 80’s. If you could beat that game your entire class would come to your house to see it as most people could barely clear the first stage or two.

[@MegaManNeo]

I really recommend the Blaster Master Zero games on Switch. It was one of the games I bought first with my Switch back in 2017 and it's really really fun to play. By now it's also on Steam.

[@MySamurai77]

Could have mentioned Spy Hunter 2 that game had some truly eye popping visuals for a NES game.

[@VanArtic]

as you point out, earlier sunsoft titles were arcade releases which then got ported to consoles; then Sunsoft started going for console only releases. Gimmick however, recently got the reverse treatment; with an arcade exclusive 16-bit remake called Gimmick Exact☆MIX, which is, like the original, extremely expensive to acquire.

[@JanetStarChild]

I love Famicom's Gimmick! I played and completed the entire game; it was quite the experience. Gimmick is an absolute treasure and hidden gem!

[@SkyPalaceHub]

Great video! Always to love see Sunsoft's games get more attention, especially Hebereke/Ufouria and Gimmick!/Mr. Gimmick. Those are some real underrated gems ^^ (Alongside Trip World on Game Boy as well, though it's not in this video) (My only real problem is the slander on non-platformer Hebereke games. Come on, that's a bit...harsh. They're still pretty decent)

[@Bro3256]

Sunsoft was never the brighest developer in their early years, those early arcade ports to the Famicom aren't well liked in Japan and Ikki infamously resulted in the term kusoge (crappy game) being coined and it wouldn't be until MetaFight or Blaster Master that Sunsoft started to gain the reputation of making some of the best games on the Famicom and NES. Gimmick! in particular is easily my favorite game from them, at least on the Famicom. Like you mentioned expansion audio was not possible on the NES which resulted in the beautifully composed music getting cut back and because it only released in Scandinavia which used PAL at the time, it resulted in the game running slower compared to its NTSC counterpart on the Famicom. It's not only praised for being a masterpiece, but it's just about tied with Summer Carnival '92 Recca as being the most expensive Famicom cartridge you can buy.

[@Karukami1]

I like watching videos like this while doing the dishes. Now I want to try out sunsoft games haha

[@nickfarace9339]

SunSoft was like one of the only companies then to actually utilize and just flat out master that 5th sound channel on the NES. It was the one that allowed samples to play and most used it for the more restrictive voice clips which took over the entire processing of the system to play (which is why a lot of games where a voice plays, the whole game freezes). The other use of it though, was smaller sound samples which could have their pitch adjusted to specific frequencies to change the tone. There were issues with getting it to work right code wise from what I understand, but when done right, it could become a whole additional sound channel with much more realistic sound. For Sunsoft, they tended to specifically use it for the baseline of the songs (you will recognize it in pretty much every game after batman if you listen closely enough. Gremlins 2 it really stands out). It then allowed them to do some pretty cool stuff with the square wave channel that normally had to cover the base line of a song. gimmick was certainly their absolute perfection of this technique. They got a lot more out of it there than usual.

[@invalid_user_handle]

The DPCM sample channel was definitely underused, Nintendo themselves primarily only used it for percussion, and many games outright ignored it for the whole 'requires either a lot of CPU time or a lot of ROM space' conundrum... but Sunsoft didn't! and figured out the best of both worlds!

[@nickfarace9339]

@@invalid_user_handle I saw someone explain a lot about it, and there was some bug where it would essentially use significantly more space to save a "sample" for it because it essentially had pages and every entry always bled into a second slightly, requiring it to use the whole second page of space. Also, apparently it was very hard to manipulate properly. It had a mode where it could even repeat a sample until stopped to be used as a full insturment instead of just short sounds, but very few devs could do it. On top of that it had set frequencies you could pick in htz to produce different tones, and only a few really worked so I guess they would need multiple samples to cover a full range of notes. And also, many couldn't really nail those notes so... percussion ended up the most successful use for most. Its really fascinating. The same vid I saw also stated how Battletoads took advantage of the whole CPU ceasing of game processing thing to its advantage, and the sounds it used for the impact hits would freeze the game up perfectly to make the hits actually FEEL big. Which was a great idea.

[@Amiculi]

Gimmick is available right now on Steam as Gimmick! Special Edition, came out July 2023.

[@BaneMcDeath]

Gimmick star reminds me a little of Mr. Do's powerball. SUNSOFT IS AWESOME! I remember when I rented Batman and was so blown away. I stayed up all weekend playing that before the rental had to go back to the video store.

[@KrunchyTheClown78]

Blaster Master is my number one favorite NES game.

[@pojr]

I didn't grow up with blaster master. This video was the first time I ever played it, and I had a blast (no pun intended).

[@SoyLuciano]

10:18 Hate to be this type of guy, but it's actually pronounced "heh-beh-REH-keh". I remember SNESdrunk pronouncing it as "heh-beh-REH-kee" and a German longplay video of _Hebereke's Popoon_ pronouncing it as "HEE-beh-reh-keh", as well as various Spanish-language Loquendo videos pronouncing it as "eh-beh-REH-keh". 13:32 Thankfully, there's a rerelease on current gaming platforms.

[@StormsparkPegasus]

The original name of Blaster Master is Super Planetary War Records: Metafight, and the original plot was based on an alien invasion. The US plot was added on to the intro and is really weird, compared to the original where you are just a soldier fending off an alien invasion. The Blaster Master Zero series is a sort of reboot of Metafight, while taking some elements of the US Blaster Master plot, but adapting them to the Metafight setting.

[@SmugMatty]

Correction on "Mr. Gimmick/Gimmick!", there is a another way you can play it without paying $$$ or getting a ROM. There's "Gimmick! Special Edition" on Steam/Switch/PS4/Xbox Series which is a port of the Famicom version with extra features (basically just an emulator lol) A bit unrelated, but there's also "Gimmick! EXACT☆MIX", but it's arcade only and I don't know why that didn't get ported to consoles/PC since it has enhanced graphics and music.

[@ThriftLife]

Great video. Used to love playing batman.

[@dirkkrohn1907]

Kangaroo on the 2600 was one of the games that I played back in the day, didn't know it was a port of an arcade game.

[@MegaMoto85]

Fantasy zone a defender type game? no buddy its a shoot-em-up, or some also say its a cute-em-up because of the cutesy cartoony artstyle. great vid :)

[@UltimatePerfection]

Gimmick has basically the NES equivalent of Box2D. I absolutely love it, even though I am really bad at the game.

[@pixelsncreatures]

I remember Ufouria shown in magazines and I really wanted it

[@Jamie_ThatJamGuy]

I'm so glad they came out with a Switch port for Mr. Gimmick. The rewind feature is also a nice inclusion since I'm terrible at the game 😅

[@pojr]

Yeah the rewind feature is a much needed thing for a game like that. One of the secret items, you really only have one shot of getting it. If you miss, you have to reset.

[@RyuzakiPragmatico]

the best on cartdrige as game media is the possibility to put an external coprocessor for enhance the game.

[@LUCKO2022]

Also it was released on Switch, Steam and Xbox Series consoles as well.

[@rustymixer2886]

Great video

[@MrOrthopedia]

I believe an enhanced version of Mr. Gimmick was released in the US on the Switch.

[@WastelanderLucky]

I'm really sorry to nitpick, but I'm pretty sure it's 'he-be-re-ke' like the kana in the title show, not 'hee-bee-reek'! Ooooh, thank you for showing me this though, I'm smitten with it!

[@InfernosReaper]

Ah, Journey to Silius, the game that brought use one of the peak Gamegrumps bits

[@michaeltylerstewart]

This guy makes the best KZbin vids.

[@ZankokuNoYami]

That's the storyline to the original blaster master?! I only played the one on the ps1 XD

[@sid7804]

6:17 Silius is like the gameplay of Home Alone on the Game Boy.

[@boriscat1999]

A few years ago, I managed to get the reproduction of Mr Gimmick from retroUSB. Really great game!

[@rosergio7227]

Now I got new games that I never heard of, that I need to play 😮

[@danielespeziari5545]

What an amazing company. It's a shame they couldn't replicate this level of quality in the 16-bit generation. On the NES they were on par with Capcom and Konami