That is an excellent article--I keep learning new things!
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What the heck is on this $10 Retro Game handheld? Let’s find out!
- Thread starter Beowulf
- Start date
jpfriction
(He, Him)
My mom bought me Magmax and king’s knight from a bargain bin at a random grocery store.
I think I liked Magmax slightly better but it is pretty brainless. Once you build your robot it’s clear sailing until it loops.
I think I liked Magmax slightly better but it is pretty brainless. Once you build your robot it’s clear sailing until it loops.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I think my cousin had that Mickey Mouse game, or maybe I rented it or something? I remember playing it briefly.
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299. UTMOST WARFARE
A sorta-3D space shoot-em-up made by Nice Code. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great—like most attempts as the “things coming toward you” 3D on the NES, it doesn’t have the processing power or graphics capability to really make it clear what and where the objects are. This was also released as Interstellar.
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300. VALKYRIE NO BOUK
Well, this is a neat surprise! It’s a Zelda-like I’d never heard of, apparently one of the earliest original titles Namco made for the Famicom. There’s a fan translation and I’m totally trying this out using it.
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301. VIGILANT
Another side-scrolling shooter by the good folks at Nice Code. Also released as Assault Force, Fairy, and Poleaxe. (You can’t say the Nice Code folks didn’t make good use of their assets!)
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302. VOLLEY BALL
I’m not certain if this is the same sort of volleyball I’m used to. Among other things, there doesn’t seem to be a net (or similar delineation). I think it may be a hacked or bootleg version of the actual NES Volleyball game?
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303. WAR ZONE
Another Nice Code game, this one with obtuse enough controls that I needed to find it on the bootleg wiki to figure out how to play: The player can choose to either attack or defend, while the computer will play the other side. When attacking, you send out soldiers to attack a base from a plane; when defending, you shoot at the soldiers from tanks. It doesn't work particularly well--it only accepts button-presses erratically.
“Utmost Warfare” is pretty rad for a nonsense title.
Volleyball looks like it might be using the wrong nametable mirroring setting (horizontal instead of vertical, from the looks of it). I'm not sure how they made that mistake here, but for actual NROM carts that setting is determined by how the PCB is wired (nothing to do with the rom itself).
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I adore Nice Code naming. The fact that the same video game can be released under the names "Assault Force" and "Fairy" is a joy.
Also got to give props to Namco for having a protagonist who's openly a woman instead of being a secret woman. Not that Samus=Woman is a secret anymore, but still, props to Namco.
Kzinssie
(she/her)
feels somehow relevant
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304. WEDDING BELL
The title screen calls this “Esculita”, and you need to run across the mall, finding escalators to get you upstairs before the lava rises high enough to reach you. Also, shoot the monsters or they’ll knock you in the lava. The original game was Urusei Yatsura: Lum no Wedding Bell (there’s an English fan translation). I’m not sure if this is just a glitchy rom or an attempt at a hack that didn’t quite work right.
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305. WILD WORM
You’re a small worm that needs to collect the food that appears. You get bigger and somewhat faster as you eat more, but there are also other critters running around trying to hit you. A Nice Code original.
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306. WISDOM BOY
An unlicensed Chinese-made game (known there as Dou Zhi Pin Pan) that involves rotating and fitting oddly-shaped blocks into a preexisting grid. Strangely, I couldn’t find much about it online, mostly getting redirected to Wisdom Tree (who didn’t make this).
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307. WONDER BALL
You’re trying to get the balls into the holes of the same color, but they only sometimes count and I couldn’t figure out why. Or what you could actually affect. Not one of Nice Code’s better works. Also released as Monster Ball.
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308. XEVIOUS
The actual original! Plays just like the hacks, though it’s easier to see everything. I don’t think it’s particularly amazing as a shooter, but we’ve already establish it had a big “right time, right place” advantage.
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309. 100M DUSH
Like the swimming games, this feels like a cut-out piece of Track & Field. No title screen, just the event.
“Dush” is a very fun typo
Hey, it's what the menu says! I did my best to preserve the exact spelling on all menu entries.
Hah, cool to see the Urusei Yatsura game on here! I wonder if it's a fully functional copy, despite the bizarre title-screen hack that seems to be calling it a Spanish word for pre-school??
Insta-edit: having done some research to refresh my memory of the game, I partly figured it out - the first level of the game actually takes place ina preschool, so that's probably where the title came from at any rate. There's a time-travel story going on so the subsequent levels are actually elementary school, junior high, high school, and college, and then there's a wedding at the end (hence the original Japanese title). This also explains why the player sprite in your screenshot looks like the little kind version of Lum. Beowulf, if you ever had any inclination to go back and play it more, I'm curious if the sprite updates with each stage. It looks like in later stages you may need to go through hidden doorways revealed by weapon fire in addition to the escalators to advance, though.
(Oh hey, just noticed most of this info is in the link you already posted, welp.)
Insta-edit: having done some research to refresh my memory of the game, I partly figured it out - the first level of the game actually takes place ina preschool, so that's probably where the title came from at any rate. There's a time-travel story going on so the subsequent levels are actually elementary school, junior high, high school, and college, and then there's a wedding at the end (hence the original Japanese title). This also explains why the player sprite in your screenshot looks like the little kind version of Lum. Beowulf, if you ever had any inclination to go back and play it more, I'm curious if the sprite updates with each stage. It looks like in later stages you may need to go through hidden doorways revealed by weapon fire in addition to the escalators to advance, though.
(Oh hey, just noticed most of this info is in the link you already posted, welp.)
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Jaleco seemed to like this gameplay idea as they originally used it for the arcade title Momoko 120%, minus the license, of course. Except they used "Lum's Love Song" as the music, because it was intended to be Urusei Yatsura. Whoops. They remedied this by the time the Famicom "port" came out. The concept is fundamentally the same; a schoolgirl named Momoko (instead of Lum) ages up per level as you flee a burning building, which changes per stage. Beating the five stages has Momoko get married and give birth to a daughter, who then repeats the cycle. Seems the family is cursed with being trapped in infernos.
We've got another big day of Nice Code games today.
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310. AIMLESS
Another version of the Nice Code 3D shooter we saw as Close Quarter (#255), though this time you’re fighting dragons and the difficulty seems somewhat lower.
311. ROPE GAMES
No ropes here; it’s unaltered Circus Charlie.
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312. AIRIAL HERO
And a third version of Close Quarter! (Yet another different sprite set. We’re not getting pure repeats of Nice Code games, but we’re getting some of the hacks they published as different games.)
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313. AQUARIUM
Speaking of Nice Code, this is another of theirs. You’re the fish; you need to eat the fish food while avoiding the bombs. (The cheese and bananas and such seem to do nothing.) Why is the bear throwing bombs and miscellaneous trash to his fish along with fish food? Who knows!
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314. ARENA
You’re the knight on the bottom. The HP meter decreases as the attacking knights get past you; you need to touch them to kill them. But the fireballs will kill you instantly. This is Nice Code, and apparently the hacks of this are The Farmer and Fisher, both of which sound like amusing things to be variants of this.
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315. AWFUL RUSHING
A fairly simple top-down racing game that doesn’t seem to have a real goal. Touching anything makes you explode, but you seem to have unlimited respawns. Apparently Nice Code released this something like 20 times as assorted variants, including Pobble, Corridor, Devil Rider, Fish Journey, Fly on Cloud, Hot Speed, Lunation, Moto Rushing, Motoboat, Road Block, Speed Man, Swift Rider and Turbulence.
I feel like it would be easy to go all “angry gamer” at Nice Code, but the thing is, many of their games are not terrible. They’re perfectly fine casual games that I’d be upset if I paid $20 for on a cart, but as one game in a big multicart list are fun for 5-10 minutes. There have only been a few of them I’d actively characterize as “bad”. They’re good for what they are.
310. AIMLESS
Another version of the Nice Code 3D shooter we saw as Close Quarter (#255), though this time you’re fighting dragons and the difficulty seems somewhat lower.
311. ROPE GAMES
No ropes here; it’s unaltered Circus Charlie.
312. AIRIAL HERO
And a third version of Close Quarter! (Yet another different sprite set. We’re not getting pure repeats of Nice Code games, but we’re getting some of the hacks they published as different games.)
313. AQUARIUM
Speaking of Nice Code, this is another of theirs. You’re the fish; you need to eat the fish food while avoiding the bombs. (The cheese and bananas and such seem to do nothing.) Why is the bear throwing bombs and miscellaneous trash to his fish along with fish food? Who knows!
314. ARENA
You’re the knight on the bottom. The HP meter decreases as the attacking knights get past you; you need to touch them to kill them. But the fireballs will kill you instantly. This is Nice Code, and apparently the hacks of this are The Farmer and Fisher, both of which sound like amusing things to be variants of this.
315. AWFUL RUSHING
A fairly simple top-down racing game that doesn’t seem to have a real goal. Touching anything makes you explode, but you seem to have unlimited respawns. Apparently Nice Code released this something like 20 times as assorted variants, including Pobble, Corridor, Devil Rider, Fish Journey, Fly on Cloud, Hot Speed, Lunation, Moto Rushing, Motoboat, Road Block, Speed Man, Swift Rider and Turbulence.
I feel like it would be easy to go all “angry gamer” at Nice Code, but the thing is, many of their games are not terrible. They’re perfectly fine casual games that I’d be upset if I paid $20 for on a cart, but as one game in a big multicart list are fun for 5-10 minutes. There have only been a few of them I’d actively characterize as “bad”. They’re good for what they are.
That thing's supposed to be a bear? My money was on "alien".
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Yeah, Awful Rushing is an amazing game title.
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
Add to that Dejectile from earlier and they've been firing on all cylinders
I thought “Aimless” was going to be the standout Nice Code title this time, but nope; Awful Rushing takes the cake.
Also, I thought the bear was a frog
Also, I thought the bear was a frog
I feel like I'm going to have to put up a poll for "Best Nice Code Game Title". And possibly for people's guesses on what the bear/frog/alien in Aquarium is actually supposed to be.
In the meantime, it’s time for a bunch of games we’ve seen before!
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316. BATTLE CITY
This is the actual original Battle City; we’ve seen hacks of it twice before (#144, #195).
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317. BUBBLE
This is a variant of the Nice Code game we saw as Burbles (#213). In this version, evil fish float down from the top and you need to shoot them with bubbles to trap them.
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318. CITY CONNECTION
We saw a hack of this as Goodhand (#242); this is the original.
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319. MILON S SECRET C
A second copy of this game, which appeared as Meikun (#289).
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320. GRADIRS
…I don’t actually know what this is, and the title screen doesn’t help! It plays like a side-scrolling shooter, but the enemies (or are they other ships racing you?) bounce off of you and it’s mostly hitting obstacles that makes you and them explode. You can pick up power-ups, but I don’t think they do anything.
The best guess I have is that this is Gradirs V.55, a hack of Seicross, which is a futuristic flying scooter racing/shooting game I was otherwise unfamiliar with.
In the meantime, it’s time for a bunch of games we’ve seen before!
316. BATTLE CITY
This is the actual original Battle City; we’ve seen hacks of it twice before (#144, #195).
317. BUBBLE
This is a variant of the Nice Code game we saw as Burbles (#213). In this version, evil fish float down from the top and you need to shoot them with bubbles to trap them.
318. CITY CONNECTION
We saw a hack of this as Goodhand (#242); this is the original.
319. MILON S SECRET C
A second copy of this game, which appeared as Meikun (#289).
320. GRADIRS
…I don’t actually know what this is, and the title screen doesn’t help! It plays like a side-scrolling shooter, but the enemies (or are they other ships racing you?) bounce off of you and it’s mostly hitting obstacles that makes you and them explode. You can pick up power-ups, but I don’t think they do anything.
The best guess I have is that this is Gradirs V.55, a hack of Seicross, which is a futuristic flying scooter racing/shooting game I was otherwise unfamiliar with.
It’s definitely a hack of Seicross, just with your good buddy and mine, Victor the Viper in place of... that... moped guy?
Oh no, I missed a bunch of posts!! Talking Time was supposed to alert me! They will be hearing from my lawyers.
Random thoughts about some of the games I missed...
I've long meant to do a real playthrough of Mighty Bomb Jack, creating a map of the pyramid as the manual suggests (and there are pretty specific instructions on how to do so!). It would just be a bit of a time suck. But I really like that game, man.
Similarly, Milon's Secret Castle is one I have in-box with the intention of going all the way through it. I may use a guide with this one, because it's pretty obtuse. It has a reputation as being "bad," but it's certainly fun to play. It's just an example of a game made in that sell-a-guidebook era of design.
I don't have Mag Max, but I've been meaning to pick up an in-box copy of it for Famicom for a long time. I adore Nichibutsu's package design from the era.
I enjoy that the artwork on the NES version copied this artwork piece for piece, but is a wholly different work of art otherwise.
I'm glad my beloved Transformers showed up on this collection, and I'm honored that you enjoyed my LP. I gotta do more LPs someday. There's another Transformers game on FC, which is far less infamous, and I'll be fascinated to see if it shows up in this collection.
Valkyrie is another game I want to go all the way through at some point. It's very rough - it feels like a midway point between Druaga's smothering difficulty and Zelda's approachability. The FC release is the second-to-last game in what I refer to as the "Namco 18," a series of games that all came in numbered boxes with a unified design. Afterward, Namco started releasing their FC games in plastic clamshells. I love the designs of the 18-series boxes so much that I collected all of them. Valkyrie is particularly special because it comes with a big fold-out map!
Random thoughts about some of the games I missed...
I've long meant to do a real playthrough of Mighty Bomb Jack, creating a map of the pyramid as the manual suggests (and there are pretty specific instructions on how to do so!). It would just be a bit of a time suck. But I really like that game, man.
Similarly, Milon's Secret Castle is one I have in-box with the intention of going all the way through it. I may use a guide with this one, because it's pretty obtuse. It has a reputation as being "bad," but it's certainly fun to play. It's just an example of a game made in that sell-a-guidebook era of design.
I don't have Mag Max, but I've been meaning to pick up an in-box copy of it for Famicom for a long time. I adore Nichibutsu's package design from the era.
I enjoy that the artwork on the NES version copied this artwork piece for piece, but is a wholly different work of art otherwise.
I'm glad my beloved Transformers showed up on this collection, and I'm honored that you enjoyed my LP. I gotta do more LPs someday. There's another Transformers game on FC, which is far less infamous, and I'll be fascinated to see if it shows up in this collection.
Valkyrie is another game I want to go all the way through at some point. It's very rough - it feels like a midway point between Druaga's smothering difficulty and Zelda's approachability. The FC release is the second-to-last game in what I refer to as the "Namco 18," a series of games that all came in numbered boxes with a unified design. Afterward, Namco started releasing their FC games in plastic clamshells. I love the designs of the 18-series boxes so much that I collected all of them. Valkyrie is particularly special because it comes with a big fold-out map!
I for one would love to see another Dracula LP, particularly of something like Milon's Secret Castle or Valkyrie that I doubt I'll be able to get through on my own. (Or if I did, I'd miss a lot of secrets.)
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321. CUB ADVENTURE
You’re a little white bear, and you need to collect all the hearts while avoiding the adorable baby whales. This was apparently also released by Nice Code as Devil Palace, Grot Kid, and Polar Cub.
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322. DEVIL WORLD
And then we hit a real game that I’d never heard of before! This is clearly influenced by Pac-Man. You play a little dragon that needs to collect crosses that let him collect the power pellets, while avoiding both the minion demons and the moving walls. This was never released in the US and I think we all can guess why.
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323. DIAMOND
This is an Arkanoid clone made by Nice Code; all of the power-ups are small diamonds, and the goal is to hit the large diamond to clear each stage, rather than clearing all the bricks. The difficulty is very erratic, as the hitboxes and bounceback aren’t always what you’d expect and there are several places you can “serve” from that make it impossible to hit the puck if it bounces off a bottom-level brick. This was also released as Blocks Array.
324. ELF LEGEND
Aww man, it’s Super Mario 16 again! I had such high hopes for that title.
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325. DIG DUG
This is actually the first time we’ve seen the original Dig Dug! I think the arcade version is better because you have more screen real estate to work with, but this is a very good port, especially for how early it came out.
322. DEVIL WORLD
And then we hit a real game that I’d never heard of before! This is clearly influenced by Pac-Man. You play a little dragon that needs to collect crosses that let him collect the power pellets, while avoiding both the minion demons and the moving walls. This was never released in the US and I think we all can guess why.
Tied in my brain with Stunt Race FX for "Shigeru Miyamoto's most underwhelming game."
