The Evolution of NES Fandom: An Overview | NES Works Gaiden #11
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- Опубліковано 17 вер 2024
- By patron request of Brian Larsen, here's something a little different: Rather than look at a single game, this episode takes a wider view of NES culture and fandom, and how fans of the platform have kept the NES alive and vibrant 25 years after its retirement. From the rise of emulation to modern clone platforms, NES devotees continue to make NES accessible and surprising, as this cursory overview explains.
Video Works is funded through Patreon ( / gamespite ) - support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its UA-cam debut! And be sure to check out the Retronauts podcast (www.retronauts.com), where I (and many others!) tackle a much wider array of classic gaming topics each week.
When I first got the internet in the early 2000s, one of my favorite things to do was trawl NES fansites, of which there were absolutely dozens. NES City, NES Chedda, RoyalRanger's, |tsr's, Toneman's, Hoz's, NES Player, Smackdown GT, BigStu's 8-Bit Wonderland, NES Fountain, NEStopia, so on and so on. A few of them are still up, miraculously.
One of my favorite things were called "shrines" -- pages dedicated to the author's favorite games which covered everything about them: Walkthroughs, cheat codes, (midi) music, sprite rips, enemy lists, you name it. Didn't matter how popular or obscure. Could be Zelda, could be Jaws.
Before social media, if you wanted to profess your love for something, you had to build your own little nook of the internet from the ground up. Each page had its own "flavor", from informational to comedic, sleek to messy. It was charming and fun to dig through.
Seeing it all as a brit was fascinating. As a teen I loved AVGN because I'd never even heard of the games be was talking about. Here in the UK we never really bought the NES. The master system outsold it. And the mega drive outsold the SNES. and before that we were into microcomputers like the C64 and the Spectrum. So yeah seeing everybody talk about say Castlevania or Mega Man and so on was so cool because I'd never seen these games before, and they were apparently these hugely popular things across the pond. So eventually I was able to play them all using emulators and I've fallen in love with some of the series, like Mega Man. I'd never played a mario game till my mid 20s, but now I play a 2D Mario game most days
I never had a NES in the UK as a kid as it was considered a rich kids toy. Nintendo dumped it to Mattel to distribute in our part of Europe and they put ridiculous prices on them, I remember Zelda being £70 in 1989, that's well over £150 in today's money.
Larry Bundy Jr Regional marketing is always a fascinating topic, even when it’s an afterthought.
Makes me want to believe that Nintendo wasn’t pleased that everyone had not been as enterprising as Sweden (Owe Bergsten) in convincing them to sell their products...
It’s wild to think there’s a region where the NES was beat by the Master System. Until the Mega Drive/Genesis, which leapt a whole generation forward, nothing really touched the NES over here, to the point people called video games in general “Nintendo” for a while
The NES was my first console for my 10th birthday having had a spectrum since I was 6 or 7 I think? I got it the first year it was in the UK I think and the games were insanely expensive. I had to have Super Mario though having played a version in an arcade. The only place you could buy an NES then was boots and the games cost about half as much as the console!
Even though I was highly aware of the NES during its prime through borrowing it from friends and relatives, I only discovered MegaMan through emulation a few years after I'd seen its 1994 animated series, and Castlevania after that through TAS videos! So even American nostalgia can vary.
On the other hand, I never knew anyone who owned a Sega console despite seeing all of Sega's TV advertising all the time. I tried a Genesis for a minute when they had that Innoventions display at Walt Disney World, and I got to see someone's Game Gear for a minute, and that's about it. Virtually all my experience with Sega games will be through emulation thanks to Nintendo smartly monopolizing Reagan's America.
being able to grow with the NES was such a treat.
True there.
Jeremy, your videos are helping the quarantine be a little more bearable, which is something. You're the absolute master of Nintendo history.
Thank you Jeremy, that was both far reaching and so concise. Having lived through all of this, it was fascinating to have it explained back in such a way.
Not only using MegaMan Legends as THE representative of 3D gaming, but concluding with a vague intimation that somehow it will be the focus (or some part of) the next NES Works Gaiden? You're playing with my heart here, man.
lmeeken im all’s curious since the Legends series was never on the NES for obvious reasons,
This may be one of my favorite Patreon vids.
I forgot about the web 1.0 comics like Bob and George (and 8-Bit Theatre) until I saw that. What a weird time of new media still finding its feet. It is funny, though, how previous generations saw Carson, Letterman, or Conan as the icons of fresh comedy, while a runty version of me probably thought of those early sites, or pre-UA-cam AVGN as the new wave... for better or worse. I'm glad I progressed to different forms of secondary entertainment, but I'm also kind of pleased to have had the experiences.
Thanks as always, Jezzer.
Please don't ever write or say "Jezzer" again
@@JeremyParish Ha ha ha. Noted. I can't say where the impulse came from (perhaps too much Peep Show in the past), but I just couldn't resist. ♡
I just don't understand how the British are so good at so many things and yet so terrible at nicknames
I can't believe you showed the Toastyfrog site with no comment like that. You stone-cold genius.
I'm not familiar with that website, why's that?
Wonder what that dude's up to these days. It'd be nice if his rabid fandom transformed into some kind of academic-level archival effort~
the lack of comment made me wonder if my memory had mistaken me!
@@Jordan3DS Toastyfrog was Parish's website in the long ago times
Thanks for all your hard work, Jeremy! I love going down memory lane with you!
Was pretty cool seeing the clip of one of my magazine read-throughs in this video! Great episode. Describes my experience perfectly. Had an NES growing up, started ignoring it when I got a Genesis, but then got re-interested in it when I first got web access. I was running NESticle when I was still using a DOS computer; that was pretty amazing. Started collecting NES games in 1995/1996, when my friends were all-too-happy to unload them for pennies.
good move :)
It is so crazy to sit here and watch this episode to just say, wow I lived though all of that. Looking back on it I would say what you said is 100% accurate. I moved on from my NES as a kid to "bigger and better things." But then the emulators reminded me hey I love the NES. I am still a massive fan today and the NES has a spot in my heart I dont think any other video games can fill. You basically put that entire process into word, hell I even remember most of the websites and communities!
Oh man... I never would've *_dreamed_* that you'd do an episode on Tron Bonne!
You'll enjoy next week's episode, then.
I was a late 90s/early 2000's NES "Scener". It was a really great time for collecting and exploring the NES library with dirt cheap games and emulation. I absolutely loved all the websites too. Such a bygone era.
As a Russian, I am always happy to see our gaming history acknowledged, thank you.
There's not a lot of info on Russian gaming history on the English web, but there have a been a lot of major contributions to emulation and game preservation by Russian programmers, so the heritage there is important!
Jeremy Parish The thing is, even Russian web is strangely divided on the subject. It has a certain stigma attached to it. Yes, some collect pseudo-licensed Dendy cartridges and 'oldschool' famiclones, but UA-cam content creators (with some notable exceptions) are often dismissive of this legacy, since bootleg stuff is not 'real.' Also, of course, tracking and documenting is a very difficult task even with licensed games, and it grows exponentially harder with diverse pirated hardware and software.
That's interesting! I guess pointless gatekeeping exists across all nerd cultures regardless of nationality. I'd love to learn more about post-Soviet Russian gaming-from the outside, things seemed like they were fairly chaotic over there right around the time the NES peaked in popularity in the west, so I have to imagine people's gaming experiences varied wildly depending on their circumstances and location.
Jeremy Parish It's more of a debate on what is 'canon,' and it is, essentially, the result of cultural shock. Nobody realized that Dendy was not the real thing, but an illegitimate copy - and an entire another world lies beyond, a culture we've been deprived of. I think it is similar to realizing that the US SMB2 is not the 'real' Mario 2; but on a grander scale. I do think we had a unique experience, marred though it may be; being able to enjoy both NES and Famicom classics, for instance, was great. I was somewhat surprised to learn that NES did not immediately die off in the early 1990s in the West. I thought our playing 8-bit games until PS2 came along was one of those 'only in Russia' cases. Here, Dendy persisted well into the 2000s, and while it is easy to explain its longevity with economic factors, the 8-bit charm must have contributed to it too. In the early 2000s everyone had a friend or two who had a PS1, or even a PS2, many had MegaDrives, PC gaming was widespread, but Dendy was universal and still somewhat popular.
@@SutorenjiKamereon Totally relate to this...funny how this exact scenario fits with india where the Dendy parallel was a system called "media Tv game" later known as "mitashi " . NES was not released in india due to closed economy and laws.. instead we got a hardware clone famicom which had both American and Japanese released games in bootleg carts. we never realized it wasn't the real thing up until youtube was a thing...In late 90's Nintendo tried to circumvent the indian laws and release the original NES with same hardware but by only slapping an indian label on it called "Samurai" and pay branding fee to local company.. It never took off as the clones were already flooded in the market and were cheaper. So the SM Bros 2 analogy fits very well!!! The 8 bit consoles are still available in india but now are all based on NOAC s.
I've always loved that Worlds of Power's Blaster Master treatment was adopted a canon for game sequels. It reminds me of when Pitfall Harry's sidekicks created for the Saturday Supercade cartoon show made it into Pitfall II.
And the influence is still there in the Sunsoft/Inti Creates "Blaster Master Zero" reboot series. I had that novel, so seeing Jason, Fred, and Eve get some representation always makes me smile.
Growing as both a player and collector of games with this console has been what defines this hobby for me. Once I jumped on the collecting bandwagon thanks to FuncoLand, there was no looking back. While the modern market has mostly destroyed the thrill of the hunt, NES Works has filled that void, as I am now collecting knowledge instead of cartridges. This was a very fun video, being able to recall where I was at the time for each major development.
Of course, these days we also have meta-nostalgia for the early emulation/internet fandom scene of twenty-odd years ago. Seeing old Angelfire sites and hearing the names of old emulators brings me right back. Who among us doesn't remember wanting a particular rom, finally finding a Geocities cite that listed it, and praying as you clicked on the link that it wouldn't have exceeded its bandwidth? Obviously things are much more sophisticated these days, but there was definitely something charming about the ramshackle, frontier atmosphere of that time.
The internet was infinitely more useful when it wasn't a handful of corporate websites and blogging platforms funneled to appeal to Google Amp/Facebook/Twitter algorithms. The death of the real internet about a decade ago was one of the worst things ever to happen to our society, and I'm not even exaggerating.
One thing that's always puzzled me is with all the resurgence in nostalgia for older systems, why Nintendo, nor any of the 80s/90s console manufacturers have had a "vinyl revival" type comeback and either officially re-release the more popular/rare titles, or even create all new games?
I know the guy who created Tanglewood approached Sega to make it an official title, but Sega said they couldn't approve it as all their checking devices had long gone.
That's too boutique a market (read: not profitable enough) for corporations used to dealing in units of a million to deal with, but I work for a publisher who does exactly that.
Capcom rereleased Street Fighter II a few years ago. It was 100 dollars and included a warning that playing it might cause your SNES to catch fire. So, naturally, it sold out.
No, iam8bit reissued it (and Mega Man 2/Mega Man X), not Capcom. And we publish Disney and EA games at Limited Run. In all of these cases, the original publisher pretty much just says, "You handle it, abide by our rules, and send us a check. We don't want to get involved with the details."
To learn about video game history from the early internet was amazing as a little kid. Before, I never knew video games had such a rich history or even any history at all.
seeing those web sites i haven't seen in 15+ years hit me harder with nostalgia right now than the nes did lol
Heheh... Something about "Nesticle" really tickles my funny bones!
Replace the n with a t...
The default program icon was an 8 bit pair of balls, so...
I honestly didn't catch the thing with NESticle for a stupid long time. >_>
Jeremy you are the foremost NES journalist. The prose you create to archive the Famicom and NES is second to none. I want you to know the videos will still hold value 50 years from now defining the zeitgeist of 5 to 20 year olds in the mid 80s and early 90s ( maybe a even a wider age range ) . I truly hope you continue to run this series and the 16 bit era as welll. I have seen nothing that is even in the same league as your work . The video game historian is good but he is able to bypass bad or even worse the mundane . Where as you give us in depth documentation of the peaks , valleys, and plateaus for an entire generation of videp games. Your images, videos, and soundS perfectly complement your immaculate prose to create a feeling of nostalgia second to none, all the while educating us with nuts and bolts of the games we grew up on. Bravo my friend bravo. I can find reviews of your books on Google Books but where on Amazon can we buy your work ? In an effort to provide you with the support you have thoroughly earned so you can keep going with your series of wonderful products .
See the end card in each episode-books are sold on Fangamer.
Thank you for including that footage of Final Fantasy III using early ZSNES emulation with messed up sound effects. The whale song instead of wind has a little bit of absurd nostalgia to me, as it was part of my first experience with Final Fantasy.
For me, it was warbly distorted seagulls and fireworks in Chrono Trigger.
I remember having to navigate a shaft in Super Metroid blindly because the foreground fog had no transparency.
It's an incredibly well put together video regarding the history of the nes culture. I born in 1980 and playing a lot of nes has always been an important part of my life. Even to this day there are a ton of new games that I've never played before but I still have the motivation to play nes games but with regards to the amount of games that are out there once I do get a game fully completed it is permanently retired so I can move on to something else. I think quite a few nes games have the ability to be timeless classics regardless of how old they are and I do enjoy the concept of nes style difficulty because when I do beat nes games I avoid save states or other hacks so I can beat the games legitimately. I don't really consider myself part of the fandom because I generally avoid fan groups of all sorts but i always try to enjoy the nes and its library for the same simple reasons that I enjoyed the system as a kid.
Thank you for creating this video based on my patron request!
I feel like one of the biggest things to really reinvigorate the NES fan scene in recent years has been the uncovering of shockingly complex pirate cartridges from places like China, Russia and Korea. To me, the fact there is an entire stash of (admittedly usually poorly made) games out there still waiting to be properly cataloged is extremely exciting, and gives us new things in a way we didn't expect. (And also fuels the resurgent pirate Famiclone market that seems to be popping up in surprisingly respectable places lately...)
Those old toastyfrog pages are bringing back a lot of memories! It's one of the first pages I frequented when I found my way to the internet way back in the late 90's.
Thank you for Gaiden us through another amazing lesson in NES history
Jeremy mentioned COVID-19's effect on NES game collecting. Hmmm, could it become affordable again to buy NES games for the sole purpose of playing them?
I think more likely a lot of people will no longer be able to afford collecting. Prices might collapse on common stuff while collectors looking to recoup losses and pad their finances will crank up the price on desirable titles. Who knows, though?
I’m not one of those “grew up with NES” persons, despite being of the feasibile age to have been existent when it was around. Although that same year was when I was getting big into retro games and got the NES-themed GBA SP, I didn’t have my first (top loader) until 2004 in my junior year of hs and didn’t start to notice the NES fan culture until 2005. NES won’t die, it multiplies.
though im more into genisis and gba, i still can still say nes was the starting point for me emulating
Kinda the same way with the Atari. I was there, but not part of it so my first console (aside from the pong set my parents had) was NES. Got into collecting atari games after getting my uncles old set. No ebay (or internet) so i mostly hit up thrift shops. Retro game collecting wasnt a thing so it was basicly junk to most people and not hard to find.
Do remember one nasty old lady that said I couldn't look through the boxes till she did. Sob story to the manager took care of that quickly. 😂
Best retro game channel ever!!
I grew up with the NES & SNES and I still play them via emulation fairly often. I can still remember Christmas of 1987 when I got my NES. My parents had the foresight to buy The Legend of Zelda to go with the pack-in SMB. Which was great because SMB was fun but Zelda was magical! I had previously played quite a few games on the Atari 2600, Commodore Vic-20 & 64 but the NES was a whole new level. I can STILL remember hearing the theme to Zelda for the first time!
Heck, for many years my dad would drive me to the local video store one or two fridays a month to rent a game for me. Even though my dad rarely played the NES he knew how much I loved it (and also the SNES) so those Friday trips to the video store were bonding time for us.
Great video! One quick correction, though: the Gamecube disks containing the NES Zelda games and Ocarina of Time Master Quest were, at least in North America, separate disks. Both disks contained the original version of Ocarina of Time, but The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition was the only one with Zelda 1 & 2 and Majora's Mask, while the Ocarina of Time disk with both the original and Master Quest version was standalone. The former was available via various means - I got mine by renewing my Nintendo Power subscription - while the latter was a pre-order bonus for Wind Waker.
It's a shame that lots of people seem tired of the NES these days. Even though I was born in '90, I still had my older brother's NES growing up. Even aside from nostalgia, I just like a lot of games on the system. These days, most of the places I used to discuss the console are dead, and people on social media sites seem to consider it just a thing of the past that people need to outgrow now. Probably just the younger generations coming in.
The thing is, even as a kid, I was always interested in the games from before I was born. I was excited to get the Activision Anthology on my GBA to play old Atari games for the first time, ad even before that I got the PSX Intellivision collection and enjoyed that. Growing up, I was always annoyed at kids who shunned older movies, music, and games just because they were old and "not cool and modern."
Mr. Larsen chose well. This was a great subject to cover that I never would've thought of, and it really resonated with me as someone who had limited access to an NES when it was still relevant, but discovered its wonders in the internet era. Don't worry; I think people will want to continue to hear you drone on about the NES (and other systems) for a very, very long time.
I think of it like being interested in classic cinema.
Great analogy. And like the best classic cinema, so many NES games still hold up today!
For every Casablanca, there's a Super Mario Bros.
I grew up with NES and SNES, and when emulators began they honestly reignited my love for those generations. I was hugely into Playstation at the time, and it was the earliest time I can remember going back and respecting the games I grew up with.
And really, after RPGs blew up in the west, I owe it to them for being able to play games in the genre I missed out on...even if Chrono Trigger did run at less than 10 fps.
How is Jeremy Parish's work so prolific and of such high quality? I'll never know, I'm just grateful. As both a video games nerd, and a www nerd, I loved this one.
Great video! I was born in 1989, but thanks to having an older brother born in 1982, I was able to play some NES games at a young age, such as the Mario Bros. series, Tecmo Bowl, Double Dragon II, TMNT II - The Arcade Game, etc. and even when we got the SNES when I was three, I still had love for the NES (still do). The music was catchy and the gameplay was fun! I even would get my NES in the late 90s when PS1 and N64 was on the rise, just to experience it on my own and I am glad I did get that for my birthday present. Would occasionally pick up games between 1998-2002 and 2009-onwards, was when I started being really "active" in collecting and really fell in love with the console. I love it so much, I also own a Modded NES Mini and still have my "used" console in 98. NES will always live on forever!!!! I may have a PS4, but it doesn't compare (and I love the PS4)!
All that aside, I do miss when it was actually cheap to go retro game hunting in the late 90s and the early 2000's. It was a fun time to discover the games you've missed or you rented/borrowed/had growing up.
Ah, Double Dragon! My uncle had Double Dragon 1 for NES, and my cousin had Double Dragon 3 for NES, but I never got to see Double Dragon 2 until I found emulators, and I think it's the best-looking of the NES series.
I was born in 1980, so while I do have some memories of gaming pre-NES, the NES is what made me a gamer. I still remember the first time playing Super Mario Bros. My parents had taken me to some friend's place for some sort of party, and they had an NES hooked up The second I played it, I was hooked. I feel like part of it's long lasting appeal for my generation, is honestly, not to get too dark, but 9/11 happened in our early adulthoods (or teenage years for those a bit younger) I think retrogaming, etc is kind of a way to try and go back to a simpler time for all of us, before everything started to kinda suck. There's something comforting about sitting down, popping in Zelda or Super Mario Bros 3, and being whisked away to being a kid again, hanging out w/ your friends and playing Nintendo together.
Super quality Jeremy! I'm glad the algorithm finally decided to reveal your content to me :)
"A bonus disc included with Wind Waker included a lost remix of Ocarina of Time"
Uh Jeremy it's called Majora's Mask and it's a retail game
I think he might be talking about the Ocarina of Time Master Quest disk.
Good grief.
I'm pretty sure this is meant to be a joke, just not a good one, hence the confusion. Or maybe it isn't a joke and the jokes on me.
@@d3v1lsummoner Yeah sometimes jokes in text form don't always convey well lol. Who knows.
Guys it was a joke
Emulation really was a second life for the NES library. In the late 90s and early 00s, I would play any and every NES game I could get my hands on, even for just a moment.
I think it was the original Super Smash Brothers that motivated me to get the ROMs of Kirby's Adventure and "EarthBound Zero"! And since I played the Bomberman 64s, I just had to try the Bombermans for prior Nintendo systems...
The NES is, and always has been, my favorite console. It was one of the first two systems I looked for when I discovered emulation (Gameboy and NES, don't recall which was first). I built up a rather sizeable collection for it and other systems, but my focus was almost always on the NES. With the advent of the Everdrive (and AVS) I have easy ways to play games I could never find or afford. Or better yet: translations, ROM hacks, and randomizers. If the resurgence in interest in the system hadn't happened I would probably still have most of my collection as it wouldn't have sold that well after I lost my job, or I could have rebuilt my collection cheaper than buying an Everdrive that might not have existed.
Great video. Thank you for your work.
I didn't grow up with nintendo at all, so I as well have AVGN to thank for introducing me to a huge wad of history and a passion for games I probably wouldn't of gotten into without it. I was the kid researching about old retro games, looking at how each gen advanced and how companies grew and fell, and how games themselves evolved. Since I never really had the money to get latest releases, I went to the past haha. So I love that this channel has so many vids to indulge in :)
I was always a NES junkie. I think i just grew up at the perfect time to be the core demographic of all the ads. I remember idolizing the kid with the power glove in the Wizard. "Califffoorrrniiaaaaaahh" Also there is something special about Nintendo vs other consoles.
Fantastic video from beginning to end. While I would agree that NES fandom has probably "peaked" -- I can tell you as someone who did not grow up with an NES or knowing a single person that was into NES games there is still tremendous value to them. Especially when experienced on original hardware or an FPGA alternative. It would seem most NES fans fall into that 34-44 age range. I think that given how many classic series made their debut on the system it has unique appeal. I think there is room for more people currently in their teens and 20s to get into the platform. And I say that as someone who has only recently started really playing the games as opposed to just watching occasional videos about them. Great work as always.
i feel so lucky to have grown up with the NES despite being born in ‘96. when i was five, we came across one in a box along with several games and a zapper at a thrift store, and it was my very first gaming console in the early 2000’s. it really is the best gaming console in my eyes, there’s something so monolithic about the system from its iconic design to the revolution it had on the video game industry. i still have it to this day and now, whenever i have someone over, 9 times out of 10 their eyes light up upon seeing it. it is probably overall the most fondly remembered gaming console, and there really is something magical about the system
Jeremy, you've definitely made me love gaming and the NES more. Thank you.
8:49 Like earthbound beginnings
In the last couple of years, we've seen the release of NES Maker, a piece of software designed to allow people to make their own NES games with zero coding required although you still have to provide your own sprites and such.
I loved this episode so much. Easily the best, most academically thorough video gaming history channel. I have been waiting for a channel like this ever since UA-cam began
The NES here in my country (Italy) was just a little phenomenon of pop culture among the kids of late '80s and early '90s: it was very desired, but way too expensive compared to the cheaper and well advertised SEGA Master System.
But, in the other hand, the NES library was very popular among the kids, thanks to the Famiclones!
They used to cost nothing, their cartridge slots were region-free, plus they came with a lot of built-in NES titles.
These asian clone consoles were able to give the opportunity for many families to let their kids play the very desired, but very pricy, Nintendo Entertainment System: even in the 2nd half of the '90s, local rental stores still had a lot of NES games, plus making exchanges with your classmates was a very popular thing.
I was just one of the many other guys who grew up with a NES-compatible Famiclone!
Famiclones were so popular in Italy that even a famous company of material for stationery shops decided to build and sell its own Famiclone directly in the stationery shops. That means just one thing: NES Mania, everywhere and in every possible place!
I still love a lot of retro consoles where I grew up with, but the NES and its games still have a very special place in my heart: looking at them over the personal memories aspect, the best thing about those games is that they feel more like real pieces of art and symbols of culture.
Simply, I can't explain it really well, but that's it....today, as a lot of my friends of that era, I am a moderate NES collector...and I PLAY ALL THE GAMES I BUY, so fu*k the commonplaces about game collectors.
NES FOREVER!
Cheers.
Nice history on the nes.
I had no idea that there was a nostalgic craze for NES games in the 2000's 2010's.
I thought it was weird that the NES game cartridge prices kept going up.
In 1994 you could get old games for $1-$5.
Happy I finally finished my collection. Now I just need to finish getting Nintendo power. But issue #1 goes for $$$ now.
I always forget how relatively early NES emulation took off. The Genesis -- my childhood console of choice -- took forever between early emulators to emulators that actually represented the games in a way that was reflective of the original console. Especially on the music side. I think because of how bad early Genesis emulators were it scared me off of trying to play other consoles' games through emulation. That and still being on dialup in the mid-2000s.
It was a little shocking seeing the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance having good emulation _during_ their original heyday!
I got into NES collecting sometime during the latter half of the '90s as a teen, when I found out my peers were willing to sell off their old video games for pocket change in order to fund whatever latest PS1 or N64 game was out at the time. Prior to that, I did grow up with an NES in the Philippines and then later the US as a military brat, though I didn't own too many games, mostly renting titles every now and again, and my parents did give me an old bootleg Famicom multi-cart and one of those famed "Honey Bee" cartridge converters, which is why I was so familiar with a lot of early Famicom-era titles like Ninja JaJaMaru-kun and Nuts & Milk. Didn't have home internet access until around 2000 or so, and didn't really mess around with emulation until years after that, so a lot of what I got was a random mish-mash of good and bad titles. My collection peaked at a little over 300 titles, but in recent years I've been trying to curate my collecting habits across all platforms. Still, though, the NES is my favorite console, and even after downsizing and curating more efficiently, I'm at about 250 NES titles. There's just a lot of cult classics and quick pick-up-and-play titles I enjoy from that era.
If there's one thing that bums me out about actual video game collecting, it's those ballooning prices. I did the bulk of my collecting back in the days when people were just glad to get rid of their old game stock and didn't think they were sitting on a goldmine. I wrapped up my SNES collecting and most of my Sega Saturn collecting right before prices started spiraling out of control. Hopefully, increasingly accurate emulation and FPGA solutions at least keep all those games around. I may enjoy my physical collection, but I know it ain't for everyone (especially at modern prices), and maintenance of old hardware and software can only so far.
That's a lot of words about my NES experiences and whatever but I'm passionate about the dang thing.
This was great, thanks. I'd like to see more videos around the history of the culture like this. That's an area that hasn't been mined as thoroughly as a lot of topics.
I’m curious on how Mega Man Legends ties into the NES since that series started on the original PlayStation.
Fantastic video. This video really does make me realise how important emulation is , especially revisiting your childhood and also finding new and exciting games
Mr Bungle is the first band I know of to play NES music. They did a Super Mario bros melody in the early 90s and its awesome. They do alot of Mario 2 music. Highly recommended you can find it here Warfield show 1991.
Here in Italy the NES wasn't as big as in Japan or the U.S., but I experienced many of the phases you described in your (excellent) video. I grew up with the SNES, thanks to an oncle of mine that bought it soon after its European release and gave it to me as a birthday gift in 1993, but in the mid-1990s I bought a cheap Famiclone that mostly played black box or very early NES releases (SMB, Adventure Island, Popeye...). Then, after somewhat losing interest for videogames for some years, I discovered NES emulation around 2010, and in 2014 I finally bought a real console. Owning "the real thing" was definitely an upgrade for me. Now I own more than 160 NES games and love them. I could watch videos on NES all day and never get bored. It's such a stimulating system, with lots of stuff out there left to discover (homebrews, Famicom titles, and of course "hidden gems")
Wow, this is easily one of your best videos Jeremy. Top notch.
9:11 Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, Capcom, April 1988...
Inside joke, Mr. Parish?
No, just another case of Premiere randomly undoing a caption edit... all the captions here were copy-paste instances of the lower-third for Mega Man, and for whatever reason it looks like Premiere randomly decided to revert Konami back to Capcom in that caption. Such a frustrating program.
Very impressed by the wink at the end times to the music. It's the little things.
I’m in my early 20s and didn’t get into gaming until the mid 2000s. I never owned an NES, but the NES revival culture was so omnipresent during my formative gaming years that to this day, NES-style 8 bit graphics and music feel nostalgic to me
Watching this video reminded me of when I played NES with my family back then. So nostalgic.
The sights and sounds of the mid & late 90’s makes my heart weep bitterly for the days I hardly remember.
One of the NES-related videos that wowed me as a youngster is somebody turned it into the DVD just to play the adaptation of Super Mario Bros. 3.
1:27 “And geared primarily towards adapting children’s media rather than more serious material.”
Ah, so that’s why game developers in the ‘80s never made _Out of Africa: The Video Game_ and _The Color Purple: The Video Game_
"STIR THE SPIT INTO THE LEMONADE! 3! 2! 1! GO!"
Oh God, I dread to imagine what The Color Purple would've looked like as an NES game. Probably an awful cross between Back to the Future and Square's Tom Sawyer. O_o
There was a NES game based on the movie Platoon though.
@@Ginormousaurus I remember that one! The ending was one of the coolest things I think I've ever seen on the NES.
Great video as always! I love learning about the long cultural lives that video games (and art in general) have, well beyond their original creation. I started getting into NES games in high school. There was a lot of variety on the Wii virtual console, and it helped that the games were cheap. I would get together with my friends to play through the first Zelda, Mega Man II, and Bubble Bobble. With college now over a few of us still get together for retro games now and then. While we've expanded our horizons into more obscure games and other consoles, we still include some NES games in there. We're looking forward to giving Mendel Palace (aka Quinty) a shot in that Namcot Collection when it comes out.
As with any form of historical preservation there will forever be work ahead. I studied medieval history in college and can attest to this frustration. But the many rereleases of NES games over the years have helped a lot in keeping these games accessible both in terms of availability and with quality of life features like save states and button remapping.
This was exceptional work even by your already high standards. Great work.
Love seeing Pasofami after so long. I used to when it was updated for a time translate (hacked) the menus into english for people to use as I used to be in the era staff on various emulation sites and other more gray stuff. The iNES header doc up on gamefaqs since the 1990s, that's mine. :) That was such an amazing era in that time with the games starting to show up and emulators watching those firsts develop and grow, comparing original to the glitchy emulators being improved with time. Pasofami in time got taken down by iNES and its format, Pasofami was a trick to create those split files and get them to properly pick up by the tool.
These videos are so freaking good man. You are doing God's work.
Another entertaining but especially important video. Thanks again, Jeremy! Also, shout out to Classic Gaming Quarterly for his awesome series of Let's Read videos!
I grew up with the NES in the 80s. By the time I was a high school senior in the late 90s, I was buying all the NES games I ever wanted for just a few dollars at used game stores. It was still years before they started raising the prices. That was an amazing time to be a collector.
Yeah, when I started writing about games online in the late ’90s, I would trawl pawn shops and flea markets for cheap NES pickups. I remember kicking myself for telling the kindly old flea market guy he had underpriced some of his games before snatching them up myself. Next time I came by, he had massively marked up the price on Dragon Warrior IV... from $3 to $5!
The NES library has aged horribly as a collective unit. But the good games on the system have largely done the opposite. Super C, Dracula's Curse, SMB3, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, etc. have aged like a fine wine. Also, people shit on the original Legend of Zelda way too much. It's primitive, but it's also still a lot of fun. I could go on and on about the NES, but the bottom line is it still has a good 100-150 games worth playing in 2020. Pretty impressive when you consider it's closing in on 40 years since its debut.
@@Alianger Indeed. I emulate now. I have the entire library on my gaming laptop. I don't want touse dirty-assed old cartridges while having to rely on 30yo hardware that could break at any time. My USB controllers are expensive, and their input is spot-on, no lag or inaccuracies.
I learned how to read from NES and from Nintendo Power mags before going into the Kindergarten.
My parents started around age 4 reading the stuff to me and I was so interested I just memorized the words and before long I was reading it myself..❤️
I didn’t grow up with the NES, however thanks to emulation I went got an NES toploader 11 years ago. In those 11 years I’ve discovered many obvious classics and hidden gems as well as Japan only titles after finding a converter in a copy of Stack Up!
Thank you for making this video, it's about many things I was curious about. I was very young in the 90s and my father discouraging gaming early I didn't really get into it before 2003. So even though I've done a lot of research since then and planning get more retro games as I eventually get a stable income, but seeing the games in retrospect is not the same as reminiscing about older times..! And I can't fully get on my own so I'm grateful for this video ^^.
Bob and George the GOAT
Absolutely epic video!
I will continue to listen 'til the day I die. Amazing content, thanks so much for it.
A Bob & George callout? In *MY* NES Works? It's more likely than you think!
I love the "very old person" reference! I am also...uh...a very old person. :P
A reference to 14 YOG! I'm friends with their record labels founders. Not enough people knew about them! Both their albums are great.
Great episode! Although the missing "next episode" VO was kinda weird. (Presumably, it would have to do with the more-or-less rough transitions of 8-bit franchises to the 3D generation, such as Mega Man?)
You'll have to wait and see! Although, it has to be said, video patrons already know the deal.
@@JeremyParish I must look into expanding my Patreon budget, then.
Trouble is, you want to spend 10 times your salary on content creators all by yourself, and then you're watching all the Retronauts series out of your car. :P
9:30 I was one of those who struggled with early 3D gameplay (the camera made me feel a bit dizzy) so emulation alone kept my gaming interests going on for quite a while.
Aww yeah, is that some Megaman Legends/ Misadventures of Tron Bonne? I loved that game so much. As a teen, I was so hyped for Megaman "Neo" as it was called back then, thats the name I eventually took on for my screen name. (The Altima part was from the final boss in Final Fantasy Tactics, my other very favorite game as a teen).
imgur.com/flIip1t
The time when you could get NES games for cheap must've been beautiful
It must've been like nothing else, man :(
My childhood. Keep em commin!
As an old EFNet #nes98 kid who cut their teeth on Funcoland price sheets and posting on |tsr's NES Pit, thanks for this. The NES Scene's formative years were a great thing to experience.
If only the prices today were what the prices were back then.
Unwanted copies of Little Samson for $15? Sign me up.
Thanks Jeremy!
Fantastic video Jeremy. I would love it if you could make something similar tracing the arc of collecting for the VCS.
I'm always happy to field patron requests.
@@JeremyParish Cool, will message you on there.
@7:44 The best dang website on the 'net
7:41 ToastyFrog Jump! Wat? 😂
I wanted that Generation NEX back in 2006 i think.
I wonder what has become of that Toasty Frog you were referring to... 🤔
To be fair some of those Scholastic video game books weren't too bad. For the intended audience anyways. They certainly did a better job at adapting the source material than TV or Hollywood did at the time.
I just wanted to say after a lapse tetris DS is the game that got me back into nea
Great video, Sir.👍✌