I love seeing obviously-out-of-their-league systems like the NES and Game Boy try something as ambitious as Kings Quest V. My favorite example is Populous on Game Boy. It is painful to even look at but I can't help but at admire the people for giving it the old college try. Thanks for posting
Agreed -- you have to applaud the effort at least. Crazy thing is that NES version of Elite seemed halfway playable -- I want to spend some more time with it and see what it can do.
Love you snes drunk. And all your videos!!! But do you ever checkout out your reply son thee whole lot of comments you've made all over UA-cam over the years!!!
Might and Magic, Ultima and I think Wizardry were also on the NES. We actually have Ultima and Wizardry to thank for the rise of the JRPG as both games were highly influential in Japan in the early 80's.
My introduction to Maniac Mansion (besides the tv show) was on the NES. It's a very good version of the game despite all the changes... and you can actually play an uncensored version these days.
I remember a neighborhood friend saw the opening of KQV on our 486. She said, ‘well, your castle is gone, but you still have the basement! You should still be able to cook down there!’ I uh...
you're wrong about Elite. The reason it didn't make it to the US was because the difference between 60hz ntsc and 50hz pal. The game renders the 3D onto tiles in the vblank section of the screen, which is larger and has more time to be drawn at the slower 50hz framerate. It's a super clever hack because the NES can draw tiles very fast, since its processor was optimized for it. Unfortunately, this couldn't be done on the american NES because the faster frame-rate (usually a plus) meant there wasn't enough time or space to draw all the tiles quick enough. Super unfortunate.
I never tried the NES version of the Immortal, but the Genesis is very enjoyable and, though it's hard as all hell, it is beatable. The fight scenes seem hard at first, but once you get the hang of dodging (you have to dodge in the direction the enemy is swinging his weapon, away from the weapon, not into it), they become a piece of cake. Then, all you have to worry about are the traps, the worms, the bats, the arrows, the fireballs, the slime, the spiders, the water monster, the dragon... super easy. Oh, and let's not forget the GORE. When you beat an enemy in close combat, you will decapitate them, make their heads explode, cut them in half, chop off the top of their heads... pretty graphic stuff. And the music is great too.
I agree! I've played both the NES and Genesis versions on the original carts back in the day and I was actually able to beat the Genesis version without cheating!
Pirates! is the greatest NES game of all time.Ive been playing it since the early 90s and I have thousands of hours into that game. I've plundered and conquered every town on the map, many many times over.
The computer games I play/ed a lot, that was on SNES, was the ports of Prince of Persia and Flashback. Sunk a bunch of hours into those games. Great vid, Aaron. 🤘
Flashback was a lot of fun. Prince of Persia got an NES release at some point too but I didn't have time to get it into this video. It may be in Part 2 though. Thanks for sharing, Alex!
Whoah! I've heard tell of KQ5 on the NES but I've never seen...that...colour palette...heard..that..music, until now. It must have been so labor intensive playing with a D pad instead of a mouse too.
Yeah, it's crazy seeing that sort of color palette reminiscent of their AGI engine on most of their PC adventures on an NES game. And yeah, I didn't get into it in the video but controlling that cursor with the D-pad was a chore. It didn't have a consistent speed either so that was annoying. It would start off slow then like, build up momentum or something as it went across the screen and within like 3/4 a second be going all fast. So you've got this hard to control cursor skidding all over the screen trying to make precise commands or investigate small items onscreen. Cool idea but unfortunately it just wasn't executed well.
I get the itch to play Impossible Mission and Temple/Gateway of/to Apshai from the PC days. I’ve always wished they were released on the NES. I love when you wax nostalgic.
I **think** there were ports of Impossible Mission I and/or II on the NES. I remember renting one of them and not getting very far in it though - I think the play control was a little wonkers.
I’m going to check into it! Wonkers control was par for the course in early gaming. As a child I struggled through it with a Gravis joystick on the IBM-PC.
Intrigued Gaming dude, my brother played this on the ibm pc jr in the late 80s. I thought I was insane and just imagining it. Glad to see this game actually existed. lmao
I rented King's Quest V a few times when I was a kid and LOVED IT. I played it on PC first at school, and was thrilled that I could play it on my Nintendo. Sadly, I've never owned the actual cartridge, but I desperately want to. So great!
great stuff once again, have no idea why you don't have at least 100k subscribers or more. come on people this guy produces quality content. thanks for the video
Thanks, William. To be fair, I didn't really even start uploading videos regularly until February of last year. These things take time, I suppose. I'd love for the channel to get bigger, sure, but I'm also happy and thankful for everyone that watches now. It's already gone much further than I ever thought it would when I first uploaded a video back in October 2014. If it never got any further than this, I'd still be content. Anyway, thank you sincerely for the kind words. It's appreciated more than you may realize. - A
Thank you for the kind words. It's just math really, UA-cam is a crowded place. But I'm thankful for everyone that does watch and the channel is actually growing, so that's pretty cool!
It reminds me of "Gaming Historian" before the Tetris History video. I used to watch Norm and wonder why more people didn't like his videos. But after that big - and frankly, astonishing - video, he has over half a million subs. Have you ever thought of trying something long-form like that? I'm no expert, of course, but his numbers were pretty similar to yours before that Tetris video.
I played a few of these. King's Quest V on the NES was my intro to the series. Sure, the graphics are bad in hindsight, but as a 10 year old, it blew my mind. Imagine my excitement when I got my hands on the CD-ROM version. I also played Pirates, but I didn't appreciate what it was trying to do until I got around to Pirates!Gold on the Genesis a few years later. The big one I've put the most time into is Shadowgate. Even when I was too young to play it properly, I still dug that main tune in the opening areas.
Very well done Aaron. I'm seeing your audience growing everyday and you deserve all of the success and more. Thanks so much for the hard work you put into these vids!
I loved Shadowgate. I agree with your analysis of The Immortal as well. Battle Chess for DOS and NES were about the same. You didn't mention them in the video, but I had an Apple IIe version of Exodus: Ultima III that had a cloth map, huge manual, and...stick figures in game that represented your characters.
Great in-depth review! I never got the chance to play most of these games as a kid. They are very cool to see now that my appreciation for the NES is turned to the nostalgic side.
I've just recently found your channel and I'm so glad that I have! You're giving a great insight into the many different avenues and genres of the retro scene and you've got me hooked.
Porting Elite to the NES was not hard since it uses the same CPU core (MOS 6502) as the BBC micro that the game was originally released on. Ian Bell and David Braben did not port it themselves but have said it is their favourite 8-bit version.
I bought a copy of Elite Plus (VGA version) back in the day for the PC and it was amazing for the time. I played that game quite a lot (and was probably one of the reasons I was drawn to Wing Commander: Privateer later on). I would have loved to have played a version on the NES back in the day if it was released in the US.
The Imortal was pretty tough, mostly in the traps and figuring stuff out. I loved the battle music, though I didn't have the troubles you seemed to have in them. Often, I wasn't touched. Shadowgate had an interesting soundtrack. It was a neat game with an interesting story. I remember my friends and I pushing to see how fast we could complete it.
Your videos are so good. Very glad I found you. Keep up the good work. I get excited when I see you released a video. Also love seeing your channel growing so much!!
What these game designers pulled off was nothing short of ASTONISHING. With only 2kb of RAM and a Ricoh CPU, this is nothing short of amazing, and the games didn't take a huge dip in quality. Also, most cartridges were a paltry 300kb of memory. To put that into perspective if you play a song on your mp3 player for 3 seconds you've blown past enough information to equal all 3 NES Mario games!
Nice video but there are plenty more computer-to-NES conversions you didn't cover. What about Spy vs. Spy, Defender of the Crown, Silent Service, Maniac Mansion, Ghostbusters, Infiltrator, Castelina (aka Tower Toppler), Winter and California Games, the Ultima and Wizardry games, among others?
It's ridiculous lol. It's hard enough on its own but then the NES controls are a little wonky which makes it even worse. If a person had the time it would be fun to try to get through it though.
The Immortal - I never got very far in the Amiga version for the exact same reasons you mention here. Elite - I loved this on the C64. Sadly, while the Amiga version had fast, filled vector graphics, it felt empty. Pirate attacks were entirely predictable, the big bad alien race would attack alongside human (their sworn enemy) pirates, there was only one type of space station, manual docking was super easy if you knew the trick, etc. Today, there's a great freeware game called Oolite that is like Elite v10. Other notable games that started on computers; Archon (NES never got Archon II) Boulder Dash (NES never got the sequels) Impossible Mission II (NES never got the first game) Lode Runner Silent Service Boulder Dash in particular had HUNDREDS of fan made level packs released for it, at least on the C64.
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing the NES port of King's Quest V demoed in the video game store (probably Babbage's). I was blown away by it because I couldn't believe they could make a game like that on the NES. Looking back, the graphics weren't too great compared to the original PC version. The problem with King's Quest V, whether on the NES or PC, is that from a design perspective, it's not really such a great game. Most of the puzzles are extremely illogical or nonsensical.
@@markstahl1464 Yeah game design for these point-and-click adventures could be brutal back in the day. One false step could put the game in an unwinnable state. There seems to be a lot more hand-holding these days for more recent games of this genre which you could take for better or for worse.
@@Awesoman Yes. For example, I've participated in the modern Interactive Fiction community a bit in recent years, and it is now next to taboo to write a game or story that even kills your character, much less anything that puts the game into an unwinnable state. For that very reason, I converted one of my early, early creations (which happens to be a ripoff of KQV it turns out), and modified it to auto-restore every time you die because I knew the IF community wouldn't be down with insta-kills and going through the trouble of restoring a save file. The original version of the game from the 90's had stupid little instant deaths all over the place! XD
Embarrassed to admit that the NES version of KQV is how I learned about the series. While I was aware of Leisure Suit Larry as a kid, my world wasn’t expanded until the NES port of KQV.
It's impressive to see what they pulled off on the NES, but nowadays I'm not sure that I would want to go back to these versions. I've also heard that quite a few Japanese games were actually ports from Japanese home PCs such as the MSX or PC88, such as Hydlide, Ys I - III, Valis etc. And Adventures of Lolo originated on the MSX with the NES games being all new entries, afaik. Final Fantasy I even received an MSX port after its NES debut and Ghouls'n Ghosts was ported to the C64. So sometimes it goes the other way too.
I remember seeing The Immortal in a gaming magazine. I tracked down a rental store that had it. It was one of the most frustrating games to play. I have trouble with isomorphic games in general and with the few hit points you had it was maddening. I got as far as the whirlpools and could not get any further. My understanding is that the Genesis version is much better. Great channel!
The Immortal was an awesome game but I played it for the genesis. The gore was something I'd never seen in a game before. And yes, you're missing the mechanics to help you survive. You dodge the swinging attacks, not duck, its rhythmic, and you can swing out of the trap door floors if you're good. The game is all about timing and rhythm.
I only played the Immortal in the NES and I loved it. But is stupid hard. Some of the puzzles and challenges are absolutely cryptic. I finally finished it but after I got hold of a guide.
I remember the first King's quest on the master system, I had no idea V was released on the NES, the first one didn't look too bad because it was closer to the original but damn V looks rough.
I think that's what is funny about NES ports of such games, you have to consider the question "Did this game work smoothly before?", and usually no so going from mouse to gamepad takes another toll. All things considered I think they did a good job. 5:40 That's not fake 3D, whether you fill a polygon or not you still have a 3D mesh made of floating points so it's still doing the math. The ships have volume so it's not 2D vector shapes ijs.
Apparently Elite was only PAL-only because the hardware couldn't handle the game's graphics at a playable framerates synchronous with 60Hz... It just barely plays on PAL (50Hz).
I played The Immortal on the NES and Sega Genesis, and can say, that my favorite port of the game was on the NES although the Genesis version had the awesome finishers. Not to mention the NES version had awesome music soundtrack and gasp voice samples! I played Kings Quest starting out on my Apple IIC and of course worked all the way up to PC versions and when I tried out KQ 5 on the NES, there is absolutely no comparison, the PC version was of course much much better. Shadowgate, Deja Vu, and Uninvited all played on the NES and was of course into point and click adventure games. I absolutely loved all three of them and couldn't go back to the computer versions although each has their differences.
I played The Immortal on Amiga. The game was pre-Diablo and was really a puzzle game. Approaching it as an action RPG like Diablo isn't the right way to present it. Each level had a very specific way to solve it-- you couldn't just hack and slash your way through as with Diablo. Also, when I saw the original title of your video, I immediately thought of the Ultima games...I think III and IV were both ported to the NES. I had been playing the Ultima games from the beginning (this was the late 1970s on our Apple ][+... we even had a plastic ziploc bag version of Akalabeth) and was totally baffled as to why NES players were introduced to the Ultima series via the third game in the franchise.
Speaking of King's Quest ports, did you know that there was a version of KQ1 released for the Sega Master System? It's actually quite playable, with a "select the word" interface that works surprisingly well. I mean, there's no reason to play it ahead of the original PC versions, but it was good for the time and the system.
Whoa, really?! I kinda wanna see it just for the sake of seeing how it functioned. That's awesome - thank you for sharing. Will have to look into that one.
I've played The Immortal all the way through and while it's pretty rough, I REALLY appreciate what it was trying to do, and love the music and atmosphere. Finishing it was a labor of love, but from what I understand, the Genesis version is better; for some reason, I imagine it having a vibe vaguely similar to Haunting starring Polterguy.
I really like The Immortal. I played the MS-DOS version the first time. It's better then the NES version. There is blood in the closeup fight scenes on the MS-DOS version. The NES version really wasn't bad. The fight scenes were more clumsy and I missing the blood. Still the NES port version is OK. I just still like the MS-DOS version better and you still can play it using DOSbox.
Another game on the NES that was on computer first, Cinemaware's The Three Stooges. First showed up on the Amiga which is where I discovered it way back then but the NES port is actually fairly serviceable and didn't really omit much of anything from it's 16-bit counterpart short of some digitized samples here and there. Defender of the Crown had an NES port as well but, uh... it's not exactly that great on either the NES or Amiga as far as gameplay goes and it only garnered a following in the Amiga in the first place for being a visual spectacle. It had a trouble development and really plays more like a tech demo. Lots of ideas with potential that just weren't followed through all the way on.
Thank you for the suggestion. You know, I tried doing that in the past, especially since it is Friday "Night" Arcade, and the video never performs as well. Most of my viewers seem to be US based and releasing it around 5-6 pm kinda cuts off a big chunk of their viewership time in the first 12 hours... everyone goes to bed at like 10 or 11 pm so the views die off completely after that. After experimenting with it a bit, releasing first thing in the morning seems to give everyone a chance to watch throughout the day at their leisure... morning commute on the bus... lunch break... or bookmark for later in the evening. :)
I thought for sure you were gonna mention Maniac Mansion... I first played it on the NES, before having the chance to try it on the PC. The story of this conversion, and the heavy censorship involved, is a fascinating read: www.crockford.com/wrrrld/maniac.html
I remember being very surprised how well both the Nes and Master System did with computer games. Kings Quest on the Nes and Ultima on the Master System were great! I just found out the Immortal hit the Nes....I had it for the Genesis. It looks surprisingly well on the Nes. It's unfortunate that the Nes version is censored. The Genesis version...heads literally explode! I knew about Elite Dangerous on the Nes but this is the first time I've actually seen it running. It's unfortunate that they didn't attempt this again on the Genesis and Snes as both consoles had the chops to do a decent job of it. Hell they could both do it without any MMC chips as it's simply rudimentary lines.
I saw it was on there but hadn't had a chance to try it yet. Is the Genesis version a little more playable? The game looks fun as heck, even if it is insanely difficult -- just the NES's limited capabilities adds an extra layer of unnecessary difficulty.
@@FridayNightArcade I never tried the NES version, but the Genesis is very enjoyable and, though it's hard as all hell, it is beatable. The fight scenes seem hard at first, but once you get the hang of dodging (you have to dodge in the direction the enemy is swinging his weapon, away from the weapon, not into it), they become a piece of cake. Then, all you have to worry about are the traps, the worms, the bats, the arrows, the fireballs, the slime, the spiders, the water monster, the dragon... super easy. Oh, and let's not forget the GORE. When you beat an enemy in close combat, you will decapitate them, make their heads explode, cut them in half, chop off the top of their heads... pretty graphic stuff. And the music is great too.
Elite was actually Europe only because the PAL systems running 10 FPS slower than NTSC freed up just enough memory to run Elite. Or maybe how PAL draws things different than NTSC, anyways it's one of the differences between PAL and NTSC why Elite was never released outside PAL regions as NTSC NES consoles couldn't actually run it.
More recently there was a sort of Port of Leisure Suit Larry in the land of the lounge lizards (sort of as the name was changed to avoid legal issues).
rented the immortal 3 times and couldnt get anywhere but liked the theme and graphics. fourth time i rented it, it finally clicked and i was able to beat it. very satisfying. my favorite port was Archon, a fun game. games i loved but that had terrible ports were the dnd goldbox games
My parents got me an SNES one year and were broke the next. But they got me simcity that year I was so happy as a joke tthey knew I liked big presents and saw no SNES cart size presents. They fucked with me and brought out this HUGE box, making me think nope, no simcity, but four concentric boxes later they did it. RIP mom and dad. Losing you when I was 24 was too young. I miss you guys.
I have the Immortals for Genesis. It would make for an interesting live stream. It would probably be a short one too seeing how fast they game can kill your character. Seriously, it you take a wrong step you won't even make it out of the first room.
KQV was one of my favorite NES games even though it was horrrrrrribleeeeee compared to the PC version lol. I have very fond memories of dying every possible way in that game lol.
That's awesome - thank you for sharing. Glad to know someone at least got some enjoyment out of it. That's the thing though, when you're a kid you don't know any better so you just play what you have and that's usually when you have the most fun lol. Good stuff.
I wish I had more experience with 80's PC titles. I cut my gaming teeth on arcade and console titles and never got a taste for the more obtuse and methodical PC style of play. I'm all the poorer for this lack of diversity in my formative gaming options.
There were some good ones in there, but it was tough to be a PC gamer in the 80s -- computers were so expensive. I was really only able to play at my cousin's who had one.
@@Cecilbags I missed out on that one but played plenty of the earlier classics:. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Zaxxon, Fogger, Q*bert, Asteroids, even a little Dragon's Lair.
Let's be honest. Shadowgate, Deja Vu, and The Uninvited were the best on NES. I have all three in my collection, and to be honest.. I paid a pretty penny to get The Uninvited, but it completed my collection.
Yeah...it's weird that Uninvited is the one that is more expensive these days. They were all so much fun to play though - wish they would have made more. You might like From Beyond: Prologue. I did a video about it recently; it's basically a 2018 MacVenture game done in the vein of NES MacVenture. It's programmed in 8-bit and I think the eventual plan is to release a physical copy this year on an NES cartridge, but you can get it pretty cheap on Steam right now. And there is another fan made game called Infested, 8-bit MacVenture style set in a sci fi scenario.
Also dude I don't know if you ever mentioned being a fan of RE but did you play the new RE2 remake, cuz I remember you being the only one I knew except myself who wasn't keen on the doom remake though I really wanted to like it and put good time into trying to immerse myself
I haven't had a chance to play the RE2 remake yet. I was gonna try to revisit RE2 on Nintendo 64 sometime soon but was having trouble tracking it down. How did you like the remake? Yeah... was not a fan of new Doom 2016. Super pretty game to look at just didn't suit my playstyle.
I remember renting king quest v for NES and being very upset that it was that bad, the Immortal is awesome but I couldn't get very far in that game .. Maniac Mansion was fantastic for nes , I remember me and my brother renting the hell out that game, lots of fun and hilarious.
That's awesome - I never could find Maniac Mansion for rent so that was one of those white unicorn games for me as a kid. Good memories - thanks for sharing.
I know there alis more but computer games converted to NES off the top of my head Where in Time is Carmen San Diego Exodus Ultima Maniac Mansion Ghostbusters
The Genesis version of The Immortal is actually better than the NES version. Obviously it has better graphics, but it also has blood and gore. A primary example of the slogan: Genesis does what Nintendon't.
>Hard games don't ship to America, because they don't sell there >Deep games don't ship to America, because they don't sell there Americans: "I hate how foreigners think we are dumb!"
Trust me man. If you loved Kings Quest games like me and my brothers did, you'd have the patience to play it. We only got to play them when we went over to my uncles house for sleepovers with my cousins. They were the only people we even knew who had a computer growing up. When we found Kings Quest V at the local video rental place we rented that thing every weekend for months before we beat it. Sure... the graphics really sucked compared to that sweet VGA, but nobody likes a choosy beggar.
Yeah, I was going into this cold in 2018. 9-yr-old me probably would gutted out the awkward controls and played this dang thing all the way through lol. That's awesome you and your brothers got to share that experience together. That's the good stuff - thanks for sharing.
Yeah. It looks awful these days, even by NES standards. A few of the clips you played from it made me remember that trying to find stuff you needed to interact with was on the level of Where's Waldo bad. There's absolutely no reason to play that version of the game in 2019 when there are so many other options out there. My cousins didn't even have the version with the voice acting, which they did make later for DOS. Our first experience with voice acting in games was KQVI and it blew our minds. Nice channel you got here BTW. Hope you get more subscribers. I'm huge into retro gaming and preservation myself. I've always thought about starting a channel, but I'm a lot better at writing and working on retro related projects than I am at public speaking or figuring out how to film and edit videos. Not sure how to really communicate outside of youtube comments here, but hit me up if you ever wanna talk shop.
There's an FNA Discord now if you're into that sort of thing: discordapp.com/invite/T5HpGhM
I love seeing obviously-out-of-their-league systems like the NES and Game Boy try something as ambitious as Kings Quest V. My favorite example is Populous on Game Boy. It is painful to even look at but I can't help but at admire the people for giving it the old college try. Thanks for posting
Agreed -- you have to applaud the effort at least. Crazy thing is that NES version of Elite seemed halfway playable -- I want to spend some more time with it and see what it can do.
Check out "X" for Game Boy. It started off as a prototype by the Super FX chip guys.
@Jose Jose Heredia but Nintendo doesn't make any of those
I'd love to see you cover 'Elite' SNES drunk!
Love you snes drunk. And all your videos!!! But do you ever checkout out your reply son thee whole lot of comments you've made all over UA-cam over the years!!!
Might and Magic, Ultima and I think Wizardry were also on the NES. We actually have Ultima and Wizardry to thank for the rise of the JRPG as both games were highly influential in Japan in the early 80's.
And don't forget the game that changed Adventure games, Maniac Mansion.
Bard's Tale was also on NES
I recently picked a remake of Sid Meier’s Pirates on Steam. It is an absolute blast to play!
I'm about to do that... How many hours did I spend as a kid chasing the SIlver Train :)
My introduction to Maniac Mansion (besides the tv show) was on the NES. It's a very good version of the game despite all the changes... and you can actually play an uncensored version these days.
I remember a neighborhood friend saw the opening of KQV on our 486. She said, ‘well, your castle is gone, but you still have the basement! You should still be able to cook down there!’ I uh...
That's freaking hilarious.
you're wrong about Elite. The reason it didn't make it to the US was because the difference between 60hz ntsc and 50hz pal. The game renders the 3D onto tiles in the vblank section of the screen, which is larger and has more time to be drawn at the slower 50hz framerate. It's a super clever hack because the NES can draw tiles very fast, since its processor was optimized for it. Unfortunately, this couldn't be done on the american NES because the faster frame-rate (usually a plus) meant there wasn't enough time or space to draw all the tiles quick enough. Super unfortunate.
Ahhh interesting, I did not know that. Thanks for sharing. Crazy to think the faster frame rate was actually an obstacle. That's too bad.
I never tried the NES version of the Immortal, but the Genesis is very enjoyable and, though it's hard as all hell, it is beatable. The fight scenes seem hard at first, but once you get the hang of dodging (you have to dodge in the direction the enemy is swinging his weapon, away from the weapon, not into it), they become a piece of cake. Then, all you have to worry about are the traps, the worms, the bats, the arrows, the fireballs, the slime, the spiders, the water monster, the dragon... super easy.
Oh, and let's not forget the GORE. When you beat an enemy in close combat, you will decapitate them, make their heads explode, cut them in half, chop off the top of their heads... pretty graphic stuff. And the music is great too.
Yeah, played the shit out of The Immortal on the Genesis. It is Mortal Kombat levels of gory.
I agree! I've played both the NES and Genesis versions on the original carts back in the day and I was actually able to beat the Genesis version without cheating!
King Graham used "Pancake"........it's super effective.
King Graham's single save-slot in the cartridge is bricked because he forgot to throw a boot at a cat 6 hours ago.
Pirates! is the greatest NES game of all time.Ive been playing it since the early 90s and I have thousands of hours into that game. I've plundered and conquered every town on the map, many many times over.
Not the best adoption of King Quest for sure. But the fact that it even exists is mind blowing.
I had Sid Myers Pirates for Apple 2. It was a game so good, it had me playing it when I had a Sega Genesis ( for a spell)
The computer games I play/ed a lot, that was on SNES, was the ports of Prince of Persia and Flashback. Sunk a bunch of hours into those games. Great vid, Aaron. 🤘
Flashback was a lot of fun. Prince of Persia got an NES release at some point too but I didn't have time to get it into this video. It may be in Part 2 though. Thanks for sharing, Alex!
Just found your channel a couple of weeks ago, and I just want to say: you're doing awesome with your retro game videos!
Whoah! I've heard tell of KQ5 on the NES but I've never seen...that...colour palette...heard..that..music, until now. It must have been so labor intensive playing with a D pad instead of a mouse too.
Yeah, it's crazy seeing that sort of color palette reminiscent of their AGI engine on most of their PC adventures on an NES game. And yeah, I didn't get into it in the video but controlling that cursor with the D-pad was a chore. It didn't have a consistent speed either so that was annoying. It would start off slow then like, build up momentum or something as it went across the screen and within like 3/4 a second be going all fast. So you've got this hard to control cursor skidding all over the screen trying to make precise commands or investigate small items onscreen. Cool idea but unfortunately it just wasn't executed well.
I get the itch to play Impossible Mission and Temple/Gateway of/to Apshai from the PC days. I’ve always wished they were released on the NES.
I love when you wax nostalgic.
I **think** there were ports of Impossible Mission I and/or II on the NES. I remember renting one of them and not getting very far in it though - I think the play control was a little wonkers.
I’m going to check into it! Wonkers control was par for the course in early gaming. As a child I struggled through it with a Gravis joystick on the IBM-PC.
Some great information! Pirates is an awesome game holds up well even today.
Intrigued Gaming dude, my brother played this on the ibm pc jr in the late 80s. I thought I was insane and just imagining it. Glad to see this game actually existed. lmao
@@Cecilbags One of my friends had it on PC back in the early 90's and I was blown away. Wish I knew there was a NES version of it back then.
Great episode!
I rented King's Quest V a few times when I was a kid and LOVED IT. I played it on PC first at school, and was thrilled that I could play it on my Nintendo. Sadly, I've never owned the actual cartridge, but I desperately want to. So great!
great stuff once again, have no idea why you don't have at least 100k subscribers or more. come on people this guy produces quality content.
thanks for the video
Thanks, William. To be fair, I didn't really even start uploading videos regularly until February of last year. These things take time, I suppose. I'd love for the channel to get bigger, sure, but I'm also happy and thankful for everyone that watches now. It's already gone much further than I ever thought it would when I first uploaded a video back in October 2014. If it never got any further than this, I'd still be content. Anyway, thank you sincerely for the kind words. It's appreciated more than you may realize. - A
I was shocked to see Defender of the Crown on the NES.
There are a lot of NES games that started on computers originally, it's crazy to think about.
Excellent vid as usual.
It's a mystery to me why this channel doesn't get alot more views/subs.
Either way, keep up the good work FNA.
Thank you for the kind words. It's just math really, UA-cam is a crowded place. But I'm thankful for everyone that does watch and the channel is actually growing, so that's pretty cool!
It reminds me of "Gaming Historian" before the Tetris History video. I used to watch Norm and wonder why more people didn't like his videos. But after that big - and frankly, astonishing - video, he has over half a million subs. Have you ever thought of trying something long-form like that? I'm no expert, of course, but his numbers were pretty similar to yours before that Tetris video.
I had Pirates on the NES, it was a great port!
I played a few of these. King's Quest V on the NES was my intro to the series. Sure, the graphics are bad in hindsight, but as a 10 year old, it blew my mind. Imagine my excitement when I got my hands on the CD-ROM version.
I also played Pirates, but I didn't appreciate what it was trying to do until I got around to Pirates!Gold on the Genesis a few years later. The big one I've put the most time into is Shadowgate. Even when I was too young to play it properly, I still dug that main tune in the opening areas.
Very well done Aaron. I'm seeing your audience growing everyday and you deserve all of the success and more. Thanks so much for the hard work you put into these vids!
As always, thank you Mike!
I loved Shadowgate. I agree with your analysis of The Immortal as well. Battle Chess for DOS and NES were about the same. You didn't mention them in the video, but I had an Apple IIe version of Exodus: Ultima III that had a cloth map, huge manual, and...stick figures in game that represented your characters.
Great in-depth review! I never got the chance to play most of these games as a kid. They are very cool to see now that my appreciation for the NES is turned to the nostalgic side.
Hey thanks! Glad you enjoyed this one.
I've just recently found your channel and I'm so glad that I have!
You're giving a great insight into the many different avenues and genres of the retro scene and you've got me hooked.
Thank you for the kind words!
Porting Elite to the NES was not hard since it uses the same CPU core (MOS 6502) as the BBC micro that the game was originally released on. Ian Bell and David Braben did not port it themselves but have said it is their favourite 8-bit version.
I bought a copy of Elite Plus (VGA version) back in the day for the PC and it was amazing for the time. I played that game quite a lot (and was probably one of the reasons I was drawn to Wing Commander: Privateer later on). I would have loved to have played a version on the NES back in the day if it was released in the US.
The Imortal was pretty tough, mostly in the traps and figuring stuff out. I loved the battle music, though I didn't have the troubles you seemed to have in them. Often, I wasn't touched.
Shadowgate had an interesting soundtrack. It was a neat game with an interesting story. I remember my friends and I pushing to see how fast we could complete it.
Your videos are so good. Very glad I found you. Keep up the good work. I get excited when I see you released a video. Also love seeing your channel growing so much!!
That's very kind of you to say -- thank you. Glad you're enjoying the show!
What these game designers pulled off was nothing short of ASTONISHING.
With only 2kb of RAM and a Ricoh CPU, this is nothing short of amazing, and the games didn't take a huge dip in quality. Also, most cartridges were a paltry 300kb of memory.
To put that into perspective if you play a song on your mp3 player for 3 seconds you've blown past enough information to equal all 3 NES Mario games!
Nice video but there are plenty more computer-to-NES conversions you didn't cover. What about Spy vs. Spy, Defender of the Crown, Silent Service, Maniac Mansion, Ghostbusters, Infiltrator, Castelina (aka Tower Toppler), Winter and California Games, the Ultima and Wizardry games, among others?
I played Immortal and Pirates! as a kid. Once again, both of them along with Shadowgate are on my NES Classic.
Immortal was badass on nes
The Immortal is an evil damn game. lol SO hard, especially with no guide.
It's ridiculous lol. It's hard enough on its own but then the NES controls are a little wonky which makes it even worse. If a person had the time it would be fun to try to get through it though.
The Immortal - I never got very far in the Amiga version for the exact same reasons you mention here.
Elite - I loved this on the C64. Sadly, while the Amiga version had fast, filled vector graphics, it felt empty. Pirate attacks were entirely predictable, the big bad alien race would attack alongside human (their sworn enemy) pirates, there was only one type of space station, manual docking was super easy if you knew the trick, etc. Today, there's a great freeware game called Oolite that is like Elite v10.
Other notable games that started on computers;
Archon (NES never got Archon II)
Boulder Dash (NES never got the sequels)
Impossible Mission II (NES never got the first game)
Lode Runner
Silent Service
Boulder Dash in particular had HUNDREDS of fan made level packs released for it, at least on the C64.
Awesome video.
I'd love to eventually see an episode about 'Elite' !!!
That game looks impressive.
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing the NES port of King's Quest V demoed in the video game store (probably Babbage's). I was blown away by it because I couldn't believe they could make a game like that on the NES. Looking back, the graphics weren't too great compared to the original PC version. The problem with King's Quest V, whether on the NES or PC, is that from a design perspective, it's not really such a great game. Most of the puzzles are extremely illogical or nonsensical.
True, but it had a nice charm to it. KQVI was a superior game.
@@Awesoman Yes! KQV was all charm, basically. KQVI was slightly more sensible in design... just slightly.....
@@markstahl1464 Yeah game design for these point-and-click adventures could be brutal back in the day. One false step could put the game in an unwinnable state. There seems to be a lot more hand-holding these days for more recent games of this genre which you could take for better or for worse.
@@Awesoman Yes. For example, I've participated in the modern Interactive Fiction community a bit in recent years, and it is now next to taboo to write a game or story that even kills your character, much less anything that puts the game into an unwinnable state. For that very reason, I converted one of my early, early creations (which happens to be a ripoff of KQV it turns out), and modified it to auto-restore every time you die because I knew the IF community wouldn't be down with insta-kills and going through the trouble of restoring a save file. The original version of the game from the 90's had stupid little instant deaths all over the place! XD
Pirates was one of my favorite games as a kid. Never knew it made it to the NES.
Embarrassed to admit that the NES version of KQV is how I learned about the series. While I was aware of Leisure Suit Larry as a kid, my world wasn’t expanded until the NES port of KQV.
Get a game on friday and return on monday. I played alot further than most people. What else was there to do. Great video!
Elite was only on PAL due to 50hz and refresh rate, but I think I learn it from your channel xD"
It's impressive to see what they pulled off on the NES, but nowadays I'm not sure that I would want to go back to these versions.
I've also heard that quite a few Japanese games were actually ports from Japanese home PCs such as the MSX or PC88, such as Hydlide, Ys I - III, Valis etc. And Adventures of Lolo originated on the MSX with the NES games being all new entries, afaik. Final Fantasy I even received an MSX port after its NES debut and Ghouls'n Ghosts was ported to the C64. So sometimes it goes the other way too.
I remember seeing The Immortal in a gaming magazine. I tracked down a rental store that had it. It was one of the most frustrating games to play. I have trouble with isomorphic games in general and with the few hit points you had it was maddening. I got as far as the whirlpools and could not get any further. My understanding is that the Genesis version is much better. Great channel!
Yeah, the Genesis version is really good - the NES just wasn't quite up to the task and it's virtually unplayable.
The Immortal was an awesome game but I played it for the genesis. The gore was something I'd never seen in a game before. And yes, you're missing the mechanics to help you survive. You dodge the swinging attacks, not duck, its rhythmic, and you can swing out of the trap door floors if you're good. The game is all about timing and rhythm.
I only played the Immortal in the NES and I loved it. But is stupid hard. Some of the puzzles and challenges are absolutely cryptic. I finally finished it but after I got hold of a guide.
I remember the first King's quest on the master system, I had no idea V was released on the NES, the first one didn't look too bad because it was closer to the original but damn V looks rough.
I enjoyed a lot the NES Defender of the Crown version.
I think that's what is funny about NES ports of such games, you have to consider the question "Did this game work smoothly before?", and usually no so going from mouse to gamepad takes another toll. All things considered I think they did a good job.
5:40 That's not fake 3D, whether you fill a polygon or not you still have a 3D mesh made of floating points so it's still doing the math. The ships have volume so it's not 2D vector shapes ijs.
Apparently Elite was only PAL-only because the hardware couldn't handle the game's graphics at a playable framerates synchronous with 60Hz... It just barely plays on PAL (50Hz).
I played The Immortal on the NES and Sega Genesis, and can say, that my favorite port of the game was on the NES although the Genesis version had the awesome finishers. Not to mention the NES version had awesome music soundtrack and gasp voice samples! I played Kings Quest starting out on my Apple IIC and of course worked all the way up to PC versions and when I tried out KQ 5 on the NES, there is absolutely no comparison, the PC version was of course much much better. Shadowgate, Deja Vu, and Uninvited all played on the NES and was of course into point and click adventure games. I absolutely loved all three of them and couldn't go back to the computer versions although each has their differences.
I played The Immortal on Amiga. The game was pre-Diablo and was really a puzzle game. Approaching it as an action RPG like Diablo isn't the right way to present it. Each level had a very specific way to solve it-- you couldn't just hack and slash your way through as with Diablo.
Also, when I saw the original title of your video, I immediately thought of the Ultima games...I think III and IV were both ported to the NES. I had been playing the Ultima games from the beginning (this was the late 1970s on our Apple ][+... we even had a plastic ziploc bag version of Akalabeth) and was totally baffled as to why NES players were introduced to the Ultima series via the third game in the franchise.
Speaking of King's Quest ports, did you know that there was a version of KQ1 released for the Sega Master System? It's actually quite playable, with a "select the word" interface that works surprisingly well. I mean, there's no reason to play it ahead of the original PC versions, but it was good for the time and the system.
Whoa, really?! I kinda wanna see it just for the sake of seeing how it functioned. That's awesome - thank you for sharing. Will have to look into that one.
I've played The Immortal all the way through and while it's pretty rough, I REALLY appreciate what it was trying to do, and love the music and atmosphere. Finishing it was a labor of love, but from what I understand, the Genesis version is better; for some reason, I imagine it having a vibe vaguely similar to Haunting starring Polterguy.
You are underrated my friend!!! a hidden gem if I must say so myself!!!
I really like The Immortal. I played the MS-DOS version the first time. It's better then the NES version. There is blood in the closeup fight scenes on the MS-DOS version. The NES version really wasn't bad. The fight scenes were more clumsy and I missing the blood. Still the NES port version is OK. I just still like the MS-DOS version better and you still can play it using DOSbox.
Another game on the NES that was on computer first, Cinemaware's The Three Stooges. First showed up on the Amiga which is where I discovered it way back then but the NES port is actually fairly serviceable and didn't really omit much of anything from it's 16-bit counterpart short of some digitized samples here and there. Defender of the Crown had an NES port as well but, uh... it's not exactly that great on either the NES or Amiga as far as gameplay goes and it only garnered a following in the Amiga in the first place for being a visual spectacle. It had a trouble development and really plays more like a tech demo. Lots of ideas with potential that just weren't followed through all the way on.
The Immortal is on the Nintendo Switch's NES app.
Yeah, Friday Night Arcade! Please release it closer to early evening:)
Thank you for the suggestion. You know, I tried doing that in the past, especially since it is Friday "Night" Arcade, and the video never performs as well. Most of my viewers seem to be US based and releasing it around 5-6 pm kinda cuts off a big chunk of their viewership time in the first 12 hours... everyone goes to bed at like 10 or 11 pm so the views die off completely after that. After experimenting with it a bit, releasing first thing in the morning seems to give everyone a chance to watch throughout the day at their leisure... morning commute on the bus... lunch break... or bookmark for later in the evening. :)
I thought for sure you were gonna mention Maniac Mansion... I first played it on the NES, before having the chance to try it on the PC. The story of this conversion, and the heavy censorship involved, is a fascinating read: www.crockford.com/wrrrld/maniac.html
I remember being very surprised how well both the Nes and Master System did with computer games. Kings Quest on the Nes and Ultima on the Master System were great! I just found out the Immortal hit the Nes....I had it for the Genesis. It looks surprisingly well on the Nes. It's unfortunate that the Nes version is censored. The Genesis version...heads literally explode!
I knew about Elite Dangerous on the Nes but this is the first time I've actually seen it running. It's unfortunate that they didn't attempt this again on the Genesis and Snes as both consoles had the chops to do a decent job of it. Hell they could both do it without any MMC chips as it's simply rudimentary lines.
Ever try the immortal on genesis?
I saw it was on there but hadn't had a chance to try it yet. Is the Genesis version a little more playable? The game looks fun as heck, even if it is insanely difficult -- just the NES's limited capabilities adds an extra layer of unnecessary difficulty.
@@FridayNightArcade I never tried the NES version, but the Genesis is very enjoyable and, though it's hard as all hell, it is beatable. The fight scenes seem hard at first, but once you get the hang of dodging (you have to dodge in the direction the enemy is swinging his weapon, away from the weapon, not into it), they become a piece of cake. Then, all you have to worry about are the traps, the worms, the bats, the arrows, the fireballs, the slime, the spiders, the water monster, the dragon... super easy.
Oh, and let's not forget the GORE. When you beat an enemy in close combat, you will decapitate them, make their heads explode, cut them in half, chop off the top of their heads... pretty graphic stuff. And the music is great too.
Elite was actually Europe only because the PAL systems running 10 FPS slower than NTSC freed up just enough memory to run Elite. Or maybe how PAL draws things different than NTSC, anyways it's one of the differences between PAL and NTSC why Elite was never released outside PAL regions as NTSC NES consoles couldn't actually run it.
These ports probably scared a lot of kids away from buying an Amiga back in the day.
More recently there was a sort of Port of Leisure Suit Larry in the land of the lounge lizards (sort of as the name was changed to avoid legal issues).
Missing some cool ones like Maniac Mansion, Lemmings and BallBlazer (BallBlazer is Japan only though)
No mention of Prince of Persia's NES port (which was mostly uncompromised)?
rented the immortal 3 times and couldnt get anywhere but liked the theme and graphics. fourth time i rented it, it finally clicked and i was able to beat it. very satisfying. my favorite port was Archon, a fun game. games i loved but that had terrible ports were the dnd goldbox games
My parents got me an SNES one year and were broke the next. But they got me simcity that year I was so happy as a joke tthey knew I liked big presents and saw no SNES cart size presents. They fucked with me and brought out this HUGE box, making me think nope, no simcity, but four concentric boxes later they did it. RIP mom and dad. Losing you when I was 24 was too young. I miss you guys.
I have the Immortals for Genesis. It would make for an interesting live stream. It would probably be a short one too seeing how fast they game can kill your character. Seriously, it you take a wrong step you won't even make it out of the first room.
KQV was one of my favorite NES games even though it was horrrrrrribleeeeee compared to the PC version lol. I have very fond memories of dying every possible way in that game lol.
That's awesome - thank you for sharing. Glad to know someone at least got some enjoyment out of it. That's the thing though, when you're a kid you don't know any better so you just play what you have and that's usually when you have the most fun lol. Good stuff.
Thanks ! I didn't remember the immortal but I'm gonna check it out now!
Kings quest on ibm pc junior was one of the first games i ever played.
You left out Maniac Mansion.
Massive respect to you sir !!
Glad you're enjoying the show - thank you!
I wish I had more experience with 80's PC titles. I cut my gaming teeth on arcade and console titles and never got a taste for the more obtuse and methodical PC style of play. I'm all the poorer for this lack of diversity in my formative gaming options.
TopSpot123 dude, arcade is its own unique category though. thats awesome. ever play 720?
There were some good ones in there, but it was tough to be a PC gamer in the 80s -- computers were so expensive. I was really only able to play at my cousin's who had one.
@@Cecilbags I missed out on that one but played plenty of the earlier classics:. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Zaxxon, Fogger, Q*bert, Asteroids, even a little Dragon's Lair.
You did well... you did well...
I had a TI, CoCo, Tandy 1000, then a custom 286 in 1990. PC gaming was fun.
3:18 once you get a handle of combat you can get through any fight w no damage, I did it when I was 9 im 38 now
Would have welcomed a version of King's Quest V (or VI) on the SNES.
I had a kings quest on master system but don't remember which version it was
The FBI just arrested Roger Stone. Great video by the way.
You scooped me... I was reading comments on the pot and hadn't checked the news yet this morning lol.
Dude. Immortal was awesome on the NES..
Let's be honest. Shadowgate, Deja Vu, and The Uninvited were the best on NES. I have all three in my collection, and to be honest.. I paid a pretty penny to get The Uninvited, but it completed my collection.
Yeah...it's weird that Uninvited is the one that is more expensive these days. They were all so much fun to play though - wish they would have made more. You might like From Beyond: Prologue. I did a video about it recently; it's basically a 2018 MacVenture game done in the vein of NES MacVenture. It's programmed in 8-bit and I think the eventual plan is to release a physical copy this year on an NES cartridge, but you can get it pretty cheap on Steam right now. And there is another fan made game called Infested, 8-bit MacVenture style set in a sci fi scenario.
Also dude I don't know if you ever mentioned being a fan of RE but did you play the new RE2 remake, cuz I remember you being the only one I knew except myself who wasn't keen on the doom remake though I really wanted to like it and put good time into trying to immerse myself
I haven't had a chance to play the RE2 remake yet. I was gonna try to revisit RE2 on Nintendo 64 sometime soon but was having trouble tracking it down. How did you like the remake? Yeah... was not a fan of new Doom 2016. Super pretty game to look at just didn't suit my playstyle.
Is that related in any way to Elite Dangerous, the game I suck at on Xbox One?
Yep - it's a precursor to the series. You can play the OG version on your NES lol. It's not half bad.
@@FridayNightArcade Awesome. I totally wanna go back and play it now. :)
I was addicted to Pirates on the C64
thanks for the video.
I remember renting king quest v for NES and being very upset that it was that bad, the Immortal is awesome but I couldn't get very far in that game .. Maniac Mansion was fantastic for nes , I remember me and my brother renting the hell out that game, lots of fun and hilarious.
That's awesome - I never could find Maniac Mansion for rent so that was one of those white unicorn games for me as a kid. Good memories - thanks for sharing.
I know there alis more but computer games converted to NES off the top of my head
Where in Time is Carmen San Diego
Exodus Ultima
Maniac Mansion
Ghostbusters
Maniac mansion
First one I thought of...
Sell your car? Dude, an amiga was not that expensive. :)
So Elite was basically just No Man's Sky?
No love for Maniac Mansion?
The Genesis version of The Immortal is actually better than the NES version. Obviously it has better graphics, but it also has blood and gore. A primary example of the slogan: Genesis does what Nintendon't.
>Hard games don't ship to America, because they don't sell there
>Deep games don't ship to America, because they don't sell there
Americans: "I hate how foreigners think we are dumb!"
Trust me man. If you loved Kings Quest games like me and my brothers did, you'd have the patience to play it. We only got to play them when we went over to my uncles house for sleepovers with my cousins. They were the only people we even knew who had a computer growing up. When we found Kings Quest V at the local video rental place we rented that thing every weekend for months before we beat it. Sure... the graphics really sucked compared to that sweet VGA, but nobody likes a choosy beggar.
Yeah, I was going into this cold in 2018. 9-yr-old me probably would gutted out the awkward controls and played this dang thing all the way through lol. That's awesome you and your brothers got to share that experience together. That's the good stuff - thanks for sharing.
Yeah. It looks awful these days, even by NES standards. A few of the clips you played from it made me remember that trying to find stuff you needed to interact with was on the level of Where's Waldo bad. There's absolutely no reason to play that version of the game in 2019 when there are so many other options out there. My cousins didn't even have the version with the voice acting, which they did make later for DOS. Our first experience with voice acting in games was KQVI and it blew our minds.
Nice channel you got here BTW. Hope you get more subscribers. I'm huge into retro gaming and preservation myself. I've always thought about starting a channel, but I'm a lot better at writing and working on retro related projects than I am at public speaking or figuring out how to film and edit videos. Not sure how to really communicate outside of youtube comments here, but hit me up if you ever wanna talk shop.
I just think the Immortal was a bad game in general, despite having great ideas.
Elite on NES? How many souls they had to sell for that? 🤣