Hidden Gems/Obscure Nonsense

[SirCandle]

What are your favorite hidden gems or weird obscure games on the Famicom? Given how massive the system's library is, it's obvious that not every single game's going to be talked about for one reason or another. So what have you all dug up?

My personal favorites are Cocoron and Youkai Yashiki.

[Bry89]

You know, I was going to make a thread about that but I think you lot would have better Famicom knowledge than me

Anyways, Cocoron was a rare favourite of mine as I loved how unique it was, and found it rather inspirational in a way. There's probably other rare games I had played but this one sprung to mind instantly

[Retrospectives]

All the Mahjong games in contrast to more action/platformer oriented system as the FC was. Requires the knowledge of the rules and a bit of Japanese for those who are foreigners but overall if you llike these types of game there are a ton out there, both licensed, unlicensed, Japanese, Taiwanese, Chinese for Cart, FDS etc etc.

[Ghegs]

One that I've liked that doesn't get mentioned very often is Heisei Tensai Bakabon. It's a 2D platformer not entirely unlike Prince of Persia, at least in the way the main character controls. And he has loads of animation, might be the most any Famicom game character has.

[Bry89]

I remembered Prince Of Persia, the DOS version at least. Could never get past certain obstacles of the first level due to how broken the controls were I've never heard of this myself but I could give this a try, or maybe watch a YouTube video of it at least.

[Arasoi]

I'll offer up a list of (I believe) obscure stuff from my own collection. Most of these games have english translation patches online or don't require functional knowledge of Japanese. I've pared the list down to 20 total for both formats so it isn't just a giant list of random games.

FC:

Armed Dragon Fantasy Villgust (A top down RPG with side view action sequences for battles. Colorful, nice graphics and has an anime tie in)
Asmik-Kun Land (An odd little platformer where you play as Asmik's pink dino mascot, farting on enemies)
Astro Fang Super Machine (Rad Racer on an alien planet with guns, transforming car, and bizarre landscapes)
Chaos World (Natsume developed RPG with excellent music and presentation)
Cosmic Wars (Konami's take on the strategy/war genre. Gradian forces vs Bacterion, many units right out of the Gradius/Nemesis/Salamander titles)
Dezaemon (A shmup creation engine for the Famicom)
Dragon Buster (1984 arcade title ported to Famicom. Primitive, but arguably the game that influenced/laid the groundwork for Zelda II the most)
Fuzzical Fighter (A weird RPG/shmup hybrid with bizarre graphics/designs)
Grand Master (Scarcely mentioned Zelda-type game with linked stages, and tecmo theater style cutscenes)
Hyaku no Sekai no Monogatari (a tabletop style RPG, on Famicom! 3 scenarios, randomly generated maps, dice throws, the works)
Metal Slader Glory (An adventure game with no translation. But easily one of the, if not the most impressive title on the system)
Sugoro Quest (A board game RPG for Famicom! Roll dice, move along the spaces, fight monsters etc)
Tetrastar: The Fighter (A surprisingly cool Space Harrier style shooter with lots of cutscenes, cool scenarios and nice graphics)
Toukon Club (A fun pro wrestling game with a weird gameplay perspective)
Zombie Hunter (An odd and somewhat clunky 2D action RPG with an odd charm to it. Also, loud sampled speech on the title screen)

FDS:

Druid: Kyoufu no Tobira (Commodore 64 action rpg port that came out very well, one of my favorites on the FDS)
Kick Challenger: Air Foot (Top down vertical scrolling game, play as a nike wearing tomato and stomp your enemies. Very odd control scheme.)
Kineko: Kinetic Connection titles (picture puzzle games, where you must assemble an animated picture piece by piece)
Monty no Doki Doki Daisassou (Another Commodore 64 port, but very weird and different than it's western original. A bit kusoge, but enjoyable)
Seiken: Psycho Caliber (A solid Zelda clone (one of many on FDS) that doesn't seem to be mentioned much. Weird, weird box art)

Honorable mention: Utsuron Desu (A weird kusoge game based off a Japanese gag comic. It's utter crap and knows it, the game will often do strange things with stage design just to mess with the player's mind)

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Is Fushigi no Ume no Nadia obscure enough? It's a two-team RPG battle across different single-screen stages/boards.

[UglyJoe]

Ochin ni Toshi Puzzle Tonjan!? - A box-pushing puzzle game with some lite Mahjong elements to it.  Also has cute anime girls cheering you on every couple of levels.

[That Guy from Faxanadu]

A cheap, underrated game is Quarth by Konami. It's a shame this clever puzzle/shooter hybrid didn't get a worldwide release since it's one of the best 8-bit games ever. Great music too.

[Bry89]

Puzzle and a shooter in one? That's all new to me. This one should be up my street as I like both genres. Better check it out someday

[Ghegs]

Oh! Something I've been meaning to talk about here, but never got around to it. I've posted about it elsewhere, tho, so here it is reprinted:

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Forget Excitebike. Forget Micro Machines. Forget R.C. Pro-Am and Rad Racer. Nakajima Satoru: F-1 Hero released in 1988 (aka. Michael Andretti's World Grand Prix as it was known in the US) is the greatest racing game on the NES/Famicom.

The first impression upon booting up the game isn't exactly favorable. The graphics look worse than Rad Racer's which was released the previous year and the music is only present in menus, not during gameplay. But at least it's kind of catchy. The game screen is cut in half with the track's map taking half of the real estate. It's only when you start driving that the ingenious design hits you in the face like a cold bucket of water.

The problem with many a racing game of the era, and even the following console generation's, was the lack of analog controls. When turning, you were always going either 100% left or 100% right. Depending on the game and how it was implemented, it could still feel acceptable. But F-1 Hero circumvents this problem by giving the player faux-analog controls.



Pushing the d-pad left once angles the car at roughly 15-degrees. Push it left once more, and it goes to about 40 degrees. Push it left the third time, and the car is at a maybe 60 degree angle. Holding the button down does nothing beyond the first angle change, the button has to be tapped to change the car's heading. It's such a simple, yet brilliant way of giving the player an impression of analog steering when the hardware can't actually do such a thing, I'm surprised more developers didn't use it.

And it doesn't stop with just the steering, the acceleration and braking work a bit different than in most racers of the era as well. Individually they work as expected. But when the buttons are pushed at the same time, it locks the car's speed into what it is right at that moment, so no change in speed will take place until either button is released. This of course simulates having a light foot on the accelerator to keep the speed constant. Unrealistic to be sure, but oh so helpful.

Add in the fact that out of the four available cars only one is AT and the rest use MT, and the end result is easily the most technical racing game on the system. There will be constant gear-shifting, braking, and trying to get the right angle for each corner. And if a corner is taken at a speed too high for the car's current angle to keep, the vehicle will spin. The game even simulates tire wear!

All this also means the game has a fairly high learning curve, especially for a NES racer. At first it's tough to get even a single lap without spinning out several times. This is where the map is helpful. The 16 tracks, all based on real-life Formula courses and re-created here pretty accurately, have many different kind of turns; short and sharp, long and shallow, and everything in between. And they actually feel different, compared to other third-person-view-racers on the console. With the map always visible it's easier to start braking early enough and get the angle right.

Some gameplay concessions were made, most notably that even in a full grid race against AI drivers, there's only four vehicles on the track. And there is no car-to-car -contact, the other drivers are like ghosts. On the other hand, the game has two-player split-screen multiplayer, something of a rarity in a non-top down racing game of the era.

The game was popular in Japan so it's no surprise F-1 Hero 2 was released. As far as sequels go it's a barebones one, as it's basically the same game as the first (even has the exact same music and car sprites), only with 16 new courses to race on. At least the HUD was changed...slightly. But in 1991 the sequel looked most definitely dated.