the_wizard_666

That's kinda cool, but yeah, I have zero information on this one. Have you tried over at AtariAge? There's a more specialized knowledge base there that can likely shed more light on this than the three or four Atari guys here can

So your reasoning for separation is that people in the west place their regional variant ahead of the Japanese one, despite the fact that the media this is done with is inherently designed to be consumed by western audiences, many of whom may not even know about the Famicom? That just...wow... Also, that's a gross oversimplification of matters pertaining to repros. Most people want only a handful of games, many of which are not playable in English and need to be translated. They also generally don't want a pile of Japanese carts they can't play, so they opt to put it on a cart that they CAN play. Sure they could get the original cart and an adapter, but some don't want to go that route. Some would also rather it be on a Famicom cart, but translated so they can enjoy it. Some don't have a preference, and will go with the cheaper/easier option. @Tanooki got his SimCity Famicom cart because it was cheaper and more convenient than having me add a converter and slap it into a US shell because I was using a Famicom donor board. But even if that wasn't the case and he wanted a Famicom version, I would be more than happy to do it, provided it falls into my rule - no 1:1 copies of games that exist in the region. So if you really want a Jaws Famicom cart, I can help you...just don't ask me for Dig Dug.

I love how things like this are a thing Good luck man

The install base may have been huge, but the number of Family Basic units out there is much more limited. Add in the fact that the tape deck is also fairly tough to come by and it stands to reason that there simply weren't that many tapes with data on them to begin with. I'm betting many users just reinput their code every time. Many BASIC programs weren't very large, and while tedious, little Jimmy's parents didn't have to shell out for yet another pricey add on for his game system. It could just be that simple - you can't find something if there's nothing to find.

Code sharing was pretty big back then. I'm sure there's some submissions posted in some contemporary Famicom magazines. The odds of a tape with a game on it seeing the light of day is exceedingly rare, due to factors like media degradation and the fact that Satoru's little brother may have overwrote the tape when they recorded their favorite song off the radio.

Sounds like a bunch of shit I have zero interest in. Challenge runs could be cool, but maybe make that a separate category rather than included as bonus games. Either way, those are of limited interest to me. Just get the unlicensed, PAL, and FC games up. Like all of them.

It also says "Advance" along the bottom. Just saying. Based on every other post they've made in this thread, I'd say that would be the case. Their posts are clearly facetious in nature. I disagree. Arguments like this get pretty heated. Injecting a bit of obvious levity doesn't hurt. And in many ways, it points out how silly it is to take this shit so seriously. On old cassette tapes that have been overwritten a billion times since Let's also not forget that BASIC, while easy to learn, is not exactly code efficient. You could make some basic (pun absolutely intended) games, but they would be vastly inferior to anything programmed in machine code.

Today's Dungeon Magic update: fuck the Spelldragons in the Underwater Palace. The bastards have insane defense, and spells are kinda crap. Used up literally a full stock of potions in the dungeon, in addition to all my food and water supplies, and I STILL only made it out with 5hp! At least I had enough cash stockpiled to refill my supplies when I got back to town. Also, the next dungeon was easy, so I've now acquired the Water Sword, meaning only Wind is left. Getting close to the end game now, but I'll probably be grinding at least one more level before heading to the next dungeon, as I'm only level 14, albeit with all the best armors and the third best weapon in the game.

The cartridge also indicates it being a Game Boy game and not a GBC game, due to the DMG item code. Which also means the case to make GB-compatible GBC games part of the GB list is technically stronger than shifting a game that is clearly meant for release as a GB game over to a system that it was not released for.

I don't know why this isn't clear: GAME BOY COLOR GAMES SAY "GAME BOY COLOR" ON THE BOX. No matter what else may or may not be true about the cart or the ROM, the simple fact is this: POKEMON YELLOW DOES NOT SAY "GAME BOY COLOR" ON THE BOX. It's not even like it's on the cusp of release where this could be argued away. The GBC was released 13 months prior to Pokémon Yellow. OVER A YEAR! If it was meant to be a GBC release, it would say so on the box. END OF STORY.

It's listed on the box as a Game Boy game, not GBC. Not sure what is so hard to understand about that. Also, the way it's colorized would have a huge bearing on whether it's optimized for GBC or not, though that still wouldn't change its standing as a Game Boy release in any way. I don't recall it being marketed as anything other than a video game system that played video games. Though I was 4 when the NES arrived in Canada, so I missed out on the real early days. But it was pretty clear by the time I got mine in '89 what they were marketing it as. I know you're just being facetious, but it does raise a point. Pokémon Yellow displays only 4 colors at a time, a far cry from the 56 that the GBC could display. I contend that my point stands in this case - the palette isn't optimized for GBC use, Game Freak just locked out the option to switch the palette used.

Well, in fairness, I didn't get a GBC until long after I got a GBA, and never used the GBC at all even after I DID get one. I suppose a direct comparison of Pokémon Yellow on a SGB vs a GBC would solve that, but the point remains that it was not marketed as a GBC game at all, and thus should not be classed as such. But yeah, given this precedent, I stand corrected on that single argument. Edit: Perhaps also a comparison between the two and a GBA as well. I'm not sure now whether that handles GBC vs GB differently from a SGB now, as I did play Pokémon TCG on both the SGB and GBA and don't recall a difference...though that was over 20 years ago now so my memory could be hazy there.

Except that, as discussed, they are the same fucking system. They weren't marketed separately because they are different, they were marketed in different areas entirely. The Game Boy and Game Boy Color were marketed as separate things in the same region. Completely different argument here. Nice try though.

Hey @scaryice, can we get the bonus list soon? I wanna play some stuff

The general rule of thumb used in most of these threads is that the best ending isn't necessarily required unless the game specifies to play on a higher difficulty, or you miss out on part of the game by playing on a lower level. So long as an ending is achieved, then there's no need to torture yourself...unless you want to. Examples (off the top of my head): Double Dragon II (NES), Little Samson (NES), Contra III (SNES), TMNT IV (SNES).

I think it is far more likely that it was designed from the ground up as a Game Boy game, and was modified during the localization process to disable changing the colour palette. The game was released 13 months prior in Japan, which itself was a month prior to the launch of the GBC there. Those 13 months were used to optimize the game for hardware that was at that point a year old, but was clearly not made to take advantage of it. The colour palette is hardly telling, as it is identical to the default for the Japanese version. It seems more likely that Nintendo simply disabled the function allowing it to be changed in the US release. This is likely, since they had 13 months to figure out how to do it. Another thing in favour of it being a GB release is that it was also branded as a Game Boy title in Europe, despite being released there in June of 2000. If it were meant to be a GBC release, wouldn't they make it one by that point, almost two years after the GBC was released? Again, the argument bears more weight the other way, in that all DMG releases should be on the Game Boy list and not the GBC list, as the GBC library is the only Nintendo library that uses two different console codes on it's software. This actually makes sense, as since the GBC was backward compatible for ALL prior Game Boy releases, that they're simply Game Boy games with a more robust colour palette. Incidentally, these games, to the best of my knowledge, play with the GBC colours when used in the Super Game Boy. I know because I played the shit out of games like Pokemon Yellow, Survival Kids, Quest: Brian's Journey, and WWF Wrestlemania 2000 via the Super Game Boy back in the day. They weren't specific to the GBC, if they were they wouldn't be able to run those palettes on the SGB hardware. But again, I'm against this as well, because the games were marketed as GBC games. That's the key - the console they were marketed as is the one they belong to. Pokemon Yellow was marketed as a GB game, not a GBC game, and should be categorized as such.

Funny, when I use this handy dandy utility I found, and boot up the ROM, it shows SGB functionality and a GBC license code...exactly the same result when I boot up Oddworld Adventures and The Rugrats movie, the two Game Boy games released prior to Pokemon Yellow, yet booting up Tetris DX, Dragon Warrior Monsters, and Quest: Brian's Journey, they all show the GBC box checked off. Also, just to make sure, I checked Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry no Wonderland, the first GBC release in Japan and released over a year prior to Pokemon Yellow in the US, and sure shit, it still checks as GBC compatible. This shows that the game was designed to take advantage of the Super Game Boy and not the GBC. It's the last US Game Boy release, plain and simple.

Why is it that Pokémon Yellow is the only game where this is mentioned? The box says "Game Boy," not "Game Boy Color." Literally every other coloured GB cart aside from Pokémon Red and Blue and the DK Land trilogy are labeled as "Game Boy Color" on the packaging. Nobody questions the other 5 colored Game Boy carts, so why this one solitary exception?

A valid argument can be made for that, as the ADE was essentially a hardware add-on with compatible software, much like the FDS, 32X, N64DD, etc. That said, the Aladdin was technically the 90% of a cartridge that doesn't change between games, so an Aladdin with a cartridge inserted is functionally no different than any other NES cart. It's a functional grey area that doesn't really have a right answer, as valid arguments can be made either way, unlike the topic at hand. Color a Dinosaur doesn't require extra hardware to make it function properly. Miracle Piano wasn't marketed as a game, it was marketed as a MIDI keyboard with software and adapters to run on various systems. Nintendo may simply view the entire package as being a peripheral rather than a game, which would explain why it was not included on their list. It's not revisionist history, it's simply another viewpoint. It's not like they claim it doesn't exist at all. That would be silly. It was branded on the box as a Game Boy title, not a Game Boy Color title. It has extra GBC functionality, but lacks the GBC branding that would make it a GBC release. If anything, a better argument would be to argue that GBC carts that aren't "Only for Game Boy Color" should be included on the OG Game Boy list instead, as the cart codes designate them as GB carts (DMG) rather than GBC carts (CGB). But given that they were branded as GBC carts on the box, that would ultimately be a fool's argument as well.

It's a regional variation. There is zero difference outside of cosmetics between the NES and Famicom. Some things may not be enabled by default, but they are still physically there. The games can be played interchangeably between the consoles with a simple pass through device to accommodate the cosmetic differences. I can take literally any Famicom game and put it in a 72 pin cartridge with zero compatibility issues, and I can do the exact same thing the other way as well. That is because they are the same system, with libraries tailored to the region they were released in. /endthread

Dave, there are reasons that list held some of the games off. In Nintendo's view, SE and MTPO were superceded by the later releases. They removed redundancies from their list. Whether we agree with that or not, that's what they did. With the licensed Tengen games, the licenses were revoked later, thus Nintendo would no longer recognize them as official releases. So as far as a list of officially licensed Nintendo games go, from that perspective their list is accurate. Regardless, their list of releases not matching reality has no bearing on the fact that they consider the two systems to be one and the same. And why should they consider them as separate entities when they are quite literally nothing more than regional variants.

It was also on the Saturn, so you can avoid the crappy SNES if you choose.

https://tcrf.net/After_Burner_(NES) https://nescartdb.com/profile/view/326/after-burner https://nescartdb.com/profile/view/3806/after-burner Based on this, I feel like After Burner's differences are more of an equivalent to Castlevania III, in that changes were made due to differences in the mapper being used between regions rather than because they were making a new game. The Famicom version was released first, with a more capable mapper chip being used in Japan than the US, much like how Castlevania III required changes to the game to run with an inferior mapper in the US than the Japanese release, notably in the sound department.

Also, the quality of the respective libraries has no bearing on whether they are designed for the same hardware or not, which they absolutely are. Opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one, and they all stink.

One major one that sticks out is After Burner. That one definitely had an official Famicom release. Too lazy to scan the rest but there's probably a few others too. Looking at both lists though, while some definitely could've been released in both markets, there are some that are clearly regional preferences. Wheel of Fortune wouldn't do so well in Japan, any more than a mahjong or pachinko game would do well in North America. But the fact remains that you could put any of those games on the other system without issue. If you took the chips off a Battle City cart and put them onto an equivalent 72 pin PCB, Battle City will run just fine. And even in the event that a game can't be converted in such a way due to there not being an equivalent board, all one needs to do is correctly set up the pins to match up correctly. This is all that 60-72 pin converters do - they route the pins so they go to the right places. The games themselves can be run natively on the hardware. THAT is why they're the same damn system. Saying you have a Famicom collection and an NES collection is the same as saying you have a Japanese Saturn collection and a US Saturn collection. They're simply regional variations of the same console, and the libraries are only separate due to the region they were released in, not because of the hardware itself.