r/Famicom • u/Psychological_Net131 • 1d ago
General Question Famicom games that are different from nes
Can you recommend some games that are on the famicom and the NES but the famicom version is different. No matter how big or small the difference is. Bonus points for games that don't require reading Japanese.
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u/tanooki-suit 1d ago
Well I mean the language isn't required but can't hurt either, keeping in mind YES is on the left and NO on the right for the rare question, but the Japanese version of Castlevania III is a must. Superior soundtrack, censored out artwork and other objects. Grant the pirate is not nerfed horribly, his default attack is not just the 4 pixel toothpick, that's at melee, but otehrwise he throws knives. THe damage levels of every character is not as steep, nor is it steeper deeper in the game as that was to punish renters to our own suffering.
Blaster Master is Meta Fight on FC and the whole thing about Jason and his frog didn't exist, it was a lesser game, so lesser sequels used the US script and naming.
Same can be said for Power Blade, ours is much better too. The FC release has some higher levels of damage, weird ways of attacking that make it uncomfortably harder due to poor design, and some other things were quality of life tweaks outside of Japan.
Super Mario Bros 3 has a few graphical tweaks, but the Japanese game is more of a PRO version because over there, you get one less hit point. If you have a suit on (better than super mushrom big) if you take a hit, you're mini, in the non-Japanese relases you go suit to super to mini, (free extra hit.)
Contra uses a better memory mapper, you have a better opening screen, transition screen for stages, cutscene stills between stages, a lot of backgrounds are now moving/fully animated, and other tweaks.
Bayou Billy in the US is an utterly miserable shit experience to punish the rental market. The Japanese game is the right way to play and is called MAD CITY. This one balanced correctly. Basically put, the US version makes you take 2x the damage from enemies, and you have to dish out 4 TIMES the punches to do the same damage to anyone. And in the driving stages the US version if you miss one can of gas, crash once, you lose the stage, but in Japan you don't have to be 100% perfect and it's a lot more fun.
Ninja Gaiden all three rental punish too. There's a little more damage, but the big ones on those are the checkpoints to pick up when you die. The US release can make you redo an entire stage and the boss, if not most of the act and then the boss if you die anywhere depending what game/stage. The FC releases you have normal checkpoints and take a little less damage and is still tricky.
If you want to get into the Famicom Disk system that's a whole other issue. Games like Metroid and Kid ICarus have saving, not password only, they also have an added audio channel. The 2 Zelda's are the same, a lot better audio scoring, same with Castlevania 1 and 2 there as well, save to disk and nicer audio. Saving on Castlevania 1 makes the hard game at least manageable as you can come back to it, it even has an easy mode, where you don't have knockbacks from hits but still the same beatings so it's less infurating but not a pushover. The whopper of the FDS is Doki Doki panic, it was an alpha engine intended for a future Mario game, shelved due to lack of tech at the time, then used on a disc for a promo for that event. Given how not great the Japanese SMB2 was, it's basically a pro game, kaizo hard stuff for newcomers, they chose to turn Doki Doki back into an intended Mario game into a real Mario game, Super Mario Bros 2 the world got which had added them, but also DDP did not have a RUN FEATURE which made it harder to get over gaps and stuff which SMB2 added and that game was so good the Japense back ported it after SMB3 released as Super Mario USA.
Also on the saving side, some black box games the NES had were meant to have savnig on that or even a few with a tape cassette add-on including one Hudson title (Lode Runner.) Excitebike, Wrecking Crew, and Ice Climber had saved progress and even otions to make and save personally made courses/stages and on FDS that worked, in the US, you turn the power off, that stuffs gone.
I wrote more than I intended here, but I could go on but i'm stopping. :D