What got you into famicom?

[DreamStar]

I just started collecting for the Famicom/ and Super Famicom last year ,due to my love for anything Japanese .

[b1aCkDeA7h]

Getting my hands on Akumajo Densetsu and discovering how a Gyromite converter was not enough to get the VRC6 goodness.

Since then, I've modded my NES and gyro converter to do it but a AV, classic, and Twin came first.

[son_ov_hades]

I saw a video of Namcot's Star Wars game and I just had to have it.

[nerdynebraskan]

Several of you are touching on the exclusive games, and that's what I most related with. My Famicom carts have become my second-largest group among my game collection, and almost all of them are Japanese exclusives. There were just so many good 8-bit Nintendo games that we in NES countries just never had a chance to see. That's what got me hooked.

[UglyJoe]

I'm not really sure what got me specifically interested in the Famicom.  I had been into collecting NES stuff for a number of years already, and was pretty aware of Famicom stuff via emulation, but I don't remember if there was a specific flag that was set and made me decide to get one.  I simply decided on one of my birthdays that I would buy myself a Famicom and a couple of games (Tetris 2 + Bombliss and Hanjuku Eiyuu).

One of my college room mates and I tried to translate Hanjuku Eiyuu while we were still in college.  It was my first big delve into rom hacking and exploring the FC/NES at a hardware level.  It wasn't until a few years after we had given up on that project that I went and bought a Famicom, but I'm guessing that was probably what planted the seed.

Said room mate lives in Japan now, and suspects that my Famicom collection is larger than his despite the fact that I'm still in America

[TanookiSuitSam]

I was into NES collecting since I as 16 since me and my family would play the living crap out of it until we got a Sega Genesis. The NES was my favorite  with the Genesis being my second favorite.

Eventually I got online and learned about all the obscure and awesome games there were for the NES that I became more enthralled with it all and eventually learned about the Famicom and how weird it looked. I never really understood back then why the system looked so...weird. But I liked it.

Fast forward to when I was 18 and I learned about how many exclusives there was for the console and the FDS. I knew I wanted one so I could play my first game I ever wanted to try, "Devil World". So sure enough, I bought a Famicom off ebay, got given a few other games (including Devil World.  ) and the rest is really history.

Like 80'sFreak, I don't really have many games. Mostly just games I know that were highly recommended. Still have my NES + my Famicom hooked up to my TV. All the gaming i'll ever need.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

I would look through Funcoland's game lists and notice Gradius III and wonder whatever happened to Gradius II?

In 2005 I downloaded the rom, and to my surprise it was all in English, but it was too awkward to play on a keyboard (this was before RetroUSB [or before I knew about it]), so I looked into buying the game and found out about converters.

Then I bought a CIB copy of Gradius II! Still my favorite of the series.

[nerdynebraskan]

I'm guessing Konami's VRC games are a major reason for us importing Famicoms. Crisis Force and Gradius II are incredible games, and the enhanced soundtrack to Akumajou Densetsu is also awesome. And the VRC games are not terribly practical to make NES repros of; most of the guys I've seen even offer are just going to require the FC version and probably a Gyromite with converter for donor parts.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Honestly, I find people who make these kinds of repros are just wasting their time; they're not saving people any money, in the case of enhanced audio games you're going to either lose it or pull off something like this, & I find the aesthetics of the small, compact box & booklet is in better taste than the pirate-quality haphazard repro boxart that's been so rampant these days.

Funny, there was a time when reproductions used to be exceptional; now the market's too saturated.

[nerdynebraskan]

I think people get NES repros of FC exclusives for many reasons; some of them are pretty valid and some are just not.

I have several NES repros of FC RPGs (Earthbound Zero, Sweet Home, Final Fantasy II and III); the translations make those games playable for me, and I wanted to play them on original hardware. That's a good reason for a repro, I think.

I have a repro of Super Mario Brothers 2J. It's a game I wanted to play, and I'm frankly never going to own an FDS. Given the rampant unreliability of that hardware, I have no interest in spending my time, money, and energy pursuing those. The alternative would be FC pirate carts, which are typically expensive and unattractive compared to NES repros.

I also have a repro of Recca, which I picked up before I started collecting Famicom stuff. It's also an obvious one for a lot of people, especially because the original cart is outrageously rare and expensive. I can similarly relate to people getting repros for Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa or Moon Crystal for the same reasons, even if I have original FC carts of those. (I have considered adding a Moon Crystal repro, so I can actually understand the story in the cutscenes...)

Custom creations like the enhanced cart for the CastleVania III you linked to are almost more out of the category of "Things a Tinkerer Tinkered with to see if it was even possible." As an oddity, they're kind of interesting. I don't think they'll ever get mass produced, and I'm glad. Those are kind of silly, I think, and they tend to get expensive. If I needed to buy a Crisis Force, I can either buy it and an adapter (or FC console), or I can buy it, an adapter cart (like an early Gyromite), and THEN pay additional shipping and labor for a repro guy to get the same game back in a single case. To me, that's just goofy.

The Gimmick! repros are conflicting. It's nice to see more people able to afford the game, but I'm bummed that the only donor board appears to be NES Return of the Joker carts (which are uncommon to begin with). It was cool to see RetroUSB offer them from all-new parts; I'm always happy to see more good games out there, as long as we're not losing something rare or wanted to begin with. I think he did SMB 2J carts, too, which seemed silly because all I think you need to do that is a worthless launch title cart (and we're not hurting for copies of Ten Yard Fight).

But what I really don't get is the people who get repro carts of things like Devil World, Dig Dug, Transformers, and stuff like that. Why pay $25 for a bootleg made in some dude's garage when you get an original of these games for $10 or so?

... But I guess these thoughts made me branch out into Famicom collecting in the first place. I guess that sort of ties this long tangent of a post back to the original thread.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

Many of these reasons are exactly why I started buying repros:

SMB2J: not going to buy an FDS
Final Fantasy II: it was a prototype that never made it to the states

But with games that are already in English & were released on the FC, I found it more feasible just to import them.

And with Final Fantasy III (and most translations), someone had to take the time to translate it, & then the whole ethics of buying a translated game in which the original translator isn't getting a cent of the money for the repro comes up.

So that's where the Power Pak comes in.

By the way, I found this quote by you very unusual, & I am trying to make sense of it. Magicantian suggested that you play the translated RockBoard on a flashcart, but you replied with this:

@Mag

I would buy an NES repro before I did that. It'd be a cool one to have on a physical cart.

Wouldn't it make more sense to play it on a flashcart first to make sure it's a game you're willing to keep a hard copy of in the long run? This comes from personal experience.

[nerdynebraskan]

I'll go ahead and respond, at the risk of further derailing the thread in repro discussion.

1) I don't see repros or flash carts being any more or less fair to game translators, because they're both just mediums for us to play translated ROMs on original hardware. And the translators aren't getting paid by guys making flash carts or repros. Some of these guys even put in the fine print of their operations that they're really not selling you the game, since the ROM is freely available online for emulation (even if the legality is something of a gray area). Their claim, which isn't too outrageous, is that they're simply doing the hardware work.

2) As per my previous post in the other thread, there are perhaps a few personal details about me that would make the comment make more sense to you. First of all, I don't own a flash cart. Thus, trying Rockboard that way would be more expensive for me than a repro, since I'd first have to buy a much more expensive flash cart.

Second of all, I'm a huge Mega Man fan. I mentioned that in the thread you pulled the quote from, but you may have missed that part. Even if I did decide to buy a flash cart for my ROM hacks, unreleased prototypes, and fan translations, I'd still get a kick out of having another repro with Mega Man fan art on it. I think I'm going to get at least one repro fan hack sequel to every classic MM game, too.

Finally, I pretty much already know I'd like the game. I own an original FC cart of it, and have tried it a bit. Though the Japanese menus confused me, and I've yet to explore all the options as a result, I still had fun with it on my limited playtime with it. It's pretty much a Monopoly knockoff where you can blow up the other players' hotel-equivalents with classic Robot Masters. What Mega Man fan wouldn't enjoy that?

[Jedi Master Baiter]

First of all, I don't own a flash cart.

Aah, I see. Here I thought you had an N8.   Missed that if .

[Nightstar699]

It's pretty much a Monopoly knockoff where you can blow up the other players' hotel-equivalents with classic Robot Masters. What Mega Man fan wouldn't enjoy that?

Me! I need to jump and shoot!

[nerdynebraskan]

@nightstar

I can't say I'm surprised by your answer. And while platformers are also my favorite genre, I like a variety of games. I play a little bit of everything. My FC collection has platformers, shooters, puzzles, and Rock Board. And I'm only limited to those because of langauge barriers. I also have RPGs and board games in my NES collection. (Hell, even a handful of sports games...)