NES Any deep-cut or modern favorites?

[umagumma]

Heya! Recently modded my Famicom with composite out. Happy with the end result and I'm looking to make the best use out of it.
I might bite the bullet and buy an N8 Pro, seeing that it's still receiving updates with new mappers and the like. Out of everything, I'm really excited to play ROM hacks and homebrew games on real hardware, alongside some JP-only games I never took the time to try. Also enjoy some fun novelties like the official port of Pac-Man CE.
Previously enjoyed stuff like Junkoid or Celeste Mario on emus; looking to try those out again as well. Also looking forward to playing titles like Megami Tensei, Murasame, FC Tantei Club etc.

Anything in the NES/FC library that stands out to you personally? Any new fun hacks or translations you've enjoyed? I'd love to hear! Thanks.

 

[Moot]

Recently played the English translation of Jesus. It’s a short, fun playthrough, with just one tough puzzle that you can look up on the web.

 

[HydraSavior]

I doubt they're "deep cuts" but I really am fond of semi-obscure NES titles Magic of Scheherazade (action RPG combined with...RPG?), Clash At Demonhead (no one will convince me otherwise: best Metroidvania / SEARCH ACTION game on the NES), and Kabuki: Quantum Fighter (not the best action game, but it's...kind of got a cachet to it in its weirdness. You're a white lookin' American who apparently had a Japanese ancestor who knew Kabuki, and when you get mentally installed into a computer to hunt for viruses, you become a Kabuki Warrior who lets his hair do the talking, as a weapon. It's worth an afternoon.)

 

[KamakoKamako's icon]

I think Ghost Lion is a pretty fun but lesser-known NES RPG. It also has this brilliant box art

 

[diet_orange]

I've always really liked the Tengen port of Fantasy Zone

 

[jesterodoll]

Tetris 2+ Bombliss on nes is a really slept on version of the game, it also uses music by the original dragon quest composer!!

 

[lestagio]

Crystalis was pretty awesome. Not sure if it's a "deep cut" but it was always overshadowed by Zelda and Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. I don't hear it mentioned all that much, but those who do mention it agree that it's pretty great.

As for something a totally different style, Super Dodgeball was a lot of fun with my friends back in the day— that is, if you're okay with a bunch of sprite flickering! I don't know why that game did that so much...

Unfortunately, I'm not exactly versed in the romhacking community so I can't give you too much there.

 

[Tenshishi]

I grew up with an NES multicart, so I actually have more experience with deepcuts than more popular games!

- Musashi no Ken (634 Sword) is a very fun, slow-advancing platformer where you race through a gauntlet against a little dog. It's challenging but a real blast!
- Mighty Bomb Jack is another challenging little platformer, very focused on verticality and exploiting the suit-change mechanic to get out of jams.
- Penguin-kun Wars is a high octane sports game where you try to get all of the balls off your side of the field and onto your opponent's. It's near-impossible to win without a complete understanding of the mechanics!
- Ninja Jajamaru-kun is a very fun screen-wipe game where you have to remove all the enemies from the screen to progress! Like an upgraded Mario Bros.
- Yie ar Kung Fu is a fun fighting game! Feels like a prototype Street Fighter, very fun to advance through increasingly tough bosses.
- Nuts & Milk is GREAT! You collect all the fruits on a stage while avoiding an enemy so you can advance to the next. Level variety is great and you can even make your own!
- Pooyan has inspired plenty of tower defense games. It can get pretty tense trying to keep safe with so many threats on screen!
- Block Hole is like a combination of Tetris and a space shooter. It's so much fun trying to keep advancing down the track and get as many points as possible along the way!

 

[umagumma]

WHOA these are all great recs!! Jesus is not at all what I was expecting LEL but I'm digging the visuals

Looking through the RPGs in this thread I was reminded of Radia Senki, a game that Hideo Yoshizawa had his hands on that later inspired a few plot elements and character names from Klonoa. Can't miss that one either, I love the little guy too much

 

[MetHy]

Also looking forward to playing titles like Megami Tensei

MT is a great game but I advise against playing the translation on real hardware. There are several possible crashes in the translation, there was a recent patch that fixed a crash but there are several remaining ones including when late game enemies like Loa perform the level draining attack. For what it's worth though you can use a spell that give you a password at any time (though using said password puts you back at the start of the game) plus when enemies successfully perform the level drain attack you might have wanted to hit the reset button anyway depending on how far you made it. Also, once you know which enemies can drain your level you might just want to flee from them no matter how you're playing the game.

Radia Senki is very good indeed. If you're looking for more RPGs check out Metal Max or Lagrange Point
For action games: Mitsume Ga Tooru, and I always like Mission Impossible and The Lone Ranger

 

[Sheepy765]

I'm unsure if this is a "deep cut" or not but Little Nemo is one I enjoy playing often.

 

[Bakuma1997]

MOTHER/EARTHBOUND BEGINNINGS!

The less polished of the Mother Trilogy, netherless easly the most touching story of any Famicom RPG, gameplay is rusty AF, but people has already tacked that

Mother 25th Faithful Edition + Re-Faithful + Vanilla Sprites (Hack) NES ROM – The Repo

Mother 25th Faithful Edition + Re-Faithful + Vanilla Sprites (Hack) NES ROM Languages: English. For the NES.

retrogametalk.com

If you want a Modern Romhack
Sonic the Hedgegog Vol. 2 turns the memetic but awful Somari bootleg into a so-so but serviceable Sonic 1 port

 

[ifelloffmybike]

Trojan is pretty hard but I usually have a fun time with it. I don't see very many people talk about it either. It's one of those die and die again until you learn every pattern games. Power Blade is a fun mega man like. Willow is actually a tie in game to the movie of the same name that's surprisingly good. It plays like Zelda IIRC. Not to say tie in games can't be good, but for the NES times it feels much more rare.

 

[Bakuma1997]

Willow is actually a tie in game to the movie of the same name that's surprisingly good. It plays like Zelda IIRC. Not to say tie in games can't be good, but for the NES times it feels much more rare.

*NES Willow mentioned*

Huzaah, A man of Culture!

 

[CrimeRobot]

A little while ago I got a Famicom Twin along with an N8 Pro and I've honestly been playing it more than my flash carts for SNES, N64 and Genesis, just so much cool weird stuff out there, especially with hacks and translations.

So far I've played the most Star Tropics, a game we used to rent a lot when i was young. Kind of a Zelda-like with some janky movement/jumping, and some fun but kind of limited overworld/sea exploration and good music. Both Star Tropics games and the above-mentioned Willow need to have their header changed to NES 2.0 format to work on the N8 Pro, which you can do in the Mesen emulator. Alternatively, I think ROMhacking.net has IPS patches for the first Star Tropics and Willow.

You'll definitely want to fire up some Japanese games that take advantage of Famicom expansion audio, especially Kid Icarus, Castlevania II & III, Metroid and Zelda. They sound sooo good. Plus you can actually kill Pol's Voice with your voice in Zelda using the Famicom microphone!

Now let's get into the weird stuff

Sweet Home is widely considered a precursor to Resident Evil, definitely some unique mechanics there.

If you ever played Legend of the Mystical Ninja for SNES, there are a bunch more Goemon games in different genres for Famicom.

Joy Mech Fight is a surprisingly decent little fighting game with abstractly-segmented robots doing the fighting to keep it within the Famicom's technical bounds.

I played a little bit of LaGrange Point, mentioned above and it looked pretty neat. I hear good things about the Legend of Heracles games for some more JRPG action. Likewise all the various Ys series games.

Gradius II looks nice and has amazing graphics.

Apart from Star Tropics and the Castlevanias, I've mostly been dipping my toe in a bunch of different things, so that's all I can really think of just now, but if you don't already have it, I'd definitely recommend picking up this MiSTer adapter cable that uses the expansion port to let you plug in NES controllers and (assuming you have a CRT) the Zapper gun.