Given that the Famicom just turned 30...

And that a lot of places (including my own blog) are doing reflections back on the Famicom and NES, what were some of your favorite titles from that system? Any sort of uncommon gems that you rally liked, that it seems like not many people played? I would say The Legend of Zelda was my favorite title for it - it opened up a whole new world of gaming for me. In terms of unusual titles, I think Nobunaga's Ambition, Bandit Kings of Ancient China and Destiny of an Emperor probably stand out as the most unusual titles I adored back then.

Chalgyr wrote:And that a lot of places (including my own blog) are doing reflections back on the Famicom and NES, what were some of your favorite titles from that system? Any sort of uncommon gems that you rally liked, that it seems like not many people played? I would say The Legend of Zelda was my favorite title for it - it opened up a whole new world of gaming for me. In terms of unusual titles, I think Nobunaga's Ambition, Bandit Kings of Ancient China and Destiny of an Emperor probably stand out as the most unusual titles I adored back then.

There was a Nobunaga's Ambition on the NES? That is just awesome - those games were never released down here.

I never owned a NES, but after I got into games (SNES era), I got into some of the games. I liked Final Fantasy and the Dragon Quest games, and the Mario platformers.

I was also a fan of the Dungeon & Dragon RPGs that were released on the NES. Games like Eye of the Beholder and Pools of Radiance - anyone remember those? Haha.

[quote="MattS"]

Chalgyr wrote:
There was a Nobunaga's Ambition on the NES? That is just awesome - those games were never released down here.

I never owned a NES, but after I got into games (SNES era), I got into some of the games. I liked Final Fantasy and the Dragon Quest games, and the Mario platformers.

I was also a fan of the Dungeon & Dragon RPGs that were released on the NES. Games like Eye of the Beholder and Pools of Radiance - anyone remember those? Haha.

Compared to the later games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Nogunaga's Ambition on the NES was pretty simplistic - but that was actually my first 'strategy' game - and where I realized I had a huge interest in them. One you might like Matt, is Bandit Kings of Ancient China. Similar to Romance and Nobunaga, but set in the Song Dynasty with a slightly higher emphasis on 'characters' than the others, and combat had a bit of mysticism to it. Destiny of an Emperor was an RPG based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but it had a slightly tactical slant to the combat. A title very few people seemed to know about, but I really enjoyed it.

I definitely remember Eye and Pools. I liked them, but they never quite struck my fancy the way the PC Pools or Curse of Azure Bonds did, with the more tactical combat.

Speaking of the SNES era - did you ever play Gemfire by Koei? It was not particularly well-received, but I rally liked it quite a bit. Battle fields were much smaller, but it was a fantasy/strategy game.

Unfortunately not. Koei games were never, ever localised in Australia back in the early days - the market was just too small.

I'm hoping more games do the Earthbound and Shantae thing and get released here when they weren't original on the Virtual Consoles.

I would love to see more of those sort of obscure, under-appreciated titles find new life as well. I admit, my gaming tastes were far from the nrom back then - but since ours seem to be pretty similar half the time, I think you'd have appreciated those older Koei titles. I keep hoping, REALLY REALLY hoping, that they will revisit some of these for current gen consoles. It's been years since their last Romance game - I believe it was on the PC - but they had all kinds of quality strategy games for the NES/SNES. Nobunaga's Ambition, Gemfire, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Genghis Khan, Bandit Kings of Ancient China, L'Empereur, Rise of the Phoenix and Liberty or Death all come to mind.

Chalgyr wrote:I would love to see more of those sort of obscure, under-appreciated titles find new life as well. I admit, my gaming tastes were far from the nrom back then - but since ours seem to be pretty similar half the time, I think you'd have appreciated those older Koei titles. I keep hoping, REALLY REALLY hoping, that they will revisit some of these for current gen consoles. It's been years since their last Romance game - I believe it was on the PC - but they had all kinds of quality strategy games for the NES/SNES. Nobunaga's Ambition, Gemfire, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Genghis Khan, Bandit Kings of Ancient China, L'Empereur, Rise of the Phoenix and Liberty or Death all come to mind.

Oh, Tecmo Koei still makes the Romance and Nobunaga games, in great numbers, no less! I have two of them on my 3DS, and I've been meaning to import the PS3 one. It's just that the last one that was localised for the West was the PC game in 2007 (I think).

That said, there's a really nice version of Romance on the iPad, and a really good Nobunaga's Ambition on the iPhone - be sure to pick those two up.