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Okay so if you like pixel art metroidvanias-- and OBVIOUSLY you like pixel art metroidvanias because WHY ELSE WOULD YOU BE ON THIS FORUM, then I have for you the most important news possibly of your entire life: Ufouria, the long-lost NES platformer, has just been released for Wii Virtual Console.

(http://imgur.com/ilpQZ.gif)

(http://imgur.com/f0NSk.gif)

(http://imgur.com/pr55m.gif)

Ufouria is basically the horribly deformed child of Metroid and Hello Kitty, and is one of the finest platformers ever created for the NES-- if you ask me the best one released without "Mario" in the name. It was originally released under the name "Hebereke" in Japan with slightly different character designs at the end of the NES lifespan, then was localized and released in Europe, but has never been released for sale in America until today. The version now on U.S. virtual console is the PAL version unchanged, with unbelievably loopy translation fully intact.

Non-obvious advice: Hold down to stomp, hit "select" for character select.

You better be adding images.

This is a pretty good list of underrated NES games: http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/04/the_10_best_nintendo_games_no_one_played.php

Pfft. Gimmick's better.


...


Obscure Sunsoft game avatar fight!  :durr: In all srsness Ufouria is pretty awesome. That list Derek linked to has awesomeness abound as well.

Ah ok, its Hebereke. Just with a weird English title.

This really needs to be a general Sunsoft thread.

Are you asking for a challeeeeeeeenge?!

I played it, it rules.

I'm OK with this!

Sunsoft's 8 bit stuff gets a lot of love but they had some amazing output for the Super Nintendo as well. Road Runner: Death Valley Rally and Taz-Mania for the SNES are as good as licensed video games get.

(http://www.consoleclassix.com/info_img/Taz-Mania_SNES_ScreenShot4.gif)

One of the better uses ever of mode 7 to attempt an actual gameplay mechanic

(http://imgur.com/ZsCAu.gif)

(http://retromedia.ign.com/retro/image/article/948/948186/road-runner-death-valley-rally-20090126012507827_640w.jpg)

This game ended every single level with a totally viable Wile E. Coyote gag, and the platforming is legitimately deep and challenging, AND there is a "meep meep" button!

Why doesn't every game have a "meep meep" button

I stole the top two images here from consoleclassix.com

It's aawwwwwn. Uh, how do we go about this?

At any rate, Sunsoft made some cool games.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/TripWorld_screenshot.png)
Trip World was suggested to me by Dess and I love it. It's a sorta-sequel to Gimmick and a sorta-prequel to the Seiklus/Knytt exploration sub-genre. The enemy AI and interactions therein are amazing.


Sunman
 (http://www.lostlevels.org/200311/200311-sunman.shtml) is an unreleased NES game that is pretty interesting. Check out the link for more info.

Batman on the Megadrive has one of the best 8-bit soundtracks ever. I'm a bit sweet on Batman as I spent a few nights alone with it back in the day. It may look stiff and it may have two shoot-em-up stages in a row (which sounds like torture) but it plays really well and sounds fantastic.

Who remembers Chameleon Twist?

...Isn't it an N64 game? I've heard of it! It looked pretty interesting!

Ufouria is great. I managed to get the NES PAL cartridge a while ago for 8 euros :) I should probably get some other Sunsoft games. Trip World looks really cool.

Atlantis No Nazo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQK-P-ZfcWs&feature=related) is one of the stranger NES (Famicom/whatever) games I know. Imagine Adventure Island on acid and you're about halfway there.

(http://media.strategywiki.org/images/b/be/Atlantis_no_Nazo_screen.gif)

Ufouria was a great game, surprised it made it on Virtual Console since it wasn't very popular.  Not sure about that list though, I played all of those... they were all pretty well covered in Nintendo Power and a lot of them were cover features.  I guess if exposure to NES games is limited to emulators then yea people would miss those.

For the other half, imagine that it's that one creepiest kid in school, the guy who tries to make chemical bombs that never work and tortures snails.

Edit: Ufouria is the bomb. When I was little, my NES didn't work, so I used emulators. Eventually I found this one. It was an embarrassingly long time before I figured out how to stomp. :laughter:

Hahaha, me too. But, it's a testament to how cool the game is that you can get really far without attacking enemies...

The unintuitive stomping got me as well! What's worse is when you accidentally stomp a foe, realize it can be done, and then take a few hits before you realize what you are doing wrong.

The only negative to Ufouria is that it is very short. Most of the time you spend playing will be spent on trying to figure out where to go next, or how to solve a couple of the puzzles. Ultimately, it feels like the replay value is very low. However, that first playthrough is very enjoyable!

I'm really happy that they put The Guardian Legend at #1 on that list... Rightfully so. But I can't believe they didn't include Crystalis. That game is just as unknown and perhaps even better than TGL. I dunno which one is my #1, but both of those games are my favorite NES games of all time.

i think crystalis was slightly more popular than guardian legend -- not sure though. it was games people haven't played, and i think more people have played crystalis than guardian legend (especially due to that awful ds (or gba?) remake of crystalis)

i am happy they mentioned princess tomato in the salad kingdom though, that's one of the best nes games

but at the same time, it's weird to call *any* of those nes game 'unknown' because i'd say that most gamers who are fans of the nes are familiar with all the games mentioned on that list. i at least had heard of all of them, and had played most of them, and i imagine the same is true for other fans of the nes.

"Fans of the NES" is the keyword (key term?) here.

Also, all of these games were relatively obscure when they were originally released and only developed a cult following due to emulation and the internet. I mean, if you knew about Gimmick! in '93, hats off to you.

it was mentioned in EGM actually, i heard about it then, in 1992

i also owned many of the games in that "obscure" list back in the nes era, yes -- i actually owned two copies of guardian legend for instance, so it wasn't that obscure

also your quote formatting is broken

I played Crystalis back in the SNES era, if you had an NES it was pretty difficult not to know of it, even if you hadn't actually played it. If you didn't own an NES there's a good chance you might not have a clue what a great game it was. I'm still coping with the realization that there are children today who played 3d games before 2d games. I think these "Most obscure" lists are meant for those kinds of people, the ones who had a PS2 as their first console and are slowly working their way backwards towards the 8-bit era and need signposts.

The Crystalis remake was for the GBC. Why do you feel it was awful? It's not like the Bionic Commando remake (also for GBC) that drastically changed the character designs and dialogue.

that's a different topic entirely -- basically, compare the two intros:

gbc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mJ6cNh7v50
nes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBilpDvAmEM

the quality difference is obvious, at least to my tastes

Yup, the GBC intro is an eyesore. Some parts almost look broken/glitched. :facepalm:

Oh, wow, I'd forgotten the intro was completely different. The rest of the game was pretty much identical to the original at least!

Thanks for the tip mcc, it was short but sweet =)

I especially loved the animations and how each character had their own way of crouching. Very impressive for a NES game.

According to Wikipedia (I hadn't heard of the GBC version until this thread), enemies are no longer immune to certain elemental attacks, which is kind of a big deal.

Dammit, this isn't a SunSoft game, but IT NEEDS TO BE RELEASED. DAMMIT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3RVzkEQqhM

If we are going to talk about underrated NES games, I'm obligated to mention Chrontendo (http://chrontendo.blogspot.com), a project done by one Doctor Sparkle. Basically, he's doing a short video review for every game ever released for the Famicom. (An episode of Chrontendo contains about fifteen games.) It's an incredible ambition, and the episodes themselves are lovely - a journey through the ridiculously huge and often very bad back-catalog of Famicom games, guied by Doctor Sparkle's mellow, soothing voice.

A fun note: He's currently working on Episode 32 after roughly four years of effort. He has calculated that there will be more than 70 episodes by the time he's finished, and in addition to that, he is also doing a "chronogaming" series for the Master System and the TurboGrafx. The guy is an amazingly hard worker.

MY GOD, the Crystalis "port" to GBC makes me SO ENRAGED!!!!! I just want to vomit, and then hunt down everyone from the studio that did that version and throw them into traffic!! UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's no call for that. Everyone so far has been fairly rational about their tastes.

No! They took my favorite game and ruined it with their horrible port. It's not acceptable!

So awesome. I must try it out!

man i know some awesome obscure NES titles too

Rockin Kats which has THE BEST BOXART

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4b/Rockin_Kats_cover.jpg/252px-Rockin_Kats_cover.jpg)

known as NEW YORK NYANKEES in japan it surprisingly has the same box art everywhere because it is the best boxart
you're this cartoon cat with a gun that shoots a chained hand, which not only punches stuff but when you punch walls it kicks you high speed style
oh and you can use it as a grappling hook bionic commando style too
and as you can see the style is noir except not noir


also conquest of the crystal palace

you're this kid on a mountain and you have to do something and you got a sword but sometimes the going gets rough so you call your awesome dog and he proceeds to lay the fuckin smackdown on everything its an awesome dog
(http://www.consoleclassix.com/info_img/Conquest_of_Crystal_Palace_NES_ScreenShot2.jpg)
look at that blue dog you want that dog

also in the middle of the mountain there's a shop which is represented by a very chinese anime girl
(http://www.flyingomelette.com/greatgames/screens/cccp-shop.gif)
and as you all know when you are six years old anime girls are the best thing
anyways she can also give moderately badly translated information and she becomes a news hanker
(http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/05/palace0522082.png)
what a awesome shopkeeper

i should find other awesome nes games im sure i know a few

You guys might want to check up "Mitsume ga Tooru". Basically it's a super-awesome overlooked platformer with very creative enemies.
(http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/9004/mitsumegatooru1398611.jpg)
In this screenshot we see our three-eyed hero (who fires lasers from his third eye) attacked by troll dolls. Soon after, he will be attacked by kittens while riding on a moving truck.

(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/d07fa64ad925b135bf5bcc6c309d16a4.png)

Thank you. I will take you to the other side as a reward.

:wtf:

Boxartgasm

Hm, this looks familiar

(http://imgur.com/4hwyP.jpg)

Chrysalis was soooo gooood but I'm not sure I'd call it obscure? I remember it being sort of a big deal at the time, I think. Definitely underrated, though. And about the GBC Chrysalis: Didn't they add an extra dungeon? That would seem to justify whatever other bits they messed up.

If technically-not-obscure-just-sorta-overlooked games count, I'd push M.C. Kids:

(http://imgur.com/99HYF.jpg)

It's easy to overlook because it's a McDonalds-themed platforming game (??!), but it's actually surprisingly technically advanced for an NES game-- ripping off Super Mario Bros. 3 in all the right ways and adding some really creative ideas on top of that. And it gets incredibly hard toward the end.

Actually, as long as we're getting off topic a bit-- there's a game I very clearly remember seeing in an early issue of Nintendo Power, but have been unable to remember for years what the name was. It was some kind of sci fi futuristic thing, and I think it was a sidescrolling platformer, I think it was specifically set in "20XX" or something, I kinda remember the main character having DBZ hair, and the one thing I remember clearest is something about a power-up that shrank you really tiny so you could get to hidden areas. Does anybody have any idea what I might be thinking of?

This thread is bringing back a lot of memories, why do I still have brain cells dedicated to remembering these games?

Re: DBZ hair and shrinking, this was a powerup in Clash at Demonhead. There's a good chance this might be the game you're imagining.

(http://users.animanga.com/bluehell/vgabyss/reviews/clashbang/dbb27.GIF)

http://users.animanga.com/bluehell/vgabyss/reviews/clashbang/index.html

MCKids had exceptional level design, which went a long way towards making it worthwhile. I think it's quite possibly the best licensed NES game of all in a sea of mediocre tie-ins.

OMG this is exactly what I was thinking of.

Like literally this is the exact screenshot I had in my head.

Hebereke was underrated? Ok so what about Lickle Story\Little Samson?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUp4ObbLg7E

(http://www.gamecitadel.com/images/NES/LittleSamson_3.jpg)


(http://www.i-mockery.com/shorts/little-samson/samson-10.gif)

Four characters you can switch while you play, both with very different mechanics, awesome graphics (one of the best looking games on nes for sure)

Lickle, the main character can even climb wall\ceiling, walljump and he shoots like megaman.
Then there's Mouse, that can run very fast, get into tight spots and drop bombs. Golem can walk over spikes without hurt, and his punches are the most powerful weapon of the game, Dragon can fly and shoot fireballs.

I was able to rent Little Samson and MC Kids when I was a kid, and they were awesome. I still play them through emulation from time to time. I heard of UUforia when I was a kid, but never got a chance to try it. I dont remember if I have emulated it alrady. Same goes for Gimmick.

It might sound gay, but I enjoyed tons Rainbow Island when I was a kid. I don't know why it was called Bubble Bobble 2, as it had nothing to do with it.

(http://www.consoleclassix.com/info_img/Bubble_Bobble_2_Rainbow_Islands_NES_ScreenShot2.jpg)

the main character is either bub or bob, back in human form.

I meant gameplay wise. From spitting bubbles in single rooms containers to shoot rainbows to reach top in multi screenrooms. The en emis nd such were different too.

it's an awesome game, even if the nes version is not the best one. And it continues the story of Bubble Bobble, they need to break the curse over the population of the islands and revert them back to the human form. The game has four different endings and only a totally good one, and it's very, very hard to get because you aren't simply required to complete the levels but you also need to get a diamond in each level and three magical mirrors.

There's also another game in the serie, called Parasol Star - The Story of Bubble Bobble III, in that on you have an umbrella

[imghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/it/thumb/1/10/Parasol_Stars.png/275px-Parasol_Stars.png

The school computers had M.C. Kids back when I was in the fourth grade and I was by far the best in the class at it. I could get up to the moon world, noone else could do that. Trying to play a game that was a fast as Sonic with a keyboard probably had something to do with it. Or probably because I never saw a Sunsoft logo thus making it of inferior stock.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet or not, but it's a shame that Ufouria's music is all messed up on the Wii.  With NES games, composers often used a different process for creating the percussion than they did for the melodic instruments... but apparently with Ufouria the bassline was created separately from the rest of the tracks, resulting in a pitch shift for all the melodic instruments except for the bassline.  The cacophony is pretty bad, but we're still trying to play it because it seems like an awesome game.

I think there may just be something weird about the way sound is implemented in Ufouria? Because the Wii version sounds about the same as any emulated version I've ever seen.

If you think the Wii version is cacophonous you should have heard the absolutely amazing thing that early versions of iNES did to the entire Ufouria soundtrack! (http://vote.grumpybumpers.com/ufouria.mp3) Though, okay, I have to admit that this was one of the things that originally made me fall in love with the game...

The problem was actually in the conversion (as opposed to the original game's implementation).  For some reason all the basslines ended up being a semitone out, so all the bass got converted to the wrong key!  If you listen to the original Japanese version (Hebereke) you can hear the difference:     

This is how it's actually supposed to sound (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZBuGttS16I)

This is the messed up conversion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oSBRRK8Bbo)

It's sad because the Hebereke music is actually really good, so I wish someone in QA had caught that before it went out :P

Ufouria actually looks pretty awesome. I am ashamed to say I never played Crystalis, though. In my defense, when I owned an NES as a kid I had heard of it but my parents were too broke to buy many games for my NES. I did however, play a crazy amount of Final Fantasy on the NES, and then one day my parents sold my NES and games at a yard sale because they thought that I "never played it", which is crazy because I played that damn game every day after school. The sad part is that I was right at the end and to this day I still haven't beaten the original Final Fantasy. /cool story bro

I am definitely going to try out Ufouria and after seeing that intro for the NES version of Crystalis, I must play that game immediately, it looks amazing. One of the best NES intros I have seen as well.

Ooh, I just remembered... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjxjuVPFunQ)

That is fantastic. Bop-Louie, Karnov, and the guy from Atlantis no Nazo... I wish it was an actual game...

My boyfriend just beat the game and the ending is hilarious.

"Goodbye Bop-Louie!"
"I decided to come back because we had so much fun!"
"The saga goes on forever."

Hahaha... very cute and awesome game.  Both of us managed to tune out the pitch problems (being a sound engineer, I didn't think I'd be able to, but I'm glad I did).  The little animations are so adorable... I really like how that one guy crawls on his back for some reason.