Nintendo Famicom Disk System review! classicgameroom... Classic Game Room reviews the Nintendo Famicom Disk System add on for the Nintendo Family Computer (aka Famicom). Play Nintendo games on floppy discs!! What's not to love?
Actually, the disks weren't proprietary. It was a slightly modified version of Mitsumi's Quick Disk format. Once people figured out how to get past Nintendo's pathetic lockout system (backwards letters that fit into the "I" and "N" of the Nintendo text on each disk) and how to copy disks, the rampant piracy that followed was the main reason the system was never released outside of Japan.
That and the abysmal load times. I think Asians think of the western world as a bunch of impatient blowhards who like simple oversized things. There's a little bit of truth to that, but I still think Mario 2 should not have been deemed too difficult ;)
Colt Gustafson Well, that's sort of excusable in my book. They were pumping out Final Fantasy games so frequently back then that they couldn't get around to localizing them before the SNES was released. I think they thought that gamers would backlash if a new game was released on the NES after the SNES was released -- fortunately they don't do that these days, there's still a steady in-flux of PS3 JRPGs being localized.
From what I have read the only justification Square used at the time was they thought they were too difficult for westerners. And that is why Mystic Quest was made, a simple easy to digest press x button to win jrpg that also included the full strategy guide.
Colt Gustafson Oh wahhh, it's a good game and it was great for what it was. It is what helped me learn RPGs in a more in depth manner(at a very young age) along with Super Mario RPG. So I think it actually did some good, if I had never played that FF I would have never tried the others. So I get really flurried when people just bash FF Mystic Quest for being too easy when it was supposed to be, the Japanese said that RPGs were too hard for us? For the larger market at the time we didn't understand the playstyle yet(like I said, the larger market.) Theres always those people who played "everything and had no problems"
i dont think it looks drab at all. yeah it's gray so what? most consoles these days are either black or white. it doesn't mean they still dont look sleek in design
I actually saw this in japan in 1985 ! sure, you could buy games but the really killer app of the Nintendo Disk System is that you could go down to your local game store and download a copy of what ever games that store had available . you could then trade with your friends or better yet download a different game on to the disk. so sad we never got this in America.
Mark, there are some key things you failed to mention as selling points of the Disk System. - Enhanced Audio Quality from the standard MMC5 chips put into the NES. - The jaunty little tune that plays when you start the disc system's awesomeness and how they repurposed it for the Gamecube but slowed down by a factor of 1600%. - Nazo no Murasamejou, Shin Onigashima, and the Famicom Detective Club games being possibly the three great missing treasures to the west that never got an NES conversion. -The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Doki Doki Panic and a slew of other Nintendo made classics that people think of when they they think of the NES were originally Disk System exclusives.
Felicity's name keeps coming up. How about a video with skype interviews with your biggest donators? I'm sure a lot of us would love to hear about them and how they got this stuff!
Mark I am a little disappointed that this review did not feature the noise that the FDS makes when loading a game or side. This is a defining characteristic of the system!
I randomly stumbled upon one of these little gems on good ol eGay the other night for like $60 and had to know more. Here I am. Had a feeling CGR would do me right. Kittens and SpaceShips - Bidding now.
I have one of these and I love it to death. So many great games are exclusive to it. There's also an extra sound channel, which is really noticeable on some games, like 3D Hot Rally.
What I love about CGR is the fact that when he says it’s a good game, 9/10 it is a good game. Very reputable channel. Look here if you need good reviews of gaming hardware and games alike
the FDS actually does enhance the famicom in a few ways. the increased capacity of disks vs carts(at the time) was just one advantage. another was the increased amount of RAM and additional sound channels provided to the famicom. a large amount of games released on FDS and localized on the NES have noticeable sound differences, zelda and zelda 2 are very noticeable and castlevania 3 sounds very different.
The Adventures of Chatran (the game with the cat) is actually a game based on the movie of the same name. Interestingly enough, this movie was completely re-cut and brought to America under it's more famous title, "The Adventures of Milo and Otis." Yea...there was a Milo and Otis game...on the Famicom Disk System...
3:18 - 3:31 I'm still having some old floppy drive with some broken disks, just for that sound! Ahh~ that nostalgia. Also 5:48 Super Mario Bros. 1 like counters? This game is proved to be awesome!
Mark is right, these disk systems are cool. I have one and a Twin Famicom as well (crappy video of these on my channel). If you are after one, I would recommend buying one that doesn't read disks. They are pretty easy to fix and much cheaper than a working one. I got mine for £20 each :)
You also have to periodically service the drive belt in this contraption, much like an old turntable. Nintendo used to offer this service free of charge in Japan, but you pretty much had to do it yourself anywhere else in the world. Now Nintendo doesn't even do this for their Japanese customers so it's a moot point :P
To this day, I'm shocked nobody on CGR has ever reviewed Jet Force Gemini. Or Kya: Dark Lineage. Or... wait, maybe they did review Boogerman. Still, there's games out there you guys haven't touched yet. And I still want a CGR Christmas Special. Just wrap some lights around a Vectrex and top it with a Sega Gamegear.
I was born in 2000 so I didn't experience that gen even though I played on a Mega Drive Mark II(I guess that is the name, a smaller mega Drive without the circle on top and the high definition graphics). But I Can't help but say how awesome these things look. Console add-ons, cartridges... I still prefer discs nowadays. This made me think of something: Why did the gaming industry stop doing stuff that improved our consoles like Sega CD or Sega 32x? Last thing that looked like this was the Wii Plus stuff that you plugged on the controller and made it more precise. Things like that would probably help consoles to keep up with new technologies. Ofc it isn't easy but it might help. Is it because of The price?
***** They historically are set up for failure. There are a few things that keep it from succeeding: 1)Console owners would have to purchase the add-on as well as the base console. Financially, it would be a nightmare. It would work if the add-on was a lot cheaper then the system, but in most cases, it's more or equal to the price of the base console (Sega Genesis $190, Sega CD $300). Overall, it's better just to wait a few more years when the new system comes out, and is cheaper and graphically powerful (Sega Saturn $400). 2)New hardware means new things for the Developers to get used to. They would have to spend a lot of time trying to make their games work on a piece of hardware that runs off of another piece of hardware that is different than the other piece of hardware they're used to; games would take forever to come out, and by that time, a new system is out (The N64DD had a lot of promising titles being developed for it, but took too long and just released it on the base N64 or moved development to the Gamecube). 3)Because of the poor sales, developers (especially third-party) wouldn't have a reason to make games on it. They most likely would be rushed out to save money, and the games would suck (just look at the library of games for the Sega CD). Also, the Wii MotionPlus was eventually built right into the Wii remote, I don't know how sales were on it, but It seems obvious that having it built in was the better choice instead of having to buy it separately.
D00mnukem there were a few good CD and 32x titles but they either faded into obscurity or were ported onto more successful systems like the PS1 or Saturn.
***** Money. The companies always want you to play on their terms. Plus, with x86 systems, addons are no longer viable, they'd be expensive to produce and would probably cost as much as the base console because they'd need a lot of development to interact properly with the hardware. Consoles are an all in one deal nowadays, the chips are all built into the motherboard and such. Think of it this way, the Wii was originally supposed to be like an addon to the gamecube. But with all of the new features, it would be unviable and very expensive to develop and to buy as a consumer. They released it as an all in one console later on. That's the reason the wii has 100% compatibility with gamecube games, they essentially use the same hardware, but tweaked slightly.
C G0R3Z actually I always saw the wii as a GameCube with motion and other stuff but didn't know that it was actually a GC with more stuff. Thanks for the info
That's a neat little device, I always had so much interest on the Famicom Disk System! You know how they could have done it even better? With 2 FDD readers to make bigger games, more ram, and increased processing speed! So they could do games on a level superior to that of the PC-88 and maybe even the Sharp X1 and the FM7! They could also have added FM synthesis to the unit with 6 sound channels plus the 4 that the Famicom already had, and maybe a better color palette and/or more colors on-screen! That's a neat idea, somebody should do a Famicom Disk System 2.0 someday for the Famicom! With all that that I mentioned above! FM sound, more colors, 2 FDDs and all that! (I know it's never going to happen but... Oh well, I can dream right?)
there's nothing stopping anyone from implementing multi disk games on this already, no need for dual disk drives. amiga users will insist; they spent a lot of time swapping disks mid-game which is really OK. also look at more modern consoles, where games sometimes came on a set of four CD-ROM disks. instead of dual disk drives, this should not have been based on a proprietary version of a floppy format that fell into obscurity soon after (easy to say with in hindsight). with high density 3.5" floppies, you could have stored ten times as much game data already.
Felicity must like you, Mark. For a second I thought that maybe LukeMorse1 might have sent it to you. He used to pick up the broken ones for cheap and fix them.
John Cooke I wonder if theyv ever met at retropoloza or some event since they both are retro enthusiasts. It may not work with alphaomegasin because his style is the complete opposite of mark & metaljesusrocks
And the guys from Game Sack. AVGN is from Pennsylvania which I think Mark is as well. Surprised that hasn't happen. Battle of the Sega and Nintendo fan boys.
The disk system is a really sweet add on but when it goes wrong you will wish you never bothered,they are hell to calibrate. Luckily the famicom everdrive plays disk system games Another thing i didnt hear him mention that it has additional sound chips,listen to the intro to zelda or metroid to hear the difference.
I love my disk system :) , its in arms reach of me right now with my famicom sitting nicely on top :) with a little castlevania for the holiday. Also if you slow down the famicom system theme its the gamecube menu music
So do people send you these things to keep or do they just lend them to you for review? Or do you buy them? Either way it must be cool to be constantly getting cool video game stuff in the mail.
Sounds like the audio in the FDS version of Gyruss is just ever so slightly improved over the the NES release. Interesting. As was typical with Famicom to NES releases without the VRC chips, it seems like the FDS had some simple wavetable as well.
I'm pretty sure the Famicom Disk System used FM synthesis as well, but it had an extra 1 channel wavetable ("voice") that made music a lot more vibrant. They had to remaster the Zelda music to compensate for this when they published it on a cartridge outside of Japan :-\ For full wavetable synthesis you'd have to wait until the SNES.
I got one of these and right off the bat the RAM adapter was displaying garbled sprites using the AV Famicom. I sent it back to the dude I bought it from and he sent me an alternate one (long story short if you have the earlier version of the RAM adapter and use it with an AV Famicom this will happen. You need the later revision). Later on after acquiring some other games I ran into yet another snag: error codes. It started with Castlevania when after I beat the Mummy and it was loading the next stage it would give me err 27. I then tried Zelda 1 and it won't even load anything off side B after I flip the disc post the title screen. Metroid gave me an error after I tried saving my game once, but then it worked and doesn't actually save anything. I have about 5 games now and only three of them play. Basically, the games are faulty as well. It is to be expected given most are 30 years old and the fact that people had direct access to rewriting in Japan. Luckily this doesn't bother me much since I have an Everdrive that plays the games perfectly, but the FM sound effects are not quite 100%.
Try unplugging the 2nd player controller from the famicom or wave your hand in front of the microphone and see if it changes the sound of the buzz. My Famicom had the very same buzz your is doing and when took apart the console and unplugged the 2nd controller the buzz stopped.
It would be fun to see you do a review of the FDS version of Zelda, with its fairly important differences from the cartridge version. For one thing, you'll HAVE to use your classic Famicom, since stalphos require the microphone to defeat (isn't stalphos the name for the rabbit things? I can never remember...) and the music is supposed to be infinitely superior as well due to the increased number of channels and sounds the FDS is capable of. And, no, I can't send you a copy, though maybe if you contact Japan someone can send you one of the old booths that let you write games to your own floppies...
The only thing the famicom disksystem was missing was a duel 6:23 read & write head sothat you didn’t need to flip disks at certain points,that would,e make things easier,
the FDS also has a richer sound chip compared to the base model famicom/NES. Listen to the Japanese soundtracks from Zelda or Metroid and you can hear the difference.
Don't know why it took me about ten times to hear disk system to realize it was an early disk drive based game system. Nintendo, early to disks, last to cartridges.
