This video would've been waaaaay different had you lived in Europe back then, at least in Spain the Master System was everywhere (even during the 16 bit era, since it was the cheap entry point to gaming), and even if the arcade ports had serious downgrades we all drooled with the magazine ads; seriously, having Golden Axe, After Burner, Out Run, Shinobi, Altered Beast, Alien Storm, and, well, almost every Sega arcade at home with decent quality was simply amazing, coming from Spectrum or Amstrad the Master System quality was unreal.
the NES arcade ports was my childhood....Double Dragon Trilogy, DK, Contra, Super C, Turtles 2...some would be BETTER than their arcade counterparts in my eyes...what a time to be alive.
@@avalond1193 lol NES strider better than the arcade? You must be American with Nostalgia goggles. The only version comparable to the arcade is the Megadrive/Genesis version.
@@avalond1193 bubonic commando would be a funny game to see. You’re a soldier spreading the plague and you don’t know why people keep getting sick around you. Lol
@@nicholasbullock1709 The Nes hardly sold in the west outside the US. Every time I hear someone claiming an NES version is better than the arcade they are American with nostalgia goggles. That wasn't the childhood of most Europeans. There are some very good NES games but people get carried away. Strider and Double Dragon and 90% of arcade ports are ass on the NES.
For me besides sega rally and some single NASCAR arcades everything was new for me only a few years back from now. There I started to look after decent arcade games I find interesting.
Born in '89 here. I definitely have a few fond memories of arcades, but they were like a special treat by the time I was able to play them. There might be one at the local laundry mat or some little chuckle cheese-type place (pizza hutt etc), but there weren't any dedicated arcades around me living down in the south. So I mainly enjoyed home consoles as a result.
Definitely the 90s was the best. Early 80s I'd tag along with my older brother and watch him play Galaga, Arkanoid, Ms PacMan, R-Type etc... but never really felt like playing those games much, because A, I didn't have the money, and B they didn't seem as fun as the games I had on Coleco / NES at the time. Really, just enjoyed watching. But when TMNT and Hard Drivin hit my local arcade in 1989 it was too big of a draw. 90s brought so many of the great franchises. All of the Capcom fighters, MK, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, WrestleFest, House of the Dead, Tekken, Time Crisis, Daytona and so many more. In the mid-90s a Sega City opened up near where I lived and there was NOTHING like playing Daytona USA with a bunch of your friends and a live race announcer.
@@jamesdagnan2845 being born in the mid 70's. You nailed it perfectly in your observation. 90's video games were epic, but you really had to seek them out, to the point where, even a teen/young adult with a car... I also mostly stuck to console and later PC games. The 80's were the golden age of arcades, not because the games were better, but because games were everywhere. Restaurants ( pizza places and all mom and pop burger joints) convienient stores.. Hotel recreation areas, and proper arcades were also everywhere. Some that marketed to be "kid friendly" ( no smoking before a certain time, etc.. I think I remembered one where kids under 16 had to leave at 6 or 7 pm and adults were not allowed unless they were with a kid before that)...
The NES was still such a leap forward, even if it didn’t handle most ports well. TMNT 2: The Arcade Game was still very impressive for the NES. Me and my brother loved it so much.
Tmnt 2 on nes was so great at the time I liked it a lot more the the first game for nes I could never get through the technadrome. But tmnt 2 I was actually able to beat. The turtles games just work better as beatem ups. Turtles in time and the genesis game were fantastic games.
I think we all dreamt of having the arcade experience at home. I also think it was never possible because the arcade experience is much more than just the machines and the games. It includes the whole environment plus having an audience and spending real money.
Still remember the crowds of people gathering around new games when they came out. Everyone trying to figure out how to play from each other. Also, when the mid-90s hit and the games with outstanding speakers and digitized voices came out, the volume was always cranked to 11 like MK, NBA Jam and especially Killer Instinct. I could still hear the thunderous C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER 100ft from the outside the arcade over everything else, and that was in an amusement park next to rides and roller coasters.
Glad you called out the Famicom version of Contra. It's incredible looking, more like an early Genesis title than an NES game. Stupid expensive cart nowadays, though.
"You got a scrotum gun in your pants or you are just happy to see me, I don't know I just ate a banana, bananas are healthy How did I get off the subject of the scrotum gun? Got a banana, no, I think that's something in your pants Are you happy to see me (happy to see me) happy to see me"
Yeah, us poor kids had to make do with pre-crash games from discount bins and yard sales until the 16-bit wars finally made the NES affordable. On the other hand, this really helped me with an appreciation of gaming history. ET is a lot more playable if it's the only game you own besides Maze Craze and Demons to Diamonds (with no paddle controls.) so you're forced to actually read the instruction book. (Turns out there's way more to it than falling into holes.) Besides, getting an Intellivision with 35 games and an Intellivioice for just 5 bucks? Man, I miss the days when retro gaming was a hobby anyone could afford. Once angry internet critics made it mainstream, collectors priced all the best games out of reach.
Games would often be NESified and it always bothered me as a kid. I appreciate them nowadays. They made games to the strengths of the system instead of trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
1986 was the year of both Nintendo and Videosmarts. Videosmarts was educational for kids who went from Preschool to 2nd Grade while Nintendo was entertaining for kids of probably any age. as far as I'm concerned, they were both successful in their own rights, they just became that way for their own types of Audiences. does anyone besides me believe that Videosmarts was kinda video game-ish in its own way?
Funny to think when the Famicom/NES was being created the spec was set so it would primarily be powerful enough to play Donkey Kong faithfully. The fact that it was able to do so much more than that over it's life through things like mapper chips and good programming is amazing!
These are all my favorites..I was born 1980 so I remember these games so well ..ur videos are awesome. I always look forward to what topic on games u got next..thank u SegaLord
I was born in 81 and I honestly got to experience the "Golden Era" of technology when Atari was was still kind of relevant to when Sega and Nintendo released their consoles. I got to experience games I would play at the bowling alley by simply popping them into my NES at home. Always thinking to myself "Why does it look so different?" While Nintendo didn't have the power to fully recreate the graphics of the arcade. It had the power to recreate the fun and it taught me then that graphics aren't everything. If the game is fun, the controls handle well, then graphics were nothing more than icing on a very delicious cake. Something I feel that went in reverse in this day in age where Graphics became the end all be all, with fun and controls taking a far distant step away from what fun is. Not saying this is the case for all games but it is the case for most.
My wife, who is Brazilian, and now a legal US citizen told me a lot about how Sega, and the Master System, was much bigger amongst her family and friends, than the Nintendo systems. I lived out there for a number of years, and I can also tell you, Brazil has the largest Japanese population, outside of Japan, arcades are still thriving like crazy there, and Sega is still a having a huge impact.
Another great video. Born in 73, i have been lucky enough to experience most every home console one way or another. Starting with Atari 2600 in 79, Colecovision in 83, NES in 86, Game Boy in 89, TG16 in 90. I bought my own Genesis in 92, then SNES in 96, N64 in 97, GemeCube in 01, Wii in 07, X360 in 10, XONE in 15. My buddy also had Sega CD, PS1, Dreamcast that i also played quite a bit. I have fond memories of every console, some more than others, but the 4 that gave me the WOW factor with the warm cold chills. 4. Colecovision. 3. TG16. 2. GameCube. 1. NES. I still consider the NES the GOAT and look forward to your next installment in this throwback series.
Arcade games were always my favorite type of games and maybe that's why I loved the Dreamcast so much because it was the first console to do it right (NeoGeo was the same thing as arcades with nothing extra while DC had exclusive games made for it on top of perfect ports using the same NAOMI Board)
The Japanese version of NES Contra is even better (cutscenes, map, more animations). Get the rom and the translation patch from Rom Hacking dotnet and you get the very best version of the game.
Some of the games like Contra, Super C, and Rygar, never came to arcades around me, so it wasn't until later when i played them and realized that in some instances the NES versions were actually better than the arcade. Double Dragon II is one of my favorite NES games but I absolutely hate the arcade version.
Yeah that first level in Double Dragon 2 had a really catchy soundtrack that to me is one of the highlights of NES music. I’ve ever added some lyrics to it which goes like this: Baking cookies in da microwave...
Double Dragon 2-3 (arcade) were both worse than the first game for various reasons. I know 3 was a decisive game on NES but 2 was and is still well loved.
Arcade ports give you a good base of comparison on home consoles. I hope you dig deep in to this arcade to home port series and touch on the early, mid and late 2000s.
Hey, speaking of RoboCop, I knew someone who was in the movie. His name was Spencer Prokop. He played the guy with the math textbook at the gas station that gets robbed by one of the thugs who killed Murphy in the first place. Good dude. Later, he did a lot of voice-over work on Dragonball Z, IIRC.
By the time the 21st century arrived the arcade scene was dying by then with home consoles being more powerful than the arcade itself. Some of the most famous arcade games that can be play at home in near arcade perfect form are mainly SNK and Capcom fighting games so the Sega saturn was the system most well remembered for this feat follow by dreamcast and ps2 later on for a bit more handful of more technically demanding titles.
Good o' dayz😊. I got NES packed with the Mario and duckhunt combo cartridge when i was a kid. Thanks for showing us some classics. The nostalgia of better days.
Really enjoyable as always, thanks for continuing to share your journey. Being of similar age, I can really relate with my own nostalgia which is often so close to yours. Cheers.
I grew up poor and I remember when I came across arcade boards I would find quarters on top of the machine sometimes and it would make me so happy. I would use the quarters to play the arcade games with my brothers and even buy us snacks. I never understood this phenomenon. Was this some sort of arcade/gamer etiquette? P.S Seriously thank you 🙏 to those gamers who were very kind enough to do that. You made a kid and his brothers happy to experience what it was like to play arcade games. Also thanks for feeding me and my siblings as well.
Dude... you're gaming experiences in life are almost identical to time!! Right down to the your best friend having the Master System! This was wild for me to watch
Ah! The NES. So many great games. So many great memories. Metroid. Blaster master. Castlevania . Batman. TMNT. TMNT trilogy. Double Dragon games. Festers Quest. The Adventures of Link. Ninja Gaiden and many more. Great video thank you.
I was born in 79 in the UK and went through the full evolution from pong style game to the Atari 2600 then a Sinclair spectrum 48k onto the 128k version. After that a mega drive then Sega Saturn and playstation 2,3,4. I used to love 90's arcades. So much variety shooters driving games flight games fighting games platformers
Thanks for making this series of videos which bring back so much great memories! Can't wait too see the next episodes 😊 I hope episode 4 is about the NeoGeo AES 😄
I think the Nes' greatest strength was providing certain experiences that you couldn't get in the arcade. Games like Zelda, Metroid, and Final Fantasy redefined what you could play at home, especially for people who were not into computer gaming. This didn't make arcades obsolete but it was a big step in their eventual demise I think.
It was the Xmas of 86 that I got my very first console as well, aka the NES. I was only 3 years old at the time. While my stepfather had a 2600, this was essentially my introduction to video games & the beginning of my lifelong obsession.
Love the Double Dragon chip tunes at the beginning. Nice touch. Not sure if you played it, but Gyruss for the Atari 2600 was quite an incredible port compared to the Arcade original. The fact that it had the full soundtrack of the arcade original in it thoroughly impressed me, considering the severe limitations of the Atari 2600 hardware.
I cant tell you how amazed I am that mame came along and after buying my Nintendo minis to have some memories back, it blows my mind that I can have the arcade games of the nes game on those systems. I play tmnt, simpsons and xmen often, just to remember only ever seeing them on the arcades. Such beautiful games I was never able to beat but now its plain awesome
Gauntlet was probably my favorite arcade game of the 80s with 4 player cooperative and feed me quarters for health meant you could continue playing even if the odds were against you.
His videogame experience growing up is very similar to mine, except the Commodore 64 was a huge part of my videogaming life, I was 6 years old at the time in the early 80s and videogames fascinated me ever since.
@08:58 : *Double Dragon* . Whenever i see this game i always remember 2 things : 1)Back then I had played a 2-player co-op mode with my baby brother in some computer store ,and after that ,i started asking my mother all the time to buy me a PC ,until ... she bought me one !! 2)A friend of mine was so talented at playing games , that he could play the Double Dragon PC version at 2-player co-op mode by ... himself alone !!! and he was veeery good ,not some random punches here and there ,he was actually playing the game like there were 2 players !!
Hell, I absolutely LOVE the original Double Dragon myself. It was one of the earliest NES games that I owned & I played the living hell out of it. Still do to this day in fact. I actually love the "level up" system myself, gives it a bit of an RPG like touch. It's actually my favorite of all the Double Dragons for the system, and you're absolutely right about the soundtrack. It is truly amazing.
I think part of the issue was also how the games were presented - there often wasn't enough to an arcade game, once you remove the better graphics, the difficulty, and the excitement/energy of being in an actual arcade. Those game that use the setting & characters of the arcade original, but made the home port into its own thing, fared much better, IMO.
I knew one kid who lived one street over from me who got a Master System at launch. His mom and my mom worked at the same corner store in my neighborhood so when one worked the other would babysit the others kids. So when my mom worked I'd be playing The Master System over there and he'd play my NES at my place. Course we didn't refer to them like that. It was The Nintendo and The Sega. But I remember vividly playing Master System Double Dragon and watching his Dad play Phantasy Star. My Grandmother of all people I think in 1990 got an Atari 7800 on clearance with a bunch of games so my brother and I would have something to play when we visited. So I got to experience it all. Had the same thing with the next generation where I had a Genesis, my friends had SNES and relatives had Turbografx. It wasn't until I was older that I found out that was not a common experience. As for games I never liked Bad Dudes on NES and I actually didn't know Robocop had an arcade version. I just played the NES version. I think I might have beaten it but my memories of it are that the game gets really frustrating later into the game.
The NES was the king bruiser in the ring, the SMS was the scrappy guy who had no chance but was gonna fight with his all anyway, and the 7800 was the kid eating paste in corner.
Great video bro really enjoying the series. Keep up the good work! My personal nostalgia is for the 16bit machines so really can't wait for the next part.
i remember playing ZANAC for NES allllll night long trying to keep quiet and not wake up mom and dad lol its so hard with that soundtrack ...that game was brutal as hell, i miss those days.
Great series! it will get really interesting with the Saturn hosting several near-identical arcade titles, and 6th gen carrying better-than-arcade ports
Born in 1979, I got a SEGA Master System for my 9th birthday. All my friends had Nintendo Entertainment Systems, which made me feel like an outcast. So I got a Nintendo Entertainment System for my 10th birthday.
Me & my friends LOVED Rampage growing up. It was tons of fun to play 2 Player. That being said, I can't imagine playing it in 1 player mode. It probably wouldn't be much fun that way & if that was your experience with it then I can't blame ya. It truly has to be played Co-Op to be enjoyed.
Great stuff! Sorry your friend moved away in 89. My best friend Chris H moved from CA to MA back in 89 as well. He and I rode bikes and gamed as much as possible until he moved. I still wonder what he is doing these days 30+ years later.
Nice. We're getting closer (compared to Part 1). But the 16-bit era is the first time that I think the arcade ports were generally "impressive". I'll go on to your next video in the series and check that out!
Even tho I didn’t have money to play, I really miss the Arcades. As a kid I didn’t see anything wrong with the NES Bad Dudes port. I loved it, & the music still one of my favorites. But playing it today I agree with everything you said about it. 😄
I kid you not, as much as I liked Ghosts n Goblins in the arcades and on my Atari ST, I absolutely LOVED the Amstrad CPC versions. For me it was a clear upgrade. Others thought I was crazy. Same as Ikari Warriors. Ha, I guess you felt similar with Contra. VS and Playchoice 10. Never even heard of them before. Interesting. Cool video.
Well you mentioned it early in the video; the best thing about the NES in relation to arcade games was actually taking the arcade title but making a totally different, visually scaled down, but many times a much better actual game than what was in the arcade. Ninja Gaiden, Rygar, Bionic Commando, Double Dragon 2, Trojan, Contra and Super C are all examples of this; Strider was a good effort also although not to the level of the arcade game, which is hard to top. The Sega Master System on the other hand was more prevalent about just trying to emulate the arcade game as it was with the limited capabilities of the home console, to generally respectable but mixed results.
I wanna give light gun games some love here. Operation Wolf for the Arcade a great solid arcade port but when it came to the Nes it was a huge disappointment as the Nes because the Nes light gun support was too often off-target and the calibration just wasn't precise for fluid accurate shots. I was fortunate enough to give Operation Wolf a weekend rental at a local video rental store as a kid just to be disappointed.
My story is weirder than others. I grew up poor in the states, and my first console was the nes. Looking back at it now, i was playing nes while the dreamcast was new. I played some of these games with my brothers and we loved them. Years later I found out they were arcade ports and was shocked lol then again its not like i would of known I was poor. Those were the days of hand-me-downs and nes 😢 but those were some great stay up at night and play heavy barrel, jackal, double dragon two, and mario 3 times.
The 8bit arcade ports were OK, but still left me wanting more. It wouldn't be until the 16-bit era when we got a much closer taste of arcade at home, especially if you were lucky enough to have a Neo Geo.
I never expected the SMS to be introduced with such a negative tone from Sega Lord X! haha Definitely thought of the SMS port of Rampage while you were talking about the NES port though. The NES port was like "eh, it's a game". The SMS port was like..."THE ARCADE IS HOME!"
Great video, but I don't know if I'd say Ghosts n' Goblins' scrolling was smooth. Its choppiness is exactly the thing that has always jumped out at me. You definitely lucked out & got on board at the right time though, the end of '86 was the exact moment the NES started to get good.
