Just a tiny weird thing about NEC's relatively open platform

[exodus]

So the NES/Famicom was the beginning of modern "locked down" consoles, with checks, requirements, approvals, dos and don'ts. NEC is known for having a much more lax approach to this, as seen by the blood/nudity, etc that you can find in PCE/turbo games.

I just noticed a curious and very small side effect of this in a FACE game I recently got hold of. (I happen to be a fan of FACE, a very odd little company that had an explosion of games for 2 years and then faded into nothing.)

FACE always does little newsletters in their games, making the "volume" on the spine have a little more meaning in this case compared to other companies. Anyway, in the game Mahjong Gakuen Mild, which is essentially a censored version of Mahjong Gakuen, they had a little advertisement in there - for a Famicom game.



The text essentially says, "Finally FACE makes a game for the Famicom! Chiyo no Fuji no Ooichou" is the complete sumo fighting package," etc etc.

This is the game:

I just can't imagine a single other console, (PC is possible!) where you'd have an ad for a game on another console - one which is unavailable on the console for which you just bought a game.

Okay! That is all.

[esteban]

Ha! That's awesome.

The only interesting thing ever found in a mahjong manual: male titties from a Famicom sumo game.

[EmperorIng]

According to a recently-translated interview with Hudson developers (from about 2008 I believe), the relationship between Nintendo and Hudson during the PC-Engine days seemed to be fairly amicable, with Yamauchi reportedly even giving his blessing to Hudson to make a competing console with the Famicom (amazing if true!). Check it out on the site shmuplations.

The ad is pretty interesting; I think it demonstrates how little corporate oversight NEC/Hudson had for what other companies published on the system, especially for a small- to mid-level developer like FACE.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, Hudson would be cool with it. Hudson made a lot of games for FC, SFC, N64, GC, Wii, and I assume even WiiU. Since Hudson was PCE in most ways I guess that could help explain this, but FACE is not Hudson.

Maybe nobody at NEC looked at the manuals?

RELATED: Sega made PCE games while making games for FC (licensed anyway) and their own machines. That's a thing that's truely foreign nowadays.

[exodus]

I think *all* those sega games were licensed, I don't think they were directly involved in the development of any of them? Maybe advice on PCE CD cut scenes and things...

[SignOfZeta]

I want to say "Afterburner" but I don't know. I don't have any of them except Alerted Beast. That one certainly feels farmed out.

[exodus]

none of them are great, really.

[SignOfZeta]

I'm pretty sure one of them is good, I just can't remember which.

[PukeSter]

After burner, bonanza bros and fantasy zone are probably the best sega ports.

Power drift was the only port for years, not that it was good

[Koa Zo]

I'm pretty sure one of them is good, I just can't remember which.

Out Run and Fantasy Zone are quite good.
After Burner is one of the games which are compatible with the Micomsoft analog controllers.

[CrackTiger]

Sega didn't make any PC Engine ports. Most have their developer's signature traits. It also doesn't make sense for Sega to make some things or the game overall better on PCE than Mega Drive.

There are lots of great Sega games and lots of great ports of them for PC Engine, like Cotton, Bikkuriman World, Monster Lair, Dragon's Curse, Dynastic Hero, Afterburner, Puyo Puyo, Fantasy Zone, Bonanza Bros, Columns and Outrun (popular opinion).

Decent ports which are good games: Space Harrier, Gain Ground SX, Puyo Puyo Tsu.

Shinobi turned out great considering it was done by Asmik. It may have cut some content, but I believe that it's actually ported pixel-for-pixel, which was ambitious for the time.

[ccovell]

We know that Space Harrier was programmed by Dempa.  Not a great programming job, but, oh well.

I'm inclined to think that the rest of them were programmed in-house by NEC Avenue or subcontracted through NEC AV.

Even After Burner on the Mega Drive was programmed by Dempa, not Sega.  (allegedly)

[exodus]

There are lots of great Sega games and lots of great ports of them for PC Engine, like Cotton, Bikkuriman World, Monster Lair, Dragon's Curse, Dynastic Hero, Afterburner, Puyo Puyo, Fantasy Zone, Bonanza Bros, Columns and Outrun (popular opinion).

It's hard to say the wonderboy, cotton, and puyo puyo games are sega, since they're not originally sega developed! westone and compile had close relationships with sega, but they're not sega...

[CrackTiger]

There are lots of great Sega games and lots of great ports of them for PC Engine, like Cotton, Bikkuriman World, Monster Lair, Dragon's Curse, Dynastic Hero, Afterburner, Puyo Puyo, Fantasy Zone, Bonanza Bros, Columns and Outrun (popular opinion).

It's hard to say the wonderboy, cotton, and puyo puyo games are sega, since they're not originally sega developed! westone and compile had close relationships with sega, but they're not sega...

There's no such thing as real Sega or real Nintendo. Going into the 16-bit generation, publishers tried to keep dev team members from even using their real names in game credits. Publishers always contracted various dev teams to make their games. It wasn't until the 32-bit and the generation after that which major publishers like Sega let teams advertise who they are. Even then, many dev teams like Tose never received any credit at all for much of their work.

Ikegami to made Donkey Kong, Congo Bongo, Zaxxon and Popeye. Are they not real Nintendo and Sega games?

[esteban]

Ikegami to made Donkey Kong, Congo Bongo, Zaxxon and Popeye. Are they not real Nintendo and Sega games?

Congo Bongo

 https://junk.tg-16.com/audio/miscellaneous/Congo_Bongo_(Twin_bong_mix).mp3

Heavenly

[exodus]

Ikegami to made Donkey Kong, Congo Bongo, Zaxxon and Popeye. Are they not real Nintendo and Sega games?

It's a fine line - those were contracted to ghost developers. Cotton had Success right on it, and Westone was certainly its own developer. I'm making the distinction between publisher and developer here, and while some of those blur the line (I'm sure some of the wonderboy games had sega producers involved - but what publisher doesn't do that for any game), I would say that it's harder to call Cotton a Sega game than Sonic.

My friend who is doing a wonderboy remake had to get permission from sega, yes, but he had to get a contract from westone.

[Psycho Punch]

There are lots of great Sega games and lots of great ports of them for PC Engine, like Cotton, Bikkuriman World, Monster Lair, Dragon's Curse, Dynastic Hero, Afterburner, Puyo Puyo, Fantasy Zone, Bonanza Bros, Columns and Outrun (popular opinion).

It's hard to say the wonderboy, cotton, and puyo puyo games are sega, since they're not originally sega developed! westone and compile had close relationships with sega, but they're not sega...

There's no such thing as real Sega or real Nintendo. Going into the 16-bit generation, publishers tried to keep dev team members from even using their real names in game credits. Publishers always contracted various dev teams to make their games. It wasn't until the 32-bit and the generation after that which major publishers like Sega let teams advertise who they are. Even then, many dev teams like Tose never received any credit at all for much of their work.

Ikegami to made Donkey Kong, Congo Bongo, Zaxxon and Popeye. Are they not real Nintendo and Sega games?

Ahh Ikegami, the company that the biased editors at wikipedia will never acknowledge. Up until a year or two it was listed on the donkey kong wikipedia page as a "fringe theory", and nowadays is "some sources claim", besides all Donkey Kong mask roms having this data:

"TEL.TOKYO-JAPAN 044(244)2151 EXTENTION 304 SYSTEM DESIGN IKEGAMI CO. LIM."

fringe theory guys

[guyjin]

There are lots of great Sega games and lots of great ports of them for PC Engine, like Cotton, Bikkuriman World, Monster Lair, Dragon's Curse, Dynastic Hero, Afterburner, Puyo Puyo, Fantasy Zone, Bonanza Bros, Columns and Outrun (popular opinion).

It's hard to say the wonderboy, cotton, and puyo puyo games are sega, since they're not originally sega developed! westone and compile had close relationships with sega, but they're not sega...

There's no such thing as real Sega or real Nintendo. Going into the 16-bit generation, publishers tried to keep dev team members from even using their real names in game credits. Publishers always contracted various dev teams to make their games. It wasn't until the 32-bit and the generation after that which major publishers like Sega let teams advertise who they are. Even then, many dev teams like Tose never received any credit at all for much of their work.

Ikegami to made Donkey Kong, Congo Bongo, Zaxxon and Popeye. Are they not real Nintendo and Sega games?

Ahh Ikegami, the company that the biased editors at wikipedia will never acknowledge. Up until a year or two it was listed on the donkey kong wikipedia page as a "fringe theory", and nowadays is "some sources claim", besides all Donkey Kong mask roms having this data:

"TEL.TOKYO-JAPAN 044(244)2151 EXTENTION 304 SYSTEM DESIGN IKEGAMI CO. LIM."

fringe theory guys

Yup. Wikipedia has serious issues. Did you know it overstates Atari jaguar sales by almost twice? Their article used to link to a tax document that stated they sold something like 135,000 jags, and the rest were liquidated. that document went back behind a paywall, and jag fanboys started pretending the liquidated units were 'sold'.

[esteban]

There are lots of great Sega games and lots of great ports of them for PC Engine, like Cotton, Bikkuriman World, Monster Lair, Dragon's Curse, Dynastic Hero, Afterburner, Puyo Puyo, Fantasy Zone, Bonanza Bros, Columns and Outrun (popular opinion).

It's hard to say the wonderboy, cotton, and puyo puyo games are sega, since they're not originally sega developed! westone and compile had close relationships with sega, but they're not sega...

There's no such thing as real Sega or real Nintendo. Going into the 16-bit generation, publishers tried to keep dev team members from even using their real names in game credits. Publishers always contracted various dev teams to make their games. It wasn't until the 32-bit and the generation after that which major publishers like Sega let teams advertise who they are. Even then, many dev teams like Tose never received any credit at all for much of their work.

Ikegami to made Donkey Kong, Congo Bongo, Zaxxon and Popeye. Are they not real Nintendo and Sega games?

Ahh Ikegami, the company that the biased editors at wikipedia will never acknowledge. Up until a year or two it was listed on the donkey kong wikipedia page as a "fringe theory", and nowadays is "some sources claim", besides all Donkey Kong mask roms having this data:

"TEL.TOKYO-JAPAN 044(244)2151 EXTENTION 304 SYSTEM DESIGN IKEGAMI CO. LIM."

fringe theory guys

Yup. Wikipedia has serious issues. Did you know it overstates Atari jaguar sales by almost twice? Their article used to link to a tax document that stated they sold something like 135,000 jags, and the rest were liquidated. that document went back behind a paywall, and jag fanboys started pretending the liquidated units were 'sold'.

Fundamentally, that's a problem with paywalls, comrade.

And silly Jaguar fans, too.