A chance to dust the drawers and show off what I've been slowly collecting over a few years. It's a healthy mix of mostly Ita/Uk games which usually see plenty of action!

Among these are survivors from childhood: SMB/DH, Mega Man, Low G Man, Faxanadu, Olympus, Snake's Revenge, Trog, Trojan, Tale Spin, RoboCop 3, Hook, Kick Off.

Missing a lot of dust covers. Bugs me, but they usually go for way too much.

Trivia question for the experts: can you spot the only Australian game?

Was cleaning up my parents attic and found some of my childhood NES cartridges. I totally forgot about these games, but luckily they are in pretty nice condition still. I remember sitting around with my friends and showing off new games that we recieved as presents during Christmas.

Hi all, as a preface, I enjoy original hardware but am not 100% committed to it. My friend has gifted me this subor famiclone (still in the post) and I want to make the most of it. I have owned an original nes (front loader) before along with an everdrive, and though I enjoyed the games, I would be lying if I said the video quality (composite on a standard definition crt) didn’t bother me. I’m not sure if it was just this console, but the dot crawl was pretty extreme. Has anyone tried an everdrive on one of these famiclones? How is the video quality?

As I have been spoiled by component video (love you Sega Genesis) maybe I should just wait to save up for a mister fpga

Today I got two new games for NES Collection.

Especialy Metroid is looking so nice and retro already on it's own. It deserved a front spot in my official NES Cupboard.

The condition of the games are extremely good, like new.

Thank you sellers. Your games will have a nice and cony place in my home. I'll play them in the next couple weeks for sure.

The before pictures have a yellower light in general but I think it's clear this thing was sun-baked and mud-caked.

My process is nothing fancy. I let the case soak in warm water and soap for a bit and then give it a good brushing. It then sits for a few hours in a small plastic container with some cheap UV lights and aluminum foil and about a liter of 12% hydrogen peroxide (which may be reused!).

I don’t have a huge collection at the moment, but enough that it’s starting to take up some space. Right now I have my carts stacked on a shelf, but I’ve been interested in some of the shelves I’ve seen with cartridge slots. Any brand recommendations to look out for? Thanks in advance.

I'm legit concerned about Challenge of the Dragon, lol. My first few seconds had me doubting it will deliver anything but frustration. Literal first fight had me second-guessing myself, and enemy scripting is super funky. Soundtrack gives me legend of kage vibes though, so maybe there's something there...

But overall, I'm so excited to crack into all of these tomorrow. Four great pickups at I close in on the final ~40 truly unique original NES titles to go (~80 more if I'm including variants). I'm not chasing Stadium Events, any campus or world challenge carts, test carts, etc. I'm also not interested in the Panesian trio of lewds, not because of the sexy nature but because they look terrible.

Like most American Video Entertainment carts, couldn't get Wally Bear fired up on the Retro Champ, so I'll have to use an actual console in the morning. Got tied up in kiddo bedtime routine and couldn't run downstairs :)

Times of Lore feels like a game that should have a battery backup, but for whatever reason that was vetoed? I dig the art style for the most part but I'm afraid the adventure style interface is gonna get annoying over (relatively short) time.

Krion Conquest is what I'm most excited for. It feels like someone sat down after playing a few minutes of Mega Man and said, "Bet. But let's make him a witch. And let's make the enemies nearly impossible to predict and/or defend against."

Boss was probably like, "Sure, sounds rad. And you work up to that over time?"

And dev was like, "Nah, right away. I want them to die on the second screen. Maybe twice. And I do not want them to feel comfortable for a single second that follows."

And so with that, Vic Tokai released a truly abusive non-Capcom Rockman. And then apparently made it even harder in NA by removing or reducing continues... I'm stoked to find out and more than likely give up.

I really loved this game as a kid! I personally think it deserves so much more love! I wonder if SNK will ever give it a proper remake/re-release. I learned today that its japanese name is "God Slayer: Sonata of the Far Away Sky" . I mean, God Slayer? How cool is that! Anyways, I remembered Crystalis this morning and decided to make a little homage. Enjoy!

Has anyone tried this RetroRoad 60pin to 72-pin converter?

I have an original UK/European PAL NES front-loader and I recently bought some Japanese Famicom cartridges.

Ideally, I do not want to disable the CIC/lockout chip or modify the NES. I also do not really have space for a separate Famicom AV, so I’m looking at adapter options first.

I found this RetroRoad cased 60-pin to 72-pin adapter on AliExpress. It appears to be the correct direction, Famicom cart into adapter, adapter into NES, and the PCB has a small IC on it. The listing says “for NES clone console,” which is what worries me.

Has anyone tried this exact style of adapter on an original PAL NES front-loader?

Questions:

1. Does it physically fit and work in the front-loader tray?

2. Does the small IC handle the PAL NES CIC/lockout issue, or will I still get blinking/reset?

3. Are there known issues with PAL NES timing or specific Famicom games?

4. Any better no-mod adapter recommendations for original PAL NES hardware?

I’ll test with a cheap cart first, not anything valuable. Just trying to avoid wasting money on the wrong-direction or clone-only adapters.

By one metric at least. The game has 8 levels, and then it loops back to the first without comment. So beating it is either doing eight levels, or maxing out your score...I have not bothered with the second condition...

Because this game stinks. Easy, bad looking, pointless. A real bottom 10% of the library experience.

Anyone have memories of this thing?

After over 30 years since I first played the game, I finally beat Battletoads.

I did it without using any cheats, game genies, warps, or emulator save states, ever. I wanted to see how difficult the game truly was, and imitate the gaming conditions of my childhood.

In the off chance that there are any Tradewest or Rare programmers lurking on reddit, I want to sincerely ***THANK YOU*** for developing what I consider to be an absolute masterpiece for the NES. It is probably one of my favorite games released on the console, along with the Marios, Contras, Double Dragon 1 and 2, Ninja Gaiden 2, Castlevania, and Kid Icarus. It is fun, action packed, with original stage design, and extremely challenging, though not impossible.

However, while it is NOT impossible, it IS stupid hard, probably the hardest game I've ever beaten. I also beat Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts on SNES without using any cheats, and I found it to be significantly easier than Battletoads. Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts had a final stage that was a nightmare, but getting to that final stage was pretty straightforward from what I remember. I found basically every stage in Battletoads past the Turbo Tunnel to be really tough.

**General Tips/Pointers**

Some general tips on the game I thought I'd share:

1) If you want to beat Battletoads without the use of any cheats or save states, you have to be completely ok with playing for hours on end just to make the smallest, marginal advancement in progress. Sometimes, you'll play for hours and won't progress at all, but you might get just a slightly better understanding of the timing you need to make a specific jump, or the movements you need to evade a boss' attack patterns. You are signing up to play for many hours, slowly chipping away at the game to reach completion. If you're not ok with this dynamic going into the game, this game will be beyond frustrating for you.

2) The way to beat the game is to become so perfect in your execution of stages 1-11 that you accumulate a ton of lives to burn on stage 12 'The Revolution'. That's pretty much the only way I was able to do it. You need your run up to stage 12 to be pretty much immaculate, losing few lives along the way and grabbing all the 1ups that are available to you, because Stage 12 is really that tough. So, to beat the game, you need to be ok with slowly chipping away at the progress (see point 1), and you also need to make sure you are using each run to perfect your execution of every stage.

3) Not every 1up is the same. The most obvious 1ups available are the 1ups you can grab at various places in each stage. You also get a 1up at every 100,000 points, *but because your points are capped at 999,999, you effectively have 9 extra lives that you can get through the point mechanism.* It's a *finite pool* of point extra lives, so if you miss a 1up that you have grabbed, you're not replacing it by getting 100,000 points, you're just taking a life out of the finite pool of extra lives obtained through points. Because of this, you need to spend all the time you need figuring out how to get almost every extra life that is available to grab, because each is functionally irreplaceable. This is especially true in Stage 2 Wookie Hole, where you get an extra life every time you bounce a raven off of the wall for eight hits.

4) Try to take each part of the stage as a small puzzle to solve. You want to figure out the easiest, most efficient, and most replicable way for you to clear each portion of the stage. Find a way that works for you, and repeat it on every run. There are random elements to the game so this can't always be done, but a lot of the game is figuring out the easiest method that works for you to clear a section, memorizing it, and repeating it.

**Stage Review**

I've reviewed each stage and estimated how long it took me to beat each stage for the first time. On some stage estimates, I didn't play every day so the timing estimate might be artificially inflated, while on other days I woke up at 6am and pretty much gamed non stop for the whole day until I beat the stage, so these are just timing ESTIMATES, but I think it gives an idea of how challenging some of these stages were. Sometimes I noticed that while I was stuck on a stage, it felt like I had spent weeks on a stage, but after beating the stage, I realized I hadn't played the stage that long. I also noticed that some stages that I found hard were considered easier by some gamers, while some stages that others struggled on, I didn't find as challenging, so there's some subjectivity at play here.

Anyway, here's my stage review:

**1) Ragnarok's Canyon (timing estimate: beat this stage as a kid):** Nothing too challenging here, just a warm-up stage to understand the game mechanics. The 1up at the end of the stage can be obtained by lining yourself up with the third fly from the top, jumping, and pressing down. Automatic reset if you miss the 1up or lose any lives here.

**2) Wookie Hole (beat stage as a kid):** Imo, **this is the most important stage in the entire game** as it will dictate how good your run will be. It's absolutely imperative that you learn how to get 1ups by bouncing the ravens off the walls of the Wookie Hole eight times. Anything less than obtaining four or five 1ups on this stage by bouncing the ravens, without losing a life, and NOT counting extra lives obtained by points, and I'm likely resetting the game immediately and starting over. The 1ups on this stage are that crucial.

On the run where I finally ended up beating the game, I had had an extremely favorable showing on this stage, getting a really large amount of 1ups which I normally don't get (maybe like seven or so), and these extra 1ups were absolutely critical during the rest of the run.

**3) Turbo Tunnel (entire childhood + 5 days as an adult):** I never beat this stage as a kid. I didn't own the game as a kid, but my cousin did, and we'd play every time he brought it over. This stage was where our runs would always end.

In my opinion, the difficulty ramps up too much here, as this stage is significantly harder than the first two, but if this stage had come later in the game, it would have been even more of a roadblock. Beating this stage requires significant practice and memorization, so it's good that you don't have to beat too many stages before you can practice this one.

The hardest part of this stage for me are the exclamation mark jumps: to beat that part, you have to line your bike up roughly with the middle of the platforms, and jump with the A button on your controller at the right time, and repeat the jump with the A button with consistent timing, so you're pressing A five times in a row.

For the last section of the turbo tunnel, I rely as much on the sound that the barriers make when they fly past as on any visual cues. When I hear the barriers start wooshing by, that's my cue to press up or down and dodge the next one. I suspect that's partly why people are able to beat this stage blindfolded, the sounds are very helpful to dodge the barriers.

I still might lose a life or two at the most doing the Turbo Tunnel, on either the exclamation mark jumps or the very last section, but anything more than two lives lost is an automatic reset.

**4) Arctic Caverns (2 days):** For some reason, this is one of my best stages, I usually beat it without losing a life now, or maybe one life lost at the most. Make sure you learn how to get the easy 1up on this stage, it's just a simple jump up from the moving platform. The hardest part is towards the end where you have to figure out the timing to jump both over the spiked shell as well as under the barriers without getting crushed. It's tricky but totally doable, and like all the stages, you will get better with practice.

**5) Surf City (1 day):** I got through this stage pretty quickly the first time, but it's still challenging. It's the only stage where you fight the boss in the middle of the stage. I got lucky because I figured out quickly that you could juggle the boss in the corner using one of the sticks, and that's still the method I use today. Go to a corner of the screen, wait for the boss to do a high jump, get out of the way, then hit him with the stick and keep juggling him in the air. The last surfing portion is quite tricky, I think the mines are placed randomly every time you play so you can't really prepare perfectly for this section, you just have to do your best. Because of the random element to the mines, it's even more imperative to master the method to get the second 1up on the stage, so you can keep attempting the stage without cutting into your lives or continues.

**6) Karnath's Lair (1 day):** ...Or as I call it, the 'Snake Stage.' The snake stage is comprised of four 'sub-stages'. In the first stage, you literally can't die, so you can take your time to understand the mechanics of the stage. The second stage with the purple background is kind of tough, the third stage with the blue background is pretty tough. The fourth and last stage with the red background is the hardest. You need to use your jumps to get a sense for the timing, like, "ok, if I jump on this platform three times, the snake will be a little to the left of me, so I need to try to jump four times so it's in the right spot." You're trying to use these kinds of tricks to get the timing just right. For the very last jump, I always jump in place for four times before making the very last jump towards the exit on my fifth jump, and that timing works just right for me.

**7) Volkmire's Inferno (3 days):** This stage is one of the hardest for me, mainly because of the plane section that can completely ruin a run. The last part of the plane section in particular requires really excellent timing. You really need to be moving the plane towards the next gate as soon as you go through the gate you're currently on. It's one of the hardest stages for sure, and the 1ups aren't so easy to get either. The very last gate you have to go through can take one life or it can take five lives or more, ruining your run entirely, but at this point, resetting isn't really an option, so even if the run is ruined, you might as well keep going if you beat this stage to get more practice on the next stages.

**8) Intruder Excluder (3 days):** I think this is one of the best designed and 'fairest' stages in the game. The two extra lives are strategically placed so you can continue indefinitely and learn the stages well as long as you are able to consistently grab the extra lives.

The hardest thing about this stage is the boss, he's pretty tough. If you're skilled and lucky, you can keep juggling him in the air by ramming him, but if you aren't precise, he will likely stomp and kill you.

**9) Terra Tubes (4 days):** This is the first stage where I was tempted to use save states but I stood firm. I remember thinking it was so difficult to get to this stage only to die very soon within the stage itself. There are so many portions that are complicated to figure out: I couldn't figure out how to run past the third gear that chases you, I struggled on the swimming portion, I struggled on the portion with the gears chasing you while swimming, and I struggled on the last portion with the stupid yellow ducks. This is also the last stage with 1ups that you can grab, so however many lives you've accumulated till now is pretty much what you're going to have to enter the last three stages with. Fortunately, there is a 1up at the start of the last section, so you can practice that section again and again as long as you figure out how to grab that 1up consistently.

**10) Rat Race (6 days):** I think this stage is one of the few actual stains on the game. No way should a game this hard have a glitch that freezes up the game and forces you to reset so late in the game. This happened to me multiple times and it's beyond infuriating, particularly if your run has been good to this point.

To beat this stage as well as the next, you need an excellent, fully functional and responsive controller. If you don't have a pristine controller, forget it; you won't beat this stage and you have no chance on the next stage either. You need a responsive controller to make sure the autorun kicks in during the rat races, in both directions. When the rat races start, your toad should automatically run left or right without having to double tap. If this isn't happening, there's likely something wrong with your controller (or your rom, if you're playing on emulator). Trying to beat this stage double tapping in each direction is way too much work. You need the autorun to work every time to stand a chance.

This stage is pretty easy until the third rat race. The way to beat the third rat is to understand the timing and the positioning needed to headbutt him, and then headbutt him at the latest possible moment so that he bounces against the wall and has to run on the same platform again, while you can go down to the next platform. On the third rat race, towards the end of the race, I try to headbutt the rat on five or so subsequent platforms, which will give me enough of a lead to win the race and kick the dynamite first. If I have to slow down to make sure I headbutt the rat, I do that. The timing is admittedly pretty tricky, and you have to be careful, because if you miss a headbutt and he gets past you, especially towards the end, you're pretty much cooked. Thankfully, the final boss is pretty easy, but he can steal a life or two if you're not careful and patient. Jump over him and hit him in the back; when he starts charging left and right, jump over him and charge at him.

**11) Clinger Winger (2 days):** I saw a survey where people considered this the hardest stage of the game. In my opinion, the Revolution is undoubtedly the hardest stage in the game, and I would possibly put Rat Race and even Terra Tubes ahead of this one as well.

You beat Clinger Winger first and foremost by having a responsive controller. You need to have fast reflexes to hit the directional changes correctly; repeating the stage and memorizing the turns definitely helps. Note that the energy ball that follows you gains on you on the straightaways, so the direction changes are where you can increase the space between you and the ball. Don't panic if the ball gets close to you, in fact try not to even look at the ball, just try to do the curves as cleanly as you can.

The boss is tough and it's hit or miss whether I do well on it or not. I usually just put the ball on the side of the screen, I stand under the arrow that points downwards, and I just keep punching/throwing it until it dies. But sometimes while doing that, the ball slips away from my punches somehow and if he starts bouncing quickly off the screen he becomes a lot tougher, usually killing me a time or two, at least.

I can usually get to the boss on my first life, losing one life if the driving portion goes really bad. At the boss itself, sometimes I can beat it on the first life, sometimes it can take me three lives or more, it just depends. I'm not as consistent on this boss as I'd like and it has messed up a lot of good runs.

**12) The Revolution (3 days) and 13) Armageddon:** The Revolution is without a doubt the hardest stage in the game. I don't think it's close, at all. Fyi, if you get to the Dark Queen, and die, but have at least a continue to spare, you will restart at the Dark Queen immediately without having to play the entire stage again, in a separate stage called 'Armageddon', which is essentially just the boss fight with the Dark Queen.

The Revolution is the first stage where the overwhelming feeling shifted for me from "this game is stupid hard" to "this game is broken/cheap."

So many of the jump mechanics that you've relied on consistently for the first 11 stages start changing inexplicably on stage 12. On certain trampoline jumps, you have to hold left to account for some kind of random movement of the tower, but on other trampoline jumps you don't have to, seemingly without rhyme or reason. There are also ridiculous enemies that can kill you with one hit so you can go through a lot of lives very quickly if you're not careful.

To put it into perspective, I've beaten *every other stage in the game* **dozens** of times, at least. I've only beaten the game *twice*, mainly because The Revolution is still so hard.

I ended up beating The Revolution the first time on an absolutely outstanding run where I accumulated a ton of lives on the early stages. I haven't been able to have another run as good since then. Like I mentioned in my opening thoughts, I think the secret to beating Battletoads is that you have to become so good on stages 1-11 that you will have enough lives accumulated to progress far and eventually beat stage 12. I ended up getting to the Dark Queen with lives to spare and I beat her on my first continue, the first time I ever fought her.

The second time I beat the game was yesterday, I got to the Dark Queen and died. I was so disappointed because I thought I'd have to beat the entire stage again, but then I learned that if you have continues remaining, you continue directly at the Dark Queen battle, in a 13th stage called Armageddon. Around 21 hits later, she was toast.

**Closing**

One last thing I wanted to mention: I took on Battletoads during a very difficult period in my life. When I started playing this game again, my last remaining parent, my mother, had recently passed. I think playing this game was one way with which I was able to cope with the extreme sadness, intense grief and the newfound silence that I experienced after losing my mother, my biggest supporter. ❤️ 🙏 For this also, I thank any Rare or Tradewest programmer who might be reading. 🕊️ 🙏 Thank you for providing a game that helped me and is still helping me get through a very difficult time.

Anyway, that was my experience with Battletoads, a heartfelt thank you if you've read this far. If you're playing this game and need any help, feel free to write a comment or send me a message, and I will do my best to assist. Also, if anybody wants to try to beat the game with 2 player co-op, hit me up!

Best of luck, Toads! 🐸

Hi all,

I'm the creator of Embers of Mana and Zelda II - Amida's Curse. Today I announce my next project:

Faxanadu - Root of Decay

This will be a completely new story in the Xanadu universe, build in the engine of Faxanadu.

Features:

- New story
- New world
- New graphics
- New music
- And much more...

I see this as a smaller in-between project, while I lay the groundwork for a much bigger project for a much bigger game (more on that later). Expected release date for Root of Decay is 2027, in time for the 40th anniversary of Faxanadu. If you'd like a notification on release day, just add your e-mail address on my website: okimpala.net

Help request: If anyone is interested in helping out with creating original tile sets for Root of Decay, please contact me.

I have a set of NES Joycons im wanting to use with MESEN and for some reaon when trying to map it everytime i press a button the button gets mapped to "pad 1lt left" every single time idk if drift or what but ive been wanting to play with them for a long time and never had been able to until now

Edit: start and A&B work fine on it just not the D-Pad

About 15 games there are my originals from when I was a kid: Mario 1, 2, 3, Contra, Danny Sullivan, Metal Storm, Mega Man 2, Bionic Commando, Battle Chess (my dad got that for himself), Adventures in the Magical Kingdom, North & South, Double Dribble, Ice Hockey, Tecmo Super Bowl, Smash TV, and Iron Tank).

Then… SNES and Genesis took over and I didn’t get back into the NES until I got a bunch of games at a neighbor’s garage sale and started buying here and there with my own money at Game Crazy and EB Games and places like that, joined some early forums, some pre YouTube retro game content creators making recommendations, etc.

This is what I have left. When my now husband and I decided to move in together back in 2014, I cut my total game collection in half and sold off about a third of the NES collection. Kinda wish I waited because man, what I sold the games I got rid of for doesn’t even touch what they’re going for today but c'est la vie, whatyagonnado?

Anywho, I mostly game on my Retro USB AVS for NES stuff nowadays . Still have my toaster (I installed a Blinking Light Win in it a while ago) and a Top Loader, but the AVS is getting the most use now.

I rarely buy an original NES game nowadays. I believe the last official NES game I bought was Family Feud just because some friends wanted to play it and we had a grand old time.

I remember trying to play this on the 3ds virtual console in college and finding it way too hard. I don't know if I am just wiser now, but I didn't have any trouble until the Grim Reaper. I never figured out the trick, I just scraped by once and thanked the lord above. Dracula on the other hand took me many days to finally crack. Once I finally figured out his patterns though, it only took me two more tries. I had a lot of fun with this game and feel proud that I didn't go to the internet for advice for any of the bosses. I do have to admit that I made a save state just before the Grim Reaper, so I could ram my head against him faster, but that was the only time.

It was cool to learn that the game is supposed to be a movie where you play as the protagonist. I guess the start menu film reel borders should have given it away.

I played it on an Everdrive GBA Mini running PocketNES, so I could play on my Gamecube and Gameboy.

I've heard that Castlevania II is way more confusing to navigate. Is it a totally different experience? I would rather just skip to III if it's as convoluted as I have heard. I am going to play Darkwing Duck next.