Shout-outs to the IPL (Initial Program Loader) present in every Namco FDS game. They basically made a hardware interface to upload code & data from their development setup to the FDS, and of course save it to disk. I believe this greatly sped up the NROM-to-FDS porting process. Also, Tower of Duraga wasn't ported at all? I guess I should try and change that now... (the lack of a disassembly is going to make this more difficult)
I don't think I ever got around to the NES version of pac-man, but don't doubt it's a very competent port of the arcade game! wild to see namco port it to the disk system, though.
As someone who's watched a LOT of videos of various ports of Pac-Man, I'm always happy to see a video where the player actually tries to eat the ghosts. I can't even count how many "version comparison" videos I've seen where the footage shows the player doing everything they can to avoid eating even a single ghost, so thanks for not doing that.
I do find it hard to go back to the official versions of Pac-Man, for me it's all about the bootleg turbo hacks. Tengen ported Ms. Pac-Man to the NES at around this time and did a much better job of it I think.
"Hey, what's up? Hey, you know Pac-Man. You know the original name for Pac-Man was Puck Man. Not because he looks like a hockey puck. But its Paku Paku. Means flap your mouth..." etc., etc.
It's a sprite zero hit trick. When you power on the game, the title screen scrolls up, but it has to know when to stop the scrolling. The Famicom only has hardware collision detection for sprite 0, when a opaque background pixel overlaps the sprite, it updates a flag which tells the program something happened. For some reason, maybe because it was such an early Famicom game, they chose to stop the scrolling like this instead of just hardcoding a value. Usually that sprite wouldn't even be visible because it's in the CRT overscan area, but emulators and capture cards see the entire picture.
@@darkcart That's not the case here. This game uses (0, 0) as the default "off-screen" sprite coordinates, which is within the upper portion of CRT overscan (pedantically, it sets all of the unused sprite properties to 0). Emulators, modern displays, and capture devices can expose these kinds of oversights nowadays.
disappointing that in 1990 Namcot could not even be bothered to add some funky new FDS sound effects to this port. It really is a waste of a port... and as you said, in 1990, you could probably get the cart for 500 yen anyway!
Fitting that a character that never stops eating would have their episode come out on Thanksgiving weekend!
Shout-outs to the IPL (Initial Program Loader) present in every Namco FDS game. They basically made a hardware interface to upload code & data from their development setup to the FDS, and of course save it to disk. I believe this greatly sped up the NROM-to-FDS porting process.
Also, Tower of Duraga wasn't ported at all? I guess I should try and change that now... (the lack of a disassembly is going to make this more difficult)
2:40 Well that was a bold move, Cotton. But it paid off!
Lol I thought the same thing while watching it
Wakka wakka
Genuninely astounded that I caught up to this whole series
Just in time for Pac-Man’s 10th anniversary at the time! Now we just need to re-release Pac-Man Fever.
I don't think I ever got around to the NES version of pac-man, but don't doubt it's a very competent port of the arcade game! wild to see namco port it to the disk system, though.
Namco execs foreseeing little American delinquent’s vandalism and renaming it “Pac-Man” was a good call
As someone who's watched a LOT of videos of various ports of Pac-Man, I'm always happy to see a video where the player actually tries to eat the ghosts. I can't even count how many "version comparison" videos I've seen where the footage shows the player doing everything they can to avoid eating even a single ghost, so thanks for not doing that.
True fulfillment is eating all four with one energizer
I wonder what kind of negotiations happened between Namco and Nintendo that resulted in these re-releases.
I do find it hard to go back to the official versions of Pac-Man, for me it's all about the bootleg turbo hacks. Tengen ported Ms. Pac-Man to the NES at around this time and did a much better job of it I think.
"Hey, what's up? Hey, you know Pac-Man. You know the original name for Pac-Man was Puck Man. Not because he looks like a hockey puck. But its Paku Paku. Means flap your mouth..." etc., etc.
Puck-Man
Fuck-Man
Apologies, but Fury of the Furries is the Doki Doki Panic of Pac-Man.
So, what IS that little sprite in the top-left corner for?
It's a sprite zero hit trick. When you power on the game, the title screen scrolls up, but it has to know when to stop the scrolling. The Famicom only has hardware collision detection for sprite 0, when a opaque background pixel overlaps the sprite, it updates a flag which tells the program something happened. For some reason, maybe because it was such an early Famicom game, they chose to stop the scrolling like this instead of just hardcoding a value. Usually that sprite wouldn't even be visible because it's in the CRT overscan area, but emulators and capture cards see the entire picture.
@@darkcart That's not the case here. This game uses (0, 0) as the default "off-screen" sprite coordinates, which is within the upper portion of CRT overscan (pedantically, it sets all of the unused sprite properties to 0). Emulators, modern displays, and capture devices can expose these kinds of oversights nowadays.
I like pacman, pacman's pretty good
disappointing that in 1990 Namcot could not even be bothered to add some funky new FDS sound effects to this port. It really is a waste of a port... and as you said, in 1990, you could probably get the cart for 500 yen anyway!
Billy Mitchell cheated his PAC-MAN records