Been freezing and without power for two and a half days, just got power back. Heat is flowing back in the house. Brewed my first pot of coffee in days. Sitting down with hot cup and a stale cronut from Valentines day and soaking in this gift. You do God's work on this mortal plane Jeremy.
Fantastic video. I get a lot of people commenting, "Man, I wish the Famicom Disk System made it out over here!" This video puts into perfect perspective why we did not.
The Disk System saw the release of about 200 games, about a fifth of the total Famicom catalogue. Other "stop-gaps" for context: - Game Boy Color had about 900 games compared to the OG grey brick’s 1050, about 300 of which were exclusive to it (clear carts only). - Super Game Boy added some additional functionality to about 500 games across both OG Game Boy’s and Game Boy Color’s (black cards only) library. - DSiWare saw about 350 titles; about 90 retail DS games made use of the additional features of DSi, and a grand total of FIVE retail games were exclusive to Nintendo DSi, compared to the 2000 titles released on Nintendo DS period. - Only 41 (out of 1600) Wii games support the Wii Motion Plus accessory, and only SIX require it. - And of course there’s - ̗̀new ̖́- Nintendo 3DS, for which only FOUR retail releases are exclusive to it, compared to the greater 1300 title-strong catalogue of the Nintendo 3DS proper. (an actual comprehensive list of regular 3DS games with - ̗̀new ̖́- 3DS enhancements couldn't be found in such a short notice, but feel free to provide one.)
As far as I know, there were maybe a couple dozen 3DS games that had "New" capabilities patched in, if that. Oh, and there were some emulated SNES games in the eShop. Either way, it's downright remarkable how unsupported the N3DS was, considering that it really was a substantial upgrade over the vanilla model. There's basically no reason to own one unless someone's planning on cracking it and putting on custom firmware. (At which point it becomes a great portable retrogaming console.)
Well if you go by official Nintendo documentation and release data, those 900 GBC games don't exist, just around 300 of them. All the black carts on their master inventory list leaked online in the past (and before hand kept on their own public site to grab) have all black carts as DMG- releases as they're nothing different other than having specific color codes on cart for the games. The 300~ games, they only run on GBC and have a CGB product code, so it kind of goes by who do you trust more, people puffing up a systems library, or Nintendo who well made the stuff after all.
Love how they improved the music for some games. The difference between what we got to the disk version...wow. those disk versions were so much fuller sounding
Well, since the FDS versions came first, it's more that they scaled down the music for the U.S. And not every FDS counterpart sounds better... Castlevania II's original FDS soundtrack sounds kinda strident and thin.
@@JeremyParish Yeah, and I'm honestly not a fan of the bells in the FDS Zelda 1 either. The sampling rate is so low they sound off-tune to me, like a badly-programmed MOD music file.
It's a mixed bag, some did better, some did it worse. In the end the brevity of the sound advantage fell away to larger carts with specialized chips. If you want to hear a real improvement easily picked from a US release fire up Akamajou Densetsu aka Castlevania III. The audio is stunning on the Japanese cart. I keep both copies of the physical game to use here. Konami did wonders with their VRC chips to add some real depth over the limitations of audio among other things too, same with Sunsoft and Namco too being most notable.
Very nice to see the Famicom Disc System get its own episode. Some of the Japan-only FDS games from Nintendo are definitely fascinating. Looking forward to seeing how Nintendo celebrates Zelda's 35th anniversary this month (and by extension the FDS itself).
I used to think the disk version of Zelda was superior due to it not needing a battery to save. Turns out the disk version itself is probably not going to outlive the battery.
I just finally got the disk version and it still works perfectly. I also have the cart and the battery is still holding saves so we’ll see which one lasts longer as i still play them both in real hardware. Btw I can’t believe how much of an elitist Jeremy parish is putting the mini nt noir in this video ;) jk I just got one and i overpaid but I use it non stop and it’s so fun to play with all the options!
I dunno---i own a disc system and brought copies of Zelda (still unopened), Castlevania, Icarus, and others home from Japan in 2017. Just opened my Icarus days ago (see unboxing on my channel) and the save files from the original JP owners were still present in 2021. And i just booted up a 3.5 apple floppy of Space Quest II a few days ago, and my saves from ~198X were still there..... Meanwhile, unless you replace the batteries on those gold zeldas...
Everything's captured through an RGB connection from an Analogue Nt Mini (and very rarely via HDMI). I believe it's set to use the FirebrandX color palette.
Possibly my favorite episode you ever did. It was so extensive and reflective at the same time while you shed light at the end about how we take our generation of gaming because of what the Famicom Disk System done. It was doomed to self destruct. Just a great video
Funny that you mentioned Famicom Tantei (Detective) Club in this video, the exact same day that Nintendo announced updated versions in their Nintendo Direct! :O I also just finished reading Geeks-Line Publishing's "NES Anthology", with a huge Famicom Disk System section. Great timing!
Nice to see a retrospective of the FDS. My favorite system by far. I have a collection of Twin Famicom systems and one is modded so I can read and write disks on my PC. I can certainly vouch for how much of a pain in the butt changing the belt and re-aligning those things are! Though, that thunk when the head violently snaps back to the beginning is so satisfying and terrifying at the same time to hear.
My brother got a ADAM instead of a C64 he was so pissed lol. It was in the clearance bin by then. I loved the PC, had a blast plying Dragon's Lair and Buck Rogers. These videos are always a treat thank you!
It's interesting to see how the arcade-y, mastery-oriented attitude found in pre-FDS releases kind of became more niche as the years went on. It feels trite to say, but it makes me recognize the 2010s for "bringing difficulty back" in a more accommodating way.
Wow, now we have even a Famicom Disk episode: Keep up the good work, Jeremy! Your efforts are always greatly appreciated: you're a sort of living encyclopedia with a deep and gentle attitude. Fun fact: the Basque hat is the most used by we italian people (me too), ahahah! Cheers, Joe
One of your best, and best written, episodes yet. Ashamed to say until like two years ago I didn’t know how different the Famicom and NES were, and didn’t know the disk system was a different thing altogether! You did a great job at contextualizing this machine at all different scales for the industry and medium as a whole
The Famicom 'Zelda no Densetsu 1' cartridge is not the same as the FDS game. In fact, it is more like a port of the Rev 2 Legend of Zelda English game, back to Japanese. It lacked all of the enhanced audio of the FDS version, and it also changed Pols Voice from being weak to the microphone, to the international arrow weakness. As I recall, the reason that it was re-released at all, was because if you were to use the FDS version on the AV Famicom model--the only model of the Famicom series not to incorporate a microphone at all--then the parts of the game that had Pols Voice enemies, would become extremely difficult. There was no reason to re-release Zelda 2, SMB2, Metroid, or any other FDS exclusive, because none of them made use of this quirky feature that was no longer available on the revised hardware. The AV Famicom debuted in December, 1993; the cart version of `Zelda 1` in February, 1994. I believe that the addition of '1' to the title and the game splash screen was to prevent anyone from thinking that it was a new release in the series; but it is very much a beast of its own.
Speaking of Disk System, one of the coolest hidden easter eggs I can think of is that the slow, moody music Nintendo used for the GameCube's internal menu is actually the Famicom Disk System jingle. If you speed it up 16 times faster you can hear it: th-cam.com/video/u1m6j38CDOc/w-d-xo.html
1:33 - While discussing "the influence of the Famicom disk system", the video shows footage of the US version of Zelda 2, which is not a disk game. The Japanese version was disk-based though. 2:12 - The square button controllers were not particularly less reliable than the round buttons, this was just a coincidence that the buttons changed at the same time as the rest of the console was recalled. 5:21 - The "Quick Disk" was designed by Mitusmi, not Sharp. 6:27 - The FDS RAM adapter did not make use of any 'latent expansion pins' on the Famicom console. All IO with the FDS was done through the cartridge itself. The cable that goes to the Disk System is attached to the cartridge, not the console. It's easy to get confused about this though, as the US NES cartridge slot does have 'latent expansion pins' on the cartridge that were ultimately never used. The Famicom cartridge slot does not have such pins. 6:46 - Very very few FDS games made use of the Famicom's DMC sample channel. Zelda pictured in the video is not using the sample channel at all. Rather than there being "extra storage capacity" for sound samples, it's the exact opposite. Your game code and data needs to fit into the 32K of RAM all at once, so there's no room to waste on sound samples. Whenever a FDS game loads anything, the ENTIRE DISK is read, so games don't want to load data unnecessarily. 7:22 - There was an additional trademark based security system, games must have a file named "KYODAKU" (approval) that contains a message saying that the game is made by Nintendo or by another company under license. The FDS will display this message before the game starts. (While the text itself must be stored on the disk, it's possible to skip displaying it, as done by a few unlicensed FDS games)
Again I am humbled and slightly embarrassed to see my channel show up in the lower thirds of the B roll so often in a Jeremy Parish video. The Famicom Disk System was wonderful. But let me emphasize what Jeremy said: both the hardware and software are _INCREDIBLY_ temperamental and infinitely frustrating when you simply want to experience the magic of this hardware. The drive head reads the disks in sequential order, sector by sector, and only boots the game once all sectors have been read. The magnetic floppy disks have only a paper sleeve to protect them from dust and air particles. It's entirely possible a disk can develop a bad sector simply from dust accumulation when stored, rendering the entire disk a very light paperweight. The other issue is the hardware itself. As mentioned, the rubber drive belt is a common failure, but far more annoying is the potential issue of a misaligned drive head, drive head speed, or the motor itself. Unlike the solid state Famicom, the Disk System is a mechanical device with many moving parts, each of which are potential failure points. All this is true of the SHARP Twin Famicom as well, and the Twin has the added annoyance of having a more complicated drive motor design making replacing the belt even more difficult than the standalone HVC-022. All this being said, the games of the FDS are worth experiencing alternative routes than the fault-prone hardware itself. FDS was the original home to loads of iconic NES games with added saving benefits and many very good games that never made their way onto cartridges at all. Outside of emulation, Disk System compatibility has been solid on every NES flashcart for years, going back to the RetroZone PowerPak to today's Everdrive N8-Pro.
Nothing like a video covering one of my favourite little gadgets of all time. Hearing that BIOS startup sound is such a nostalgic tune for me, and I love how it was included in the GameCube menu too!! The Disk System deserves more love than it gets, and I'm more than happy it gets its own video~!! ^w^
With all those unforeseen drawbacks of the disk system, it suddenly makes sense why Nintendo went with cartridges over CDs for the N64. I always thought that was an insane move, but I guess there was history to it.
I doubt the FDS factored into that. Seems more that Nintendo wanted to control the production of media-as sole manufacturer, they made a lot more money off chips than they would have from CDs.
@@JeremyParish Ah, good point. But even considering that, a lot of people still thought it was a nutty move. I just wonder if seeing carts triumph over disks in the Famicom days had an influence on the internal culture at Nintendo. I guess that's just pure speculation though :)
@10:28 "not a game to be completed in a weekend"... And yet I did exactly that back in the day. Both quests, without a guide. Oh, to have that kind of spare time again...
* laughs in Nintendo 64 analogue stick * (Also, although Nintendo may have used the recall to revise the controller design, every other source has always stated that the recall was because of either a faulty chip or because of a flaw in the design of the chipset.)
YAY! You mentioned Falsion! That's probably my favorite disk system game. I have a soft spot for chase-view rail shooters and was shocked to find a decent handful on NES and Falsion is easily the best! (Tetrastar the Fighter is good too as is Cosmic Epsilon, but Falsion is just SO much faster and more action packed and the unlicensed Mig-29 Soviet Fighter is much better than expected as well)
Been wondering for a long while why there wasn't an extensive look on the FDS yet, happy to have this covered now. Any chances of talking more about the cartridge expansion tech that in the end usurped the FDS? I feel like the various kinds of ROM expansions could deserve their own episode. 1:25 Oh shiiiit Snatcher on Segaiden would be lit. One of those games that made the Sega CD really worth it.
All I know is it may have been a periodic success, but a failure in the larger picture, yet I couldn't be more happy now in this year I finally own one of these are there are a few really solid games on there worth playing.
Considering how expensive storage on carts was, I'm surprised there wasn't more of an attempt to do a floppy media console-based system. Have the system use NES sized cartridges with floppy media inside, have a PCB with protection-based tech on it, and possibly later with DSP style tech. By 1987 there were 2.88MB 3 1/2" floppy media costing peanuts and by 1991 it was 21MB in size, greatly larger than standard cartridges of the time.
As with most devices from the era, rubber belts can be replaced with fresh new components you can order online. Now I don't know of an actual seller for these, but I have no doubt they can be found and bought for a little cost.
Lum is the cutest. 😍😍😍 And ahahaha, that FFVII ad was such a punch in the face to Nintendo back in the day. I actually have a bus ad of that very same ad that I ripped off of a TTC subway train here in Toronto way back when, haha
Tried to play Zelda 1 on the Famicom Switch service and that enhanced sound is great... until I started playing and it only proceeded to mess with 35 years of conditioning and memories in my head. Felt all kinds of wrong. 😂
Definitely a system I have a soft spot for and don't always feel it gets it due for both its importance, time in Nintendo history (Mario Celebrities/Zelda/Kid Icarus promoting ramen), and oddities. Would love to go for a full set if it wasn't so hard to deal with Disk Writer only titles. Also arguably the best start screen in gaming history.
IIRC, thanks to lobbying from video game companies (like Nintendo) in Japan, the rental market was functionally nonexistent (a trend continuing to today), and the used game market was similarly hamstrung; this was apparently inspired by the rise of music rentals in the country that were seen as a revenue threat. So the FDS (and especially the Kiosks) could be seen as a nice way to circumvent its own lobbying, since a disk re-write was functionally like a long-term rental. If your only practical choice was paying full-price for new carts from official retailers and getting reusable disks that permitted inexpensive game changes...
I was always amazed that there were musical rental stores in Japan; apparently the lobbying in the US went the other way, with music publishers managing to hamstring possible music rental industries while giving the thumbs up to video and game rental.
At 16:46, why didn't the brick break when the shell hit it? Is there an SMB3 scholar who can shed light on whatever glitch must have occurred just then?
Disc System: "With my help, the Famicon will now be more powerful, and can compete with the newer systems!" MMC1: "Nah, I got this, bro." Disc System: "..."
If you’re a westerner and curious about how the different disk system sounds in games: easiest way is to create a Japanese switch account and download famicom online from the switch store www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17878236/nintendo-switch-online-japanese-famicom-games-guide (There really isn’t much of a difference, the whistle and fairy sound effects in Zeldas 1+2 are a little different and the death animations have been changed. The overall music in Japanese Zelda 2 is substantially worse so there’s some trade off there as to which is the better experience)
Great video! Funny how the disk system was supposed to be the saving grace of the Famicom, but it ended up becoming obsolete for the most part. Do you have any plans to make videos about the SNES and GameBoy Advance at some point?
Lost Levels is legitimately my favorite Mario game and it kind of irks me that it's the only one in the series that I don't have a copy of the original version because the FDS is such an inconvenient system to acquire and use.
Well, getting one in working order more specifically and maintaining it to keep it that way. And the fact that it can't easily be used on US NES hardware without adapters that may or may not actually pipe in the expansion audio. (It's been a while since I've looked into this and I recall that being a sticking point.) And if you decide to grab an actual Famicom to attach it to then you're either limited to RF video only or have to track down pricey variants of the console, either of which is an annoying proposition for someone who already dropped the money for RGB NES mods long ago and doesn't want to double that effort for a small subset of the system's library. Just a whole lot of little annoying hassles. And that's even before you have to start worrying about the frailty of magnetic disk media.
17:08: "Nintendo touched up a number of its older Famicom releases with extra features inspired by their Vs. System versions in arcades, including… Mario Brothers Classic" I'd be very curious to hear what this refers to! It turns out to be very difficult to Google for this. Are you just referring to Super Mario Brothers 1 for FDS (which I think earlier in the video you implied was close to being an FDS launch title)? Or are you saying the FDS eventually got, in addition to Super Mario 1 and 2, a port of "VS. Super Mario Bros"? (This would make me happy if so, because I personally feel VS. has a better level mix than either of its two source games.) (PS this video series is excellent, I'm coming late to it but I'm enjoying it greatly!)
There’s this one nonlinear, Metroid esque game on Famicom Disk System that people kept recommending me, but I can’t find the name again. Does anyone know what I’m describing? It was definitely an early game on the system, possibly even older than Blaster Master. Since the video I watched recommending it, described it as one of the first nonlinear Metroid esque games ever, besides Metroid itself of course
@@JeremyParish lol...btw, sorry if that was a bit cryptic - I mistakenly thought Mach Rider was a FDS conversion that left the menu option enabled on the US cartridge, despite lacking the functionality on the US version.
@@JeremyParish they're coloured different for each game. I didn't recognise the colour and the only records I don't have from them are Thunder Force, Radiant Silvergun and Okami... sorry, very geeky, but I'm I'm the right place for that right!?
seconds LOL oh LOL Thanks Jeremy I really needed a good laugh today. I wish you could cut out a video every day. Someday you shoukd make a video of compiling all those little opening jokes in one video
@JeremyParish every time I watch your latest releases and see your face, you look like the guy who would run this channel 😂. I do mean that in a good way, your historical takes that provide tons of context should really help younger generations understand what gaming was like back then. I was born in 89 so I gamed on a NES, have more memories of SNES, but my first true Xmas memory was getting an N64, also how I discovered Santa, cuz Santa took out SNES to leave us the N64, and our poor family friends got a SNES with my game library and even my saves! It was so weird 😂.
You might be disappointed at alot of the games offered that USA doesn't already have IMO. Then also think about what he was talking about the belt. Do you have the "know how" on simple console/electronic repairs? I haven't played any FDS its self. But I have emulated alot of them since 1997, as well as have a 80, or so titles on my modded snes mini
The Disk System works with FPGA-based clones like Nt Mini and the AVS, so it's a pretty neat thing to have access to if you don't mind the inevitability of a drive belt self-destructing and requiring a $100+ repair. But play one of these games from a disk in the drive on a CRT screen and you're hardcore freebasing analog tech, which has a fundamentally different feel from emulation. If you're the kind of person who cares about that sort of thing.
It depends on how much you care about having the physical hardware. Repairing a FDS unit and tuning it correctly is a timely and precise process -- well more than what was explained here. If you are OK with that, then go for it. If not, using a digital variant is just fine. Emulators like Mesen emulate the games perfectly now, while you can get something like an FDSStick for a nice go between if you don't want to deal with purchasing disks or messing with a FDS device.
I have dealt with the OG hardware for years and honestly I think the best way is to use an FDSStick. No more worrying about random error 22s and since it connects to the RAM Adapter it's still partly OG hardware. In my experience I've never been able to find anything that emulates the extra sound channel quite right.
8:15 WAAAAAAIT a minute... Why does the Disk Writer have yellow NES cartridges in it? Those are distinctly NES carts, and not Famicom carts. Yeah, I get the fact that these carts would have the games on them, but why specifically NES carts?
Those yellow carts are in fact the NES cartridge type like you are imagining. They are the carts used to copy a game over to a disk using the Disk Writer. It's slotted like that due to how they designed the machine.
As am I (the one who put in the patron request). 1986 was a great year for Nintendo games (Zelda, Kid Icarus, Metroid, Nazo no Murasame-jou). If you have a 3DS, it would be available via Virtual Console.
@@absolutezeronow7928 thank you for the heads up. I finally bought a ds a couple months ago and have been playing all the Zelda games I missed out on. I will be downloading that game today. I had a master system and a nes back in the 80’s and then went to genesis instead of Super Nintendo then PlayStation to Xbox to PlayStation again. I missed out on a ton of old games and I’ve been trying to make up for lost time. My cousin gave me a gpi case emulator for Christmas two years ago and I was flooded with nostalgia. I’ve since bought a switch and a ds and haven’t touched modern games since really aside from retro indie titles.
I wonder why Nintendo didn't release The Mysterious Murasame Castle in North America during the 1980s. Ninjas were popular. The Legend of Zelda was popular. Put them together, you'd think it would have sold well. Even today, it's only been released in North America through the 3DS eShop. It wasn't released for the Wii and Wii U in North America and hasn't been released for the Switch yet.
@@Ginormousaurus The Feudal Japanese setting would have been very alien to 1980s audiences. Takamaru was a samurai and samurai weren't that popular in 1980s American pop culture like ninjas were and there was still some latent anti-Japanese xenophobia in the late 1980s. Nintendo is still fond of Takamaru as he was a character in the Wii version of Samurai Warriors 3 and Mario Maker 2 has a sound effect that pays homage to Mysterious Murasame Castle.
@@absolutezeronow7928 There was anti-Japanese sentiment in the US in the 1980s due to memories of World War II and fears that Japanese businesses were outcompeting American companies. There was also a lot of fascination with Japanese products and culture. I disagree that the feudal Japanese setting would have been very alien to North American audiences in the 1980s. Director Akira Kurosawa's samurai films were known in the west. The popular TV mini-series Shogun aired on NBC in 1980. Milton Bradley released the board game Shogun in 1986.
An Electric Channel-Changing Cameo! The Sudden Appearance of Lum-chan!!
Yep. That is Lum Invader. The character who stold the lead from Ataru.
And that's from Movie 4, Lum The Forever. Really pretty underrated movie.
@Salvatore Demetrius Wow! Thanks you, very cool. this sounds absolutely 200% legit
Been freezing and without power for two and a half days, just got power back. Heat is flowing back in the house. Brewed my first pot of coffee in days. Sitting down with hot cup and a stale cronut from Valentines day and soaking in this gift. You do God's work on this mortal plane Jeremy.
Fantastic video. I get a lot of people commenting, "Man, I wish the Famicom Disk System made it out over here!" This video puts into perfect perspective why we did not.
The Disk System saw the release of about 200 games, about a fifth of the total Famicom catalogue.
Other "stop-gaps" for context:
- Game Boy Color had about 900 games compared to the OG grey brick’s 1050, about 300 of which were exclusive to it (clear carts only).
- Super Game Boy added some additional functionality to about 500 games across both OG Game Boy’s and Game Boy Color’s (black cards only) library.
- DSiWare saw about 350 titles; about 90 retail DS games made use of the additional features of DSi, and a grand total of FIVE retail games were exclusive to Nintendo DSi, compared to the 2000 titles released on Nintendo DS period.
- Only 41 (out of 1600) Wii games support the Wii Motion Plus accessory, and only SIX require it.
- And of course there’s - ̗̀new ̖́- Nintendo 3DS, for which only FOUR retail releases are exclusive to it, compared to the greater 1300 title-strong catalogue of the Nintendo 3DS proper. (an actual comprehensive list of regular 3DS games with - ̗̀new ̖́- 3DS enhancements couldn't be found in such a short notice, but feel free to provide one.)
As far as I know, there were maybe a couple dozen 3DS games that had "New" capabilities patched in, if that. Oh, and there were some emulated SNES games in the eShop. Either way, it's downright remarkable how unsupported the N3DS was, considering that it really was a substantial upgrade over the vanilla model. There's basically no reason to own one unless someone's planning on cracking it and putting on custom firmware. (At which point it becomes a great portable retrogaming console.)
Well if you go by official Nintendo documentation and release data, those 900 GBC games don't exist, just around 300 of them. All the black carts on their master inventory list leaked online in the past (and before hand kept on their own public site to grab) have all black carts as DMG- releases as they're nothing different other than having specific color codes on cart for the games. The 300~ games, they only run on GBC and have a CGB product code, so it kind of goes by who do you trust more, people puffing up a systems library, or Nintendo who well made the stuff after all.
@@jasonblalock4429 New 3DS did have better eye tracking technology for improving the 3D effects, so it still had some value beyond a spec boost.
@@teranokitty The New 3DS also had a built in amiibo reader and added a C-stick and ZL/ZR buttons that served the same function as the Circle Pad Pro.
@@jendorei What the fuck? It seems like you want to defend the Game Boy Color desperately
“floppy seconds” eXcUsE mE???
Send us your floppy! And we'll put it into the f*ckng box!
Sorry guys, I had to.
Just.. wow. 🤣
1up Retronauts is back baby!
Had to immediately rewind and confirm that you did indeed say "floppy seconds"
Love how they improved the music for some games. The difference between what we got to the disk version...wow. those disk versions were so much fuller sounding
Well, since the FDS versions came first, it's more that they scaled down the music for the U.S. And not every FDS counterpart sounds better... Castlevania II's original FDS soundtrack sounds kinda strident and thin.
@@JeremyParish Yeah, and I'm honestly not a fan of the bells in the FDS Zelda 1 either. The sampling rate is so low they sound off-tune to me, like a badly-programmed MOD music file.
Ugh....you don't want to hear the different noises in LoZ2
It's a mixed bag, some did better, some did it worse. In the end the brevity of the sound advantage fell away to larger carts with specialized chips. If you want to hear a real improvement easily picked from a US release fire up Akamajou Densetsu aka Castlevania III. The audio is stunning on the Japanese cart. I keep both copies of the physical game to use here. Konami did wonders with their VRC chips to add some real depth over the limitations of audio among other things too, same with Sunsoft and Namco too being most notable.
@@JeremyParish yea the nes mansion song is so much better then the fds one
Some real high quality disk read ASMR in this episode.
Very nice to see the Famicom Disc System get its own episode. Some of the Japan-only FDS games from Nintendo are definitely fascinating. Looking forward to seeing how Nintendo celebrates Zelda's 35th anniversary this month (and by extension the FDS itself).
After the latest Retronauts I've just ordered a copy of the HG101 FDS book. Really looking forward to reading it.
great resource for learning the history and especially determining which games you can play in English--or are worth it at all.
instaBlaster.
I used to think the disk version of Zelda was superior due to it not needing a battery to save. Turns out the disk version itself is probably not going to outlive the battery.
Extra audio channel tho
I just finally got the disk version and it still works perfectly. I also have the cart and the battery is still holding saves so we’ll see which one lasts longer as i still play them both in real hardware.
Btw I can’t believe how much of an elitist Jeremy parish is putting the mini nt noir in this video ;) jk I just got one and i overpaid but I use it non stop and it’s so fun to play with all the options!
I dunno---i own a disc system and brought copies of Zelda (still unopened), Castlevania, Icarus, and others home from Japan in 2017. Just opened my Icarus days ago (see unboxing on my channel) and the save files from the original JP owners were still present in 2021. And i just booted up a 3.5 apple floppy of Space Quest II a few days ago, and my saves from ~198X were still there..... Meanwhile, unless you replace the batteries on those gold zeldas...
@@KendallMcNeilClark
metroid also uses that extra sound for a number of things
I love how vibrant the colors are on your NES games.
Everything's captured through an RGB connection from an Analogue Nt Mini (and very rarely via HDMI). I believe it's set to use the FirebrandX color palette.
"Floppy seconds"
JEREMY. *NO!*
Was "floppy seconds" picked over "show us your disks?" xD
Or perhaps "It's my disk in a box!"
🏆
I showed you my disk please respond
unsolicited disk pics
Either way, a whole hell of a lot better than those inane “Blow Me” stickers.
Double entendres are supposed to take skill.
Possibly my favorite episode you ever did. It was so extensive and reflective at the same time while you shed light at the end about how we take our generation of gaming because of what the Famicom Disk System done. It was doomed to self destruct. Just a great video
Funny that you mentioned Famicom Tantei (Detective) Club in this video, the exact same day that Nintendo announced updated versions in their Nintendo Direct! :O I also just finished reading Geeks-Line Publishing's "NES Anthology", with a huge Famicom Disk System section. Great timing!
This is some of your best work Jeremy.
Obviously there many videos on this device. This one sums up its function and its importance perfectly.
Top notch stuff. Looking forward to that Nazo no Murasamejou episode, 1CC’d it a couple years back. A hidden gem for sure
Jeremy: ... floppy seconds
Me: Well, my day is ruined
Nice to see a retrospective of the FDS. My favorite system by far. I have a collection of Twin Famicom systems and one is modded so I can read and write disks on my PC. I can certainly vouch for how much of a pain in the butt changing the belt and re-aligning those things are! Though, that thunk when the head violently snaps back to the beginning is so satisfying and terrifying at the same time to hear.
My brother got a ADAM instead of a C64 he was so pissed lol. It was in the clearance bin by then. I loved the PC, had a blast plying Dragon's Lair and Buck Rogers. These videos are always a treat thank you!
I also had an ADAM. I loved that thing for what it was worth, but LORDY, was that printer absurdly loud.
It's interesting to see how the arcade-y, mastery-oriented attitude found in pre-FDS releases kind of became more niche as the years went on. It feels trite to say, but it makes me recognize the 2010s for "bringing difficulty back" in a more accommodating way.
The FDS is one of my favorite bits of Nintendo's 8-bit history. :)
Thanks for this video!
You had me at “Floppy Seconds”
Always appreciate the diligence and depth in exploration with your content, thank you for your work!
Famicom Detective Club announced on the Nintendo Direct yesterday had me thinking about the Disc System
Wow, now we have even a Famicom Disk episode: Keep up the good work, Jeremy!
Your efforts are always greatly appreciated: you're a sort of living encyclopedia with a deep and gentle attitude.
Fun fact: the Basque hat is the most used by we italian people (me too), ahahah!
Cheers,
Joe
More fantastic work. Thank you for this, Jeremy.
Also, those puns at the beginning of episodes kill me.
Amazing work as always Jeremy!
As always Jeremy this is a thoughtful, in depth analysis, well produced and narrated. Thank you!
One of your best, and best written, episodes yet. Ashamed to say until like two years ago I didn’t know how different the Famicom and NES were, and didn’t know the disk system was a different thing altogether! You did a great job at contextualizing this machine at all different scales for the industry and medium as a whole
Great opening pun
The Famicom 'Zelda no Densetsu 1' cartridge is not the same as the FDS game. In fact, it is more like a port of the Rev 2 Legend of Zelda English game, back to Japanese.
It lacked all of the enhanced audio of the FDS version, and it also changed Pols Voice from being weak to the microphone, to the international arrow weakness. As I recall, the reason that it was re-released at all, was because if you were to use the FDS version on the AV Famicom model--the only model of the Famicom series not to incorporate a microphone at all--then the parts of the game that had Pols Voice enemies, would become extremely difficult.
There was no reason to re-release Zelda 2, SMB2, Metroid, or any other FDS exclusive, because none of them made use of this quirky feature that was no longer available on the revised hardware. The AV Famicom debuted in December, 1993; the cart version of `Zelda 1` in February, 1994.
I believe that the addition of '1' to the title and the game splash screen was to prevent anyone from thinking that it was a new release in the series; but it is very much a beast of its own.
he said that
Speaking of Disk System, one of the coolest hidden easter eggs I can think of is that the slow, moody music Nintendo used for the GameCube's internal menu is actually the Famicom Disk System jingle. If you speed it up 16 times faster you can hear it:
th-cam.com/video/u1m6j38CDOc/w-d-xo.html
Cool video, I always wanted to see the system explained better than behind glass at a museum.
1:33 - While discussing "the influence of the Famicom disk system", the video shows footage of the US version of Zelda 2, which is not a disk game. The Japanese version was disk-based though.
2:12 - The square button controllers were not particularly less reliable than the round buttons, this was just a coincidence that the buttons changed at the same time as the rest of the console was recalled.
5:21 - The "Quick Disk" was designed by Mitusmi, not Sharp.
6:27 - The FDS RAM adapter did not make use of any 'latent expansion pins' on the Famicom console. All IO with the FDS was done through the cartridge itself. The cable that goes to the Disk System is attached to the cartridge, not the console. It's easy to get confused about this though, as the US NES cartridge slot does have 'latent expansion pins' on the cartridge that were ultimately never used. The Famicom cartridge slot does not have such pins.
6:46 - Very very few FDS games made use of the Famicom's DMC sample channel. Zelda pictured in the video is not using the sample channel at all. Rather than there being "extra storage capacity" for sound samples, it's the exact opposite. Your game code and data needs to fit into the 32K of RAM all at once, so there's no room to waste on sound samples. Whenever a FDS game loads anything, the ENTIRE DISK is read, so games don't want to load data unnecessarily.
7:22 - There was an additional trademark based security system, games must have a file named "KYODAKU" (approval) that contains a message saying that the game is made by Nintendo or by another company under license. The FDS will display this message before the game starts. (While the text itself must be stored on the disk, it's possible to skip displaying it, as done by a few unlicensed FDS games)
"Floppy seconds" -- RIP me
Floppy seconds.... NICE! GREAT episode Jeremy. Thank you!
Again I am humbled and slightly embarrassed to see my channel show up in the lower thirds of the B roll so often in a Jeremy Parish video.
The Famicom Disk System was wonderful. But let me emphasize what Jeremy said: both the hardware and software are _INCREDIBLY_ temperamental and infinitely frustrating when you simply want to experience the magic of this hardware.
The drive head reads the disks in sequential order, sector by sector, and only boots the game once all sectors have been read. The magnetic floppy disks have only a paper sleeve to protect them from dust and air particles. It's entirely possible a disk can develop a bad sector simply from dust accumulation when stored, rendering the entire disk a very light paperweight.
The other issue is the hardware itself. As mentioned, the rubber drive belt is a common failure, but far more annoying is the potential issue of a misaligned drive head, drive head speed, or the motor itself. Unlike the solid state Famicom, the Disk System is a mechanical device with many moving parts, each of which are potential failure points. All this is true of the SHARP Twin Famicom as well, and the Twin has the added annoyance of having a more complicated drive motor design making replacing the belt even more difficult than the standalone HVC-022.
All this being said, the games of the FDS are worth experiencing alternative routes than the fault-prone hardware itself. FDS was the original home to loads of iconic NES games with added saving benefits and many very good games that never made their way onto cartridges at all. Outside of emulation, Disk System compatibility has been solid on every NES flashcart for years, going back to the RetroZone PowerPak to today's Everdrive N8-Pro.
Nothing like a video covering one of my favourite little gadgets of all time. Hearing that BIOS startup sound is such a nostalgic tune for me, and I love how it was included in the GameCube menu too!!
The Disk System deserves more love than it gets, and I'm more than happy it gets its own video~!! ^w^
With all those unforeseen drawbacks of the disk system, it suddenly makes sense why Nintendo went with cartridges over CDs for the N64.
I always thought that was an insane move, but I guess there was history to it.
I doubt the FDS factored into that. Seems more that Nintendo wanted to control the production of media-as sole manufacturer, they made a lot more money off chips than they would have from CDs.
@@JeremyParish Ah, good point. But even considering that, a lot of people still thought it was a nutty move. I just wonder if seeing carts triumph over disks in the Famicom days had an influence on the internal culture at Nintendo. I guess that's just pure speculation though :)
@@JeremyParish plus cds would give money to sony
What an awesome channel it's very calming and I never realised it existed but I have now subscribed because you do a lot of famicom stuff
Awesome overview of the FDS - I am a collector of the system and it is always neat to see if get some attention.
@10:28 "not a game to be completed in a weekend"... And yet I did exactly that back in the day. Both quests, without a guide. Oh, to have that kind of spare time again...
As someone who has started explored a lot of disk system I really enjoyed this episode.
Enjoyed the video. Thanks!
A flashcart like Everdrive N8 pro is a good way to play FDS games if you don’t want to deal with changing belts. Another good video Tfrog 👍
of course you post this the day i’m reading about famicom stuff a bunch
Recalling the Famicon because of a faulty controller, how times change. Now we need to just suck it and deal with joycon drift.
* laughs in Nintendo 64 analogue stick *
(Also, although Nintendo may have used the recall to revise the controller design, every other source has always stated that the recall was because of either a faulty chip or because of a flaw in the design of the chipset.)
YAY! You mentioned Falsion! That's probably my favorite disk system game. I have a soft spot for chase-view rail shooters and was shocked to find a decent handful on NES and Falsion is easily the best! (Tetrastar the Fighter is good too as is Cosmic Epsilon, but Falsion is just SO much faster and more action packed and the unlicensed Mig-29 Soviet Fighter is much better than expected as well)
Been wondering for a long while why there wasn't an extensive look on the FDS yet, happy to have this covered now. Any chances of talking more about the cartridge expansion tech that in the end usurped the FDS? I feel like the various kinds of ROM expansions could deserve their own episode.
1:25 Oh shiiiit Snatcher on Segaiden would be lit. One of those games that made the Sega CD really worth it.
There's always the topic request tier. Mappers are honestly not a topic I would explore in a breakout episode unless requested.
Another great video. Thank you, Jeremy Parish!
All VCRs had that same drive belt fatal flaw.
All I know is it may have been a periodic success, but a failure in the larger picture, yet I couldn't be more happy now in this year I finally own one of these are there are a few really solid games on there worth playing.
Always look forward to your videos and this is another great one and informative as well.
Considering how expensive storage on carts was, I'm surprised there wasn't more of an attempt to do a floppy media console-based system. Have the system use NES sized cartridges with floppy media inside, have a PCB with protection-based tech on it, and possibly later with DSP style tech. By 1987 there were 2.88MB 3 1/2" floppy media costing peanuts and by 1991 it was 21MB in size, greatly larger than standard cartridges of the time.
As with most devices from the era, rubber belts can be replaced with fresh new components you can order online. Now I don't know of an actual seller for these, but I have no doubt they can be found and bought for a little cost.
It's not sourcing the components that pose a challenge, it's the installation process. It's notoriously fussy.
Lum is the cutest. 😍😍😍
And ahahaha, that FFVII ad was such a punch in the face to Nintendo back in the day. I actually have a bus ad of that very same ad that I ripped off of a TTC subway train here in Toronto way back when, haha
Tried to play Zelda 1 on the Famicom Switch service and that enhanced sound is great... until I started playing and it only proceeded to mess with 35 years of conditioning and memories in my head. Felt all kinds of wrong. 😂
That intro caught my attention alright!
Definitely a system I have a soft spot for and don't always feel it gets it due for both its importance, time in Nintendo history (Mario Celebrities/Zelda/Kid Icarus promoting ramen), and oddities. Would love to go for a full set if it wasn't so hard to deal with Disk Writer only titles. Also arguably the best start screen in gaming history.
Since I've never owned a disk system, that boot up jingle only makes me think of Famicom Dojo.
IIRC, thanks to lobbying from video game companies (like Nintendo) in Japan, the rental market was functionally nonexistent (a trend continuing to today), and the used game market was similarly hamstrung; this was apparently inspired by the rise of music rentals in the country that were seen as a revenue threat. So the FDS (and especially the Kiosks) could be seen as a nice way to circumvent its own lobbying, since a disk re-write was functionally like a long-term rental. If your only practical choice was paying full-price for new carts from official retailers and getting reusable disks that permitted inexpensive game changes...
I was always amazed that there were musical rental stores in Japan; apparently the lobbying in the US went the other way, with music publishers managing to hamstring possible music rental industries while giving the thumbs up to video and game rental.
@@stevenglowacki8576 They didn't bank on them being big, I guess.
Really looking forward to your retrospective on Sega CD
Does that copy of SMB2 you have in the beginning actually still have SMB2 on it, or has it been overwritten with something completely different?
At 16:46, why didn't the brick break when the shell hit it? Is there an SMB3 scholar who can shed light on whatever glitch must have occurred just then?
I think the disk system was a cool idea and it actually worked for the famicom, failed miserably for the N64 on the other hand
Disc System: "With my help, the Famicon will now be more powerful, and can compete with the newer systems!"
MMC1: "Nah, I got this, bro."
Disc System: "..."
I want that sweater 🙌🏽
of course they announced a re-release of Famicom Detective Club right after this video went public.
I read that despite only releasing in Japan it's the best selling console add on.
The subtle whirring of a floppy disk. Such a nostalgic sound.
If you’re a westerner and curious about how the different disk system sounds in games: easiest way is to create a Japanese switch account and download famicom online from the switch store
www.theverge.com/2018/9/19/17878236/nintendo-switch-online-japanese-famicom-games-guide
(There really isn’t much of a difference, the whistle and fairy sound effects in Zeldas 1+2 are a little different and the death animations have been changed. The overall music in Japanese Zelda 2 is substantially worse so there’s some trade off there as to which is the better experience)
hmm you mentioned famicom detective club, the VERY SAME DAY they announced an english release for the remakes, coincidence??
No. They knew.
That was the best part of the Direct. Always good when Nintendo games finally make their way to the West.
Kinda curious to see what Zelda 1 would be like with half it's memory taken by a different game but it's most likely just an error message
Another great video
Great video! Funny how the disk system was supposed to be the saving grace of the Famicom, but it ended up becoming obsolete for the most part.
Do you have any plans to make videos about the SNES and GameBoy Advance at some point?
Lost Levels is legitimately my favorite Mario game and it kind of irks me that it's the only one in the series that I don't have a copy of the original version because the FDS is such an inconvenient system to acquire and use.
Hard to aquire?
Meh
Well, getting one in working order more specifically and maintaining it to keep it that way. And the fact that it can't easily be used on US NES hardware without adapters that may or may not actually pipe in the expansion audio. (It's been a while since I've looked into this and I recall that being a sticking point.) And if you decide to grab an actual Famicom to attach it to then you're either limited to RF video only or have to track down pricey variants of the console, either of which is an annoying proposition for someone who already dropped the money for RGB NES mods long ago and doesn't want to double that effort for a small subset of the system's library. Just a whole lot of little annoying hassles. And that's even before you have to start worrying about the frailty of magnetic disk media.
17:08: "Nintendo touched up a number of its older Famicom releases with extra features inspired by their Vs. System versions in arcades, including… Mario Brothers Classic"
I'd be very curious to hear what this refers to! It turns out to be very difficult to Google for this. Are you just referring to Super Mario Brothers 1 for FDS (which I think earlier in the video you implied was close to being an FDS launch title)? Or are you saying the FDS eventually got, in addition to Super Mario 1 and 2, a port of "VS. Super Mario Bros"? (This would make me happy if so, because I personally feel VS. has a better level mix than either of its two source games.)
(PS this video series is excellent, I'm coming late to it but I'm enjoying it greatly!)
...the Adam was an add-on? I thought it was a standalone computer with a Colecovision build in.
Check out Expansion Module 3 sometime.
Hardly anyone is going to know who Lum is. Beautiful dreamer was a trip.
Viz is publishing the manga now! Vol. 9 just arrived yesterday.
@@JeremyParish I will check that out for sure. Thanks for the heads up Jeremy.
There’s this one nonlinear, Metroid esque game on Famicom Disk System that people kept recommending me, but I can’t find the name again. Does anyone know what I’m describing? It was definitely an early game on the system, possibly even older than Blaster Master. Since the video I watched recommending it, described it as one of the first nonlinear Metroid esque games ever, besides Metroid itself of course
Great job
At 8:18 Why do the yellow carts in the Japanese writer kiosk look like American carts? With the finger notch on the top.
One of life’s great mysteries
Woah woah woah. Pause. Roll it back. Was that Lum Invader on the first channel in the intro? Where was that taken from?
Yes, that was Lum. Probably from the 4th Urusei Yatsura movie which premiered February 22, 1986.
You cracked the code!
still can't save my custom Mach Rider levels :(
It wouldn’t be a Nintendo device if it did EVERYTHING you wanted
@@JeremyParish lol...btw, sorry if that was a bit cryptic - I mistakenly thought Mach Rider was a FDS conversion that left the menu option enabled on the US cartridge, despite lacking the functionality on the US version.
Is that a Thunder Force IV DATA DISCS sticker?
It is a Data Discs sticker... I was not aware that the stickers are proprietary by game!
@@JeremyParish they're coloured different for each game. I didn't recognise the colour and the only records I don't have from them are Thunder Force, Radiant Silvergun and Okami... sorry, very geeky, but I'm I'm the right place for that right!?
@3:00 "a flood of mediocre games".
Hey! I liked Bubble Bath Babes. >:[
seconds LOL oh LOL Thanks Jeremy I really needed a good laugh today. I wish you could cut out a video every day. Someday you shoukd make a video of compiling all those little opening jokes in one video
What game is @14:05? I feels familar... but I don't recognize it.
Arumana no Kiseki. Konami's take on Indiana Jones with the serial numbers filed off. Jeremy did a NES World Gaiden episode on it. It's a good game.
The... the game title is literally right there at the time stamp that was linked to...
@JeremyParish every time I watch your latest releases and see your face, you look like the guy who would run this channel 😂. I do mean that in a good way, your historical takes that provide tons of context should really help younger generations understand what gaming was like back then. I was born in 89 so I gamed on a NES, have more memories of SNES, but my first true Xmas memory was getting an N64, also how I discovered Santa, cuz Santa took out SNES to leave us the N64, and our poor family friends got a SNES with my game library and even my saves! It was so weird 😂.
Is it worth picking up a unit today, or look for “virtual versions”?
You might be disappointed at alot of the games offered that USA doesn't already have IMO. Then also think about what he was talking about the belt. Do you have the "know how" on simple console/electronic repairs? I haven't played any FDS its self. But I have emulated alot of them since 1997, as well as have a 80, or so titles on my modded snes mini
The Disk System works with FPGA-based clones like Nt Mini and the AVS, so it's a pretty neat thing to have access to if you don't mind the inevitability of a drive belt self-destructing and requiring a $100+ repair. But play one of these games from a disk in the drive on a CRT screen and you're hardcore freebasing analog tech, which has a fundamentally different feel from emulation. If you're the kind of person who cares about that sort of thing.
It depends on how much you care about having the physical hardware. Repairing a FDS unit and tuning it correctly is a timely and precise process -- well more than what was explained here. If you are OK with that, then go for it. If not, using a digital variant is just fine. Emulators like Mesen emulate the games perfectly now, while you can get something like an FDSStick for a nice go between if you don't want to deal with purchasing disks or messing with a FDS device.
I have dealt with the OG hardware for years and honestly I think the best way is to use an FDSStick. No more worrying about random error 22s and since it connects to the RAM Adapter it's still partly OG hardware. In my experience I've never been able to find anything that emulates the extra sound channel quite right.
Aight then.
The morel of the lesson then is to not do hardware add-ons for consoles unless it fits into a regular looking cartridge.
8:15 WAAAAAAIT a minute... Why does the Disk Writer have yellow NES cartridges in it? Those are distinctly NES carts, and not Famicom carts. Yeah, I get the fact that these carts would have the games on them, but why specifically NES carts?
Those yellow carts are in fact the NES cartridge type like you are imagining. They are the carts used to copy a game over to a disk using the Disk Writer. It's slotted like that due to how they designed the machine.
Supposedly they're NES carts with a Famicom pinout. No one knows why!
Finally! Nice!
I own a disk System. Have used it. I love it
Looking forward to the feudal Japan Zelda like game episode.
As am I (the one who put in the patron request). 1986 was a great year for Nintendo games (Zelda, Kid Icarus, Metroid, Nazo no Murasame-jou). If you have a 3DS, it would be available via Virtual Console.
@@absolutezeronow7928 thank you for the heads up. I finally bought a ds a couple months ago and have been playing all the Zelda games I missed out on. I will be downloading that game today.
I had a master system and a nes back in the 80’s and then went to genesis instead of Super Nintendo then PlayStation to Xbox to PlayStation again. I missed out on a ton of old games and I’ve been trying to make up for lost time. My cousin gave me a gpi case emulator for Christmas two years ago and I was flooded with nostalgia. I’ve since bought a switch and a ds and haven’t touched modern games since really aside from retro indie titles.
I wonder why Nintendo didn't release The Mysterious Murasame Castle in North America during the 1980s. Ninjas were popular. The Legend of Zelda was popular. Put them together, you'd think it would have sold well. Even today, it's only been released in North America through the 3DS eShop. It wasn't released for the Wii and Wii U in North America and hasn't been released for the Switch yet.
@@Ginormousaurus The Feudal Japanese setting would have been very alien to 1980s audiences. Takamaru was a samurai and samurai weren't that popular in 1980s American pop culture like ninjas were and there was still some latent anti-Japanese xenophobia in the late 1980s. Nintendo is still fond of Takamaru as he was a character in the Wii version of Samurai Warriors 3 and Mario Maker 2 has a sound effect that pays homage to Mysterious Murasame Castle.
@@absolutezeronow7928 There was anti-Japanese sentiment in the US in the 1980s due to memories of World War II and fears that Japanese businesses were outcompeting American companies. There was also a lot of fascination with Japanese products and culture. I disagree that the feudal Japanese setting would have been very alien to North American audiences in the 1980s. Director Akira Kurosawa's samurai films were known in the west. The popular TV mini-series Shogun aired on NBC in 1980. Milton Bradley released the board game Shogun in 1986.
I have some gsme discs that hollow out a rectangle iver the Nintendo location on the disc and it beats the detector
let those Goriyas loose
!oh.. moblins? oops
Is there any FDS games that use more than 1 disk
They announced a sequel to one today
Which one@@JeremyParish