Anybody ever hear this silly thing about the Tengen games?

[Da_Shocker]

The first time I played a RBI Baseball on the NES my friends said that you could play it on the Genesis. Now we had to be 10 or 11 back then and we never got to try it (LOL) but this had to be because the cart was black. But it was one of the silliest things I heard as a kid.

[OldSchool]

I never heard that one.

[Aarzak]

Back as a kid, I always found those Tengen NES carts weird, compared to the regular carts. I didn't know if they could even be played on an NES, so I can see why one would confuse them for a Genny-playable cart.

Were any of Tengen's NES games even any good? I'm aware that people are fond/nostalgic over "RBI Baseball", and that they (or rather Namco) developed a great port of "Pac-Man". "Rolling Thunder" may have been good as well, but the SMS ports ("Alien Syndrome", SHINOBI, "After Burner") sucked hard, as did "Gauntlet".

[Jibbajaba]

Their version of Tetris was head and shoulders above Nintendo's release.

Chris

[CMA Death Adder]

When I was a (young) kid, I was told that a hard drive was a gigantic metal box full of disks, with a robotic arm that swooped in to select the proper ones for you. May sound completely insane, but we had an Apple II in those days, and hard drives were a completely foreign concept to us. At least, that is, until 1989...

Also, fjørk Tengen! Because of their blundering, the arcade superior port of Snow Bros. for the Mega Drive was limited to a teeny-tiny market in Japan only. Bastards. Awesome Possum, on the other hand, ended up plastered all OVER store shelves -- WORLDWIDE! WHY?!?

[kool kitty89]

When I was a (young) kid, I was told that a hard drive was a gigantic metal box full of disks, with a robotic arm that swooped in to select the proper ones for you. May sound completely insane, but we had an Apple II in those days, and hard drives were a completely foreign concept to us. At least, that is, until 1989...
That's a rather accurate description of some early hard drives, before they became consumer products, of course.


Also, fjørk Tengen! Because of their blundering, the arcade superior port of Snow Bros. for the Mega Drive was limited to a teeny-tiny market in Japan only. Bastards. Awesome Possum, on the other hand, ended up plastered all OVER store shelves -- WORLDWIDE! WHY?!?
How do you know it's there fault it was only released in JP, same thing with Slap Fight (SHMUP). I though it was odd that Tengen ended up publishing that port as well and only as a JP release... (given that Tengen was an American company -the consumer division of Atari Games Corp.)

[Nunzio]

Were any of Tengen's NES games even any good? I'm aware that people are fond/nostalgic over "RBI Baseball", and that they (or rather Namco) developed a great port of "Pac-Man". "Rolling Thunder" may have been good as well, but the SMS ports ("Alien Syndrome", SHINOBI, "After Burner") sucked hard, as did "Gauntlet".

Rolling Thunder was excellent. That graphics were poor compared to the arcade obviously, but it played very well. RBI Baseball 2-3 are not as good as the first one as they tended towards realism instead of playability.

Their best game, imho was Road Runner. It is highly playable arcade action. Although the music will drive anyone crazy, still it is awesome to the max.

[Iron Lizard]

They justified their existence by porting Robo Aleste. Also it usualy was about $20 new back then thanks to flopping.

[Joe Redifer]

I rather liked the NES Gauntlet.

[tz101]

NES Gauntlet, Rolling Thunder, and Alien Syndrome rock. Tengen did some seriously good arcade ports for that system.

[TmEE]

I have tried playing SMS carts in a famiclone and the other way when I was younger.... that does not exactly work ^^

[KillerBean2]

Bastards. Awesome Possum, on the other hand, ended up plastered all OVER store shelves -- WORLDWIDE! WHY?!?

Nahh, the Europeans were not blessed with that turd :)

[Christuserloeser]

How do you know it's there fault it was only released in JP, same thing with Slap Fight (SHMUP). I though it was odd that Tengen ended up publishing that port as well and only as a JP release... (given that Tengen was an American company -the consumer division of Atari Games Corp.)

Tengen Japan published these games while the US division didn't know what to do with these pretty Japanese Toaplan games. I think both Slap Fight and Snow Bros. were pretty "old" by the time they released them in Japan. But so were Ms. Pac-Man and Gauntlet IV which Tengen did publish in the West.

http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/Interview:Mikito_Ichikawa

GDRI: Was Slap Fight MD done under contract with Toaplan?

Mikito Ichikawa: Slap Fight was not as mainstream as other Toaplan titles like Flying Shark, but we wanted to do a Mega Drive version of the game, so we proposed the idea to Toaplan ourselves. Similarly to A Ressha de Ikou, we were motivated to work on the project because it was something that we really wanted to do.

So this was a contract project, yes, but it was different from the usual "they wanted a port and hired someone" sort of contract.

Aside of Slap Fight MD and Snow Bros., Marble Madness was another game published by Tengen Japan that remained unreleased in the West:

Marble Madness, this is totally different to the EA version but also nearly impossible to find:
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[goldenband]

Yep, that Tengen Marble Madness is great! Damn close to arcade perfect, with much better sound than the EA version. I need to get a trackball to try out with it.

[kool kitty89]

Thanks, christuserloeser, I think I remember you mentioning that before now. ;) And that Marble Madness is almost Arcade perfect.... Too bad Atari Games didn't publish that one in the west too. (under Tengen)

[A Black Falcon]

Back as a kid, I always found those Tengen NES carts weird, compared to the regular carts. I didn't know if they could even be played on an NES, so I can see why one would confuse them for a Genny-playable cart.

Were any of Tengen's NES games even any good? I'm aware that people are fond/nostalgic over "RBI Baseball", and that they (or rather Namco) developed a great port of "Pac-Man". "Rolling Thunder" may have been good as well, but the SMS ports ("Alien Syndrome", SHINOBI, "After Burner") sucked hard, as did "Gauntlet".

Tengen was definitely good. Atari Games is one of the all-time great arcade game developers, and they brought a bunch of Atari Games games home, and usually did at least a decent job of it. Yes, not all of their games were amazing, but they definitely weren't all bad or something.

Wha... NES Gauntlet was amazing! I love the Gauntlet series, but the NES game is really, really impressive... it's not just an arcade port, it's an entirely original game. It's got an actual ending (around 100 levels, but it does eventually end), bosses every 20 levels or so, passwords (though it is hard to get them, with how you have to win bonus levels to get a password), character levels, good music, and more... it's very difficult, and the standard classic Gauntlet lifedrain system is quite frustrating, but it's a very good game.

Gauntlet II I actually like less, despite that it's a very good arcade port with much better graphics and four player play. For one I like that the first one had passwords and an ending; Gauntlet II, however, just loops at level 125 or something, and you have to play it all in one sitting. Plus, like the arcade games, it's got no ingame music. Eh, nice effort, and it does look nice (and 4-player is cool), but I'll take the first one, thanks. :)


Anyway, yeah, other than that, Tengen Tetris is almost certainly the best puzzle game of its generation. Vindicators is nowhere near as good as the arcade game of course, but they did a solid job for the NES. And they also had other stuff some people like like Klax, Super Sprint, Rampart, Paperboy... some like those games, some don't, but they're all pretty popular to say the least. And that's not counting the other Sega and Namco games (Fantasy Zone, Alien Syndrome, Shinobi, Rolling Thunder, Ms. Pac-Man, etc). Tengen actually made the home version of Ms. Pac-Man for a bunch of systems (NES, Genesis, SMS, SNES, etc), which added a whole bunch of modes to the classic.

(Of course, the original Ms. Pac-Man arcade game was also Western-developed.)

As for my least favorite Tengen NES games... hmm, their platformers, Skull & Crossbones and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, were average at best really I'd say. Not their best genre. Rolling Thunder I absolutely love, but of course there Namco developed it, Tengen just published it here.

[Enigmus]

What, no love for Vindicators? WHY?

[A Black Falcon]

Vindicators the arcade game is great... it's just that it's not as good on the NES, without the dual-stick controls.

[kool kitty89]

What makes Tengen Tetris better than the Nintendo Published versions... I've played a ROM of it and I don't see anything special other than it being more like the arcade version. (as with the rare GenesisMD release)

[molotovwars]

Both Slap Fight MD and Snow Bros were also released in Korea. There are a handful of "Japan only" games that also got Korean releases.

[kool kitty89]

Slap fight was released for the 3 big 8-bit micros in the EU market, not sure if the C64 version made it to the US though. (otherwise it was never ported to any home system in the US)

[chrisbid]

What makes Tengen Tetris better than the Nintendo Published versions... I've played a ROM of it and I don't see anything special other than it being more like the arcade version. (as with the rare GenesisMD release)

it was a port of the arcade game and it had a 2 player mode

control wise it was on par with the nintendo version, graphics slightly lower


overall i like it, but i do not think it is worth the high prices the cart commands

[Jibbajaba]

What makes Tengen Tetris better than the Nintendo Published versions... I've played a ROM of it and I don't see anything special other than it being more like the arcade version. (as with the rare GenesisMD release)

Head-to-head 2-player mode, 2-player co-op mode, better tetronimoe distribution due to the use of a superior algorithm, and the graphics and sound are better as they present a better Russian flavor. The NES release of the game has nothing on the Tengen version except for the price.

Chris

[17daysolderthannes]

I have tried playing SMS carts in a famiclone and the other way when I was younger.... that does not exactly work ^^

nonsense, you know the first thing you did when you got an SMS was mod it for S-video and clearer audio http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s190/specv4life/emot-colbert.gif

[kool kitty89]

nonsense, you know the first thing you did when you got an SMS was mod it for S-video and clearer audio http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s190/specv4life/emot-colbert.gif
:lol:

But honestly would he need to? It's already got RGB output and clean audio? Now modding with a YM2413...

[17daysolderthannes]

:lol:

But honestly would he need to? It's already got RGB output and clean audio? Now modding with a YM2413...

doesn't matter, he did it for practice. He's like the Chuck Norris of retro video game systems.

[A Black Falcon]

Head-to-head 2-player mode, 2-player co-op mode, better tetronimoe distribution due to the use of a superior algorithm, and the graphics and sound are better as they present a better Russian flavor. The NES release of the game has nothing on the Tengen version except for the price.

Superior algorythm? Hadn't heard that... huh. One more reason why Tengen's version is better. :)

You didn't mention, though, there's a 2 player co-op mode, and with 1 player CPU co-op and versus modes... the co-op modes are kind of odd, but vs. CPU mode is definitely nice to have. And I agree, better music, better Russian style (the music, the dancers between levels, etc). It is a little pricey, but it's a great game. Nintendo's version has some decent graphics and catchy music, but without all of those extra modes, with no multiplayer, and with less of a Russian feel, it's just not nearly as good. With multiplayer it'd be closer... but no, they left it out.

[Pulstar]

Back before most of you were glints in your fathers' eyes, I thought offspring came off assembly lines.. What? Oh, wrong thread..

Well we were all gullible at one point or another.. I actually believed someone who told me an MPEG card was required to play 3DO games with digitised sprites, despite my reading several magazines at the time which never mentioned that. Glad I did.. 3DO was a waste of potential.

And there was this whole 40meg SSF2 business. I briefly thought my puny model 1 Megadrive could never handle FORTY MEGS OF CAPCOMNESS.

[kool kitty89]

Well we were all gullible at one point or another.. I actually believed someone who told me an MPEG card was required to play 3DO games with digitised sprites, despite my reading several magazines at the time which never mentioned that. Glad I did.. 3DO was a waste of potential.

Buying it and games from the bargain bins (and used) in ~97 might have been a good value though. ;)

[shinobimusashi]

never heard the tengen nes cart myth but one time i found an sms after burner cartridge at a house i was remodelling before i ever knew anything about the sms so i assumed that it was an old school genesis cart, i was completely baffled when it wouldnt fit into the port. i even took the casing apart and tried to insert the card directly into the connectors, it fit but nothing happened. soon after i did some research and discovered the sms. that was around the same time i discovered www.sega-16.com if im not mistaken.