Hands-On: Afterburner (NES)

[Melf]

Sega’s adrenaline-soaked fighter game has made an appearance on every single piece of its hardware since the Master System. It was also released on a ton of other consoles, including the NES, and this last machine actually got a competent little port, courtesy of Tengen. Nintendo fans can fly the unfriendly skies too! Read the full review for all the supersonic details!

[Curryman123]

Kool...better than the SmS version.

[GohanX]

NES or SMS version...hmmm. I think the correct answer is "Neither."

[cheaterdragon1]

There was one thing I wish would've been mentioned in that article. What is a Sega game doing on the NES? Also the article said Tengen usually doesn't put effort into their games. Although I've never played any Tengen games, from what I've read on NintendoAge Tengen is supposed to be a very good developer. They produced the only unlicensed games that were worth buying.

[StarMist]

There was one thing I wish would've been mentioned in that article. What is a Sega game doing on the NES?

Not sure; company advertising and a broader base of revenue for lower profit franchises? Fantasy Zone and Alien Syndrome were also on NES by Tengen.

Also the article said Tengen usually doesn't put effort into their games. Although I've never played any Tengen games, from what I've read on NintendoAge Tengen is supposed to be a very good developer. They produced the only unlicensed games that were worth buying.

This has a lot to do with Hard Drivin on Genesis and Shinobi on NES; less perhaps with Pac Man on NES where there are usually considered to be tradeoffs according to taste. They also released some titles that are innately low effort such as Road Runner (yes, the cartoon bird) which only an entirely new idea could've saved. But nothing is wrong with Super Sprint, Vindicators, Gauntlet 1 2, and 4, Rolling Thunder, Paperboy, Roadblasters, and if I recall the RBI games (which I've never played on console, I just haven't seen them bashed). Grindstormer also came off poorly on Genesis but it was really too much for the console and the market; it probably would've taken EWJ kind of dedication to make that run right.

[SEGA.GENESIS1989]

Alot of people dislike this game for some reason. But for an NES game, I think TENGEN did a decent job. Especially when you consider that this was a 1987 title.

[Phantar]

There was one thing I wish would've been mentioned in that article. What is a Sega game doing on the NES? Also the article said Tengen usually doesn't put effort into their games. Although I've never played any Tengen games, from what I've read on NintendoAge Tengen is supposed to be a very good developer. They produced the only unlicensed games that were worth buying.

Seriously? From what I know, Tengen mostly slapped together some lackluster Arcade ports, rarely even utilizing the full potential their console of choice had to offer. The only thing where Tengen was kinda lauded for their efforts, if I recall correctly, is that their NES-port of Tetris was considered to be superior to the Nintendo version, since it was closer to the Arcade-version and had a two-player mode. But since they didn't have the console-rights, they were forced to pull that one of the shelves. Kinda ironic if you think of it... they one time they put in some decent efforts, it directly leads to them getting forced to pull their product...

[Bloodreign]

I believe Fantasy Zone was ported to FC in Japan by Sunsoft.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Theres also a version of After Burner for the Famicom that was ported over by Sunsoft. Might be interesting to see that shown in a similar article.

[GohanX]

It was a pretty common practice at the time for most companies that weren't Nintendo to license games to other companies who wanted to port their games. Money talks, I suppose.

There are a ton of Sega ports on PC Engine. Also, NEC Avenue ported a lot of Capcom games to the system as well, usually with great results. If you start looking at Japanese computers, there are even more ports.

[NeoZeedeater]

I believe Fantasy Zone was ported to FC in Japan by Sunsoft.

And it's much better than the Tengen version. Tengen should have licensed it like they did with Alien Syndrome.