nesdev.org

Most NES games are created by the Japanese, but there were a few American and European developers as well. So, what I'd like to know: What are specific attributes of NES games that are accoiated with European and with American developers?

For Europe there is for example the use of the arpeggio effect in the soundtrack. (Which also happens in most C64 games because of its European dominance.) This is completely unheard of in Japanese NES games.

What other things come to mind?

American games: MS-DOS font. Woeful pixel art. Imagineering.

ccovell wrote:American games: MS-DOS font.

In NES games?

ccovell wrote:Imagineering.

I don't know what do you mean.

Can you please name examples?


Examples to my own point: "Lethal Weapon", "Asterix", "The Smurfs".

The font in Crystal Mines and Joshua by Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree is the PC BIOS font. But apart from those two, I don't remember seeing any NES games that used it, licensed or unlicensed. Klax (Tengen) and Krazy Kreatures (AVE) used a different font, as did Exodus (WT). Mario Is Missing, developed by the Canadian studio Radical Entertainment, also used a font other than that of the PC BIOS.

Here's my collection of 8x8 fonts again

I assume that by "American", we're excluding the games after December 31, 1996, which I take as the date dividing the commercial era from the homebrew era.

Europe had Rare, Tim Follin (composer), Elite (game), some cool stuff.

The only good US made games I can find are ports by Atari (Tengen). You can thank us for all of the Color Dreams and Wisdom Tree stuff.

One aspect I noticed of US publishers is that they don't like to pay anything to Nintendo, and instead prefer to circumvent the lockout chip. A lot of unlicensed terrible US made games.

Partial list of US-based NES game developers licensed by Nintendo:

Absolute aka Imagineering: New Jersey
Activision: California
Acclaim: New York
Farsight (Videomation): California
Hi Tech: New York
THQ: Illinois

Yeah Imagineering had a very recognizable style. They reused sound effects in many of their games, pixel art was in a similar (not particularly great) style, and the same musician (Mark Van Hecke) made most of their music. Mark Van Hecke really liked to use triangle leads in his music, something I'm not very fond of.

However I wouldn't say those were "american" traits, more so "imagineering" traits.

BTW (from tepples' list) at least Acclaim and Hi Tech Expressions also (or only?) published games made by other studios. Acclaim published stuff from at least RARE and Imagineering. Hi Tech Expressions published stuff from Software Creations (UK) and Beam Software (Australia), and probably others.

thefox wrote:However I wouldn't say those were "american" traits, more so "imagineering" traits.

Right. This is about things that many American developers share, not things that a specific company uses within its various games. If there even is something that's typical for the American developers.

Several games that were made outside of Japan fail to listen to bit 1 of controller reads, which means they don't support controllers using the Famicom expansion port. Not something you'd be able to notice with just an NES (unless you're a weirdo that knows how to use its expansion port), but it's a feature of the code, and comes up if you try to play these games in a Famicom with an adapter.

e.g. Solar Jetman (European made, no Famicom release), Battletoads (NA/EU releases, the later Famicom port does handle expansion controllers but it also has modified levels, etc.)

Common smells of '80s Europe games:
-Lots of arpeggios, for better or worse
-The character stares straight into the camera when idle
-Broader acceptance of sub-60fps graphical updates
-Pillow shading (harder to do on NES, though)

Of course, these are umbrella generalizations. There are great European games of the time.

mikejmoffitt wrote:-Pillow shading

I wanted to mention this, but completely forgot the name. This is *very* evident in SNES games.

thefox wrote:Mark Van Hecke [of Imagineering] really liked to use triangle leads in his music, something I'm not very fond of.

mikejmoffitt wrote:Common smells of '80s Europe games:
-Lots of arpeggios, for better or worse

If you didn't know I was American, then which country would you think my "Byelomorye Dam Zone" medley sounds like? It has both a triangle countermelody and arps.

Typical European attributes : Hard as hell, focus on specific genres (racing games, casual games, side scrollers), C64-like music and ports

Typical American attributes : Dull graphics, limited or terrible music, poor controls, movie licenses, sometimes an interesting game mechanic (A Boy and His Blob)

If we're to include elements outside of NES games, I'll add some more things which stood out to me every time I think about having a look at Amiga, Atari ST, or other comparable home computer offers from Europe:

-irritating sound effect choice (how many Amiga games have you played where the jump sound is a terrible "spring" sound sample?)
-gradient backdrops
-awkward humanoid animations where the torso of the character remains nearly stationary and the rest of the body conveys no weight (looking at you, Turrican)

So I'll sum it up:

Quality:
1st place: Japanese
2nd place: European
3rd place: American

(of course, there are plenty of examples that defy this though)

...I'm proud to be an American...