http://gameads.gamepressure.com/tv_game_commercial.asp?ID=2476 Found this site and was amazed. But when did this come out if it did?
1986 or so. Mario 2 and Zelda debuted on that format, though it never came here. Any Famicom disk system games that came out here in the US cart format were either converted to battery backup or passwords to handle saving. Remember seeing those "Save/Load" features in the US cart versions of Excitebike and Wrecking Crew? (they were part of Nintendo's "programmable series") Presumably they were planning on releasing the disk drive at some point and those features were left in to take advantage of the saving feature.
Don't forget Kid Icarus, Metroid, Castlevania 1 & 2 Huh? How would a US cart Excitebike use the FDS to save?
When you create a custom Excitebike track, there's an option to "Save" or "Load"...it doesn't do anything if you select it though. My guess since the game itself doesn't have a battery and was originally released as a FDS game, would be that had Nintendo released the disk system in the USA, maybe they would have allowed you to save tracks to a blank disk. THe manual itself explains that the "Save" and "Load" functions may be supported at a future time, something which never did actually happen.
I understood what you meant but the US version of Excitebike is bit for bit the same as the 1984 Japanese release which predates FDS and of course the 1987 VS Excitebike. The load/save function must be there for another reason. Maybe the game generically writes/loads to/from $6000 in case a SRAM adapter was released later or something.
From my experiences the original Nintendo disks have held up pretty well. If you buy a sealed FDS disk, chances are it'll work. Only one of the dozen original disks I have doesn't work and it may be because I might have accidentally written over part of it... My bootleg diskettes are another story, they're exceptionally difficult to load because most have lost crucial data or have too much debris/blemishes on the disk surface to load or the disks have just completely lost their magnetism...
Magnetic media doesn't die *that* easily! I have video tapes and Spectrum game tapes from the late '80s that still play OK, and I have loads of fully functional 5.25" floppies - God knows how old some of them are, especially the 40-track ones!
i don't know if nintendo of japan still make it, but last year you were still able to send a FDS disk to nintendo with a certain amount of cash, and they could write a game for you (wich you choosed in a special catalog.) if you have an US top loader, you can use the FDS on it with ease. If you have the toaster and still want to play a FDS on it though, you'll need some mod skills. a Final Fantasy game was released on it, but i don't remember wich one. Also, the first seiken destsu was planned on this format first. They claimed it would be the biggest RPG ever made (for the time) and would fit on 5 disks. You could even pre-order the game at a certain time, but everything was canceled. If you search a bit, you can even find the famous and only screenshot of the game. A rumor says that someone is owning a prototype of the game, it could be true (and i think it is, personnally) but it's only rumors.
A Final Fantasy was never released on FDS. I thought Nintendo long stopped writing disks for people. Now that they officially discontinued the AV FC, they probably have stopped servicing FC hardware altogether.
The save/load functions in Excitebike used the Famicom cassette recorder (audio cassette tape), IIRC. Not the FDS.
Yeah, I had a load of C64 floppies up until I sold my system a year ago. It all depends on how the disks are cared for. I did copy all my regularly played games to 3.5" disks because they were more reliable and stored more data, but I hauled out the 5 1/4"s every so often and they almost always worked. ...word is bondage...
Bootleg Craig You can also find cartdump bootlegs of most FD games... the good ones anyway... ~Krelian
Yeah, there was no Final Fantasy ever made on FDS as Kyuusaku said. There was the original Seiken Densetsu, which was indeed supposed to be a multi-disc RPG masterpiece, but it apparently wasn't going well and Square refunded the preorders for it. Being pretty well in the hole at the time, Square began work on their "Final Fantasy" that would hopefully save the company... And the rest, as the kids say, is history. I'd like to get a cart bootleg of the original Super Mario Bros. 2, but first I need to find that damn elusive Famicom-NES adaptor they liked to hide in early NES carts... And weren't Zelda, Metroid, and Kid Icarus later officially released on cartridge as well?
indeed, were do you think birdos and shy guys came from? anyway, as for the FF on FDS, my mistake, they were suposed to release it on this format, there was even a special group made by square to work on special projects on FDS (seiken and FF) but this group never made anything at the end. as for a cart bootleg of the original mario bros 2, i know where i can find some, GSL. Remember my super video club with sealed nes games and all? well, they got 2 for rent. I know you asked me to ask them to sell it, but so far it didn't succed, and i promise i'll never forget that you wanted one if the finnally decided to sell 'em. i'll certainly get a job this summer, and i'll try to make them a good offer.
I recall there being a bootleg fami-cart that had Super Mario, Super Mario 2, the American super Mario 2, Mario Bros. and Super Mario 3. I think they called one of these "Golden Mario" in the menu. It didn't have any of the horrible hacks, either. Quite a good multicart - but some "friend" stole it when we were in the 8th or 9th grade. And ironically the cart was called "Super Mario Party" like the newer, legitimate N64/Cube games.
