I'm aware of the games that uses sound enhancement chips (famicomworld), but not all of them provides enhanced graphics over the american releases counterpart. I'm became curious of which other japanese games can graphically do what contra can, for example, that the american version cannot (and possible, vice versa?) I know neither american nor european version could do that (tress canopy on 2:15). It would be nice mount a list of games with that kind of difference...
It's not an advanced graphics thing. The Famicom is the exact same hardware as the NES. They are the same console with just a different name and look. The only hardware differences are with NTSC vs PAL consoles. PAL systems have a slower CPU and a different PPU that outputs 50Hz video with PAL color. The Japanese version of Contra is different from the American and PAL versions. That's why it's like that. There are Famicom games that got things stripped out when brought overseas to the USA and Europe. The Legend of Zelda is a prime example. In both the floppy version and the Famicom cart version, it has support for the Famicom microphone whereas the NES cart versions do not have this feature, even when played on a Famicom using a 72 pin to 60 pin adapter. In addition, only the floppy version has expansion audio.
The FDS versions of Zelda and Zelda II both had a number of differences from their Famicom/NES counterparts, mostly audio changes, but also a few graphical changes as well. Most of the graphical changes could be just chalked up to the developers wanting to make improvements and adjustments for the later Famicom/NES ports (making the NES version graphically superior, actually), but there are still a couple I would classify as enhancements on the FDS version. For example, in Zelda II, they were able to get the water to animate on the overworld, but it remains static in the NES version.
Metal Storm has a full on intro on the Famicom version, whereas the NES version boots straight to the title screen
Its nice, but in actual gameplay have you noticed a big difference? I mean, the graphics in real time like the contra example.
No. I dunno, Life force got an animated title screen in the Japanese release I guess. There's not really many examples that are as drastic as contra as far as "enhanced" animations. At least on the famicom hardware, I know sonic 1 looked better in Japan than in the US release.
Part of it was cost reasons so they could use less memory or a cheaper chip that might not support some of those graphic effects. For instance while the vrc6 could do some better graphic effects its main feature was audio expansion. Considering it would of been ridiculous to use the chip in the US version since its main feature couldn't be used Konami opted to use the mmc5 since it could handle most of the graphics needed.
