 S... That's drunk. Hi there, a long while back I made a video highlighting some of the best Famicom games that never left Japan, but were still English friendly enough to be playable, even if you don't speak or read Japanese. Games like Moon Crystal, Gimmick, and Holy Diver. Let's keep that going a bit with a part two, so here's 12 more games that fit that same criteria. Again, just like the first video, I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail here. The whole idea is just to introduce the game, show off some footage, and give some basic information about the game so you can decide for yourself whether or not you'd like to check it out. For whatever reason, Konami had a whole bunch of 8-bit games that never left Japan. Most confusing of all was Goonies. Now, not Goonies too, but the first Goonies game made by Konami in 1986 that was only released on cartridge in Japan and Europe. But it did show up on some PlayChoice 10 arcade cabinets here and there in North America. In this game, you got a health bar with three lives to get through six levels jumping around and kicking enemies as Mikey, with the idea being to find three doors in each level that you have to blow up with the bomb to grab a key or whatever item is in there. So yeah, this is a bit of a wander around and figure out where the heck to go kind of a game. And as you can see, this game doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles. It's got that old NES black box game style to it, which would make sense since this was made in 1986. This is a really forgiving game though, and if you dig the Goonies, you'll enjoy this game. Here's another simple, fast-paced platformer from Konami called Hinotori Ho-ohen Gaonoboken. This one coming along in early 1987, and what you see here is what you get. You get a health bar with three lives to get through up to 16 levels, and this one is a bit confusing from a structure standpoint since you have to go back and complete certain levels more than once. And not only that, the game can end up trapped in certain parts, leaving you no choice but to press the select button which kills yourself and allows you to start the level over. Yish, that's harsh. Yeah, this isn't the best game on this list, but it's a solid platformer with that certain Konami polish when it comes to the controls, so it's a good way to kill 30 minutes or so. You want more Konami? YY World has got you covered. This is your classic mascot platformer featuring Konami Man as your main protagonist, but there's tons of other playable characters here. Everyone from Goemon to Simon Belmont to the aforementioned Mikey from the Goonies. There's a total of 12 different Konami characters you can play as, plus you run into all sorts of other characters that help you along the way, as you play through six levels pulled straight from other games, everything from Twinbee to Gradius to Castlevania to Contra. This is a really fun one that you should definitely check out, especially if you're a fan of this particular era of NES titles. Hey, what the heck, let's stick with even more Konami stuff with Gradius II. Two major things stick out about this game for me. One is the performance. It's pretty crazy that this game is able to play as well as it does for an NES shoot-em-up. Some of the settings here are really impressive, and there's not as much flickering or slowdown as you'd think. It does pop up here and there once in a while, of course, but the game does a surprising job handling all the crazy stuff going on-screen at once, which brings me to my second point. This game is ridiculously hard, even for a shoot-em-up. My God, man, right from the get-go in the first level, you're gonna get crushed if you don't immediately lock your brain into shoot-em-up mode and unfocus your eyes and just dodge while holding down the fire button. I'd only recommend this one to shoot-em-up veterans, but I just really wanted to point this one out because it looks and plays surprisingly well for an 8-bit game. Speaking of performance and graphics and all that cool stuff, Falicyon may be even more impressive, and holy crap, this is a frickin' rail shooter on the Famicom? Well, it was actually made for the disc system, made to be compatible with the Famicom 3D system peripheral, meaning this game was meant to be played with these big, goofy glasses. But thankfully, this game can be played in just a regular 2D mode, and again, just like Gradius II, this game is really impressive, but also really, really hard. Still, this game is similarly rewarding because the further you progress, the more of these settings you get to see. Okay, they're extremely limited and kind of cheap-looking, but I love it. This is one of those things where you can practically feel the console sweating as it tries its hardest to keep this game as fast and smooth as possible. Falicyon is more of a curiosity than a recommendation. I had fun with it, but I admit it's pretty limited, and, like I said, really frickin' hard. Here's another fast-paced game, this one being a 2D action platformer made by DBSoft in 1986 titled Layla. This is a story-driven game inspired by Dirty Pear, where the title character Layla gets Eric clapped in on his knees and begging darling, please. I mean, she's got a rescuer partner, Iris, going through eight levels divided into two stages each. The gameplay is pretty straightforward, but there's some secret areas here and there that you can find that allow you to find more weapons and items. It can be kind of confusing to know where to go at times. It reminds me of the Sega Master System game, Zilean, in that regard. But still, this one's a lot of fun. Your character can get super overpowered at times, which is always a good time in games like this, especially once you regain your computer AI-controlled partner for additional firepower. The controls can be a bit floaty, and your character's momentum is a bit drifty, but it's nothing game-breaking, and this is still just a solid game. Next, we have Splatterhouse 1 Paco Graffiti. Yes, that's right, there's a Splatterhouse game on NES, and no, it is not at all what you think. Here, in this game made by Namco in 1989, all the characters and enemies are drawn in an SD or Super Deformed method. I can't help but think that Namco really wanted a Nintendo version of Splatterhouse, but they knew they couldn't get away with any gore, so they just went full Saturday morning cartoon with it. This game moves a lot faster than your traditional Splatterhouse fare, as you can see, and the game is way more of a platformer than a beat-em-up, and the controls here are great for that style of game. You start out with a small health meter, but you can increase your damage threshold by earning experience points as indicated in the upper left. This is a really fun one with a ton of personality. There's lots of other callbacks to other horror stuff in popular culture. I mean, at the end of the first level, you're stuck watching Dracula and zombie minions dance to Michael Jackson's thriller before you start the boss fight. If you're looking for something much, much simpler, there's games like Battle City, which is pretty much like Atari's combat, only with more stuff to blow up. This is a Namco game from 1985, and it's the successor to 1980's Tank Battalion, and it got an arcade follow-up in 1991 titled Tank Force. Battle City is as simple as it gets, though. You roll onto the map from the top of the screen, and then you try and make your way through the map to blow up your enemy and their base without getting blown up yourself. There's 35 different maps here, and eventually you run into terrain and obstacles that require special items to get past. So this game is at least a little more than meets the eye. Still, if you think simpler is better, then check out Battle City. But hey, let's go back again to action platformers, this one made by Irem in 1993 called Kaiketsu, Yonchimaru 3, or Kid Nicky 3. I covered the second game in the previous video in this series, and the first Kid Nicky actually got a release in North America in 1987. But Kid Nicky 3 is pretty different, and it's a much better game than those two. I don't wanna oversell this one too much, but I get a big time Mega Man vibe from this game, since you can slide and use your sword to shoot a projectile. Plus there's some single room one-on-one boss fights, there's wall jumps, there's hidden areas, there's all sorts of different settings. I'd go as far as to say this is one of the better Famicom games never to reach the US, but I might be biased because I love games like this, where you're given a ton of different abilities that allow you to breeze through the game, no problem. And even though you don't need one, this game does have an English patch available, so definitely check this game out. Here's a game that was actually developed and published by Nintendo, Nazonomura Samejo, and it was one of the first games released for the old Famicom Disk System, along with the Legend of Zelda back in 1986. And Zelda is probably the game this one compares best to. It's a top-down adventure game where you go from dungeon to dungeon, screen by screen, destroying bad guys with a myriad of weapons. But the main differences here are the settings of feudal Japan and the fact that there's not really any items or any puzzle solving. This one's just pure action and it's pretty good too. There's five worlds, so to speak, split up into two different segments, outside the castle and inside. This is a really interesting title and if you wanna know more, I recommend checking out Jeremy Parrish's video on the game. Okay, fine. One more Konami game that never left Japan. This one is Mikyujan Dababa. And this one is a top-down action puzzle game and it plays similar to the dungeons in Star Tropics, as you can see with how this dude hops around from tile to tile. There's plenty of sections throughout this game where you gotta figure out which order you have to jump in in order to unlock the next part of the game or to just get some health or a useful item. This one can get pretty hard because you have to do this while enemies are all around you, but if you're into maze-like puzzle games like this with a little action to them, then you gotta try this one out. Ah, what the heck, since we're here, let's do one more Konami Japan exclusive and this is a good one. Aromano Nukiseki is like if you took Castlevania and put it in an Indiana Jones setting and gave the main character the mechanical arm from Bionic Commando. It even features all the sound effects from Castlevania. You get six different weapons you can use, everything from bombs, bolas, daggers, and crystals which are clear screen attacks. This one is fun and really unconventional. It doesn't really play like any other NES game, mostly because of the weird grappling hook that only works at that particular angle, kinda weird. But yeah, the music is awesome, the graphics, enemy design, and boss design are all awesome. And all the different weapons you get make this one really fun to crank through despite the wonky physics and the weird jumping mechanics. This is a game I'll have to come back to for its own video because it's pretty dang fun and it's unique in the NES and Famicom library. All right, that's 12 games for you and that's all I got for now. I wanna thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.