Now I’ve played all the Famicom Disk System games I have, and also a few new ones I recently got. It’s the first console I have that uses disks instead of cartridges (except for playing floppy disks on PC which I did back in the day) and it’s different in many ways.
Here’s the intro when you start up a Famicom Disk System:
One downside with playing Famicom Disk System games is the load times, which is something you never experienced on the cartridge systems, and sometimes they’re extremely lengthy. However, they only appear in the beginning when starting. Otherwise the music and graphics have to some extent been enhanced in many of the Famicom Disk games.
The most noticeable difference between cartridge games and the disk games is usually the enhanced music. You can hear an example here where I recorded the intro of Metroid on Famicom Disk System:
The biggest benefit of playing a game, that you might as well could have played on a cartridge (like Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania etc), is that you are able to save your progress when playing on the Famicom Disk System. It’s not always an option, but most lengthy games have the feature. I was incredibly happy when I started my Castlevania for the Disk System and realized there were already saved files on there, and this one person had saved the game right before the Dracula battle! ^_^
Here’s the gameplay and stage music of Castlevania for Famicom Disk System:
Here are some various videos of other games I tried out on my Disk System:
Nazo no Murasamejou! Awesome game, with great music ^_^
Some Donkey Kong Jr on the Famicom Disk System (it was the first time I actually played this Donkey Kong game, and it took some time to figure out how the hell it worked):
Patlabor, a platformer game only released in Japan:
A weird platformer called Kinnikuman (not a very good one..):
The intro music for Karate Champ, with some gameplay animations thrown in to create some action ^^
And of course Super Mario Bros:
Retro Video Gaming 
whew, already saved to dracula! that disc is worth money!
Rly? I didn’t pay much for it ;D and there’s actually 2 save files on it, both saved to dracula :D I really tried my hardest to beat the bastard yesterday but damn! That was hard… >_< I came close though =)
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You really lucked out with the Castlevania save! It’s pretty cool to see (or mostly hear) the subtle differences between the disks and their cartridge counterparts.
Yeah, it’s still 8-bit, just a little bit better ^_^ I really like the enhanced Metroid intro song ^^ And that they created extra sceneries for the save screens like in Castlevania =)
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Yeah, the little extras that they added in with some of the games definitely enhance the experience. It’s too bad a lot of people don’t even realize this system existed.
Yeah, it’s a shame. That’s why I blog about it ^_^
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Donkey Kong Jr !! <3<3<3 I had forgotten it! Loved to play that one. The small aligators are so cute. ^_^
They sure are ^_^ You should come over an play it with me!! :D Girls gaming weekend? ;D
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I have the Mega Disk for the Sega Mega Drive but it really was just a bootlegging device. It didn’t have these extras.
The ability to save a game that was normally not savable is a huge perk! Back in the day this device must have really rocked let alone now being very rare and a super cool.
Are the all the disk you have working? I’m surprise that 3.5″ floppy disks are still in good order! Although, looking at the disk in your picture it looks like a lot more effort was put into them than regular blank disks from back then. This is a very good find.
The Famicom Disk System was officially released by Nintendo, so I guess they put a lot of effort into it to make it an extension to the regular Famicom worth the money. And yup, all the games are still working perfectly ^_^ They’re a a bit smaller than the ones for the PC and a bit thicker. It also feels like the plastic is a bit harder, I don’t know if that would make a difference in how well they perform after some decades..
They are all yellow, and have Nintendo imprinted in the plastic on the bottom.
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Nice! I have a black Sharp Twin Famicom here and a bunch of disks, but I haven’t had the chance to fire the system up in about a year or so. I’m still kicking myself for passing up a shoebox filled with Famicom Disks I saw at a flea market back in the late 90’s. I hadn’t been interested in the system then, but I should have snapped that lot of games up, as I recall them being not expensive at all because the seller thought they were just floppy disks for some “chinese computer” (!!!). Argh…
omg, that’s gotta hurt >_< I hate it when that happens, you see something and you don't realize until years later the value of that thing you disregarded..
I want a twin Famicom too!! So much easier than having to connect it through the Famicom!
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I just remembered that those disks were about five bucks each, which I thought was too much at the time, so I’m officially stamping myself with the “STUPID!” sticker for the day. My only redemption here was picking up Princess crown and some other Saturn imports for a crazy price from another market where the seller thought they were music CD’s (I think I cleared him out of nine games for around $30)…
The Twin Famicom is pretty reliable overall – I forgot what I paid for mine, but I know it had no power cable, so I was able to get it for a reasonable price a while back…
I can’t wait to try out Metroid and Castlevania on the FDS, oh and Nazo no Murasamejou I have that one coming in the mail :)
I can’t wait to get more fds games and check out Castlevania and Metroid, oh and Nazo no Murasamejou I have that one coming in the mail :)
Did you order them all? :)
lol I’ve going to get Castlevania and Metroid written onto 2 games I have and get err 27 on, plus they were SD Gundam RPG’s that were all in Japanese that I couldn’t really play anyways :p
I can’t reply below so I’ll reply here.
If they didn’t try out what was on the disks, demand a refund. I don’t always try out the boxed FDS games I sell, because those games have always matched for me. But I do try out the loose disks I sell. (I claim to do it anyways)
Err 27 is more likely due to the famicom disk system not being properly calibrated.
A buyer actually just told me he got Error 23 from a Metroid that worked well for me. I will allow him to exchange it with another one I have.
Hope my comment helped in some way.
I only had one game that didn’t work, it worked until it told me to change to side B, then it was just black and the machine turned quiet.. what does that mean? ;D
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I have Metroid on the way and I got Nazo no Murasame here :) I haven’t found Castlevania for a decent price yet though
Awesome! I’m trying to get around to playing some Binary Land! But I’ve been so busy with everything else, this weekend is my bf’s birthday as well, and next weekend is mine >_< busy busy
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Aw, I missed your blog post again, need some way to track this…
Thanks for the videos, and I’m glad you liked the games…
geelw: maybe it was pirate disks, in countries such as the US they are very common…
Oh, they were real Disk System games, alright. Between the seller not knowing what to price them at and me not jumping on them when I should have when he did come up with a price (I think I didn’t have enough money, as he wanted to sell the entire box and I didn’t have a Famicom or Disk System or Twin Famicom at the time, so I passed on the lot), it was one of those things that happens…
But maybe they were mostly junk games? :) You can get my fds junk games cheap too if you want them :P
Anyways , I enjoyed the SMB play through. Maybe because I actually never beat it on the original hardware. Did you know the FDS version has a different minus world? Well it does.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB2i-QOsBpw
Also, a trivia note is that Donkey Kong Jr. is the rarest of these games for the fds, since most people already had it on cart…
Maybe we’ll get a play-through of SMB 2 on the fds some day too?
i don’t think ALL of them were “junk” games. Brief version, it was a shoebox with about 30-40 games. All complete, from what I recall save for two disks with no labels. The seller had a Japanese roommate who left them there (I think there was a system too, but from what I remember, he forgot to bring it because he had a table full of other stuff). It was more a case of me being broke and not smart enough to ask him to hang onto that box until I could come back and buy the lot.
Cool! I’ll have to see that minus world on my Famicom disk smb when I get home ^_^
What colour is your Twin Famicom? :)
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