NES or Master system?

[Calabazam]

I had a SMS, that kept me a Sega afficionado afterwards.
I found the SMS to be far superior to the NES. Late games of the SMS are really impressives including Wonderboy 3, Sonic games, Disney platformers, Asterix. I am still found of the SMS sound.
Fortunately, we have a very nice SMS emulator on AGA Amiga with AmiMasterGear.
Never had a NES but played it a bit though. I find it not on SMS level most of the time (personal opinion).

[rothers]

SMS - The SMS hardware is pretty much a generation ahead of the NES. The homebrew scene is really showing what the SMS can do. You've got the wolfenstein port which is a cool WIP, but for me the best thing is just the hacked SMS sonic to have the Megadrive graphics/levels/sound:

[ Show youtube player ]

Best looking SMS game ever?

[TCD]

That is very impressive

[Anubis]

While SMS might have better specs than NES, NES does have some better games. I just finished Kirby's Adventures, nothing compares to that game on SMS. (sure, it came out bit late in NES life, but still impressive what that little gray box was able to do, including save progress of game rather than dumb passwords)

Catalog for both says the best...

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by Anubis

While SMS might have better specs than NES, NES does have some better games. I just finished Kirby's Adventures, nothing compares to that game on SMS. (sure, it came out bit late in NES life, but still impressive what that little gray box was able to do, including save progress of game rather than dumb passwords)

Catalog for both says the best...

No, no Kirby like game on the SMS.

The SMS do have some Disney platformers that gives the NES ones some serious run for their money, though. Actually, Land of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is, according to me, the best 8-bit Disney platformer ever. Only Duck Tales 2 comes close.

Also, no shmup on the NES can really, truly, compete with the technicality of Power Strike 2 and R-Type. Power Strike 2 feels like a 16-bit game crammed into an 8-bit console without losing that much in the process. But... well... Compile in both cases... yeah.

[rothers]

The Kirby game has a load of extra chips in the cart which makes it a bit unfair. It's like comparing Virtua Racing on the MD with the 3D chip to an Amiga game.

Wonderboy 3 is probably my fave SMS game, massive game with so many original (for the time) features. Wonderful graphics and music too.

[Legerdemain]

Originally Posted by rothers

The Kirby game has a load of extra chips in the cart which makes it a bit unfair. It's like comparing Virtua Racing on the MD with the 3D chip to an Amiga game.

Wonderboy 3 is probably my fave SMS game, massive game with so many original (for the time) features. Wonderful graphics and music too.

True, it is a Masterpiece.

If only the scrolling had not been so annoying. In 50 Hz it does not hurt the eyes that much, but in 60 Hz the jerkyness becomes extremely visible due to the game running faster.

Still, I love the game but the PC-Engine version makes it somewhat less attractive. Not only does it look better with more colours, it also has perfect scroll and some other small adjustments that just makes everything feel... nicer.

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by rothers

The Kirby game has a load of extra chips in the cart which makes it a bit unfair. It's like comparing Virtua Racing on the MD with the 3D chip to an Amiga game.

Wonderboy 3 is probably my fave SMS game, massive game with so many original (for the time) features. Wonderful graphics and music too.

Sega released SMS 2 years after NES was released. Not to defend Nintendo, but they did have nice selection of games, while I still prefer some of Sega SMS games, for example Ninja Gaiden - much better experience on SMS then on NES, but no need to trash either console. Both were good and much better than Atari offer.

Reading magazines from late 80s and earlier 90s, funny to even see Atari release 7800. What the hell where people working on that project thinking?! It was sad console that had only 1 positive thing - it was back compatible with 2600. (my first console ever )

BTW, Sonic on SMS is my favorite Sonic game. I am amazed with C64 port of the game.

[Nobby_UK]

Had a Master System 1 (and Mega Drive)

bought a NES mini clone recently

[AF2013]

First time I have played on Master system when I was 7 at the hospital and game was Super Hang on

[TCD]

Found this little gem last night and thought I share it here: [ Show youtube player ] (SMS demo)

[gimbal]

I had neither, would have loved either. But if I would have had to choose the decision would have been wickedly easy for me, the NES any day. Because Duck Hunt (+ gun...) and Mario. Those two bundled games alone made it a done deal. And then Duck Tales, Kirby, Gremlins 2, Snake Rattle & Roll, RC Pro AM, ... The NES could do no wrong for me when it came to the (popular) games.

SNES or Megadrive... now that would have been a head scratcher. It probably still would have been the SNES solely based on the fact that I would have been able to play Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart.

[str0m]

Originally Posted by Coagulus

I had the Game Gear with the TV tuner in my first flat as I had no TV.. had a bare wire stuck in my Amiga and wrapped around the aerial on the game gear (tuned to channel 36) so I could play some amiga games!

Awesome! I have a tale of something similar bodge wise!



It was 1997 give or take a year, on Uni placement year working, it was either football world cup or Euros something like that. We had a Game Gear with a TV tuner showing it hidden away, a webcam pointed at it's screen and then some early streaming software forget the name, began with R so that we could all watch it without management knowing. Hideous quality but better than nothing lol


To answer the question, didn't own either back in the day, got a Famiclone now and can play MS games on my MD but not really looked into the library for both. I was Amiga back then (after +4....) and would get multi format mags but always desired a PC Engine more

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by Coagulus

I had the Game Gear with the TV tuner in my first flat as I had no TV.. had a bare wire stuck in my Amiga and wrapped around the aerial on the game gear (tuned to channel 36) so I could play some amiga games!

That is a cool story. I still have TV tuner, but PAL version and I live in USA. (used to have a VCR that could output either one and also play either tape, quite expensive back in time when we purchased it), but with moves and my parents moving back to Europe,we somehow lost it. (I think my brother got rid of it without realizing what it was). Still wonder if I should open broken GG and try to figure out what is going on. (just white screen, no Sega logo or anything else showing when you turn it on)

Originally Posted by gimbal

I had neither, would have loved either. But if I would have had to choose the decision would have been wickedly easy for me, the NES any day. Because Duck Hunt (+ gun...) and Mario. Those two bundled games alone made it a done deal. And then Duck Tales, Kirby, Gremlins 2, Snake Rattle & Roll, RC Pro AM, ... The NES could do no wrong for me when it came to the (popular) games.

SNES or Megadrive... now that would have been a head scratcher. It probably still would have been the SNES solely based on the fact that I would have been able to play Super Mario World and Super Mario Kart.

I thought that Metroid and Final Fantasy were reason enough. Sure, there is Phantasy Star on SMS, but still...

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by rothers

The Kirby game has a load of extra chips in the cart which makes it a bit unfair. It's like comparing Virtua Racing on the MD with the 3D chip to an Amiga game.

That's not unfair. Even Super Mario 1 has extra chips in the cart. You bought a cartridge, not knowing or caring what was inside, only caring about the game. The fact that Sega cartridges do not support extra chips is only to Sega's own detriment.

Wonderboy 3 is probably my fave SMS game, massive game with so many original (for the time) features. Wonderful graphics and music too.

Agree, though it is so hard to solve as to be unsolvable.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Anubis

I thought that Metroid and Final Fantasy were reason enough.

For 8yo me? Not those games. I didn't even know they existed to be honest. Nobody had them.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Anubis

I thought that Metroid and Final Fantasy were reason enough.

That reminds me about Final Fantasy IV (FF II in the US) which looked like a NES game on the SNES. Loved the game, but when I later saw Final Fantasy V with a fan translation that was released just a year later it was really obvious that Square just released the game they made for NES with a few improvements on the SNES. Those cheap bastards! (still love the game)

[gimbal]

Meanwhile they have released the game probably 6 times by now Hard to keep track.

[Kagesan]

It’s interesting how much the experiences differ.

The Master System was my first console. I got one for Christmas 1987 (?) from my parents instead of the Atari 2600 that had actually been on my wishlist. Thanks, mom and dad!
The SMS was fairly common here in Germany. Back in school I knew three other kids who had one, but not one who had an NES. All of them, including me, later upgraded to Amigas.

Apart from the poor sound chip, the SMS hardware is pretty great, and doesn’t have any of the weird quirks the NES video hardware has. Looking at the game library, NES clearly wins, though. While I do think that its signal to noise ratio is slightly worse than that of the SMS, the sheer number of releases makes sure that the good to great games on the system vastly outnumber their counterparts on the Sega side.

I still got both my old Amiga (one of those butt-ugly New Art models) and my original Master System, btw. I even make homebrew games for the latter.

[BigD]

The NES was completely 'out of time' in the UK market! It relied on gimmicks like the ROB robot, Duck Hunt and the Super Mario Bros. 3 hype to keep it WHSmiths at the time! Only one person I knew got one and it was after the MegaDrive launched! They really wanted an Amiga and only bragged about SMB3. The Sega Master System actually had good market penetration and riffed off the Game Gear library to keep it relevant!