in the early days of the famicom games
could only hold up to 40 KOB of ROM
space this meant that games had to be
smaller in size and more simplistic but
with the standards changing and
developers demanding more space the
maximum allowance would be increased but
what actually is the largest NES game
the answer will surprise you let's take
a
[Music]
look going on it's poer coming at with
another video you notice anything
different all right if you've seen a
couple my videos and you like what I do
hit the Subscribe button right there and
don't forget to check out our Discord
server
discord.net I'll also put a link in the
description all right let's talk about
the biggest NES game
picon Game cartridges could only hold up
the 32 KOB of prg memory and 8 KOB of
CHR memory which is the graphics data
totaling to 40 Koby this was a perfectly
reasonable limit at the time Donkey Kong
Jr didn't need more than 40 Koby and was
the best console version at the time the
native limits of the famcom were
perfectly fine for early arcade ports
and smaller single screen games Nintendo
would make a breakthrough with Super
Mario Brothers despite only having 40
Koby to work with they were able to make
a massive game this wasn't just a single
screen these were horizontally scrolling
levels and multiple of them but this
game really ate up all the NES resources
and was the best you could do with such
a low amount of ROM space knowing that
40 KOB would not be enough long term
Nintendo designed the famicom and NES to
support enhancement chips these are
chips that go inside the cartridge and
boost the capabilities of the game
beyond the Hardware's normal limits
companies in Japan were making their own
enhancement chips also known as mappers
but Nintendo of America had their own
approved chips that had to be used you
weren't allowed to use your own mappers
one of the first mappers approved by
Nintendo was CN ROM this allowed for
Bank switching which essentially gave
you 64 KOB of total ROM space this is a
small improvement over the original 40
KOB one game that benefited from this
chip was Adventure Island it's a
platformer where you just walk to the
right you start off completely
defenseless but you can obtain the
hammer which lets you hit any enemies
you can also grab the skateboard but
it's a double-edged sword it does grant
you an extra hit but you can't stop
moving there are secret items which can
be found by using your Hammer these can
include special weapon upgrades or a
bonus stage the level design is very
linear but I like that there's almost
never any paths you can go you just
follow the road to the end I'm not a big
fan of exploration type games so I
prefer this the game has a lot of
diagonal scrolling across the stages the
NES typically had trouble doing this so
so I respect that Hudson was able to
pull it off despite the mapper though
the developers still had to cut Corners
to save space the game reuses a lot of
background Graphics but with a different
color palette most of the level layouts
were recycled later in the game but with
minor changes the bosses look and behave
identical but with small differences
even with 64 KOB of ROM space to work
with the developers still had trouble
keeping the game within that threshold
the size of games would be increased
further with the UN ROM mapper this gave
Developers the ability to create 128
Koby games this allowed for excellent
titles like 1943 Castlevania Contra
Ducktails life force and others so what
can you do with 128 Koby of ROM space
you do get a decent bang fear buck with
contra it's a shoot them up where you
walk to the right and defeat the boss at
the end along the way you can collect
weapon upgrades that help you out while
the game does not have as many stages as
Adventure Island it also doesn't reuse
any assets every stage looks different
from one another and the graphics are
well detailed this game really does
showcase what you can do with 128 Koby
of ROM space considering how limited the
NES Donkey Kong was for example however
even Contra had to be scaled down to
meet that 128 Koby requirement in Japan
Konami was able to include more content
in that version of Contra there's
animated background graphics and
cutscenes in between stages but because
Konami had to settle for the UNR mapper
instead of their own they had to remove
content from the the US version even 128
Koby wasn't always enough for developers
so how far can you go from here later on
Nintendo would manufacture some more
mappers that gave companies more
flexibility so they didn't have to
sacrifice so much content the mmc1
mapper allowed for 256 kilobyte games
were really starting to get into the
high numbers remember that the NES could
only support up to 40 Koby without a
mapper this mapper was used in games
like Adventures of loo Blaster Master
Bubble Bobble Ninja Turtles Metroid and
others it's worth mentioning that it
wasn't always the best decision to use a
leus mapper money was a big factor for
game companies and the better mappers
were more expensive if you don't need
256 kiloby you might be better off
saving money and using a mapper that
supports less space it doesn't matter
what year the game came out either some
later releases did use less powerful
mappers because it made more sense
financially it's also worth mentioning
that sometimes games will receive
underpowered mappers the most infamous
example is dragon's layer the game play
is extremely slow and laggy because the
US version received the UN ROM mapper
but in Japan the game was bundled with
the mmc3 mapper which we'll talk about
in a second this version is much quicker
and more fluent this game really had no
business using the UN ROM mapper
Nintendo would really make a
breakthrough with that mmc3 mapper this
one not only increased the amount of ROM
space but also allowed for easier split
screen effects many games that used the
MMC 3 mapper will feature overlapping
backgrounds and other cool effects but
the mapper gave developers a ridiculous
amount of ROM space to work with and as
a result we will see some incredible
games unlike its predecessor Adventure
Island 2 use the MMC 3 mapper and we'll
see some major changes in this one the
core concept is the same you start off
with no weapon and you collect a hammer
the skateboard is here too but now you
can ride the Dinosaurs the levels are
bigger in size and scroll in multiple
directions the game no longer recycles
the same levels over and over again and
there's multiple paths you can take the
bosses are also different in each island
the graphics are way more detailed and
there's more Terrain in this one than
the original Adventure Island 3 also
uses the MMC 3 mapper this one isn't
much different from the last game they
added a new dinosaur that can perform
somersaults there's also some stage
backgrounds that were in the previous
games and new music One Improvement they
made was in the bosses in the previous
game your dinosaur buddy would try to
help you fight the boss but this feature
was not implemented well and most of the
time your buddy ends up shooting at
nothing in this game though they removed
that feature completely thank God for
that unfortunately this iteration feels
more like a rom hack of the previous
game than its own standout title most of
the graphics and music have been
recycled from Adventure Island 2 and it
hardly feels like a new game it's still
a fun experience though both of these
games are 256 Koby in size so
theoretically they could have used the
mmc1 mapper but they might have
benefited from the other features of the
MMC 31
I can't talk about the MMC 3 mapper
without discussing Super Mario Brothers
3 this game really shows what the chip
can do not only are there 90 levels
total making it the biggest Mario game
on the console but there's a lot of
features there's eight worlds Each of
which have its own level map that you
can maneuver around in there's also Min
games you can play that give you extra
lives and Toad Houses that give you a
power up the game keeps track of all the
items in your inventory box which you
can use at the start of a level the
levels themselves can also be very big
it's the first Mario game to scroll in
multiple directions you're getting a lot
of content with this game so it's no
wonder it's 384 Koby in size you would
think games couldn't get any bigger than
that but Konami would push the MMC 3 MPP
or more both of the Ninja Turtles beat
them up games are 512 kiloby and are
large games the second game is a port of
the arcade one but adds two extra levels
that weren't in that version making it
the larger game Ninja Turtles 3 is an
astonishingly big game every single
level looks different from the last with
not even a single background graphic
being reused the game also utilizes a
lot of cool mmc3 effects like the moving
water in the second stage and a conveyor
belt in the tech Drome the turtles also
have different abilities in this game
which is going to take up more memory
I'm actually surprised that Ninja
Turtles 3 is only 512 kiloby I thought
it would have been more these are among
the biggest NES games and there's not
much after that 512 KOB threshold but
there's one game that's even bigger
right at the end of the console's
lifespan Nintendo published Kirby's
Adventure it's a unique platformer you
can inhale enemies and copy their
abilities certain abilities will be
advantageous depending on the level
design there are secret switches you can
find in some levels that let you unlock
bonus content these are not required but
it allows you to 100% the game this
title is a huge technological
achievement on paper it doesn't seem
that big because there's only 41 levels
total which is not even as many as Super
Mario Brothers 3 but there's a ton of
Polish there's multiple mini games you
can play like the egg catcher one where
you must grab the eggs and avoid the
bomb there's the claw machine game where
you can win free lives and a dual game
where you must shoot first the graphics
have to be mentioned because not only
does it look amazing but because it must
have taken up a lot of ROM space every
pixel in this game is covered with some
graphical detail and there's not a
single Blank Spot even basic things we
take for granted like the pause screen
have some extra graphical detail every
ability you grab in this game comes with
a picture at the bottom all of these
things I mentioned are going to eat up
ROM space very quickly
how much ROM space am I talking about
this game is a whopping 768 Koby if
we're being technical there's a couple
games that arguably don't count the game
maxi5 is 1 MB in size huge number but
there's an obvious reason for that this
isn't just one game it's 15 games on a
single cartridge of course it's going to
be high in ROM space same thing with the
game action 52 forgetting for a second
that this game is terrible the developer
really stuffed this to his absolute Max
this is a 2 megab game that's insane if
we're being technical this is the
biggest NES game ever made but neither
of these games should count because
they're compilations are we done nope
because the biggest NES game goes to a
fairly unknown Japanese exclusive in the
late 80s the company hail began
development on an adventure game the
company had made models of animated
characters and wrote a script for the
game but the developers eventually
realized that their game was too large
to fit on a cartridge many sacrifices
were made to get the game down to the
ROM space allotment that the game would
eventually be the final game would use
the MMC 5 chip which was very powerful
but also expensive Nintendo even gave
hail a discount on the mappers just so
that they could release it the game
would eventually be released in Japan
under the name metal slander glory and
would take up a shocking 1 Megabyte of
ROM space less than action 52 but
remember this is just one game I wasn't
sure what genre to expect you would
think this would be some impressive game
that pushes the hardware limits but it's
actually just a text based game with the
artwork thrown in periodically you're
given a menu and you select an option
that's the whole game the one megabyte
of ROM space is because there's a lot of
text and artwork throughout the game the
animation is good and some of the cut
scenes are cool but I'm actually
disappointed the game honestly gets
boring and there's really nothing else
to it besides just selecting options in
a menu imagine what a 1 megab platformer
or a shooter or a beat him up would have
been like hell definitely B off more
than they could chew with this game
Metal slander Glory would end up being
too expensive for the company to handle
and it didn't help that the sales didn't
make up for the high costs hail would
end up nearly going into bankruptcy and
would have to stop developing games on
their own ever since they've been
closely affiliated with Nintendo the
famicom started off with only 40 Koby of
ROM space to work with but with new
technology games could squeeze out 385
kiloby which gave us excellent titles
like Super Mario Brothers 3 and we even
have 512 KOB games like Ninja Turtles 3
unfortunately for one title the large
size would end up being its biggest
[Music]
downfall hey I just wanted to thank you
so much for watching this video if you
made it this far hit that like button if
you enjoy this type of content hit the
Subscribe button for more content
both of these things really help the
channel grow if you have anything to
share feel free to leave a comment I
read every single comment on this
channel and I'm pretty good at replying
back anyway have a good one
[Music]