Feature: 21 Vintage Nintendo Games You Can Now Only Buy For Original Hardware

I booted up my NES last week and played some Tetris, I know we have GameBoy Tetris on NSO but I prefer this one

This is why emulation is important, even necessary for video game history.

Major video game publishers are against making their full back catalog available on modern systems. And major video game publishers are also against libraries (digital or otherwise) having archival copies for people to review, study, or otherwise observe.
So, if publishers would look the other way while their own history rots, then it is up to the people to make sure that video game history can be as accessible as possible.

As much as I love pointer shooters like duck hunt on the Wii u, I do wonder if Nintendo could do some witchcraft and somehow modify duck hunt to work with the IR camera on the joy con and a gun adapter that holds the joy con backwards. Something that would make it like a proper lightgun game that you have to physically aim with your eye instead of just moving a cursor around the screen like on Wii/Wii U games

@Fizza Hogan's Alley and Wild Gunman were also available on the Wii U.

@Fizza The problem for the NES Zapper games on Wii U is that it didn’t work very well. There was some lag and also the Wii-mote pointing wasn’t accurate. It didn’t always line up with where your shot hit.

Things like Link’s Crossbow Training worked much better as a light gun game when using the Wii controller.

And thus, I am glad I got a Steam Deck on the recent Steam sale. Relation to this article? None...none at all 😉

Mario Paint would be perfect for NSO. Mouse controls should be able to be mapped to an analog stick.

Emulation is a necessity.

I thank emulator devs everyday for their priceless contributions to software preservation. Those companies simply don't care.

I have 10 of these, so no worries - you can all come play them at my house

The subset of gamers who seemed to be enthralled by games they /think/ they may never be able to play captivates me. Especially the ones who feel entitled to them.

My personal opinion is nothing on this list will be missed. I did sink a ton of time into several of these as a kid though.

Nintendo's approach of "integrated hardware and software experiences" will always make preservation more challenging for them, but it helps their top 2 values of innovation and piracy-minimization.

The stylus and touchscreen of the Wii U/3DS era would have been perfect for Mario Paint on Virtual Console, but alas.

I always thought of Star Tropics II as a high-profile game, but it seems to get no more love than the embarassing Urban Champion.

@ralphdibny In an alternate timeline, this would have been a Labo build.

Its interesting right, because right now, this article is filled with games that for the most part people don't really care about. So you walk away still not caring.
But then you start to think, this is NES and SNES, next we will start to see articles like this one with N64 games and the more time passes, the more quantity and prolific the games will become that are lost to time.
How long will it be before Starfox64, Donkey Kong 64 and other beloved games get lost in the past.
Especially games that now have their rights all messed up with who owns what.

This is why Emulation needs to not be seen as criminal and Nintendo need to chill on their censoring of Roms. I will never understand why they hate us wanting to play their old games, all of the games that I can still buy properly, I will, but they aren't willing to let me buy them all legitimately and the second-hand market prices for "retro" games are ridiculous. Not to mention I'd have to buy a TV with the appropriate holes.

It seems someone at NintendoLife watched the latest video from The Completionist! 😂
Check it out on YouTube!

Also, it'd be interesting to see the study data to see which publishers/rights holders are the real preservation heroes. For example, what percentage of the games is Hamster single-handedly contributing? Capcom and Sega seem to be the best at this. And then there's the backwards compatibility of the other consoles.

I’ve played more than most have on Virtual Boy (which, I get, means any)…and I can say the games are really underrated. Mario Clash and Red Alert are both awesome as well! Mario Tennis is great fun, even if sequels improved the series. I was really hoping to see VB games on 3ds. Hopefully someday I’ll get to play the VB games I missed out on!

I am sure I have Duck Hunt and Wild Gunmen on my Wii U VC

Also I am sure Duck Hunt had Wii Mote aiming

Kung Fu will forever hold a special place in my heart where it was one of the four games I got with my NES back when I was but a wee lad

Try buying Lufia 1 and 2 for SNES - which I have many times because I love those games - they are important to me because I played it with my brother, learned English partially through it (and Mega Man X) and love the soundtrack.

I think that, in cases like these, emulators should be "decriminalised", or else they will disappear indeed. I would love to play them with my daughters legally so I can teach them to value the industry and the people who make good things for our enjoyment.

Emulation. Riddled by illegal piracy? You know, Nintendo, I can think of one easy way to kick it to the curb: make your own emulator on PC, and sell your old games that way. It may not be ideal for some platforms (especially from DS/Wii onward), but I think there's real potential in an official, legal emulation market.

You know, just like BlueStacks already does. Pay for Android games on PC, and play them there.

Nothing amuses me more than presenting the "Video Game History Foundation" as a real thing that should be taken seriously. I have nothing in particular against piracy, do what you want, but you're not "preserving history". These games aren't "completely unavailable", some of them were printed in the millions and can be easily bought for a few bucks on ebay.

Thar be more then one way to skin a cat, me hearties!

YEAHHHHHHHHH GUMSHOE WOOOOOOOOOOOOO MR. STEVENSON FOR SMASH WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A lot of these are somewhat understandable due to the use of the light gun, requiring said games to be completely remade with modern motion controls and and such.

On the flip, I really don’t understand why Simcity isn’t on Switch. It was a mega seller and classic. They had it on the Wii and Wii U VC, so why not Switch now?

@Bobb agreed. Thankfully my brother has a nice 32in CRT in his basement with all of my families SNES games. Love to go there and still play the super scope games. Never tried Yoshi Safari but hope to do so one day.

@Wheatly Exactly. I'm glad knowing the files I dumped are safe 👍

Still waiting for a port/remake of Yoshi's Cookie.

@tektite_captain And there are still copied of The Hobbit being printed and sold by the publisher today, but that doesn't stop your local library from having it available for you to check out. Preservation keeps things available to everyone.

NES Tetris is maybe my favorite way to play Tetris.

I had a chance to buy Zoda's Revenge, complete, from my local game shop for $30 a while back, but I passed because I didn't have a working NES at the time. Now I have a working NES, but the shop no longer has that game. Sadness.

If you want to play these games on original hardware you get yourself an Everdrive from Krikzz - problem solved.
Adding something to your collection however is a different story. Then you better buy these now before companies like WATA get their hands on them.

@Kazman2007 But these games are available to everyone? Anyone who wants them, at any rate. And I wasn't aware libraries considered themselves to be in the business of historic preservation. When they have a lot of books that never get checked out by anyone, they throw them away or try to sell them for as cheap as possible. Not everything needs to be preserved. Video game "preservationists" always remind me of those people on the "Hoarders" TV show who insist every piece of garbage they own is important and must be saved.

@tektite_captain yeah, i agree. i wonder if we are gonna be trying to save every piece of shovelware trash just because it exists

You can add Marvelous: Môhitotsu no Takarajima. An excellent game that I completed recently. The first game whose Eiji Aonuma was the director, before Zelda Majora's Mask. Since its release on Super Famicom only in Japan, it was then released again only on Japanese's eShop on Wii U, but now the service is closed.

@tektite_captain Libraries usually try to sell the books they don't rent out. They don't just throw them away. However, they do this because space is a concern when it comes to physical media. The nice thing with things going digital is it's possible to save things without needing a large physical space to store it all. Games preserved digitally are the same way, they don't have to get rid of less popular things to make room for new things.

Love the NES box art. And Kung Fu was the jam.

@Carlore_Preventis
As I have access to your original comment regarding my take: yes, I'm absolutely captivated by other "ccommunities" as well. Sneaker-heads, for example. I don't get them, but I'm intrigued by people who collect sneakers.

As for the entitlement comment: there are absolutely people in the preservation community who believe they are entitled to play every game ever made without actually buying the hardware and software to do so just because said hardware and software are "obsolete " or "expensive".

None of these titles, or any others are going extinct. To be honest, I think the entire "video game preservation society" is based on a farce; thus, they intrigue me.

This is why emulation is important for game preservation.

Mostly garbage titles. I don’t usually need to have something just to have it. All the while, can’t complain much about the collection offered via Switch Online / Expansion Pak.

@CharlieGirl Nonsense. They are not against having their back catalog available, it just takes time and resources and there is only a finite amount of those. If they could make all those games appear out of thin air, they would. Many games on this article are not really playable as intended without original or additional hardware.

@Sputnik_Corner I don't know why they don't want us to play their old games, but if they don't, for whatever reason, then we need to respect that. We shouldn't just say, "Nah, I'm gonna do it anyway."

If an artist makes a painting and decides he doesn't want to show it to anyone, that's his prerogative. Doesn't give you the right to break into his home and steal it.

@Switch_Pro Yeah, that's exactly why archival by and for the people is essential.

@tektite_captain terrible analogy. Preserving video games for everyone's enjoyment is nothing like someone hoarding garbage....

And why even click on the article if you're so against other people trying to preserve games?

And this, Nintendo, is why we don't care about your piracy policies that much. Sure, I can understand for games you still have on sale today, but for all the ones you don't, we'll find our own way without having to shell out an arm and a leg, thank you very much.

This list was made specially for me and my years of complaining like an old man shouting at clouds. Hopefully the NSO team reads it. I loved “the entire Virtual Boy library” as the last touch.

Another Light Gun refugee waiting for rescue from the NES catalogue is To The Earth, a frantic trigger-pulling sci-fi game.

In To The Earth, you're the gunner of a blockade runner on an urgent mission from a space station in Neptune's orbit, carrying a vital cure to an alien plague back to Earth through their fleet. It's a relentless shooting gallery where you can lose your craft's shields in a matter of seconds if not careful. At every checkpoint, you have a one-second chance to shoot a refueling pod dropped by an ally before the game pauses at said checkpoint - the only pause you get in the game. There's also a screen nuke that recharges regularly during play, to be used wisely through the stages.

If you dont have an NES, a Zapper, and a CRT to play it on (or one of those modern light guns that actually works with HD TVs), you'll never know the joy and pain this one can bring.

Well... What's about Satellaview and Nintendo 64DD games?

What about the Wii U when they all die because of chips dying prematurely... ☠️

That's how it goes. People turn their noses up at buying retro games because they think everything old should be free, hence no companies want to invest the time and money to bring over every obscure title, they focus on the money makers and things they don't need to spend time and money on rights for. We're lucky we get what we do considering. And what, do people expect Nintendo to keep making ROB robots for those lousy games for the handful of people who want to play it?

Ahh how much I love and appreciate emulation. ♥️

@Rainbowfire Wrong. Stealing would mean they no longer have the original, which is not the case. How has it been 30 years since the internet and people still do not understand making a copy is not stealing?! Lmfao.

@theModestMouse True.
That reminds me another word's misunderstanding: piracy. That word normally means "breaking onto someone's place and stealing its content" (like real pirates that attacked ships and invaded it to steal its treasure). But we use this word to describe people that download illegally games/movies/books/etc without breaking onto another server.

@theModestMouse

Indeed. We are not given the legal means to purchase these games from Nintendo and other developers. So who are we hurting?

The Super Scope has the interesting trivia of being released a year later in Japan, after North America.
So they could release it with a promotional tie-in to the 1993 Mario movie.

I think this issue gets conflated with the plight of collectors. Game preservation is not the same as game collection. It's hard for every collector to fill their garage with every game, but if anyone wants to play a game for fun or for research you can find emulators and roms for pretty much everything.

Disregard the language of its legality. There is nothing noble or moral about following the law or respecting corporate IP.

@xDeckardx I suck at Kung-Fu and couldn't beat the second stage (I know, that's pretty bad) but I beat the normal difficulty of Spartan-X2 easily (I guess by 1991, that could be a reason for Irem to not release it internationally). Never beat Hard (which is one of those games that just shifts the damage against the player, so its' "play it the same but with less fail".)

@tektite_captain And some games are Surprise At Dinosaur Peak. NOBODY is paying $1,500 because they expect great gameplay.
Long ago the collecting scene created a divide in value between "what people who want to play the game" would be willing to pay and "what people who must own absolutely every single game" will pay. Those people do not care about the game quality when deciding what to pay for it, they just want the plastic on their shelf at any cost. We the majority of people should be expected pay what a couple rich nuts are?
I really like to own all my games legitimately, but nearly all of us have limits and have to say "no" at some point to exhorbitant collector prices. What that amount is exactly is different for everyone. I'd say once its value exceeds what the game originally cost (take it inflation-adjusted, if you will) is a fair mark for "exorbitant".

i mean youve always got OPTIONS if you want to play old games companies wont sell cough cough vimms lair cough cough

@theModestMouse i mean its quite illegal but its one of those rules that just really cant be efficiently enforced, like no phones in schools, etc etc.

@YoshiFlutterJump I say give nintendo 10-20 years give or take and then we'll start seeing stuff like this. Ofc i can't guarantee anything but as time goes on, their more old-fashioned business practices are bound to be replaced with new, younger blood in the company. We've already seen this, for better and for worse in little ways over this generation. Now, the only reason they might never do this is for exclusivity since nintendo hard rides on that what makes them the powerhouse they are is their IPs and making pc ports would only weaken that pillar, but still. It COULD happen.

Funny you should post this. Popeye has been my go-to NES game for the last couple of months, but was thinking about playing Urban Champion and Star Tropics II last weekend.

I haven't just heard of Metal Combat, I owned Metal Combat. I got to the final boss, which I believe was fought inside Pluto, but I never beat it. It was an amazing game, if a little on the harder side.

People are conflating “availability” with “preservation.” These are not the same thing. Aside from all of the hard copies out there, almost every single piece of video game software has been copied and is out in the wild to find. The companies also undoubtedly have copies of their old games (the assets, however, are another story.) These things are already preserved and can be reclaimed almost instantaneously.

Making them available is more complicated. Licensing wrecks a lot of it - no one is going to pay to restore a license when they may not make even a fraction of the fee back on it. There are tons of lousy licensed games out there that would make absolutely no money getting a rerelease. Then there are technological hurdles. More recent games, from the last 23 years, are far more in need of legitimate rereleases as emulation isn’t as practical or easy as it is for the things from before the 3D era.

As a film guy, let me tell you you’ve got far more options. Even a great film from the 1910s has trouble getting a good home video release, or any at all, whereas you can easily pull up any piece of garbage from circa 1990 and play it today, even without original hardware and a legit copy (I’m not against it - who cares if you pirate something that’s probably never going to get a rerelease? Just don’t make it like it’s some grand noble act.)

Uniracers/Unirally makes sense for this list, no? And with Plok! being published by Nintendo in Europe, its inclusion would also make some sense

More concerned about the GameCube library, personally. That contains games that I'd actually play through to completion rather than most of the above list, which are curiosities at best.

The point of preservation is moot here. Most, if not all of these games can quite easily be played on PC via an emulator. Hell, it's one of the few reasons why I want a handheld PC (as opposed to using it for the latest games).

And while I did consider buying some GameCube discs for my Wii, I really don't like buying used-up discs, and it would be a gamble finding stuff in satisfactory condition online, so I've just resorted to playing such games on PC (which work perfectly with the Smash adapter + controller that released alongside the Wii U instalment back in the day).

But if Nintendo were to issue physical re-releases and/or compilations of their catalogue titles? Then sure, I'm in. But until that happens, I'm not going to be riddled with guilt when we are no longer given the option to support these games anyway.

Oh man... Hogan's Alley was a great game!

@theModestMouse Making a copy of a game that you own is not illegal for sure.

Making a copy of a copied file of a
game, that a recipient does not own the original for, and distributing it without game creator consent to such recipient IS considered illegal. It’s really straightforward……

@YoshiFlutterJump why would they do it for PC? Switch or its successor would be the obvious choice for an official emulator, which by the way, they've done before, it's called virtual console.

@Sisilly_G why play them on an emulator when you have a Wii? Just soft mod that thing.

@RPGreg2600 : I'm not bothered setting it all up just to be tethered to a TV and playing it all in 480p.

Plus, I'm not terribly keen on modding my Wii. Maybe my Wii U though (which I haven't used in years).

And via an emulator, I can play GC games on my laptop with 1080p visuals.

I see no pros to soft-modding a Wii when I can, in theory, just hook my laptop up to a TV to do the same thing (and better).

@Sisilly_G hmm, yeah, all valid points. I've never emulated GameCube, so wasn't sure if playing on real hardware is better. I know N64 emulation can be janky.

Get a MiSTer...Problem solved.

@CharlieGirl
They dont care about history, they care about money.
Therefore, I dont care about their copyrights.

StarTropics II: Zoda's Revenge... The sequel that took too long to come out for me back in the day, better with it's gameplay and meh with its setting, but StarTropics flavored nonetheless. I have NO idea why it's not on NSO yet. As for Virtual Boy well... Cause Nintendo deemed it a failure, I guess we'll never see it again. Such as their way as a company. Too sad. I never got to play Mario Clash, Warioland, Mario Tennis, or Teleroboxer sadly.

A Virtual Boy collection for 3DS made loads more sense than a baffling 3D Classics conversion of no one's favorite: Urban Champion

@RPGreg2600 : Trying to set up the emulator to play GameCube games with a keyboard seemed unnecessarily convoluted (from memory), but it worked perfectly with the adapter + controller combo, complete with rumble support.

@sleepinglion : The fact that Nintendo never bothered to at least package their first-party Virtual Boy offerings for the 3DS will be one of the platform's greatest missed opportunities. Hell, they could have easily released the entire library in some form or another given that there were a paltry 22 games released for it.

Of course, with the visuals being as unsightly as they were, it would have made more sense to remake the best games instead (and maybe throw in a port of the original game as a bonus historical curiosity).

Got Duck Hunt and Super Scope 6 out of all of these

@Dartmonkey - apols if this has been answered, but has Nintendo confirmed that it does not have a copy / the code of each game it has produced?
If it does, then the issue is moot.

Many of these will probably make it to Nintendo Switch Online sometime within the next few years. Mouse and Zapper titles may be a while longer, but they're not out of the question. If they can make Kirby's Tilt 'n Tumble work on modern gyro tech, they can substitute old light gun tech for joy-con. Mouse is easily substituted for an analogue stick and/or joy-con. And yes I am aware the Switch has mouse support, this is for scenarios such as handheld and tabletop mode.

@Sisilly_G Exactly. They passed at the chance to revisit earlier 3D attempts in actual 3D. As a kid, my first Nintendo 3D title was Rad Racer. It came with flimsy 3D glasses and everything that totally didn't work. That title would have made a more sensical 3D classics entry. But they couldn't because, you know, they're in love with Urban Champion. Virtual Boy releases could have found a fantastic home on the console, especially if they went back and colorized them as a gameplay option

@dartmonkey
Thanks for the response

"There needs to be a legal avenue to archiving these materials that isn't overseen by a publicly traded company with interests outside documenting the work for the sake of posterity"

Indeed - I said something like that on another thread, but much less eloquently!
If Ninty do have the code to all their games, then hopefully they would be amenable to donating a copy to this (currently theoretical) archive.

It would take the companies with the biggest willpower to make it happen, which are probably the biggest companies. They could do it. Physical size of storage should not be a problem for old games, not sure about the newer ones!

If there is an argument for archiving every game ever made, then you run into a bit of a cultural battlefield, as many songs and albums are long out of print with lost master tapes.
Obviously TV is main one, with wiped programmes, etc. due to the assumed ephemeral nature of the medium.

@theModestMouse If you broke into the artist's home and made a copy of his painting and showed it to everyone, when he didn't want anyone to see it, that's still a form of stealing. Again, we don't know WHY he wants this, and it sucks, but you still went against his wishes and violated his privacy.

@nintendr0ne That's fair, and I'm right there with you.

@Sputnik_Corner Nintendo isn't against emulation. Nintendo is against people making money with emulation. Nintendo never sued emulator developers unlke Sony.

@Rainbowfire
It's a decent point you make, however I truly believe and maybe I'm wrong (I know I'm technically wrong in the eyes of the law but im still gonna make my point lol) there comes a point where a product becomes removed from its creator. for example if Paramount suddenly said "ya know what, no more, we're gonna make it illegal for you to watch 'the godfather' and we aren't gonna sell it again" that would be insane and there would be public uproar. same if the Louvre decided that they were gonna hide the Mona Lisa away in a vault forever never to be seen by the public again, or if Brian May said "no more Bohemian Rhapsody" you think people wouldn't illegally stream it? it sounds mental and it is mental, but Nintendo are effectively doing just that.
I know that Nintendo are well within their rights to do as they please with their work its just a mega douche move, that's all my opinion, no hate <3

@glaemay they are against emulation, didn't they say recently that emulation "stifles innovation", and Nintendo had Dolphin removed from steam, claiming to be "protecting" their games, from what they're protecting, i'll never know haha

DK Jr. Math is expensive on the famicom. especially the silver box version.

@theModestMouse yeah its more like us asking that artist nicely if we can come down to his studio and take a photo so that we can enjoy his painting later

@Wheatly the color on the box is fading as we speak. you better save it. 😉

@xDeckardx Yeah its such a classic. I always loved the "death noise" when you die. haha

@CharlieGirl Sure, I don't disagree with that — I do disagree with people advocating to pirate software that IS in fact readily available because "company bad" though.

Yoshi's Safari... Boy, one of my favourite SNES games. Sadly, I sold the Super Scope. Believe it or not, Yoshi's Safari was visually very impressive. It should be remade and expanded. I also had Mario Paint and made lots of crazy things with it.

@RPGreg2600 Will Nintendo bring their games to PC? As you say, it's not likely. I'm just saying that it might be a good idea, at least for some of their older systems. PC emulation is undoubtedly the easiest and most common way to play pirated games, so I feel like offering an official option for PC emulation could do a lot to curb piracy. Also, an official PC emulation option would pretty much remove the issue of lacking processing power, so we could have a VC catalog that stretches far beyond N64 and GBA.

But yes...before that ever happens, Nintendo need to get VC right. Add back the ability to purchase games individually (as opposed to NSO), make the game catalog more complete, go beyond N64 and GBA (because the Switch can do GCN), allow purchases to carry to newer platforms, bring back backward compatibility and stop closing the digital stores.

Oh no, after reading this article I really want to play Popeye again! After all these years I still remember it in the arcades - it was pretty good for its time.

No mention of Mach Rider?

Huh. I see lots of games that I missed out on because of Wii U's VC shutdown. A few of those I'd have liked to try for sure! (Devil World included maybe?)

I don't play NES games anymore so I will not worry for not having NES cartridge games.

I know you mention several times in the article that you're only focusing on 1st party Nintendo games here, but I really feel that 3rd party games, especially ones using licensed properties, are among the very MOST endangered of all games. Due to licenses switching hands, not being renewed, etc (as is referenced in entry for Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, a rare example of a 1st party game featuring licensed content), licensed 3rd party games are pretty much guaranteed to never be rereleased/ported in "Legacy Collection"-style compilations or on "Virtual Console"-style services. That means that already the only way to play nearly ALL such games is on the original hardware. While many such games are not that great, there are a VERY large number of them that are extremely good and, were it not for the licensing-related issues, would likely have been ported/rereleased a great many times already.

Some examples just off the top of my head include:

– the vast majority of Konami's licensed action games from their hayday in the 80s/90s, with the only such games having ever seen the light of day again being the Ninja Turtles games thanks to the recent Cowabunga Collection (the existence of which is somewhat of miracle and only possible due to license holders and Konami themselves willingly allowing it); ones that haven't been so lucky include the seminal Batman Returns (one of the greatest movie tie-in games of all time), and Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose (imho one of the all-time great platformers)

– the various Marvel games from the 1990s, from especially popular ones like Spiderman and Venom: Maximum Carnage and its sequel, Separation Anxiety to arcade ports like the X-Men series (X-Men, Children of the Atom,utant Apocalypse, etc) and Captain America and the Avengers (highly underrated, imho) to more obscure and unique ones like The Punisher: Deadly Vengeance (a pretty unique superhero rail shooter), Spiderman and the X-Men: Arcade's Revenge (a rare example of a superhero crossover story in a videogame), Marvel Superheroes: War of the Gems (a Megaman-like retelling the original comic book version of the Infinity Gauntlet storyline), and U.S. Gold's The Incredible Hulk (one of the first games to focus on the Hulk's solo adventures as opposed to his adventures as an Avenger), as well as the tie-ins to some of the classic early-90s Marvel cartoons like Spider-Man the Animated Series and X-Men the Animated Series

– the now notoriously hard to find Adventures of Batman and Robin, a videogame tie-in to the iconic 90's Batman: The Animated Series

– Bandai's two Power Rangers games from the 90s, Mighty Morphing Power Rangers and it's pseudo-sequel, the videogame tie-in to Might Morphing Power Rangers the Movie (beat-em-up games that imho are just as good as some of Konami's best beat-em-up like Turtles In Time)

– Honorable Mention: Until Disney finally released a compilation of the most popular ones about a week ago, the series of Disney Interactive games from the early 90s (Aladdin, The Lion King, and Duck Tales being the most popular) could only be (legally) played on the original hardware. Of course, that's still the case for the less popular ones (such as Hercules) that were left off the recent compilation.