If you fought in the great medieval wars of the 1990s, you might read the headline and wonder what the fuss is all about. After all Atari's "Rampart", a perfect mix of artillery / puzzle game, conquered the arcades and gained quick cult status among gamers; it also had many home conversions, even managing to show up and lay siege across the NES, Game Boy, Super Nintendo and Game Boy Color. So why is a fan translated Famicom version so special? Enter world famous panchiko manufacturer Konami.
If you ever played the NES version of "Rampart" you know what to expect. A solid port of the arcade game with a functional 8-bit adaptation of the bigger, more powerful sibling. But this bread and butter conversion we got in the West pales when placed side by side with its Japanese counterpart thanks to Konami's diligent, magic touch. Unlike the original this Famicom version offers four distinct scenarios of increasing difficulty: an Army Boot-camp where you fight off tanks and soldiers for practice and tutorials, a Fairy Tale land where the Red Riding Hood must stop the Big Bad Wolf in the easy campaign, a more traditional Medieval setting where your Knight and Mages fight off Dragons plus magical tornados. The ultimate test of artillery / wall building (that still look suspiciously like Tetrominos) then awaits you in Edo Era Japan!
Every level is accompanied by some cutscenes, briefings and upon completion quite a bit of dialogue acting as a transition between the levels. All of those were impenetrable walls as hard as the ones represented in-game for Western audiences until recently, when the efforts of Magnus Nilsson, MrRichard999 and rainponcho resulted in a full English translation patch for this Japan-exclusive gem. You can check the end results in the following video.
Not only are the graphics better then the NES version we got, even the sound effects and music are on a league of their own. You can easily use this patch with your original Famicom cartridge on RetroN 5 or Retro Freak.
Who knew on this day and age we would be back to wall building, eh? Just make sure those artillery shots count!
[source romhacking.net]
Comments 15
I never even checked the Japanese version when sorting out the romset. Wow. It's pretty crazy to look back and find just how many games of that period could differ SO much on the same platform and despite the very same origin. It's one (although still miffing) thing to see a game like Magical Doropie come westward with most of its cutscenes and plot wiped out, but this?
@nhSnork Tegen bought the right for the home conversions in the West, and as every other Western developer they were only interested in putting what was on the original game on the shelf for fans of the original to buy and take home. As usual, Konami like oh so many other Japanese developers took the core concept and ran wild with it. That is why a a 8-bit version of this old classic is the definitive edition of the game, surpassing both the original arcade and 16-bit home ports.
Rampart is awesome! Played the crap out of it with my friends on the gamecube.one of my favorite moments in gaming is when we discovered the winning commander can actually chop off heads
Can't believe I've never seen this as I'm a big Rampart fan. Trackball play in the arcade was always the best way to play.
This is the second article in a week I've seen bringing up Rampart. A cool looking smart phone variant is being made which has some clever ideas: Castleparts.
http://toucharcade.com/2017/05/08/castleparts-is-a-fresh-take-on-rampart-and-needs-beta-testers/
Anyone who likes Rampart might want to try my game, "Space Barrage Arcade" on Apple's App Store. Right now it's free, no ads, no IAP.
"Enter world famous pachinko manufacturer Konami."
Lol, love that sarcastic juxtaposition.
@BulkSlash
Eh... I think Konami is not about Pachinko games.
They still continue their BEMANI brands such as Dance Dance Revolution A, Beatmania IIDX 24 Shinobuz, Jubeat Qubell, etc. But lately, I found one by one the BEMANI artist such as Hideyuki Ono, Jimmy Weckl, Kiyotaka Sugimoto (DJ SIMON), Akira Yamaoka, Jun Karashima and the greatest one Naoki Maeda left from Konami.
They are now working on other game company. And judging from music quality, DDR A without Naoki Maeda = Blah..... the music quality goes worst, I dunno why, it's suddenly drop the quality after DDR 2015.
I'm glad Konami was return on Switch by Super Bomberman R, but Konami should continue their BEMANI brands not just Arcade only, but also give some chance for Switch. They released Gitadora, Jubeat, DDR Wars / S / S+ on IOs, Beatmania IIDX Infinitas on PC, Why not for Switch ? If they said they want to support Switch, their games must come in variety, not just only Super Bomberman R as Return.
So, when are we getting this for Switch?
@Priceless_Spork No extra DK level. Castlevania III has better music in Japan, and Contra has more animated backgrounds. In the case of the latter, it's not Earth-shattering, but it is nice. Also, I believe the Japanese Fantasy Zones are supposed to be a lot better than the US games.
@Priceless_Spork My pleasure. And they said I was wasting my money buying magazines like "Super Play" back in the day...
@Priceless_Spork Have a look at Contra, for one instance.
Wow! me and my friends spent hours on the SNES version of Rampart! Loved this game! - Especially the 2 player fight!
@cfgk24 2 Player mode here is just as fun!
@Ras Yes, Sunsoft's Famicom version of Fantasy Zone is a different port than Tengen's NES version.
Though I think Tengen might've licensed Sunsoft's port of Afterburner.
I know Alien Syndrome (also published by Sunsoft in Japan and Tengen in the US) is basically the same game, but I haven't played much to notice if there were other differences than reduced time limit?
While still speaking of Tengen, their Mega Drive port of Marble Madness (released only in Japan) was said to be one of the best console ports (outside of maybe modern emulation-based ports?) and much better than the EA port the west got.
@KingMike Oh? I will have to look for that version. I was always a Marble Madness fan but have never owned any version. I suspect it can never be as good without a trackball, but still fun.
@Ras It's a bit of an expensive game now though. I had gotten it when I found it for like $50 CIB since it was fairly unknown but it's probably gone up by now that people are hearing about it (all of Tengen's JPN MD games are rather pricey though the only famous one was Snow Bros. which never got a western release)
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