Fast cars and casual Saxon: Super Sprint & Defender of the Crown | NES Works 139

The NES got its start on the strength of a library imported from Japan, produced by Japanese developers—even the games based on American properties like Jaws, The Karate Kid, and Rambo. But as the system matures and its popularity in the U.S. grows, its library will increasingly take on a more Western shape. You can see it here, with Super Sprint (developed by Tengen and based on an Atari game) and Defender of the Crown (developed by Australian studio Beam, based on a computer game by California-based Cinemaware, and never released in Japan). The console's personality in its early days more or less amounted to a curated redux of the Famicom, but here at the dawn of the 16-bit era it's pretty safe to say that the NES and Famicom were now entirely different creatures altogether. As for the games themselves, both suffered massive visual downgrades in the move from their original platforms to NES. Only one of them was still fun to play, though. Production notes: Available now an exclusively for preorder at Limited Run Games: The NES Era Vol. I: Japan and the Road to NES, a comprehensive photographic atlas of every Japanese console game released from 1979 through the U.S. NES launch in October 1985. Take a deep dive into the prehistory of NES with this limited-edition oversized (12x12"!) photo book: https://limitedrungames.com/products/the-nes-era-vol-1-hardcover Video Works is funded via Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/gamespite) — support the show and get access to every episode up to two weeks in advance of its YouTube debut! Plus, exclusive podcasts, eBooks, and more! NES footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled to 4K with RetroTink 4X and 720p with xRGB Mini Framemeister.