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Classic NES Series (JP) (known in Australia and Europe as NES Classics) is a series of games released on the Game Boy Advance which are ports of games that originally appeared on the NES platform. The games were released for twenty dollars, which was cheap for Game Boy Advance games. The Cartridges were also a lighter shade of grey than the typical GBA Cartridge.

Titles included in the Classic NES Series[]

Classic NES Series

Some of the Classic NES Series Games.

Titles Exclusive to Japan[]

Changes[]

  • The Legend of Zelda was altered to change the mistranslations in its intro.
  • Arcade ports such as Donkey Kong and Pac-Man were altered to have a "save high score" feature.
  • Bomberman was released without the popular multiplayer mode, with this change receiving much criticism; despite this, other games retained their multiplayer modes, playable either through link cable or Game Boy Player.
  • Strangely, the Minus World glitch in Super Mario Bros. was kept.

Criticism[]

Many people have criticized the Classic NES Series for its prices. Many of the titles in the Classic NES Series were available in other forms, such as on sets of five dollars e-Reader cards and within the game Animal Crossing. At twenty dollars each, many Nintendo fans were outraged.

Other people criticized the Classic NES Series simply because it consisted mostly of games that Nintendo had re-released many times before. Some games such as Pac-Man were merely arcade ports and had been released countless times before on other systems.

Famicom Mini, also known as the Japanese NES Classics, also received more than twice as many titles as the Classic NES Series.

Having already been released in enhanced forms onto the Game Boy Advance, many classic NES titles were omitted from the series. Super Mario Bros. 2 had been released as Super Mario Advance, albeit with significant changes. Super Mario Bros. 3 had also been released in Advance form, but with only a few alterations. Like all the Advance Series games, both came with enhanced versions of Mario Bros. and Tetris had already been released as Tetris Worlds, but could not be re-released in its original form due to a dispute with Elorg.

It should also be noted that Zelda II: The Adventure of Link is the least popular game in the series, and thus is actually unsuitable for a re-release.

The Bomberman port was criticized for its lack of a multiplayer mode.

The Donkey Kong port was criticized for omitting the 50m level, which was never in the NES version.

Promotional material[]

In the Japanese releases, aside from a special Game Boy Advance SP that featured the colors of the original Famicom (red, white, and gold), there were also three collection boxes that were released, each of which were able to hold up to 10 games (generally the games in the series the box represented). The boxes also came with a cover depicting an array of sprites, generally from the same games the box contained. Inside the box was also a specialized gold plate commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Famicom system, with the image depending on the box (the first series box had the Famicom System itself, the second series box showing a monitor, and the third series box showing a Famicom Disk System floppy). The volume boxes were meant to contain the following games:

Volume 1
  • 01: Super Mario Bros.
  • 02: Donkey Kong
  • 03: Ice Climbers
  • 04: Excite Bike
  • 05: The Legend of Zelda
  • 06: Pac-Man
  • 07: Xevious
  • 08: Mappy
  • 09: Bomber Man
  • 10: Star Soldier
Volume 2
  • 11: Mario Bros
  • 12: Clu Clu Land
  • 13: Balloon Fight
  • 14: Wrecking Crew
  • 15: Dr. Mario
  • 16: Dig Dug
  • 17: Adventure Island
  • 18: Ghosts 'n Goblins
  • 19: TwinBee
  • 20: Fight on Goemon! Mechanical Quest
Volume 3 (Famicom Disk System)
  • 21: Super Mario Bros. 2
  • 22: The Mysterious Murasame Castle
  • 23: Metroid
  • 24: Kid Icarus
  • 25: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
  • 26: Shin Onigashima
  • 27: Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir
  • 28: Famicom Detective Club Part II: The Girl in the Back
  • 29: Castlevania
  • 30: SD Gundam World: Capsule Warriors – Scramble Wars

To a lesser extent, a Game Boy Micro was also released that sported the colors of the original Famicom.

For the Overseas releases, the only promotional item released for the games was a special Game Boy Advance SP modeled after the colors of the NES.

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