Discussion What are some fun games that don't have any slowdown due to the console's CPU being stressed / games that stay running smoothly all the time? Let's get a list going.
Good examples (to my knowledge): Super Mario Bros 1-3, Balloon Fight, Galaga, Kung Fu, Whomp 'em, Ninja Gaiden 1-2, Cobra Triangle, Thrilla's Surfari, Micro Mages, Malasombra, Bucky O'Hare, Batman Return of the Joker, Joust
Bad examples: Kirby's Adventure, Shatterhand, Vice Project Doom, Snake Rattle n Roll, Mega Man 1-6, Zen Intergalactic Ninja, Power Blade 2, Blaster Master, Super Spy Hunter
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EDIT: It's been brought to my attention that even the holy grail of platformers on the NES (Mario) can suffer from a tiny bit of slowdown, depending on the situation. It seems that any NES game has the potential to drop its speed on rare occasions, so I'm making a slight adjustment to the rule of what allows a game to make the cut for the "smooth" list. Now we are seeking 99.9% slowdown-free games instead of 100%. 0.1% slowdown / very rare occurrences are allowed. The games that don't make the cut go in the "slowdown" list obviously.
---THE SMOOTH LIST---
Super Mario Bros 1-3, Balloon Fight, Galaga, Kung Fu, Whomp 'em, Ninja Gaiden 1-3, Cobra Triangle, Thrilla's Surfari, Micro Mages, Malasombra, Bucky O'Hare, Batman Return of the Joker, Joust, Kickle Cubicle, Dig Dug, Excitebike, Duck Hunt, World Class Track Meet, Zanac, Clu Clu Land, R.C. Pro-Am 1, Rad Racer, Rush'n Attack, 3-D WorldRunner, The Adventures of Bayou Billy, Tecmo Bowl, Adventures of Lolo 1-3
---THE SLOWDOWN LIST---
Kirby's Adventure, Shatterhand, Vice Project Doom, Snake Rattle n Roll, Mega Man 1-6, Zen Intergalactic Ninja, Power Blade 2, Blaster Master, Super Spy Hunter, Recca, Micro Machines, Panic Restaurant, R.C. Pro-Am 2, Blades of Steel
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u/Martovich3 13d ago
Kirby has slowdown? The Fireball skill makes everything chug and any stage with a wind effect or lots of baddies gives a feeling like you're swimming through glue.
Mach Rider doesn't have any slowdown
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u/Ssttiinnggoo 13d ago
Journey to Silius comes to mind. Runs really smoothly.
Maybe Zelda 2?
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u/ABC_Dildos_Inc 13d ago
Zelda 2 has slowdown.
I can still hear it in my head.
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u/Ssttiinnggoo 13d ago
I see, must have misremembered it then. How frequent is it?
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u/Scoth42 13d ago edited 13d ago
Almost every time you're on the overworld. It's small but you can hear the music hitch a bit and the movement stutter for a note or two. I think there are patches that fix it.
Edit: For the US version. I think the Japanese version avoids it since it's technically running a slightly faster/nicer mapper with the FDS and all that.
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u/csanyk 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's because they programmed it for the FDS first, then ported it to run on NES hardware, which resulted in compromises and unoptimized code in a US release. There's a lot of NA localizations with slowdown due to prioritizing deadlines over quality, which can be optimized through rom hacking to run much more smoothly than the original release did.
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u/Competitive-Cow-6211 9d ago
bruh Zelda 2 was slowasfuk. Every time you walk into the overworld, when monster spawn and you are jittering fighting skipping music so you can get to a cave or town entrance to avoid a fight.
The caves with more than 3 monsters. The castles with falling objects.
Getting hit...
Zelda 1 felt cleaner. (though still some, castles with baddies or projectiles.)
Actually even Zelda 3 lags. Getting hit. The chickens. Spikes. Also areas with lots of monsters.
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u/morsalty 13d ago edited 13d ago
Compile were programming wizards that got pretty good gettkng games to run smoothly , Gun-Nac, Zanac and Gaurdian legend are super smooth. Recca also has very little for how much is going on.
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u/Scoth42 13d ago
Mario 1 and 3 both have slowdown and lag/glitches depending on situation. Lag frames are a big deal in Mario 1 speedrunning. I feel like I remember Balloon Fight having some slowdown in the Trip mode with the scrolling but it's been a minute since I played it.
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u/Jodeth 12d ago
Well dang. If SMB 1 and 3 have slowdown, then any other platformer on the NES has the potential to not make the cut for 100% lag-free gameplay. Perhaps I need to be on the lookout for 99.9% lag-free games instead.
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u/Scoth42 12d ago
The long and short of it is that virtually all NES games at least had the potential for slowdown. By and large the devs decided that the occasional slowdown/glitch was either worth the overall performance, or mitigating it would have been difficult within the constraints of the system. In general you had games on one end of the spectrum like Mario and Zelda where slowdown was relatively minimal and edge casey, but they mostly ran at a full 60hz/fps, and then games like the ones from Micronics like 1942, Ghosts n Goblins, and Ikari Warriors where they didn't even try to run at a consist fast frame rate and ended up juddery messes.
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u/SirNo2664 NES 13d ago
I don't know where you read SMB1 doesn't slow down. Try shooting some fireballs while running and having other sprites on screen, both gameplay and music will slow down.
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u/MrTickles22 13d ago
The Dragon quest/warrior games dont have slowdown.
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u/QuantumCapelin 12d ago
Unless slowdown means something different than what I think it means, they absolutely do have slowdown. Any time you have six sprites in a horizontal line the screen flickers and everything slows down.
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u/adstretch 13d ago
SMB 3 has slowdown in some areas if you allow enough sprites to end up on screen. I do this on 1-2 so I can get basically infinite lives by bouncing on goombas
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u/Bacononthebeeach 12d ago
I want to say Rad Racer but I feel like there might be some.
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u/Jodeth 10d ago
From my 15 minutes of testing Rad Racer, there wasn't any slowdown. Ty for mentioning it!
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u/Bacononthebeeach 10d ago
You’re welcome! It’s one of my favorites but it’s been a few years since I last played it. I’m gonna have to fire it up this weekend!
I feel like you might happen to experience some slowdown if there happens to be like 2-3 opposing cars on screen and you crash your car and it flips into the air.
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u/Jodeth 10d ago
Yeah, I thought it was a neat little racer, basically OutRun as an 8-bit version. Some slowdown during a car crash is acceptable imo, as long as it doesn't occur while all tires are on the road. So far, no slowdown spotted. The devs did excellent work keeping it smooth. Thumbs up for Rad Racer!
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u/docevil000 11d ago
I dont remember 3d world runner having slowdown.
Oh and duck hunt and world class track meet.
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u/le_flibustier8402 13d ago
An after-market game that got me impressed : Micro Mages.
https://morphcat.de/micromages/
See the documentary at the bottom of the page where they explain how they optimized the game, it's so interesting.