Wiiware -> NES & SNES

[Arseen]

I was just wondering could NES (or SNES) be able to handle Mega Man 9 and Mega Man 10?

How about could SNES handle Final Fantasy IV: The After Years?

[Beastman1975]

not sure id guess is possible since graphically those games arnt much different than the originals for those systems  it would be cool to have repros made if its possible

[KaiserWAVE]

I can only speak for Mega Man 9 and 10 since I haven't played FF IV: The After Years, just seen pictures and videos.

As for Mega Man we always have to take into consideration that making them look like the NES originals was for the most part an artistic choice. So it looks like it could run on a NES or a SNES. But then there are things like how many colors can the system show on screen at once, how many animated sprites, what effects can the system produce (transparency or parallax scrolling), how many channels and what instruments can the soundchip produce and lastly how much processing power is required to do all this.

So I don't know how much of Mega Man 9 and 10 is just like the real thing (NES, SNES) and how much it is the 360, PS3 or Wii making it LOOK like the real thing. The fact that it is on Wii gives me a bit more confidence about the fact that it might just be more like a NES game and less like a game trying to look like a NES game.

I won't go as far as to say the games, in their current form, would be possible on the NES. But I'm about 90% sure the SNES could run the new Mega Man games without any problem.

[Arseen]

I watched MM9 ending and saw dragon enemy, that makes me bit doubtfull whether NES could handle it, probably not, but SNES should.

I also kept reading about the FF 4 AY, and saw that it's also on mobile phones... so SNES should handle that too.

[Pikmin Overlord]

I'm pretty sure that the file sizes of MM9 and MM10 are much bigger than those of NES games that you can snag off of the Virtual Console shop. At least, they take up many more blocks. Not sure if that means they couldn't be done on the NES, but it makes me think they require much more memory.

[KaiserWAVE]

Yeah, that's what I meant about the difference between being the actual thing (NES game) and just looking like one for artistic reasons.

At the same time I think a lot of the space it takes up (at least on PS3 and Xbox360) is due to the HD graphics and the music. On Wii I think its mostly the music. But I don't know enough about all that programming stuff. it's more of an educated guess
If you replaced the HD graphics with the resolution the SNES can handle and changed the MP3 music (or whatever format they used) for MIDI files that would could down the size of the game (memorywise) significantly.

[Strong and Nerdy (formerly tmntfreak7)]

Actually I'm pretty sure that MM9 and 10 were made with the same actual limitations of the NES system.  Not 100% sure though.  Don't know about FFIV though

[satoshi_matrix]

To answer the questions above, Megaman 9 and 10 could technically be made for the NES as the sprite size and color limitations, four channel audio and even the scanline limits are kept within the limitations of the NES. That being said, both 9 and 10 were programmed in C++ using completely new code as Capcom didn't keep the NES source code since making the complete works ports on PS1 in the late 90s. There was even a sound engine created to emulate the 2A03. While mostly accurate, the sound engine used for those games can produce irregular beats whereas the real 2A03 can't. What that would mean is to get Megaman 9 or 10 on ported to the real NES, the games would have to be completely rewritten from scratch.

It's not impossible, and given some of the incredible homebrew Megaman projects like Megaman Ultra, Rockman no Constancy, Rockman 7 and 8 FC and the upcoming Megaman Odyssey,  who knows, it's possible one day we will see unofficial ports of 9 and 10 on the NES as long as Capcom doesn't C&D the whole deal.

[BadChad]

I wouldnt get your hopes up about it (id love to see these ported someday too) but it seems a little unlikely...

[Arseen]

Well you can always dream!