Sim City NES Protoype Gameplay (and some history)

[johnhoftb]

https://gamehistory.org/simcity/

A lot of you are probably aware of Nintendo’s remarkable rendition of SimCity for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The cartridge launched alongside the system here in the United States, and brought the popular PC game to a brand new console audience. But did you know that Nintendo’s version of SimCity actually started life on the original 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System?

This version of the game was announced at the same time as its 16-bit cousin, and was said to contain all of its same features. It made a brief appearance at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in 1991, but was canceled soon after, and was never seen again.

This version of the game was thought to be completely lost or, at best, confined to some deep dark archive inside of Nintendo’s offices. Either way, the game was seen as something of a Holy Grail among collectors and archivists alike, and the odds of ever seeing it outside of a handful of published screenshots seemed slim, until a cartridge containing an unfinished version of the game materialized at 2017’s Portland Retro Gaming Expo.

We had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to digitize the game for its owner at the show, and thanks to two very generous collectors, we were able to spend the last few months tearing the game apart for the following deep-dive analysis. Seen here for the first time in nearly twenty-seven years, this is SimCity for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The article goes further into the history of the NES and SNES versions and how Nintendo not only helped (unintentionally) Wright with the original SimCity, but also brought some of the major features into the series which would become staples of the city building genre through the NES and SNES versions.

[endersblade]

Absolutely amazing, thanks for posting!

[Daedius]

That's awesome for a NES!

[Usagi Senshi]

I was reading about this the other day (and forgot about the prototype being discovered) and was getting goosebumps that legendary items like this are still popping up.

The OST is fantastic as wel!

[avitush]

Holy shit. That is amazing for an NES game. Aside from the differences in graphical/sound quality, it almost looks identical to the SNES version.

The Super NES version of Sim City is still my overall favorite. I spent several hours on it but never could get into the later games or the PC versions, for some reason. The SNES version had a very memorable (for me) soundtrack.

[zEmini]

And it is still a thousand times better that the pile of shit EA made.