So I'm writing an article for Retrogaming Times Monthly (I will submit it to the ezine here too!) and I can use your help. Basically what Is your favorite Exclusive Famicom games that don't require knowing Japanese to play? Can't exist in another region and Famicom only for now. I'm looking specifically at this and will branch off to other variants in other articles. Here are a couple of mine...

Parodius

Moon Crystal

Challenger

Don Doku Don

Don Doku Don II

Holy Diver

Pizza Pop

Quarth

Kid Dracula

Splatterhouse

Recca

Let me know if any of these are available in other regions!

Mr. Gimmick (well, JP and EU exclusive)

Adventure Island 4 (I don't think there's any required reading)

Recca Summer Carnival '92

Joy Mech Fight

Hands down the best fighting game on the system. Imagine Ballz but good. There are actually a good amount of options here including a nice training mode and single player mode. But the two player fights is where it is at. There is some fluff storyline, but being a fighting game it isn't all that important.

Holy Diver
Magical Tararuuto Kun: Fantastic World
Wai Wai World series

There's others, but I'm having a hard time right now thinking of them...

There's a lot for the Sega Mega Drive such as

Battle mania 2
Eliminate Down
Slap Fight

One I can think of for the snes atm is
Macross

Just doing Famicom at the moment but I will keep those in mind when I do those systems.

So far great games! Didn't even think about Adventure Island IV.

How about...

Dig Dug

Goonies

Akumajou Densetsu - the music is just too awesome in that version. Also Crisis Force, Antarctic Adventure, Time Zone, Arkanoid II, Armadillo, Binary Land, Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa, Bio Senshi Dan, Devil World, Goonies, Gradius II, Mitsume ga Tooru, Moai Kun, Twinbee and Twinbee 3.

Well Parodius, Mr. Gimmick and Devil World are not Famicom-only...

Here are some famicom exclusives I enjoy playing:
Layla
Babel no Tou
Star Luster
Tetrastar
Yume Penguin Monogatori
Higemaru Makaijima

Some I like that I didn't see already mentioned

Spartan X 2
Wagan Land 1 & 2
Kunio Kun series.. AKA River City Ransom 2 + others. I love the games but they do have some J txt in them.
Ganbare Goemon
Championship Lode Runner
Perfect Bowling
Gradius II
Pac-Land
King Kong
Family/Famista Stadium Baseball (RBI Baseball series) If you were a fan of RBI .. They stopped making the games in the US after RBI III but made them for 6 more years in Japan. If you can grab Famista '93 or '94 they are great fun and more polished.

There's many more but that's some for ya.

Kid Dracula ,Super Mario 2 (Japanese),All Night Nippon SMB ,Adventure Island 4 and Castlevania 3 (Japanese version) just to name a few.

Arumana no kiseki (Konami)
Getsu fuuma den (Konami)

Two of my favorites that we never got here in the USA. Arumana had a repro release called miracle of almana and getsu has a fan translation but i have played through with the original Japanese text with no problem.

By the way thanks for making this thread I love this topic. There's many more I'm just unable to think at moment but will report more titles when I think of them. For now here's yet 2 more Konami gems:

Hi no tori
King Kong 2: ikari 2 no megaton punch

Great stuff and quite a few I haven't heard of!

Forgot about Pirate Ship Higamaru for sure.

What about Metal Force (I think that's the name)

As for the Kunio Kun games as long as they are fun they can be included for sure.

Also wasn't Championship Lode Runner released just as Lode Runner in the US?

Here are the ones I have already written about...

Adventure Island IV

 

Akumajo Special: Boku Dracula-kun (Kid Dracula)

 

Altered Beast

 

Gryzor (Contra)

Contra Spirits

 

DownTown Nekketsu Cross Country

Gradius II

 

Hammerin' Harry & Daiku no Gen-san 2: Akage no Dan no Gyakushuu

 

Kart Fighter

 

Moon Crystal

 

Quarth

 

Recca: Summer Carnival ‘92

 

Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti

 

Spy Vs Spy 2: The Island Caper

 

Super Mario Bros 2

 

Super Mario World

 

Thexder

 

Transformers: Convoy No Nazi

 

Here are the rest of the games.....

Akumajou Densetsu

Antarctic Adventure

Arkanoid II

Armadillo

Arumana no Kiseki

Astro Boy

Astro Robo SASA

Babel no Tou

Bashi Bazook: Morphoid Masher

Binary Land

Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa

Bio Senshi Dan

Boogerman

Buzz and Waldog

Challenger

Championship Lode Runner

Chaos World

Cloud Master

Crisis Force

CrossFire

Dig Dug

Don Doku Don 1 & 2

Earthworm Jim 3

Family/Famista Stadium Baseball Series

Fighting Hero

Final Fight 3

Ganbare Goemon

Getsu Fuuma Den

Goonies

Higemaru Makaijima (Pirate Ship Higemaru)

Hi no Tori

Holy Diver

Ice Ice Hockey

Joy Mech Fight

Jurassic Boy 2

Just Breed

King Kong 2

Knights of the Zodiac

Layla

Magical Tararuuto Kun: Fantastic World

Magic Carpet 1001

Metal Force

Mitsume ga Tooru

Moai Kun

Over Horizon

Pac-Land

Panda Adventure

Perfect Bowling

Phoenix: Gao's Adventure

Pizza Pop

Puss N Boots II

Q Boy

Riki Kunio

Secret Ties

Somari

Son Son

Sonic the Hedgehog

Spartan X 2

Star Luster

Sumo Wrestling

Super Contra X

Super Donkey Kong

Super Pitfall II

Taro's Quest

Technos Samurai: Downtown Special

Tetrastar

Time Diver - Eon Man

Time Zone

Twinbee

Twinbee 3

Wagan Land 1 & 2

Wai Wai World 1 & 2

Yume Penguin Monogatori

Zombie Hunter

Quarth is a really fun game.

I actually played Quarth yesterday for a couple hours on my first go though. Extremely fun!

Wizardry: Legacy of Llylgamyn is great if you like the other Wizardry games, and has options to convert every bit of text in the game to English. Basically, go into the options menu and switch all the options off except one (either the top or bottom, can't remember). The one option you leave on is the one that switches between graphic mazes and line mazes...the graphic maze is far more visually appealing, so it's best to leave it on. But yeah, it's an exclusive that is fully English playable (a rarity for an RPG), albeit with a bit of tinkering in the options beforehand. And once the switch is made, you never have to do it again, since the battery saves the chosen options!

Gyrodine
Chou Jikuu Yousai - Macross
choujin sentai jetman (hella fun)
Kiki Kaikai - Famicom disk..

Can probably look in my sale thread to get more ideas as well.

Nope, This was a sequel to Lode Runner released in '85. Original is a yellow cart and this one is a black cart.

The Ninja Kun series is good fun:

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/...

Samurai Pizza Cats is good fun. Week of Garfield is fun to hate.

Also:

Battle City
Nuts n' Milk
Devil World (EU too)

Definitely bookmarking this. Been looking into the Famicom side of things, and dont want to go deep as disk system, but a cartridge collection would be great.

Kyatto Ninja Teyandee \ Samurai Pizza Cats  is best, I played the hell out if when was a kid

So I've hit a brick wall for new Famicom games to add to the list... any other recommendations?