FDS/Famicon Disk System questions re: prompts, translations/ports

MortalWombat

Hey guys, I have a few questions about the FDS, aka Famicon Disk System. I'd been curious to check out some of the other emulators that came with RetroPie, which lead me to this one. Most of my questions were answered by the following doc/threads (and my apologies for not just responding to these, but I saw that they’re older threads, and I've been asked not to necro-post/revive old topics):

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Famicom-Disk-System/
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/10820/fds-games-not-working?_=1613897963722
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/7416/switch-disk-side-for-famicom-disk-system-games-with-nes-controller/3

So far, FDS emulation is working fairly well— granted, I’ve only tried around 15 games— I just had a few quick questions:

So clearly the FDS works like an older disk system, with the title screen usually on a Side A, and then you have to switch to a Side B to actually play the games.

Now usually, you’re prompted/given instructions to do this after hitting the “Start” button on the title screen (where some, like Ice Climber, either seem to flip automatically, or there is no Side B, I’m not sure).

My question is, if I’m not mistaken, does whether or not you even get this prompt/these instructions depend on the game itself? (Which will say something like, “Please set Side B,” “Eject Disk Before Selecting”, “Disk 1 of 1 Side B Inserted” etc).

I seem to recall that “Yu Maze” would prompt you, whereas other games— like “Otaky” and “Transformers”— wouldn’t, leaving to potentially blindly pressing buttons until the game loads (though if I’m not mistaken, the correct combo is generally hitting R, L, then R again). I also wasn’t sure if your getting the prompt or not depended on whether you try running the game using the .zip file, or the .fds ones contained within.

Speaking of .zip vs. .fds files, I saw on the doc included here that lr-fbneo expects/needs the games to be in .zip, but the .fds files themselves within seem to run fine in Nestopia and Fceumm. I’d assume that the FDS files were created containing both Side A and B, but have seen some FDS ROMs labeled as “B." I just didn’t know if one file type worked better than the other, or if any of those 3 emulators were best optimized to run the FDS?? (I know fbneo to be a great emulator for arcade games, but never thought that it was capable of/ideal for playing console ones as well...).
For any fans of the FDS that don’t read/speak Japanese, have you been able to find English translations for most of the games?

For the most part/the action-type games, you can get by just fine; Esper Land— an RPG-type game that uses a lot of text— was one that I started playing and knew right right away that it could be an issue (and fortunately was able to find an English translation). Just don’t wanna get too deep into a game only to find out on like the last level that there’s text I need to be able to read…

For that matter, is there a definite list somewhere of all the FDS games that have (or haven’t) been converted to play on a NES emulator?

I saw that Super Mario Bros 2 had been, but obviously that’s a flagship franchise game.

Just wondering about some of the other lesser-known ones (Ai Senshi Nicol was one I’d found that seemed to be, and there’s a NES version of Animal Attack Gakuen too, but with AAG, frankly I’m not sure if it ever originated on the FDS in the first place...).

Thank you!

Folly

@mortalwombat

For any fans of the FDS that don’t read/speak Japanese, have you been able to find English translations for most of the games?

On the fly translation could be a solution for you if you run FDS with an libretro core in retroarch, read this thread :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/28461/translate-games-on-the-fly/2
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/28461/translate-games-on-the-fly/10

MortalWombat

@folly Thanks for chiming in, I'll look into that!

Yeah from what I've seen so far, a lot of the menus still have enough English to be playable, with the worst of it generally being not being able to read/understand the characters for games where you'd have to make up a name for yourself. With an RPG like Esper Dream however, the language barrier was definitely going to be an issue (but fortunately a translated ROM exists). Just don't want to have it inconvenience me later on.

Anyway, hopefully I can get someone who can answer some of these other questions...!!