Do Any NES Games Have Support for the Famicom Microphone?

[grandta13]

I was wondering if any NES games released in America have code (perhaps left in from an original Japanese version) that would allow the Famicom microphone to be used in some way. I made an earlier post asking about this in the Legend of Zelda, but based on those replies, it seems that it does not. Still, that leaves me wondering if any game did leave the functionality in for any reason.

[Hobie-wan]

Well I geuss what is needed first is a list of Famicom games that used the mic.

[grandta13]

Well I geuss what is needed first is a list of Famicom games that used the mic.

While I can't say how comprehensive this list is, I have found one at Famicomworld.com:

It's a myth that the microphone was almost never used in games. After doing some research I found many more games and I would bet there are still more. I have tested some of them but not all.


Games that supports the mic:


Takeshi no Chousenjou (unconfirmed)
As was said before there are some parts of the game that requires the mic to proceed. But apparently there is a way to pass these parts of the game without a mic (maybe an added feature in later versions of the game as was suggested before in this thread, I don't know) that was added as an alternative for people with the New Famicom, and thus doesn't have a mic. However many people misunderstood this as a built in function in the New Famicom itself and that it would work in every game that uses the mic. Anyway here's what is said about it:
Use the microphone with the New Famicom: Press DOWN and A buttons on Controller II and after that the A button on Controller II will act as shouting into the mic.

Raid on Bungeling Bay
In 2P mode shout in the mic and a mic icon will appear under the score. Keep shouting and it will turn red. At this time up to 6 fighter planes will come attack the heli. It's said that one should shout out "HUDSON!!" into the mic.

Star Luster (unconfirmed)
If you call into the mic when energy is low and part of the ship is in NG condition, a mysterious character called Starnoid shows up, refills energy and repairs ship. But this can only be used once.

Bakushou!! Jinsei Gekijou (unconfirmed)
This board game which is based on The Game of Life has an event where you need to sing in to the mic.

Bakushou!! Jinsei Gekijou 2 (unconfirmed)
The sequel also has an event where all human and computer players are forced to shout into the microphone. You can apparently not proceed without a mic.

Doraemon (unconfirmed)
At the point at defeating the boss in area 3 and if Gian appears, shouting in the mic will defeat all enemies onscreen. But only once.

Apple Town Monogatari (FDS)
The mic is used in one of several easter eggs in the game. When the girl is climbing the upper stairs, hold B on Controller II and shout into the mic. After she falls hold both A and B and shout again. I've tried it long ago but I don't remember all details exactly. Strategywiki has this listed.

Kamen Rider Club (unconfirmed)
When playing roulette, you can blow in the mic to make the roulette move a bit from the place it stopped at. Also something about the pinwheel. Is this the same game as "SD Kamen Rider" in the first post? Kazaguruma can mean both pinwheel and windmill in Japanese.

Family Basic
There's no command to read the mic in BASIC, and the commands STICK and STRIG that are normally used to read the buttons on the controllers can't be used to read the mic. However, with the PEEK command you can read (or more accurately peek on) any one of the memory addresses in the Famicom. The mic's current state is stored in bit 2 in memory address $4016, so by PEEKing on that bit we can read the mic's current state. Here's a simple mic testing program:
Code:
10 M=PEEK(&H4016) AND &H4
20 IF M=4 THEN PRINT"MIC";
30 GOTO 10
Type RUN to execute, the word "MIC" will be printed on screen every time the Famicom detects that you are blowing into the mic. Press STOP to end the program. Some emulators like Nestopia won't let you use the controllers in Family Basic if they are mapped to the keyboard (since the Family Keyboard is also mapped to the keyboard). If you are running Family BASIC on such an emulator you can add this line
Code:
5 B=STRIG(0)
to fool the emulator that you are going to use the controller (which we are in the sense that the mic is a kind of controller input but we are not actually going to use STRIG at all). Nestopia will temporarily disable the keyboard if a program with the STRIG command is executed.
This code should work in all flavours of Family Basic and Playbox Basic including V1.0, V2.0A, V2.1A and V3.
By using a logical AND on the value in &H4016 together with the value &H4 (the same as binary 00000100) we can read bit 2 without reading the whole byte. This code uses the same way to read the mic as many commercial games, and is also the way the Family BASIC V3 sample game "Heart" is reading the mic.


I also heard rumors about a mic function in Ninja Hattori-kun and also in some pachinko game where shouting into the mic when you run out of balls would give you more balls (it's possible this is just the pachinko part of Takeshi no Chousenjou which also involves the mic), but I can't find any info on these rumors.

Super Chinese 2
This game apparently has a place in game where you must blow into the mic to be able to proceed. Confirmed in this video: http://www.mmcafe.com/nico.html#http:// ... sm18096475 at 22:14 there's a dialogue with princess Leila and she tells you to blow into the microphone to prove yourself.

Star Soldier (unconfirmed)
There are two uses for the mic.
Meijin's Finger: You get 16-shots-on-screen auto-fire (look up Takahashi Meijin if you don't know him) if you shout into the mic when you shoot at this panel (a blue panel with a light blue hand pointing with the index finger). It's found on stage 3 at the second continent. According to http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Star_Soldier/Stage_secrets it works in the NES version as well if you have some means to use the mic.
Ura stages: Play a harder version of the game. Strategy wiki also explains the process in English here http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Star_Soldier/Codes. It's a button combination that involves the mic:
1) At the title screen, press Select button × 4
2) On controller I, press and hold Right d-pad + A button + B button + Select button. On controller II, press and hold Left d-pad.
3) As you press Start button on controller I, you must shout into the microphone on controller II. If successful, the title screen will blink back on to the screen.
Press Start button to begin the game.

[Hobie-wan]

Well from that, Bungeling and Soldier are the only two that got released here in the West I believe. Soldier is already confirmed, I don't have Bungling to test.

[grandta13]

Apparently, the Japanese version of Kid Icarus allowed you to speak into the microphone to haggle at a shop. (http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Kid_Icarus/Rooms#Shop).

As an aside, it seems that Atlantis no Nazo also has microphone functionality.

[Duke.Togo]

Zelda on FDS also uses microphone input to kill Pol's Voice enemies.

As far as Zelda and Kid Icarus, there were changes made to the code to get these effects by different means, so I wouldn't expect the functionality to remain.

[GSZX1337]

Admittedly I don't have any hard info to back this up, but I'd imagine the microphone support would be removed upon localization. Why use up precious memory on a feature no one can use?