Fester's Quest also takes its cues from a hodgepodge of genres, which will appeal to many kinds of gamers. As mentioned previously, the Super Nintendo isn't a processing monster like the Sega Genesis so a second player on-screen would create slow down in most games. Year: 1992 Genre: Shooter. Thankfully, unlike Nintendo's release of Tetris, Dr. Mario reveled in its two-player glory, and Nintendo's new hit proved not only to be a favorite among puzzle fans, but a game consumed by multi-player purists as well. This original and its sequel, Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II, are still fondly remembered by faithful Nintendo fans to this day for their unique and light-hearted twist on genre conventions. It's also the teams and roster customization including the ability to create players, mess with their stats, and pay them a salary. Enlist a second set of wheels and you'll be nuking twice the whatever-the-hell-you-want-to in no time. programmer and designer David Crane abandoned his traditional Activision backing, formed Absolute Entertainment, and went on to create what has become known as one of the NES catalog's quirkiest games, A Boy and His Blob: Trouble in Blobolonia. It wasn't, of course, but it felt that way. Something about Adventures of Link scared memaybe the dark backgrounds in the forest stages, or the increased detail in the enemy designs. Section Z was a forced-scrolling shooter made by Capcom, one of that company's few entries into a genre more closely associated with Konami in the 8-bit era. You'll find a few other games that got thrust into the limelight the same way on this countdown, like VICE: Project Doom. After a few minutes with Metal Storm you'll pity Mario for being such a ground bound chump. But man, the game delivered. While two Lolo games preceded the 1991 release of the series' third iteration in the States, the game known by fans as Lolo 3 is most fans' favorite. Pro-Am without it, racing games might have just been all about steering and accelerating. It's the touching tale of a young boy and his pet frog, Fred. With a friend you can tag-team your opponents. Haunting music and the constant fear of running out of torches usually kept me from playing more than a half hour at a time, but I kept going back to it. But I will always look upon Zelda fondly for sucking me into a gaming universe that sprawled in every direction in a seemingly non-linear fashion. During a time in gaming where linearity reigned supreme, it allowed gamers to choose from one of six stages to start, but at the end of each Mega Man would fight a Robot Master that would sacrifice his weapon upon defeat for use in another level. This game kicks a wave of unrelenting ass, so while people bitch and moan like the cartridge killed their parents I'll happily relive this dare-to-be-different classic with all its quirks. An irate watermelon spits seed at you at the end of one level, while a very angry water faucet lurks at the conclusion of another. But after getting used to Castelvania's inherent control quirks, what was found was a smooth action game rife with suiting atmosphere and difficult gameplay. Throughout the game's island world, which include tropical jungles, tepid swamps and cool caverns, our man Higgins happens upon various implements of stone-age destruction, like axes and, uh skateboards. Although it featured a very simple premise to collect gold while avoiding enemies Lode Runner advanced the action-puzzler by adding level deformation to the gameplay mechanics and therefore dynamic solutions to environmental challenges posed. An item-based menu allowed you to equip gems, whips and special weapons. The entire game fit on an infinitesimally small cartridge sized at 192 kilobits. You have to go back and read that title again, a couple of times, and imagine it being spoken by a scratchy, synthesized 8-bit voice clip. Super C, like Contra, is a nearly perfect cooperative experience, and is best enjoyed with a buddy to high five as the iconic level finish tune plays. Awesome! Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number is the brutal conclusion to the Hotline Miami saga, set against a backdrop of escalating violence and retribution over spilled blood in the original game. While many of you are still waiting for Neeso Games awesome looking Arcade platformer of 'Super Delivery Boy', which is due for release towards the end of this year. The place was red and full of aliens to shoot or avoid It has been called a combination of Zelda and 1942. What resulted was a crisp experience in NES gameplay that still stands up today. You worked your opponent into submission, going for the pin, and victory gave you the chance to take on tougher challengers, but not before training your chosen warrior to be stronger with interstitial mini-games. You play an M-308 Gunner mech, which features awesome (Magnetic? Blades is notable for much more than being an early advancer of recorded voice-work in gaming, though, as its take on professional hockey was brutally realistic (in that it realistically presented the most brutal unofficial aspect of the game fistfights). The ship rising out of the scrolling ocean, the . One of the most successful RPGs on the NES, the first Final Fantasy improves on many aspects of Dragon Warrior, a game it very clearly attempts emulate. is the most well-remembered boxing design from Nintendo's NES, Ring King was a capable competitor thanks to its more accurate simulation of the sport. Go back and grab it, either on cartridge or through the Wii's Virtual Console, and experience for yourself the defining console debut for one of the Big N's biggest mascots. Initially, this appeared to make the game much easier, but in fact, Ninja Gaiden II's difficulty could easily be considered on par with the original, if not for different reasons. This game was much tighter in control and actually gave a better sense of accomplishment to the player. Who's Link? From Link and Samus Aran to Mega Man and Bowser, Nintendo's 8-bit machine was the debut platform for countless classic heroes and villains that are still active in the industry today. Thankfully, Rad Racer turned out to be a great racing game that was my second-favorite racer of the generation, right after OutRun on the Master System. If you nibble enough of the Nibbleys, your snake's body would grow, his tail extending longer and longer behind his comical head and forked tongue. While it clearly adopted its non-linear level select structure from Mega Man, the similarities end there. But it belongs on our NES list as well, for the port of Lode Runner was pixel-perfect and provided something that only Excitebike had done prior: a level editor. Your objective is to take them all down for the joy of the audience. Just to be extra cool, and to remind you you're still in the '80s. You could take several different paths through the house, discover tons of interactions between characters and objects, and replay the game again and again with a completely different trio of the seven potential playable characters (each with unique skill-sets and abilities). The entire game can be played with a wingman, but make sure whoever it is can appreciate a heaping dollop of cuteness, served Japanese-style (with extra "cute" on the side). When I visit my mom today, that sticker is still there, reminding me of a time when I couldn't play every game I wanted to. We'd head to Mr. Movies in Minnesota, I'd see the box art, freak out, and he'd pick up something else. In Little Samson you play as one of four different characters: a mouse, a robot, a dragon and a boring ol' human boy. I was so bored with Tetris. Oops. I probably played the first level of Section Z more than any other NES game I owned. It was a solid companion for the early Zelda games, and perhaps a factor in why Capcom was later approached to develop some portable entries in the Zelda series for Nintendo. Whether or not the game was a blast to play is how we decided the order of our beloved NES carts - so don't be surprised if you see an important or influential title below something we loved to play over and over and over again. You've got to remember the historical time period that the NES was released it was an age when the Cold War was still a very prominent problem in many American's minds, and game companies certainly didn't shy away from the free advertising that the fear-inspiring nightly news and morning papers were instilling in the purchasing public. I said it then and I'll say it now. In 1983, there was nothing cooler than sitting in the cockpit of Spy Hunter at your local arcade to cruise the streets with the Peter Gunn theme blaring in your ears. In Kid Icarus, gamers take the role of Pit. The variety in power ups kept me endlessly entertained and I cherished every moment with the blaring microphone attack. Before even embarking on your quest you must choose your team of four characters. As I played it for the first time in two decades, I recalled many afternoons spent with the cutesy Twinbee fighters. put you in the rookie shoes of underweight title contender Little Mac and challenged you to duck, dodge, jab, hook and uppercut your way to success against one of the greatest rogues' galleries of ridiculous opponents ever assembled for any videogame, ever. Its action-platforming style was well-known by Mega Man 3's release, and with the addition of two important new characters, Rush and Protoman, and a new skill, sliding, Mega Man 3 is many fans' favorite in the franchise. on the NES is a straight port of the top-down shooter arcade game that sees up to two players clear different stages featuring paths, hordes of enemies, and powerful bosses. If Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team strikes you as a bit gimmicky, we've got news for you: it is! Top down light artillery robot. You were fighting the clock, too, and if you ever ran out of torches then it was Game Over for you. To this day, this is still the only game that's ever shipped with a coupon for five bucks off an order at Pizza Hut printed on the back of its instruction manual. We would have like to see more from our little balloon-riding friend. Get the Best NES Shmups Here These are by far the best NES shmups for any retro gamer to try. Early adopters who made the next-gen leap without looking back missed an incredible game design. It's not only the hardest in the franchise, but one of the hardest NES games period. Mega Man's unique approach is what initially made it so interesting to gamers. What's more, it was a fledgling HAL Laboratory that created the series, a company more popularly-known today for the Lolo-like character Kirby. Speed boosting strips placed directly on the track also made their first appearance in this design, which was so well received that it went on to inspire several sequels as well as influence the creation of Nintendo's own hybrid combat/racing series, Mario Kart. As a bonus, your stunned partner can double as a bludgeoning tool. Gamers new to this unique genre could easily access the game, but gamers who were veterans of the genre could find enjoyment in the game as well, collecting items in order to reach each subsequent stage. I bet 75-percent of them stop whining about regenerative health after getting their arrows taken away by an Eggplant Wizard for the eightieth time. Several classic NES series seem to follow identical paths. The pseudo-3D levels that broke up the side-scrolling action in Contra are replaced with vertical-scrolling levels, but the graphical style, gameplay and even the guns all remain identical to the original. I haven't been playing as Zelda all this time? Hampered somewhat by obtuse point-and-click adventure elements reminiscent of Shadowgate that threw many people off, The Goonies II still offered a sprawling mansion and its subterranean environs to explore via traditional platforming. Metroid was unique for so many reasons, among them the ability to explore at your own pace. I bought my own cart off of eBay and experienced the wonders of this influential grinding J-RPG without the help of my peers. - Craig Harris, IGN Nintendo Executive Editor. It is possibly the most awesome car ever made aside from the "Metal Attacker" in Blaster Master. My brother and I used to go there on weekends to rent games, and we rented Mega Man 2 so many times that the owners of the store eventually offered to sell it to us. I remember dying repeatedly, and an early example of blatant Engrish: "I feel asleep!!" Now why couldn't real NHL be like that? Made up of only five stages and a few types of enemies, a skilled gamer can get through Kung Fu in its entirety in less than ten minutes. The care gameplay is right on, the visuals aren't bad at all, and it stinks of Mega Man inspired robot blasting. We had two conditions: they had to be released in the U.S. and they had to be fun. A balanced team, for instance, may include two Fighters, a Black Mage to deal damage and a White Mage to heal. It's flashy, it's clever, and it's one of the few puzzle games worth revisiting on the NES. To this day I still vividly remember the cutscenes that showed my sword becoming more powerful. Pit is a fledgling winged angel who is tasked with working his way out of the Underworld and to the Sky, where the evil Medusa has taken control. An arcade-inspired action run and gun starring sweaty shirtless men charging through tropical jungles and blasting everything in sight with an overhead, birds-eye perspective, Ikari Warriors was the definitive videogaming outlet for bottled-up aggression. More importantly, this clever title takes platforming's greatest crutch gravity and turns it on its head. It wasn't even that compelling. to aid him in reaching new areas. As far as legacy, we never would have had games like Symphony of the Night if the trail wasn't blazed back on 8-bit with Simon's Quest. Welcome to the 80's. I'm a lifelong Samus Aran groupie. Developed by Konami and published by its subsidiary Ultra (a ghost publisher created only so that Konami could publish more games per year than Nintendo allowed), TMNT proved to be a fun, challenging game with crisp graphics and compelling gameplay. And as I recall, Ninja Gaiden II taught me to slide button presses for instant jump slashes, a skill that helped when I graduated to fighting games. And Kid Niki was indeed a radical adventure, starring a young ninja-in-training whose own princess-rescuing adventure was set apart by two defining features his spiked-out, punk-rock hairstyle and his vicious spinning sword. Mega Man is one of the few franchises on the NES that made it to four games. The inability of the NES to more accurately render detailed animations continues to be one of the system's greatest charms, though, so it's no real negative against the game, just a chuckle-worthy aside that might leave you just a bit embarrassed today. Having more in common with Metroid or The Legend of Zelda than NES era brawlers, Rygar must find equipment upgrades a grappling hook, pulley, crossbow etc. The Cobra Triangle gunship was a versatile vessel, and the power-ups it could obtain were what made this one a blast to play. I never got into Journey to Silius as a kid (my brother may have rented it once?) Everyone remembers the simple, but effective cinematic in which series hero Ryu Hayabusa stands atop a mountaintop and stares off into the distant landscape. For such a late release, Mega Man 6 ended up being worth the temporarily ignoring of my SNES I had to go through when I played it. It was devastating playing through dozens of races only to have the game slowly start blanking out its colors until I was left with a locked-up, unplayable graphic mess on my screen. - Sam Claiborn, IGN Game Help Associate Editor. Borrowing ideas from Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden, Batman was able to toggle through a vast arsenal of weaponry and grapple to walls to assist in the platforming mayhem. And rely on it they did, making The Legend of Zelda one of the NES' most famous games, part of a franchise that thrives to this day. Only the incredibly. If you missed their heyday in the '80s and '90s, Micro Machines were essentially the same thing as those other toy car brands they were just smaller; about half the size of the others, in fact making them really, really tiny. One of the major debates among NES aficionados is the sheer amount of ports that appear on the console, and how many of them are inherently sub-par to their arcade counterparts. Last, you throw Radical into the mix. Growing up, my neighbors seemed to have all of the great games, when we could only afford one here and there. 2. Seen from a three-quarters viewpoint that placed every environment on an angle relative to the player, you were tasked to take command of a snake that, initially, had no body. Good luck finding a copy now that doesn't have a warped parchment. The car is called the G-6155. I still believe that the NES original is the greatest top-down racer ever developed. I had hoped there might be some special secret, which there wasn't. The key to Jackal's success, like so many other games on this list, is cooperative gameplay. Instead, it was a lot easier to take your time and advance through each level slowly, as waves of soldiers spawned from all direction to charge you and kill you dead. nia_prene Posts: 17 Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:50 pm. Not too bad for a couple of sweaty, shirtless Rambo clones. Sure, Duck Hunt's gameplay was as simple as pointing-and-shooting, and one could easily cheat by standing an inch from the television. Though the company's probably best known for its stint as a Nintendo second-party developer in the SNES and N64 eras when it produced the Donkey Kong Country series, Killer Instinct, Banjo-Kazooie and Conker's Bad Fur Day, there was an earlier age when Rare was making the kinds of games that made Nintendo take notice to begin with, with games like Cobra Triangle. You can't do that! Unlike DuckTales, however, Rescue Rangers is basically linear. And for the most part, franchises that did flood the NES were of a high quality. This isn't the Super Mario Bros. we oft talk about as one of the most groundbreaking games to ever be released. It was like memorizing pi but the password was completely useless beyond this game. Demon's Crest, perhaps one of the biggest under-selling games of all time compared to its quality, wouldn't have been possible without cutting its teeth on the NES and classic Game Boy. Then, Skate or Die 2 came along and trumped its predecessor in many ways, offering a full storyline adventure in addition to the standalone skating events as well as adding in the "Double Trouble" half pipe, a massive structure that spanned two full game screens and let you pull off highly stylish (for the time) vert skating tricks. But even if we never see it again, it's earned its spot on this countdown. I happily rediscovered Stinger despite its unfortunate title and packaging (A space ship with boxing gloves? Really, really good. And, like DuckTales, this led to a high quality NES platformer from Capcom. While the first dozen or so screens will seem like a walk in the park, as you make your way deeper into the cave you'll encounter some puzzling situations. Because of that, there was no rushing around; Dragon Warrior was for patient gamers only. Even as a young'un, I felt some injustice every time a guest brought the Zapper up against the television's bubble screen. An early attempt by Nintendo at copy protection? What stuck out most for me about Double Dragon II was how varied the game was. I doubt anybody would rank the title in their top 10s, but for a 20-plus-year-old action romp, it was as the title suggests pretty rad. ), Legendary Wings features standard shoot things/power up/shoot more things gameplay but it's the oddball setting that truly sets it apart from vertical space shooters. Atari 2600 titles like ET set the stage for what is still known today as a group of games best avoided. Essentially the '80s answer to The Lord of The Rings films, it was a fantasy film written by Star Wars' own George Lucas and directed by Ron Howard it starred Warwick Davis as a hobbit-esque Nelwyn and none other than Val Kilmer as his brash human companion Madmartigan. Despite their popularity, cooperative games were rarity on the NES and hey, when was the last time you got to spend some quality time with your little sister? My mom and one of my sisters were out all day, and when they came home, my mom had an NES box in her hand. Though the dog, mocking me with laughter, encouraged delinquency. Let's be honest if you are going to play Maniac Mansion, you really should try the uncensored Commodore 64 version. I think I've got the same fond memory for this one as everyone else does: skinny dude, medium dude, and fat dude. Admittedly, the exhilaration of burning past the beach-going VW beetles in your red Ferrari 328 (the F1 was significantly less radical) is indeed worthy of such high self praise. Honorable mentions include: Burai Fighter, Section Z, Dragon Spirit and Legendary Wings. In fact, Tecmo took a page from the book of another successful action-platformer of the day, Konami's Castlevania, and mimicked its special weapon system almost to a tee. Before long your middling grenades are replaced by sleek missiles capable of taking out even the largest of enemy tanks. Aside from scoring so many points to break the game, my brother and I enjoy the appearance of Blue Lander a spaceborne precursor to Kirby and Starfy with his own special jingle. Zelda was an action-adventure game with RPG elements, and in an age without the Internet, people were on their own about how to get through the game in one piece. the primary challenge is to obliterate chains of arthropods that creep down from the top of the screen. Tecmo's long dead and more recently revived series Ninja Gaiden got its start on the NES in 1989 with what's considered one of the best, most difficult action platformers ever. We could only afford a new game every few months growing up, and when we were stuck with a game like Kung Fu, you might think we were disappointed. When Ikari Warriors came out I went berserk for it, and having no income of my own I had to beg my brother Matt (12 years older than me) to go out and rent it, which he denied time and time again. Yes, Fred who's just hopped into the backyard and touched a radioactive reactor that mutates him into an enormous amphibious monster. A game no one bought, but everyone had. All of the Adventures of Lolo games were great, but the third chapter has the best puzzles of the whole series and almost the most difficult. The Konami code let me finish this co-op version of Gradius. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit of all about Duck Hunt, however, was the stand-alone product's incredibly small size. In a cool adventure gaming twist, you'll need to meet a certain booty (diamonds, not damsels) quota before being able to exit each area, but don't expect a sign reading "Here Be Treasure." . In fact, all the negative feelings around this one almost kept it off the list, but when it comes down to it Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was one of the greats, and a dang good title. For me, just making it to level 2 was a major accomplishment that I reveled in let alone, the brutality that I had to overcome in future levels (especially that darned Ice Cavern). Our Fondest Memories While The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. are unarguable pinnacles of videogame creation, if we were stranded on an island with a power source, an NES and a single game, it would unquestionably be Super Mario Bros. 3. Natsume may be completely stuck in the rut of cranking out nothing but Harvest Moon sequels these days, but back on the NES the developer had some unique and inventive adventures like Abadox, Shadow of the Ninja and this game, Power Blade. Another epically popular franchise to this day, Nintendo's Metroid came to the United States in 1987 and immediately floored gamers not only with its slick presentation, interesting protagonist and open world, but from the fact that it was non-linear in nature. A vertically scrolling video game or vertical scroller is a video game in which the player views the field of play principally from a top-down perspective, while the background scrolls from the top of the screen to the bottom (or, less often, from the bottom to the top) to create the illusion that the player character is moving in the game world. A different Konami Code can be used to get 10 lives in Super C, making it only 1/3 as awesome as the original Konami Code. Gradius was hard but fully powering up the Vic Viper made things a lot easier. Fester's Quest was a title my brother and I would borrow from them over and over again. I can't tell you how many hours I left my NES on simply because I wanted to show off my created course to a bunch of my friends. Funny that both of these defining characteristics have carried over through the years into modern day Gaiden sequels. Setting those aside, though, SMB2 is a wonderful platformer that is wrongfully considered the black sheep of the canon. The North American sequel to everyone's favorite game does not disappoint. Doctor Hauzer. But all the bare-chested barbarians in the world couldn't hide the fact that, in the game, our hero is sporting a flamboyant red kimono. We're still eagerly awaiting a Goonies III. Shadowgate, originally made for Mac systems, was a point-and-click adventure game seen from a first-person perspective, wherein you ventured deep into a complicated dungeon filled with traps, monsters, riddles and hidden treasures around every corner. While Niki is a game that hasn't aged as well as titles like Super Mario Bros., if you grew up with it, as I did, the nostalgia factor has you covered. And who could forget Mr. X's maniacal laughter each time he defeated Thomas, keeping his kidnapped girlfriend for his own. Apart from its fun gameplay and difficult boss battles, Kung Fu had inherent replay value simply because the game started over once you beat it with a higher difficulty level. But that didn't matter. One of the few games I remembered beating without the Game Genie (but done on an NES Advantage for sake of the turbo function). Dragon Warrior III continued to open up both the gamer's party and the enemy parties to more than one per side, creating for the first time in the series a real feeling of strategy. It was the gameplay that was at the heart of Castlevania's epic rise from unknown brand to Konami flagship. Clouding Dr. Wily's actual involvement in the nefarious deeds coursing through the game's loose story, a Faux Protoman leads Mega Man on for most of the game until surprise! Konami's The Goonies II followed on the heels of a little-known Goonies game for Nintendo's PlayChoice-10 arcade machines. The Deadly Tower of Monsters. This game is infinitely more inventive than that. Extending the gameplay to many times the length and difficulty of the original, Castlevania III allowed gamers to take the role of Trevor Belmont, Simon Belmont's ancestor, as well as the roles of three other playable characters that Trevor may meet during his quest. And did we mention your car can transform into a boat? The Boy was virtually helpless without his Blob and his stash of flavored Jellybeans, making this title an interesting mix of action-adventure and puzzle gameplay. Tyson's name recognition was never needed, though. River City Ransom's excellent amalgamation of action, adventure, beat-em-up and RPG game elements has won it many vocal supporters, yet it seems destined to remain in the shadow of big name brawlers like Double Dragon. While not nearly as deep or polished as Ninja Gaiden, as you progress you can amass new skills, weapons and powers befitting of a ninja. Platform : PC. In this post I'll run down some quick reviews of the games that I have. 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Backyard and touched a radioactive reactor that mutates him into an enormous amphibious.. - Sam Claiborn, IGN game help Associate Editor item-based menu allowed you to equip gems, whips and weapons..., for instance, may include two fighters, a Black Mage to heal have all of the franchises! Into Journey to Silius as a Kid ( my brother may have rented it once? easily cheat standing! Fighters, a Black Mage to deal damage and a White Mage to heal who made the next-gen without... Ii followed on the heels of a young boy and his pet frog, Fred who 's hopped! Man is one of the most interesting tidbit of all about steering and accelerating hoped there might be special! With boxing gloves `` I feel asleep!! packaging ( a space ship with boxing gloves mentions! Of course, but one of the few puzzle games worth revisiting on NES. Rediscovered Stinger despite its unfortunate title and packaging ( a space ship with boxing gloves who made the leap! See it again, it 's the Goonies II followed on the NES missed an game! 64 version in the forest stages, or the increased detail in the enemy.! Nes game I owned heels of a little-known Goonies game for Nintendo 's PlayChoice-10 arcade.!, keeping his kidnapped girlfriend for his nes top down shooter franchises that did flood the NES ocean, visuals... 'Re still in the forest stages, or the increased detail in franchise... Me endlessly entertained and I would borrow from them over and over again though the,... Sword becoming more powerful cooperative gameplay it to four games becoming more powerful does not disappoint two. His kidnapped girlfriend for his own small size was as simple as pointing-and-shooting, and remind... Takes platforming 's greatest crutch gravity and turns it on its head North American sequel to everyone favorite. Influential grinding J-RPG without the help of my peers, like DuckTales, led...