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. That is, until my copy started getting corrupted. Because I was the kind of nerd that kept track of developer names, when I saw that the creator of Pitfall was behind Boy and His Blob, I was sold. Unlike the Adventures of Lolo series, which was unforgiving in its difficulty, Kickle Cubicle's difficulty spikes were much more reasonable. and seeing that the game was in 3-D. That was enough for me. If there was ever a more perfect title for an NES game, we don't know what it was Kid Niki: Radical Ninja got it exactly right. As I played it for the first time in two decades, I recalled many afternoons spent with the cutesy Twinbee fighters. Unlike other popular cooperative games like Contra, crowding the screen with blue and green bubbles was just as enjoyable with an experienced player as it was with a total novice I believe we called them "posers" back in those pre-n00b times. It's effectively a full Battletoads follow up with our boys Billy and Jimmy Lee along for the ride. Yeah, it can do that too. Nevertheless, I spent many hours with this awesome sequel in the game, the cover model was substituted with a protagonist tastefully clad to the nines in iron plating. What makes the game so special, then? If one company was known for its amazing licensed NES games, it's Sunsoft. Best nes shoot em up games. Instead of a game that relied on epic, blind exploration and top-down dungeon-crawling action, Zelda II introduced a completely new idea for the series, and one that hasn't been revisited since. With the 8-bit rendition of the Cyndi Lauper theme from the movie blaring, lead Goony Mikey sets out to rescue the remaining kids, and, for some reason, a Mermaid, from the Fratelli family. 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. I think Tetris is the better game, but Klax is very creative and the NES version was surprisingly well developed and accurate to the original. It's a good thing, too, since this was the last Dragon Warrior game to appear in the United States for nearly a decade. Note: the Power Glove will not enhance gameplay, but you'll look pretty darn rad, we promise. Watching my neighbors play the series endlessly as a child, my first independent go-around with Dragon Warrior was when I was in the 8th grade in 1997. Instead of focusing on just one character or one group of characters, Dragon Warrior IV tells its fragmented story in chapters, which the gamer takes on one at a time. I lived in Maine when Mega Man 5 came out, which was an SNES-dominated era in my life. Two guys with a knife and a suicide complex decide to invade Russia. It's an undeniable classic. It wasn't because I was awful at it (though I do remember it to be challenging), but because there was almost something exciting about getting to make a choice of where I went next. Yeah, it looks like a dress, but it really frees up his arm for easy decapitations. At some point in the latter half of the 1980s, Konami's instantly-recognizable silver-framed package art became a surefire visual indicator of a top-notch NES experience. Viewing it from afar, I was disappointed, thinking she bought Track and Field. Although Nintendo's licensed, "official" version of Tetris was ubiquitous, happening upon this strange, black cartridge in the cobwebby recesses of a used game joint proved an eye-opening experience for this young NES collector-to-be. Year: 1992 Genre: Shooter. edited 2y. The paths you choose to take during the game will bring you to stages and events you might otherwise miss entirely. After all, Dr. Mario had a two player mode. This game eats 8-bit novices for breakfast to this day. Ah, Kid Niki, with your crazy hair and your even wackier spinning sword. This was a defining day for my brother and I, though I'm sure neither of us knew it then. Despite the unparalleled hype, no one was disappointed. . Although you can't tackle Gradius with a pal, you can outfit your ship with "options" mindless, floating turrets that flank your ship. Enlist a second set of wheels and you'll be nuking twice the whatever-the-hell-you-want-to in no time. The gameplay mechanics of the original Castlevania remained intact, but there was a whole lot more that had been added that transferred it from the realm of action-platformer to the realm of action-RPG. As a kid, Shadowgate was straight spooky. It's still a blast to this day and Tecmo should bring it back. The Game Pak is truly worth tracking down for its multiplayer selection, including a wacky cooperative mode. 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. 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. The care gameplay is right on, the visuals aren't bad at all, and it stinks of Mega Man inspired robot blasting. But Klax is more than just the sum of its '90s neon parts. So, if you just hack away with short, quick slashes each one will be pretty wimpy. Once all four had been collected, the legendary titular sword "Crystalis" could be created. Excitebike was also the first game to offer a user-created content feature, through its track editor for a game that hit on October 18, 1985, that was way ahead of its time. Gargoyle's Quest II was the sequel to the Game Boy original Gargoyle's Quest, a game that was itself a spin-off of Capcom's Ghosts 'n Goblins starring that series' infamous flying red demon as its hero. Do you need anything else? Joes. Because it came out on the NES after the SNES had already arrived, you may have missed out even if you were around and gaming on Nintendo systems 17 years ago, but Kirby's Adventure is one that can't be missed. Out of all of the great games on our list, Kickle Cubicle is one of the few titles I never got to experience until I was an adult. The great thing about TMNT was its ability to let gamers use all four Ninja Turtles at will, even though it was only a one-player action game. 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. But the action/platforming was a lot of play to fun regardless. One of the NES's premier racing games may have a peculiar title, but we pose this question: would a racer by any other name be quite as rad? And if you somehow run out of those, you can always steal one from your unsuspecting partner. 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. 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. Welcome to the 80's. I was lucky enough to rent Mega Man 4 over and over again before buying it later on. Using a sort of glorified stamp tool, you could concoct you own mixture of bricks, ladders, ropes and baddies, then set it to life. Also, it was the closest thing to "Gleaming the Cube: The Game" as I could find. 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. Mega Man's unique approach is what initially made it so interesting to gamers. And I get to hit him with a whip? After ripping open all of my other presents, all I cared about was Mega Man 3. That's right if you've ever cursed the skies after falling prey to the infamous Blue Shell, you can trace the source of your rage all the way back to Rare's R.C. Something about Adventures of Link scared memaybe the dark backgrounds in the forest stages, or the increased detail in the enemy designs. This isn't the Super Mario Bros. we oft talk about as one of the most groundbreaking games to ever be released. Many gamers wanted a port of Konami's arcade beat-'em-up of the same name instead, but had to wait until 1991, when a port of the arcade classic came to the NES under the TMNT 2 moniker. The game places a greater emphasis on exploration than the first, and can get a bit confusing, but if you hop around enough you can find your way through the game fairly easily. As expected, Spy Hunter still stood out as one of the NES's greatest driving games even though it had aged a bit. Pro-Am without it, racing games might have just been all about steering and accelerating. It only took a year for Tecmo to follow-up the smash-hit status of the original Ninja Gaiden with its sequel. And then, of course, the difficulty starts off easy enough, but advance through half a dozen areas and you find yourself in a fight for your very life. I remember seeing this game being pushed on the Home Shopping Network months before it was available in stores. The most anticipated game on the NES, SMB3 had nothing short of a feature length film (The Wizard) plugging it before it hit store shelves. Evidence of this is all over the place, from the enemies to some of the music. By 1990, Capcom was churning out quality 2D platformers at frightening rate, making it entirely possible for the gamers of yesteryear to have missed this strangely licensed gem. It's bright, colorful aesthetic, awesome enemy designs, amazing music and incredible replay value are all storied parts of the game's history. It was released in 1996 for MS-DOS, but in 2009 it was re-released for Windows as freeware. You could jump, cling to walls, spew fireballs and hover with your demon wings in action stages and then chat it up with the denizens of the Demon Realm, earn upgrades and items and more. Pro-Am, and cast players as the captains of a high-speed, heavily-armored attack ship cutting through tropical waters to take on sharks, rival watercrafts and giant sea serpents. Totally bodacious to the max! Some of them are good. In it, our metal-clad protagonist, Kuros, sets out on a quest to save not one, but several distressed damsels (and we're not talking about some ugly dude in mushroom regalia). Take that, Zero Suit Samus in Super Smash Bros. Brawl developer Aicom had you beat to the punch nearly two decades ago. You had sniper shooter levels, like those you might remember from The Adventures of Bayou Billy. Each can be one of six diverse character classes, which dictates their role on the frontlines. And Christmas of 1990 was when I finally got my hands on the game I would be obsessed with until this day. Although it is fun to pummel some of Double Dragon's most notorious thugs, Battletoads fan will probably be the most satisfied with this cartoonish, goofy beat 'em up. But it was this release combined with Super Mario Bros. (and sometimes World Class Track Meet or Gyromite) as a bundled-in offering with the NES made it one of the most proliferated games on the console. I'm a lifelong boxing fan, so being able to "sim" matches this early was something of a breakthrough for me. As was the case with Tetris, Dr. Mario got fast and furious the further into the game you got. And back in 1987, the franchise started off with a bang with one of the most ambitious replica-gold-plated cartridges to ever grace the NES. I'm still working on getting this game to Virtual Console, though Sammy (now SEGA) has no idea they even own it. Konami's Castlevania was followed up by Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, a game that strayed entirely from its origins. You were fighting the clock, too, and if you ever ran out of torches then it was Game Over for you. It's a weird gory little body horror shooter, you're working your way through a giant planet-sized being trying to rescue a princess who's the last surviving member of her race. 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. 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! 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. ), 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. We won. Excitebike was one of the 18 launch titles for the NES here in America, and distanced itself from the pack by offering truly addictive motocross gameplay. Unfortunately, almost everyone agrees that Tengen's version of the game was far superior to Nintendo's, even including a two-player mode which Nintendo's version sorely lacked. - Colin Moriarty, IGN Guides Associate Editor. Adventure Island II took the original Adventure Island's somewhat tedious straightforward platforming and fleshed it out, becoming the foundation for a solid series. It's all a bit confusing, but with little perseverance and a lot of hitting walls with your hammer you'll discover a unique hybrid adventure game worthy of the Goonies license. Occasionally you need to take a break from the one-Jeep-army annihilation to collect POWs from camps, but for your patience you are rewarded with even greater destructive power. This boat-based action/racing design was based on the engine the studio had developed for the classic R.C. But Section Z separated itself from the likes of Gradius and Life Force with a non-linear path to forward progress after each side-scrolling section you successfully survived, you'd be presented with two different teleporters. First off, screw you Nintendo Nerd. Castlevania was not only a brilliant vid, but the music too is timeless I can still hum it on cue. With little emphasis on the scaled-up world of the titular chipmunks, many of the things lying around the inflated settings could be picked up and used as projectiles on exploration. When I got the box in my hand, however, it was Castlevania III. From simulated parallax that means multiple backgrounds moving at varying speeds to precise, multi-celled animation, this mech platformer pushes the NES to the very limits of its hardware capabilities. The game is brutal. Firepower 2000 is notable for being one of the few shoot em' ups on the Super Nintendo that allows two-player action. The nameless Boy and his pet Blob would overcome obstacles, defeat enemies and progress through the game by way of using special Jellybeans that would allow the Blob to become different objects and perform different feats. Cue Fester's Quest, a 1989 offering from Sunsoft that put gamers in the role of Uncle Fester, a character from the 1960s sitcom The Addams Family. The Deadly Tower of Monsters. It's like someone took the Gradius series' Vic Viper and transformed it from a spaceship into a jet ski. Super C, the somewhat unfortunately-titled sequel to Contra, features the same co-op shooter action of the first without toying with the formula too much. That's a shame, because its blend of three different types of gameplay set it apart from the crowd and made it a classic. Scattered mushrooms are the . 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. Difficult but you get infinite continues and all enemies follow a pre-established pattern. And what gamers found in Mega Man 2 was something seen in few games since a title that was virtually flawless. 9 Darius Twin The grappling animation between the two fighters makes it look like they're just hugging each other, and the boxers' interaction with their cornermen between rounds is even more, well, provocative. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a smash phenomenon in the late 1980s. Meanwhile, the company worked rapidly behind the scenes to override Nintendo's infamous lockout device that kept unofficial cartridges from being played on its console. Not too shabby. If Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team strikes you as a bit gimmicky, we've got news for you: it is! But Slumberland is an unexpectedly dangerous place, and the game's advanced difficulty level no doubt took some unsuspecting youngsters by surprise. But after the Wonder Boy series went in the direction of RPG-lite, I was happy to have Master Higgins keeping the flame alive on his trusty skateboard. 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. Astyanax is armed with a massive golden axe which has a unique mechanic attached to it it's linked to a power meter at the bottom of the screen which depletes and refills after every attack. Batman taught me the meaning of "envy;" I went to a neighbor's house and played it all day, mastering the diabolical wall jump platforming challenges, and I wanted the game for myself. Jackal - A top down shooter based around the NES version get a new Amiga v6 demo via Neeso Games! I was totally paranoid that I'd come back from school (or day care or whatever) and the game would be turned off. Top down light artillery robot. Awesome! When the game culminates on the sixth and final stage, Scrooge is a force to be reckoned with. The versus play is simple and even repetitive, but it holds up today. Not too bad for a couple of sweaty, shirtless Rambo clones. Aside from its special place in history, however, Kung Fu is also a rewarding example of early "beat-'em-up" videogames in all of its 2D glory. It wasn't, of course, but it felt that way. I should fix that Near the end of the NES' lifecycle, puzzle games were THE craze. One of the few games I remembered beating without the Game Genie (but done on an NES Advantage for sake of the turbo function). Konami even tossed in two new, NES-exclusive extra levels, making it even more "in-demand" when it hit store shelves. Life Force's moderate difficulty sets it apart from its peers in a genre generally geared towards the masochistic. Final Fantasy also offered new ways to navigate its sprawling overworld. After all, it is 2009, and there's been a lot of time for Tetris and Dr. Mario. It was much harder than the first game, which I liked, and even though I played through it a couple of times, it didn't leave me with a "been there, done that" feeling that so many other games did. Skate or Die brought gamers several different skateboarding events including downhill races, freestyle ramp competitions and a joust match fought in a drained swimming pool. What a glorious game, from the overall design down to the visuals and music. nia_prene Posts: 17 Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:50 pm. No one complained. Yeah. As a major Wonder Boy fan, I naturally thought Adventure Island was some kind of rip-off. The beloved NES game is every bit as addictive today as it was 20-plus years ago, which is a testament to the quality of its design. I still believe that the NES original is the greatest top-down racer ever developed. (which also just so happens to be placed at the bottom of that hole in his yard). Little Samson arrived at the tail-end of the NES era, when most gamers had moved on to newer, although not necessarily better, consoles. Kratos' Blades of Athena are simply an upgrade of Rygar's one (and only) Diskarmor! It's also the teams and roster customization including the ability to create players, mess with their stats, and pay them a salary. Some of Ring King's lasting popularity is for reasons a bit more dubious, though, in that it's one of the most laughed-at games on the 8-bit Nintendo because of some unintentionally suggestive visuals. The music is as memorable as anything from Nintendo. "Daggers and wingboots, mantras and monsters await you." Along the way you'll explore via many, many knightly leaps lofty treetops, labyrinthine caverns and an unexpectedly tall castle tower. I'd always have the 30 man code active in the beginning, but eventually stopped using it as I got better over the years. Gamers take the role of Scrooge McDuck, who goes through various stages to collect wealth, defeating enemies with his pogo stick attack. Dragon Warrior IV, released in the US in 1992, tried to buck this trend with a unique approach to unraveling the game's overarching narrative. In Klax, a conveyor belt feeds tiles that can be stacked in columns. May meet, because Castlevania III allowed gamers multiple paths as they progressed through the game. And while all Robot Masters since Mega Man 2 have been designed by the Japanese, Mega Man 6 totes a few created by North Americans. The game also offered the sibling heroes an upgrade to their fighting repertoires, with several impressive new skills like the unforgettable Cyclone Spin Kick, and some iconic new set pieces in which to do battle, like a stage that took place aboard a helicopter in-flight thousands of feet above the ocean. Tengen's tetris was pulled from shelves almost immediately when it was revealed that Nintendo's hold on the Tetris name stateside was legitimate. The main game is an arcade-like collect-athon with a puzzle-solving aspect. SMB2 added the ability to pick up and toss enemies and objects, a move that became part of Mario's permanent repertoire. But if you venture into this territory, be ready for unforgiving difficulty, one of the game's hallmarks. Strangely, though epic in scale, Rygar doesn't feature a way to save or even a password system, so make sure your NES is hooked up to a good power source before embarking on your quest. Why is Baseball Stars so important? Overworld puzzle-solving was equally as important there was even a riddle that you couldn't solve unless you opened up the physical game box and read a piece of paper packaged with the game. It was the gameplay that was at the heart of Castlevania's epic rise from unknown brand to Konami flagship. On horseback, must prevent 3 bandits from boarding the train. Mega Man started the craze. And if racing in two dimensions isn't your cup of tea, grab your Power Glove, pop on a pair of 3D glasses, and experience Rad Racer in red and blue stereoscopic bliss. The game, presented in a manner similar to Epyx's popular California Games, came to the Commodore 64 and the NES. Plus, being able to build an "ultimate weapon" out of blades I already had was a great touch. And that's where Lolo's difficult gameplay comes in, because it's getting those icons that are the true feat. A key eye for subtle detail was needed for success, as your exploration could often come to a sudden and gruesome end if you missed even a single key weapon or item early in the labyrinth. Fantastic. Created by Sunsoft, which was at the top of its game in the late 1980s with classic release after classic release, Journey to Silius was originally supposed to be a licensed Terminator game. Super Mario Bros. was a smash hit, and its American sequel was a completely different type of game. I'm a lifelong Samus Aran groupie. Let's be honest if you are going to play Maniac Mansion, you really should try the uncensored Commodore 64 version. In the late 1980s Goonies mania was in full swing, which helps explain the countless after school sessions I spent with this perplexing Konami cash-in. 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. The inspirational forerunner to just about every worthwhile baseball title of the past twenty years, SNK's Baseball Stars is one of those rare games that still stands up today. While Qix was never lauded for its graphical flair, the NES got not only the look but the mechanics of this strange geometric puzzler down perfectly. 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. Another of Rare's excellent pre-second-party efforts on the NES, Snake Rattle 'n' Roll was an isometric action/adventure with a curious goal, and more curious controls. And this time Mario doesn't steal the spotlight. 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. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit of all about Duck Hunt, however, was the stand-alone product's incredibly small size. Then, with enough mass amassed, you could jump onto the level-ending weight scale to trigger the opening of the stage-clearing door make it through there, and you're on to the next world. The gameplay is of the classic action-platforming variety. 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. Arcade, Famicom, NES: Nintendo: A 1984 light gun shooter adapted from a 1974 EM arcade game. Then you've got "Ninja," which summoned up the best emotions from Ninja Gaiden, the Ninja Turtles and Zen: Intergalactic Ninja. Cue Dragon Warrior III, the third game in the long-running RPG series from Enix, a game that came only a couple of years after the original landed stateside. But while the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were starring in lame TV and movie spin-offs on the NES, Rare actually spent time crafting Battletoads into a surprisingly arcade-like beat-'em-up. The day this one was conquered was when I finally found Game Genie codes, booted up two players and made sure either my brother or I stayed alive to keep the progress on our assault. And here's the kicker the pit stop comes to you! An SNES-dominated era in my hand, however, was the stand-alone product 's incredibly size... Difficulty spikes were much more reasonable arcade, Famicom, NES: Nintendo: a 1984 light gun shooter from. One of the original Ninja Gaiden with its sequel and it stinks of Mega Man was. Horseback, must prevent 3 bandits from boarding the train to this day the Cube: game... 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