Top 10 Games on a Given Console: NES Edition

I am recalling correctly in Ducktales, you eventually got to play as Gizmoduck? I swear it was possible.

Wasn’t it a powerup or something?

He appears on the moon to clear an obstacle. Not playable

I totally missed the NES/SMS era - I was still gaming on my C64 - but I did want to pop in and say I love the thread, and will certainly be following.

Same as you or @Gordon_Cameron, I jumped back in the console band only later, with the NEC PC-Engine, and discovered the Sega Mastersystem and NES slightly later. Most of the NES games, I discovered through emulation, but it is very hard to limit one’s self to 10 games, as it is one of those platforms that seem to have been blessed by an unusual high proportion of good games.

My list would be in no particular order:

  • Zelda, how original.
  • Otocky, a crazy musical shoot’em up. Really more of an oddity, but wow!
  • Quarth. Ah, if only they had given you a gun in TetrisQuarth got you covered!
  • Summer Carnival '92 Recca, a manic shooter on an 8-bit console known for its display issues, built for their yearly summer contest by the guys at Naxat. It is just mindblowing.
  • Nekketsukoko Kunio-kun Dodgeball, a dodgeball game with the River City Ransom cast. Much fun, especially in multiplayer.
  • Battle City, a more elaborate and cooperative version of the Atari 2600’s Combat, which often degenerated into a death match.
  • Metroid, absolutely fell in love with the atmosphere of this one.
  • Super Arabian, my single screen action game of choice for the platform.
  • Gun-Nac, an incredible shooter, as usual with Compile.
  • Super Pitfall - probably a bad game, but the map was so overly huge, the feel of discovery was awesome. Why is that thing named Pitfall though?

But my absolutive favorite is Musashi no Ken, the improbable adaptation of some minor Aikido anime. The single player part is crazily, stupidly, insanely difficult and impossible, so never play it for that, but the game sports an awesome multiplayer mode, acting as a simplified fighting game that is both hilarious and extremely satisfying.

Skate or Die
Battle Toads
Double Dragon

NES years I was mostly too busy chasing girls, but I definitely remember some late nights with River City Ransom and Super Mario Bros. 3, if that’s the one where he turns into a raccoon. That game was awesome.

During this era, I had an Amstrad 6128 CPC. A friend of mine had the Spectrum, another had a Commodore 64, another had an IBM PC. Out of all of them, I thought my Amstrad had the best graphics. But I had to admit, the Commodore 64 had the most and best games. Also at the tail end of that era, I visited my second cousin and he had a NES, and Zelda. And I was floored. There was nothing like that for the Amstrad, Commodore, Spectrum or IBM PC that I’d seen in that era. (I’m sure now that I was probably wrong, right?) But yeah, I played through Zelda that summer when visiting, and I came away VERY impressed back to my Amstrad, slightly disappointed in my own computer.

I got over that exact same disappointment by getting over my prejudices against “verbose” games and plunging into the Spanish Main of Pirates!

Zelda just seemed so simplistic to me compared to the flood of 8-bit RPGs that was around at the time on the C64. I know, apples and oranges, but I really was unimpressed when I saw it. Oh well… it must have been good for something!

It is absolutely tied: the Amstrad CPC 6128 is notoriously known for being bare of about any sort of RPGs, excepting a couple (litterally) of French efforts. Games like Ultima were just absolute sci-fi and would have been the same sort of shock if I have had the luck to have a friend with a Commodore 64 (I saw my first one about 10 years ago!) - and if I had spoken English back then, which wasn’t going to happen for another 10 years anyway.
Incidently, I remember reading as a kid a French book (without any picture!) about all those computer RPGs: it was detailing the Ultimas, Wizardry, Phantasie… I read it over and over, fascinated that I was with those…

Well, off the top of my head:

  1. Zelda
  2. Metroid
  3. Super Mario Bros. 2
  4. Super Mario Bros. 3
  5. Final Fantasy
  6. Metal Gear
  7. Contra
  8. Mega Man 2
  9. Ninja Gaiden
  10. Zelda 2

Blades of Steel all the way.

  1. SNK Baseball Stars - make a team, play games against the computer or a buddy, win money, pick up free agent players which could then be developed by spending money on something like 8 skills, lather, rinse, and repeat. Super addicting in the dorm. We all had such highly developed teams and played so much that the games would quite literally come down one pitch. If you left your ace (or any pitcher) in for even 1 pitch too long he’d lose his ‘stuff’ and any one of our batters could then crush it out of the park.

  2. Super Mario Bros. 3

  3. Contra up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, select, start (anyone?)

  4. Super Mario Bros.

  5. Dragon Quest (actually Dragon Warrior in North America)

  6. Jackal - overhead jeep driving game for 1 or 2(better) players, similar to Akari Warriors

  7. 194x - don’t remember which but loved it

  8. How has no one said Gauntlet?!

Because the NES version of Guantlet was such a pale comparison to the arcade version.

Wow, really? I just watched videos of both and other than the sounds and to a lesser extent, the graphics they seem pretty close to me.

NES Gauntlet is a far more interesting game than arcade Gauntlet, since it has an actual ending and a health system that isn’t balanced around dumping quarters into the machine.

Since I have been spending a lot of time with my NES Classic, here’s a list in no particular order

Super Mario Bros 3
Guardian Legend
Crystalis
Contra
Mike Tyson’s Punch Out (the Tyson version is important)
Legend of Zelda
Metroid
Final Fantasy
Gradius
Castlevania 3

List subject to change

  1. The Legend of Zelda - amazing game. Loved figuring out all the secrets and especially the second quest.

  2. Metroid - It spawned a genre.

  3. RC Pro Am - I remember playing Rock N Roll Racing many years later and while I really liked it, I felt like it didn’t quite capture the magic of RC Pro Am.

  4. Metal Gear - This is the only Metal Gear game I’ve ever liked. I remember trying to play the sequel and finding it super frustrating for some reason. The beginning of this game could be frustrating but somehow it was worse in the sequel. Or that’s what I remember.

  5. Baseball Stars - Worst battery in cartridge history. But I loved the mismash of baseball and rpg stats that very dramatically impacted gameplay. My “movie monsters” team destroyed a group of friends one weekend when we were fooling around (everyone made a team and my two choices were “speed and defense”. I was the only one who could reliably throw people out at first from the left side of the diamond, and my speedy lineup could create runs like crazy). RBI baseball and MLB Baseball were more popular (to say nothing of Baseball Stars) but this was my secret favorite. I want to play an RPG baseball game again one day.

  6. Techmo Bowl - my favorite sports game on the system. Quirky but oh so fun.

  7. Master Blaster - great take on the Metroidvania forumla. And I just loved the car thingy.

  8. Castlevania 2 - I found I and III too hard for my abilities. I liked that they slipped rpg bits into this and found it gave the genre interesting possibilities.

  9. Nintendo Tennis - probably my second favorite sports game on the system.

  10. Mike Tyson’s Punch Out - I never beat Tyson or the guy before him. But I did love it.

Don’t know if a lot of these would hold up now, but I sure played a lot of them.

  1. Metroid
  2. RC Pro Am
  3. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out
  4. Rygar
  5. Double Dribble
  6. Contra
  7. Baseball Simulator 1000
  8. NES Hockey
  9. Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
  10. Strider

Honorable Mentions:

  • Goonies 2
  • MegaMan