At least, they're our favorite NES shooters to play. A thinly-veiled plot about the resurrection of Adolf Hitler and an epic soundtrack go a long way towards making Bionic Commando a totally unique experience on the NES. When I lived in New Hampshire, there was a videostore that rented NES games well into the PSX era. Each character has its own powers and limitations, for instance the mouse makes up for its measly health meter with its ability to cling to ceilings and walls. Alternately, you can put Toad's speed to use in plucking coins for the game of chance at each level's end. Before you knew it, your screen was full of viruses with scant a place for your pills to go. 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. I had a password that started players at (or near) the final town, but with all the ultimate weapons and armor still unequipped. Could you get past the bee-throwing enemy on stage four without losing a life? And if that five dollar coupon on the manual wasn't enough, Pizza Hut ads even made it into the game itself one of the earliest examples of that kind of advertising in gaming history. 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. The NES Willow game is better than George Lucas' movie. Not too bad for a couple of sweaty, shirtless Rambo clones. Demon Sword is a ninja action game that plays out at a break-neck speed compared to some of its contemporaries (cough Kung-Fu cough). Two guys with a knife and a suicide complex decide to invade Russia. The only game that ended up rivaling this excellent design was Konami's Blades of Steel, but the two were different enough to own and enjoy both (which is why you'll find Blades on this countdown). Zelda was one of the biggest console games of the time, and that got gamers excited. Early adopters who made the next-gen leap without looking back missed an incredible game design. Armed only with a brick-zapping raygun, your only defense in Lode Runner is the ability to bury your opponents alive, thus freeing them of an enticing pile of gold. Taking cues from open-ended adventure games like Metroid, you'll need to find certain weapons and equipment to progress in Bionic Commando, and that sometimes means returning to area you've previously visited to take care of unfinished business. I first played this in arcades with relatives manning all four joystickscalling dibs on pizza for health was futile as everyone else was older (and bigger) than me. Kid Icarus' extreme difficulty has turned off many a gamer in the past twenty years, but there's a lot to love as soon as you turn on the game. In fact, the first top-down game was a 2D shooter called Spacewar developed in 1962.. But after Baseball Stars hit the shelves (and subsequently flew off of them), expectations on what a sports game could do changed forever. It's also the teams and roster customization including the ability to create players, mess with their stats, and pay them a salary. I was blown away by how complete an experience Crystalis was. Never got to play the arcade version, but it's definitely one of my favorite NES games. When all's said and done, the chapters' events and characters culminate in an amazing endgame. Buy Buy Buy. It's like Marble Madness turned into a platformerand it worked! The game, presented in a manner similar to Epyx's popular California Games, came to the Commodore 64 and the NES. Tyson's name recognition was never needed, though. Pro-Am without it, racing games might have just been all about steering and accelerating. Use that sword and you'll understand why this one has certainly earned its classic status. Dracula is the bad guy? Each stage is procedurally generated and features certain objectives that need completed. Perhaps the one NES classic most on the minds of gamers in 2009 thanks to the recent release of its incredible Wii sequel/remake, Punch-Out!! Scattered mushrooms are the . The top-loading NES replaced the classic system, the Super Nintendo was over two years old, and the 16-bit battle was waging all around it in full force. It was the gameplay that was at the heart of Castlevania's epic rise from unknown brand to Konami flagship. It was so much fun to play that we didn't know many people who cared that it didn't look quite as good as its source material. 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. 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. Don't be. and seeing that the game was in 3-D. That was enough for me. And since everybody seems to be teaming up, you may as well take on the combined forces of the Dark Queen and Shadow Warriors with a pal the game's difficulty seems to indicate that it's built for two. 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. Note: the Power Glove will not enhance gameplay, but you'll look pretty darn rad, we promise. 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. What I think is funny is that my strongest memory of Skate or Die 2 is the amount of time I spent explaining to my friends that the game was different than T&C Surf Designs or 720. With a friend you can tag-team your opponents. You'd leap off the peaks in your path and go flying through the air, and have to adjust the angle of your descent in order to maintain your momentum and keep from crashing and you'd also have to keep an eye on your engine's temperature gauge all the while, as overheating would cause lengthy cool-down delays that would likely keep you from claiming first place. But while action games on the NES are a dime a dozen, it's this very fact that made Batman stand out amongst the competition. Choreographing delicate rescue operations with my cousin was a blast, sending one Jeep to collect P.O.W.s while the other threw out cover in the form of myriad bullets and grenades. Some of the islands' giant eggs pack ferocious but adorable dinos who will let you hitch a ride until they take damage. Dragon Warrior is an old-school grinding RPG that necessitated acute attention to leveling up, equipment management and smart planning. 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. And woe is the gamer who forgot to hold down the Reset button when turning off his NES. . 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. This was so I could put on different weapons and gloat (because once you don the final tier of weapons and armor, you can't remove them). Complete a shape and the area is yours. I think I've got the same fond memory for this one as everyone else does: skinny dude, medium dude, and fat dude. Top Down Shooter Engine. The ability to choose your own path had my permanent attention. Now, try them out for yourself! Saturday Night Slam Masters 1993 | Capcom Ad Ad - content continues below Wrestling games were extremely hit or miss in the 8-bit and 16-bit. Unlike its source, the NES version is an exploration-focused game with both side-scrolling platforming levels connected by a top down overworld-like area. When you aren't pounding all manner of non-amphibious fauna, you are racing speeding vehicles, repelling down pits and performing various other stunts uncharacteristic of your every day brawler. Bubble Bobble actually encourages you to bring a friend along on your journey only with the cooperation of two talented players can you access the game's extra stages and alternate ending. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Millipede Nintendo Entertainment System NES 1988 Box and Manual only Authentic at the best online prices at eBay! And you had side-scrolling stages, the core of the game, in which your character ran, jumped and attacked the invading alien hordes with a laser-whip. 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. Navigate up the ramp of a moving semi and you'll instantly up your arsenal. Tengen, an ambitious Atari-associated game developer, began releasing official NES games in 1988. We're still eagerly awaiting a Goonies III. A great, overlooked game that deserves more recognition today than it got back in 1992. The answer was simple line up the appropriate colors of pills matching the viruses, and voila, they disappear. Since the beginning of console gaming, movie licensed titles have held the stigma of being awful. These mysterious monoliths eventually became a series standard. 95. Review score. Gradius' unique power-up system makes for some tough decisions: do you beef up your defenses in order to tough out that inevitable meteor shower? The Konami code let me finish this co-op version of Gradius. No sooner would an unprepared adventurer leave a town and cross a bridge into a new area than he would find himself smashed by an enemy much stronger than he. In a sort of desperate-sounding effort to distinguish itself from other puzzle games that may happen to feature falling colored blocks, Klax's title screen boldly proclaims that "It is the nineties, and there is time for Klax." 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. 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. But for the most part, early Zelda gamers had nothing but their own ingenuity to rely on. First off, screw you Nintendo Nerd. nia_prene Posts: 17 Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2021 9:50 pm. Finally, you can also blast through Life Force with a buddy just don't expect the game's strained, overworked engine to keep up! Using your own bubbles to bounce your way up to out of reach platforms takes some serious platforming skills. While friends moved on to Super NES, I made do with Kirby. It featured actual cut-scenes in an era when such things were considered extraordinary. My greatest memory of this game is trying to convince a dozen IGN editors why this game was so awesome nearly 20 years ago. And that doesn't even begin to mention the game's three unique endings, a rarity in its day. Welcome to the 80's. Just to be extra cool, and to remind you you're still in the '80s. You'll soon realize how much better off you are without a rookie to keep track of. This game mixes amazing platforming with some quirky gun and driving missions; almost like Bayu Billy, if that game didn't suck and instead played like Ninja Gaiden. Duck Hunt is the game that immortalized forever Nintendo's light gun called the Zapper, and was certainly the game that used the underused peripheral more than any other. It doesn't take a master of Mad Gab to discern the phonetically equivalent true title Konami was going for with this one, especially after you realize that the setting is a Soviet stronghold and all of the enemies are Communists. Either way, there's a lot to see and like about Fester's Quest. 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. I'd always have the 30 man code active in the beginning, but eventually stopped using it as I got better over the years. Out of all of the games built on Capcom's famous Mega Man architecture (that wasn't a Mega Man game, that is), Duck Tales is perhaps the best of the bunch. So when I saw the commercials for the system air with footage from Super Mario Bros, I couldn't believe that it looked identical. And guess what? As a major Wonder Boy fan, I naturally thought Adventure Island was some kind of rip-off. Yeah, it looks like a dress, but it really frees up his arm for easy decapitations. I never was satisfied with the party I formed; so half way through the game, I'd start a new game with a completely different party. 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. There is an art to snagging territory, and players eventually must learn how to manipulate the irrepressible Qix itself. This makes it all the more mysterious that he appears as a strapping naked dude on the cover, but hey, those were different times. You can't do that! And it's the insanely crisp gameplay. 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. I had hoped there might be some special secret, which there wasn't. The game was extremely popular, resulting in an official sequel, a Game Boy Advance spinoff title, and a spiritual successor in the form of the PS2 game called Heavenly Guardian. Who knew The Goonies were big in Japan? Go find a movie of it if you don't believe me it's amazing. To make things interesting, at one point in your quest, your original classes undergo a change, making it advantageous to lug around a useless Thief just so you'll end up with a badass Ninja. Sure, Castlevania is only six stages long, but you'll require a lot of luck and skill getting through even half of it. Super Mario Bros. 3 does everything an NES game possibly can, and pushes the NES to the very limits of its capabilities, and we can unequivocally call it the greatest NES game of all time. Welcome additions include the four giant Animal Kings, cool spells and shops. In the original Dragon Warrior, the hero was on his own. No one complained. If you can get past the partially naked winged dudes, Legendary Wings offers some other treats as well. What Top 100 NES Games list would be complete without Duck Hunt? A port of a graphically superior arcade version, Konami gave Super C lots of love to help it make a successful transition, including the addition of several unique levels. It was sort of like Mega Man meets Strider, which I thought was spectacular for the time. And here's the kicker the pit stop comes to you! Or you can just skip the work and enter the Konami Code to get fully powered up in a matter of seconds. SMB2 added the ability to pick up and toss enemies and objects, a move that became part of Mario's permanent repertoire. It wasn't until a decade or two later that I finally understood that a poor localization was responsible for the game's extreme weirdness. Skateboarding continues to be a sport explored in new and unique ways in video gaming today, with EA recently revisiting the concept with Skate and Tony Hawk's series adding the new Ride peripheral, but Skate or Die got it all going. As the name of the game suggests, the idea of Ice Climber is to climb, climb, climb. And what gamers found in Mega Man 2 was something seen in few games since a title that was virtually flawless. In premise, the Lolo games were as simple as can be. Whatever!). It wasn't only the aesthetics that made the original Castlevania a great game, one that spawned one of the most popular and well-known series in gaming history. 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. There's another game you should be keep an eye on as developments progress, and that's Jackal; A remake of the NES top-down shooter of the same name, graphically enhanced to take advantage of the Amiga (OCS-ECS) hardware, which is . Shadowgate's unique spin on the point-and-click concept spawned several spiritual successors like Deja Vu and The Uninvited on the NES, as well as its own direct sequel years later on the Nintendo 64. Yes, please! All the while, Pit must work his way through four unique worlds, each with multiple unique stages and an end fortress where Pit must navigate through a labyrinthine set of screens to reach the boss. The music is as memorable as anything from Nintendo. Fester's Quest was a title my brother and I would borrow from them over and over again. Only later did I learn the convoluted history of who made what, so Hudson, I owe you an apology for my playground rants about your integrity. You took on the role of a nameless hero setting off to save a village of Elves who are slowly being poisoned by the magic of the malevolent Evil One. Kind of like Pixar's Toy Story, this was a world seen from a toy's perspective races took place on top of massive billiards tables or in backyard with gigantic, looming flowers and blades of grass. Once all four had been collected, the legendary titular sword "Crystalis" could be created. It's like someone took the Gradius series' Vic Viper and transformed it from a spaceship into a jet ski. When colors are matched you guessed it they disappear. Unfortunately, this game didn't satisfy everyone. Ask anyone who played this game extensively and they'll tell you, it was one of the hardest games of all time. But when something isn't broken, you shouldn't attempt to fix it, and Capcom released what was in essence the same experience from the three earlier titles in the series. If you have 120 lives, killing yourself was fun. Weird West is a game that might spark some interest . The game has been enjoyed by more players over the years than any other game on the NES, and its greatness can be experienced by anyone who picks up a control pad today. The new Rush Adaptors combined Mega Man with his robotic dog into one unit for the first time, and yes, Dr. Wily is again behind the robotic destruction coursing through the game, this time masquerading as the ill-disguised Mr. X. Several classic NES series seem to follow identical paths. Get ready to relive the days when shooting down enemy forces and dodging oncoming fire while sipping a can of Surge was all we needed for a quick adrenaline rush. You'll find a few other games that got thrust into the limelight the same way on this countdown, like VICE: Project Doom. R.C. "Daggers and wingboots, mantras and monsters await you." - Colin Moriarty, IGN Guides Associate Editor. And then there was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the follow-up to the smash hit The Legend of Zelda. One of the unsung heroes of the action/RPG genre from the NES era, Crystalis was such an intriguing and unique adventure in its first release in 1990 that Nintendo itself actually went back, got the rights to it, and re-released it ten years later as a first-party Game Boy Color port. Though this is the penultimate entry in the trilogy, Wizards and Warriors III - Kuros: Visions of Power, followed as a largely forgotten (and Fabio-less) dud. You had sniper shooter levels, like those you might remember from The Adventures of Bayou Billy. 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. Completely unlike anything else at the time. 2. Perhaps. A uniquely saccharine shooter, Stinger pits two quite capable, but very pastel space cruisers against some deceptively cute enemy forces. 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. Between territories are neutral zones, filled with shops that carry life-giving junk food and high-priced moves that become absolutely necessary as you progress. My earliest forays into the Cave of Monsters were rarely solo. 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 Kid Icarus, gamers take the role of Pit. As I played it for the first time in two decades, I recalled many afternoons spent with the cutesy Twinbee fighters. I was too ADD / illiterate as a kid to ever get that Zelda was the princess in the first game. The visuals weren't as vibrant and the animations weren't as fluid, but the gameplay was spot-on. I added level configs for 102 NES games in CaD Editor. 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. Any discussion of Contra wouldn't be complete without a nod to its iconic 8-bit soundtrack. - Sam Claiborn, IGN Game Help 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. As if you have been following Neeso Games upcoming Amiga game of Jackal, which is a remake of the NES top-down shooter of the same name . Alternating both horizontal and vertical scrolling levels with cool 3D-imitating third-person view stages, Contra was designed with short attention spans in mind. I also loved the take-offs of popular wrestlers that Tecmo had going on here. VICE: Project Doom is one of the most overlooked and underappreciated third-party game designs to ever hit the NES, even after claiming a cover of Nintendo Power in 1991. Shooter, Action & Adventure . Fighting enemy parties that never consisted of more than one enemy, the original was about narrow-minded preparedness. Years before Yoshi first crammed a fat plumber on his back, Adventure Island II offered some of the coolest dinosaur wrangling in the business. And that's saying nothing of its amazing action-platforming gameplay, which was oft-replicated and never exceeded. As someone who has gone through the effort of tracking down this neglected gem of a Game Pak, I can affirm that Little Samson can hold his own with the Belmonts, Mega Men and Master Higgins' of the era. The game is brutal. Over the years though Bionic Commando is a game I keep going back to, and it wasn't until I really realized the RPG-lite experience in there (trucks lead to 1Ups, kills equal strength and RPG-like leveling) that I was able to really dominate the game. Viewing it from afar, I was disappointed, thinking she bought Track and Field. I always thought Ice Climber was just another way to repackage Mario Bros. "It's just the same game with a bunch of white," I thought. While not entirely innovative, Final Fantasy did make some interesting iterations on the RPG formula. 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. On horseback, must prevent 3 bandits from boarding the train. As a bonus, your stunned partner can double as a bludgeoning tool. There really is nothing quite like punching a guy in the gut, jump-kicking him in the face and watching him fall backwards out of a chopper's open side-door, then imagining his terror as he plummets to a watery death in the waves below. This grappler was unmatched in its diversity of moves and over-the-top personality, and remains today a favorite of thousands of fans across the world. And if you somehow run out of those, you can always steal one from your unsuspecting partner. After releasing several games for the Atari 2600 and other computer-based consoles, famed Pitfall! Around the corner from my house growing up was a rare sight these days a mom and pop video store. But one has to travel back to the fall of 1985 to find the origin of these two arctic explorers, who first appeared in one of the launch titles on the NES, Ice Climber. The NES classic is surrounded by so many standout features and moments that it's hard to decide on just one, from the collectable gold cart to its battery-powered save function. Above all else, what surprised me most about Rescue Rangers is that it was so fun to play. Good stuff. 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. 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. He's hidden himself inside the enormous, Tower of Babylon-esque World Tree a massive, multi-leveled living structure that holds the entire game's worth of town, fortresses and enemy lairs within its roots, trunk and branches. 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. While a clipper ship and canoe allow you to access new areas of the map, it's the airship that's worth holding out for. - Mark Ryan Sallee, IGN Game Help Editor-in-Chief. This NES follow-up refined and focused what started on the portable platform, offering a polished action experience married with overhead map and town exploration ripped right out of the best RPGs of the age. Your objective is to take them all down for the joy of the audience. In Little Samson you play as one of four different characters: a mouse, a robot, a dragon and a boring ol' human boy. Some of them are good. It has its quirks, and the water level is insane, but it crams a lot into an NES cart. Top. After all, Dr. Mario had a two player mode. And some were fortunate enough to have friends who knew answers. It appears Dr. Wily is behind the madness yet again. The cartoony visuals manage to. - Colin Moriarty, IGN Guides Associate Editor, Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble, Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team, A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, NES was recently named the best console of all time. The very last project created by Irem for the NES, Kickle Cubicle appeared to be a straight rip-off of the aforementioned Adventures of Lolo, but had gameplay features of its own that made it a unique offering, and one worth anyone's time interested in the genre. 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. Life Force's moderate difficulty sets it apart from its peers in a genre generally geared towards the masochistic. Doctor Hauzer. In the game, our pajama clad mascot navigates the often psychedelic Slumberland with the help of wild animals. The catastrophic data loss that resulted ruined many a gamers' month. It is possibly the most awesome car ever made aside from the "Metal Attacker" in Blaster Master. 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. Most memorable of all is Tales' peerless soundtrack, particularly the tunes for Transylvania, African Mines, and the Moon. 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. Old-school arcade gamers have found and will continue to find a lot to love in any iteration of Mario Bros., but new gamers beware! It may strike some as strange that one of the NES's very greatest platformers dispenses with jumping that essential component of Mario's repertoire entirely. The NES had its fair share of unique puzzle games, and Adventures of Lolo 3 might take the cake as the genre's quintessential title on the console. Well it wasn't. Qix for NES is the definitive home version due to its spot-on emulation and availability, although it was also resurrected on various PC platforms and Nintendo even published a GameBoy version featuring characters from the Mario pantheon. Developed on the same engine as Kid Icarus, and released around the same time, Metroid toned down the action-platforming found in Icarus and focused on exploration. 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. Rygar's action/adventure gameplay elements have helped it attain a sort of "cult classic" status. The Vic Viper's first attack run may have been in the arcades, but the NES brought the popular space shooter home in a near-perfect port. A complete reworking of an inferior arcade brawler of the same name, Rygar for the NES tells the heroic story of a man and his deadly yo-yo shield. The car is called the G-6155. An incredibly popular release in both sales and lasting fan opinion, RC Pro-Am was an innovative racing game developed by Rare. Oh, and they advertised this sucker like crazy in comic books at the time (no, really). 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