The 100 Best Original Nintendo Games
The most nostalgic list you'll come across— these are the best original nintendo games.
Image via Getty/Ralf-Finn Hestoft
This feature was originally published on September 8, 2017.
The original Nintendo Entertainment System saved the video game industry from the brink of death. After the Video Game Crash of 1983, total revenue in the industry had gone from 3.2 billion dollars in 1983, down to a measly 100 million dollars in 1985. People had begun to believe that video games would never recover, and would soon become a brief blurb in the history books. Then, the japanese guardian angel arrived … the NES.
The NES did something that no other console before it could, it delivered on its promises. Consumers had lost their trust in the industry, for years games had been marketed using visuals that completely misrepresented the actual (highly underwhelming) graphics of the games. Additionally, the games of the time simply weren’t fun, and seemed to be being made purely for profit. Nintendo was different. They valued quality game design over everything else. The current President and CEO of Nintendo of America summed up their stance perfectly, “If it's not fun, why bother”.
Over 750 games were released for the NES under the seal of Nintendo of America. We decided to approach this feature by first asking ourselves the following question: if we could only save 100 games from the Nintendo Entertainment System for posterity, what would they be?
The following list of 100 original Nintendo games for the Nintendo Entertainment System is aimed to accomplish that task. If you were to decide that you had to enshrine this pivotal era in video game history for your private collection, putting together the classic collection of games on this list would make sure you didn't miss out on any of the most unique, or defining, or popular titles for the NES.
This is a list of games to play if you want street cred in the retro game library at the Penny Arcade Expo. This is your list of gaming assignments if you want to be considered “classically trained.”
Intro
Over 750 games were released for the NES under the seal of Nintendo of America. We decided to approach this feature by first asking ourselves the following question: if we could only save 100 games from the Nintendo Entertainment System for posterity, what would they be?
The following list of 100 games for the Nintendo Entertainment System is aimed to accomplish that task. If you were to decide that you had to enshrine this pivotal era in video game history for your private collection, putting together the collection of games on this list would make sure you didn't miss out on any of the most unique, or defining, or popular titles for the NES.
This is a list of games to play if you want street cred in the retro game library at the Penny Arcade Expo. This is your list of gaming assignments if you want to be considered “classically trained.”
100. Top Gun
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: It's estimated that the NES version of this game sold 2 million copies.
Top Gun was about as close to a flight sim as you were going to get on the NES. Players flew an F-14 Tomcat, the fighter aircraft that was featured in the Tom Cruise film, on missions to blow up enemy bases and ships and finally a space shuttle.
The toughest part of Top Gun was landing your fighter on an aircraft carrier at the end of each mission. To say the game was fussy about this is putting it lightly. The game didn't end if you crashed, you just lost a life, but if you could consistently nail those landings it was really satisfying.
99. Base Wars
Released: 1991
Fun Fact: If you name your team "TERMINATOR" all of your robot players will have laser swords.
Take baseball, substitute robots for the players, allow them to beat the ever-living crap out of each other and you have the basis for Base Wars locked down. It had all the trappings of other baseball games like stats and rosters, but added things like weapon upgrades into the mix.
That was the only problem with Base Wars – you could win in the single-player mode by bringing one of your robots with a flying-saucer body up to the plate, just putting the ball into play, and then bashing up and down on the basebots to score runs. It was much more challenging to actually play the game correctly, but winning through player attribution was too damned funny not to try over and over again.
98. Ice Climber
Released: 1985
Fun Fact: The characters from Ice Climber appear in the Super Smash Brothers games.
Ice Climber was a launch title for the NES. Players had to ascend a mountain and use a wooden mallet to break rock or ice chunks or smash enemies who were in the way, both of which scored points, while also navigating moving platforms.
At the top of every mountain was a bonus level where players had a limited amount of time to grab items for extra points and then hitch a ride on a passing condor to the next stage. If they weren't able to complete the task in time they still went on to the next stage, but didn't get any of the bonus points.
97. Pirates!
Released: 1991
Fun Fact: Pirates! is the first Sid Meier game to use his name in the title for marketing purposes
The NES version of Pirates! was a port from the original Commodore 64 version. Players chose one of six eras that spanned the 16th and 17th centuries, which would determine current events and some affect the difficulty. Choice of nationality could make the game easier or harder depending on whether the government in question supported piracy. After a choice of special skill and difficulty level the player was off to sail the seven seas and kill people and pillage and all the other things that pirates never actually seem to do all that much in the Disney movies.
There isn't a whole lot to differentiate this port from other ports of the original, but NES players who enjoyed strategy were glad to have this option available.
96. Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: The final boss, Fat Cat, freaked out more than a few younger players of Rescue Rangers.
Rescue Rangers was another Capcom game that used a similar formula as their Mega Man games to promote a Disney cartoon. Rescue Rangers was a solid, polished platformer that is remembered mostly for its co-op mode.
95. Mega Man 6
Released: 1994
Fun Fact: Mega Man 6 featured the first two Robot Master villains designed by Americans who had entered the design contests run by Capcom.
Mega Man 6 is noteworthy as one of the last good games published for the NES. Capcom decided not to publish Mega Man 6 in North America as the Super Nintendo Entertainment system was already out, so Nintendo had to take over and publish the game themselves.
By this time the mechanics were so refined that there wasn't too much room for innovation. A new Energy Balancer automatically refilled the Master Weapon with the least amount of energy when Mega Man picked up power for them, and rather than Mega Man mounting other characters or support items to get to inaccessible parts of a level, now they directly attached to his body.
The story offered nothing new, so Mega Man 6 was as good a time as any to close out the saga of the franchise on the NES.
94. Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: The only NES game we can think of that allowed players to have sex (well, implied sex, anyway).
Golgo 13 is one of the longest-running manga series in history. Duke Togo, known as Golgo 13, is a professional assassin who has rifle skills that border on the fantastic. Nintendo of America's censorship policies meant that he became a spy instead of an assassin, but many of the mature themes of the manga survived intact in the North American release of this game.
Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode took place in 13 Acts like a season of a television series, and mixed side-scrolling action mechanics, third-person story sequences, and first person “hit” sequences seen through the scope of a high-powered rifle. It was an odd game by American standards, but presaged the day when adult content would make its way into the video game world.
93. North & South
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: Based on a comedic Belgian comic series named Les Tuniques Bleues (The Bluecoats.)
North & South was one of the few strategy games available on the NES, and mixed boardgame-like turn-based play with something akin to modern real-time strategy games. Players could choose to play from the start of the Civil War, pick up the conflict right in the middle, or skip to the end for a faster opportunity to rewrite history.
The board game portion was pretty basic. Players gathered resources by controlling railway lines, and used the money to purchase new armies. Territories were taken by moving armies over the space. Blank territories switched sides immediately, but if the enemy had an army there, the game switched over to the RTS battle screen.
Battles involved switching between control of shooting cannons, running cavalry over enemy units, and moving and shooting with infantry in a rock, paper, scissors-like tactical challenge. Minigames like robbing trains played out as side-scrollers to add more action into the mix.
92. Pro Wrestling
Released: 1986
Fun Fact: When the player wins a match, the game displays the message, "A WINNER IS YOU,” which became an internet meme.
Back in the day, the fact that Pro Wrestling actually had a cameraman outside the ring, and a referee that moved around inside the ring like he was actually an important part of the match, was a big deal.
The goal was to wear your opponent down with simple moves like quick punches and kicks to set up for the flashy stuff like piledrivers, jumping off the top rope, and throwing your opponent outside the ring and bashing him into the metal barrier. It was cheesy, but it was fun, which made Pro Wrestling an excellent simulation of the real thing.
91. Duck Hunt
Released: 1985
Fun Fact: An arcade follow-up to Duck Hunt allowed players to shoot the dog “accidentally' during a bonus round, much to the joy of gamers.
Duck Hunt was the first experience many players had with the NES light gun peripheral, the Zapper, as both came packaged together in a bundle with the console. Players could shoot down birds in One Duck or Two Duck mode, with only three shots per “wave,” and a Clay Shooting mode provided targets that were a little easier to hit.
The duck modes included a dog which popped up from the grass holding the dead ducks players shot, or the dog laughed at the player if they missed the ducks altogether. That dog, and how much gamers hated him, are reason enough to add Duck Hunt to a collection of NES games and preserve an important piece of video game history.
90. Spy Hunter
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: Had a glitch where you could drive off the road and become invincible…as long as you stayed off the road.
The arcade version of Spy Hunter was all about positioning and finesse. The NES home version did a faithful job of replicating those mechanics, which were much harder to negotiate with the rectangular NES controller than with the steering wheel in the arcade.
One had to be on top of their game to make it far enough along the road to reach the boat house and change into the speedboat. Pulling that off consistently was excellent bragging rights among your gamer friends.
89. Arkanoid
Released: 1986
Fun Fact: The pack-in Vaus Controller is now one of the rarest NES controllers ever made.
Arkanoid features the same basic mechanics as Breakout: you control a bar at the bottom of the screen and bounce a ball into a wall of blocks to destroy them and move on to the next level. Arkanoid took that idea and added powerups like the ability to stretch the bar out, to catch the ball or slow it down.
The best powerup was the laser, which played into the somewhat-ridiculous idea of trying to wrap a science-fiction storyline around the game. Lasers could destroy blocks as well as the little alien spaceships that would float around the playspace. The NES version came packaged with a special controller that served as a stand-in for the original arcade controls.
88. The Goonies II
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: There are two characters in the game with the word “Konami” in their name, a reference to the game's developer.
The Goonies II is a sequel to a platformer titled The Goonies that was only playable in coin-op Nintendo Vs. or PlayChoice-10 machines, which offered a selection of NES games to play in arcades. Because many NES players never saw The Goonies in these arcade machines, they often erroneously interpreted The Goonies II as an intended sequel to the film.
The Goonies II does have platforming elements like the preceding game, but also had a first-person room-navigation mode with text commands like Zork. This combination could be very jarring. The Goonies II also suffered from very poor localization and to add to the weirdness the story involved rescuing a mermaid named Annie, which felt extremely random in the context of the film which was all most players had to go on.
The Goonies II is a cult classic among NES games, and therefore holds a special place in the annals of the system.
87. Mega Man 5
Released: 1992
Fun Fact: The character Beat actually originated from the development of Mega Man 3.
Mega Man 5 put Mega Man's brother Proto Man into the limelight by giving him a lead role in the story, and also introduced a character named “Beat” who players could call upon as an ally during combat if they found eight circuit boards hidden throughout the levels.
Once again Mega Man was put up against a group of eight Robot Masters, who were based on designs submitted to Capcom by fans of the franchise. Unique level designs included reversals of gravity and piloting water craft. There were also a few weapon tweaks. Fans continued to enjoy the Mega Man games, but critics had begun to tire of the repetitive designs and lack of risk-taking.
86. Ice Hockey
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: Word to the wise if you want to win your next game of Ice Hockey: the best team is Czechoslovakia, and the Americans are terrible.
Most Nintendo fans will remember Ice Hockey as the game with “the skinny one, the average one, and the fat one,” in reference to the three different kinds of players they could choose from to make up their 4-man team on the ice. Skinny guys were fast but weak, fat guys were strong but slow. You get the idea.
Players in Ice Hockey didn't check one another as much as bump up against each other, and if there was too much bumping a little “fight” sequence would start where all the players gathered together and bounced off each other until the referee broke it up and sent people to the penalty boxes.
Ice Hockey was a lighthearted game that had no pretensions about simulating anything, and that playfulness is precisely what made it great.
85. Kung Fu
Released: 1985
Fun Fact: Some of the enemies in Kung Fu are completely ridiculous. Martial arts schools apparently excel at teaching kung fu to fire-breathing dragons and bees.
Kung Fu was an early example of enjoying the thrill of having a home version of an arcade game. It was a very simple side-scrolling beat-em-up, but the basic nature of the design belied how challenging it was in the later levels.
Kung Fu was one of the earliest games for the NES, and therefore at one time or another seemed to make its way into the hands of most everyone who owned the system. That shared heritage among NES fans makes Kung Fu an important title in the history of the platform.
84. Rush 'N Attack
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The NES version of Rush 'N Attack was the only version to feature a two-player co-op mode.
Developer Konami dealt heavily in arcade games and ported many of them to the NES, including Rush 'N Attack.
The game was kind of ridiculous if you think about it. The player was attacking ostensibly-Russian military bases (hence the title) with nothing but a combat knife, dodging bullets and stabbing enemy soldiers as the opportunity presented itself, and only once in a while getting lucky and finding a dropped weapon to use. The ridiculousness of the premise didn't make Rush 'N Attack any less fun.
83. Little Samson
Released: 1992
Fun Fact: Little Samson told a story without a single line of dialogue, using cutscenes that used techniques similar to silent films.
The animations in this side-scroller were quite good for the period, as the game was trying to compete with titles on some of the new 16-bit consoles. It also featured a really cool character-swapping mechanic. Once the four main characters had all gone through their separate levels to arrive at the palace where the end of the game was set, players could switch between them to take advantage of their unique strengths.
82. Hogan's Alley
Released: 1984
Fun Fact: Hogan's Alley was hacked by digital artist Cory Arcangel, who turned the target characters into Pope John Paul II, Flavor Flav and Andy Warhol for an exhibit.
There weren't many games for the NES that utilized the Zapper light gun, but Hogan's Alley was almost enough to justify the peripheral alone. There were three game modes. The first slid three targets onto the range and then spun them all to face the player at once. Shoot the bad guys and get points. Shoot civilians and lose.
The second mode had targets popping up in the windows of buildings, like you might see in a police training course, and again the goal was to quickly decide if the target was hostile or not. The third mode involved keeping boxes in the air by shooting them.
81. Excitebike
Released: 1985
Fun Fact: The Japanese version of Excitebike did allow players to save their track designs, using a cassette tape peripheral.
Excitebike was a launch title for the NES. Players controlled a motocross racer in 5-player races or time trials on side-scrolling tracks that were loaded with jumps and obstacles. Players also had to keep tabs of the temperature of their motorcycle's engine, so the game wasn't just about speed and maneuvering.
Excitebike included a level editor, which was pretty advanced and forward-thinking at the time, but the cartridge didn't have battery saves, so players couldn't save their track designs!
80. 1943: The Battle of Midway
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: The designer of 1942 and 1943, Yoshiki Okamoto, went on to design the Street Fighter series of games for Capcom.
1943: The Battle of Midway was a sequel to an earlier top-down shooter published by Capcom called 1942. In 1943 the player controls a P-38 fighter and takes on the Japanese Air Force in one of the biggest naval engagements of World War II. The game ends with the destruction of the battleship Yamato.
This sequel added an energy mechanics, which replaced “lives” from 1942. Waves of red enemy planes, when completely destroyed, provided power-ups like health boosts, special weapons, and smart bombs that could destroy every enemy fighter on the screen. 1943 was a simple game, but addictive.
79. Super Dodgeball
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: A parody of Superman hands a trophy to the player's team after one of their victories.
Super Dodgeball is a fan favorite. This isn't the dodge ball you played in school. It was presented as a real sport, with national teams going up against one another. And unlike the version of dodge ball played by children, in Super Dodgeball members of your team could cross the center line and pummel your opponents at close quarters. Players could also place members of their team on the borders of the other team's zone.
If you did just want to relive the schoolyard, free-for-all mode offered an “every man for himself” game type that could be played with a friend.
78. Ring King
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: When the boxers wrapped each other up, it looked distinctly like they were embracing one another.
Ring King provided a simulation-based experience compared to the other boxing game which came out in the same year, Punch-Out!!! Points earned through victories in Ring King's career mode could be spent to improve your fighter, and the game also featured a head-to-head 2-player mode.
The sim feel of the game was unfortunately broken with power moves like uppercuts that sent boxers soaring through the air, and a hook delivered by spinning around.
77. Track & Field
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The song over the opening credits of Track & Field is theme song from the movie Chariots of Fire.
Track & Field is a Summer Olympics simulation. The events are the 100-meter dash, long jump, 110-meter hurdles, Javelin throw, skeet shooting, triple jump, archery, and the high jump. Track & Field was a huge hit within competitive video game circuits, such as the community maintained by the website Twin Galaxies.
76. Ikari Warriors
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The player's mission in the game was to rescue a general, who was named in the Japanese and American versions after the former president of developer SNK and founder of publisher Tradewest respectively.
This arcade port was a hectic top-down shooter. Players waded through waves of enemy infantry, using grenades to take down bunkers and gun positions, and could steal enemy tanks that needed fuel canisters to keep rolling. The co-op play is what made Ikari Warriors so much fun, even if the home version lacked the joystick-and-spin-dial control scheme that made the arcade version a little easier to master.
75. Prince of Persia
Released: 1992
Fun Fact: South Korean singer Kim Gwang-Jin wrote a song called The Magical Castle based on the storyline from Prince of Persia.
Prince of Persia was a platformer with a few twists. It included some puzzle-solving along with the usual run-and-jump navigation and combat. The player had as many lives as they needed, but only had one hour to beat the game or they lost. The time limit played right into the competitive nature of NES gaming. The animations in Prince of Persia were excellent, which also made the game appealing.
74. Metal Storm
Released: 1991
Fun Fact: A battleship from the unrelated game R-Type appears during one of the boss fights in Metal Storm.
Metal Storm was a side-scrolling shooter and one of the earliest 'Mech games. It featured an interesting mechanic where the player could flip between walking on the ground and the ceiling. Metal Storm was an extremely difficult shooter in the later levels, and one of the games that gave meaning to the phrase “Nintendo hard.”
73. Stinger
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The Japanese version of Stinger had a choice of difficulty levels and was also programmed for 3-player play.
Stinger was a shooter in the vein of Gradius or Life Force, all of which were developed and published by Konami, but Stinger had a much more lighthearted spirit. Rather than fighting an evil, menacing force the player was trying to rescue Professor Cinnamon to prevent aliens from turning the Earth into cotton candy.
While the story might have been silly, Stinger was a challenging shooter that alternated between side-scrolling and vertical-scrolling levels. Different power-ups canceled each other out, so players had to be careful what they picked up even during the most chaotic sequences, and players could align their ships together in co-op mode to gain access to special attacks.
72. Batman
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: Remembered as one of the earliest platformers to feature a wall-jump.
Batman for the NES is supposed to bear some sort of relationship to the Tim Burton film of the same name, but the connection pretty much ends with the graphic on the front of the box. Batman was still a good platformer and gave NES-era gamers their first real chance to pick up a controller and say “I feel like Batman.”
The platforming was very challenging, and the player had a fun array of Bat-gadgets to use against the bad guys. While most of the selections from Batman's Rogues Gallery for bosses in the game were pretty lame, Batman ended with a killer fight against the Joker on top of Gotham Cathedral. It was unfortunate that the final cinematic tried to tie the game back into the Tim Burton movie, because nobody was buying it at that point.
71. Tecmo Bowl
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: Featured real players from the NFL, but not real NFL teams due to licensing agreements.
Tecmo Bowl was an arcade port that defined football on the NES until the release of its sequel. With a full 9 players on either side of the line of scrimmage, and animated cut scenes and crowds behind both end zones, Tecmo Bowl felt decidedly “real” compared to any other preceding home football video game.
2-player Tecmo Bowl consisted of the player on defense trying to successfully guess which of the 4 offensive plays his opponent would choose, and 25% of the time that resulted in either an interception or a quick sack. If you could keep your friend from cheating and looking at which play you chose while on offense, Tecmo Bowl provided some of the best, early video game football.
70. Bomberman
Released: 1985
Fun Fact: The story goes that Bomberman was entirely programmed by Shinichi Nakamoto over three days with no sleep.
Bomberman was the first in a long-running series of games. The goal was to plant bombs within mazes and use the explosions, which filled the maze corridors with flame, to destroy monsters and open up new paths. Collecting power-ups allowed the Bomberman to run faster, phase through walls, or made bombs more powerful.
69. Marble Madness
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: The design of Marble Madness was inspired by the artwork of M. C. Escher.
In the original arcade version of Marble Madness, the player used a trackball to guide a marble through mazes to get to the end of the level. Replicating that fine level of control with an NES controller was difficult, and maybe that's why NES gamers took to Marble Madness so well. The time limits for each stage were nerve-wracking, but the triumph of successfully navigating them was a huge payoff. The competitive 2-player mode was even crazier.
68. Double Dribble
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The color of a player's skin could change during the game. This was a result of the strobe animation that indicated which player on the court was being directly controlled at any given time.
When Double Dribble was first released, NES players were psyched to have a basketball game with such high production values. The digitized speech over the title screen was barely decipherable, but it was digitized speech, and there were animated cutscenes when players dunked the ball.
There were sweet spots to shoot from which always seemed to result in getting a basket, and dunks were missed a little too frequently not to notice, but all the fundamentals were there for a solid game of single player or head-to-head basketball that felt like a legitimate simulation.
67. Jackal
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: Enemy soldiers could be run over instead of being shot. They would squash like bugs, and it was awesome.
Jackal was like a vehicle-based version of Contra, or possibly Commando. Players controlled a two-man jeep from an overhead view. The machine gun always shot towards the top of the screen while missiles were fired in the direction the jeep was facing.
Each level had a prisoner of war camp from which to rescue captured soldiers, who were then dropped off at a landing point and a waiting evacuation chopper. This was followed by a boss battle and moving on to the next level.
Jackal's co-op gameplay was a lot of fun. Konami was an old hand at these types of games by 1988, and everybody knew it.
66. Cobra Triangle
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: The boat in Cobra Triangle moved from level to level via a set of retractable helicopter blades.
Cobra Triangle was a boat driving/shooting game developed by Rare. It featured an isometric perspective like another vehicle-based game from Rare called R.C. Pro-Am, and comparisons are often drawn between the two.
There were 25 missions to beat in Cobra Triangle, and they ranged from races-with-combat to protecting people in the water from being stolen away by other boats, and every fifth mission was usually a boss fight. Power-up management was really important to success or failure. Players would pick up power-up pods and then expend them on whichever bonus they selected, like increased speed or better weapons.
65. Life Force
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: Life Force on the NES was based on a third iteration of the Salamander game, which took advantage of differences between the Japanese and American arcade releases by combining the best of both worlds.
Life Force felt like a sequel to the Gradius series of space shooters when it was released in the North American market, but was actually based on a Japanese arcade game called Salamander which was considered more of a spin-off to the Gradius arcade games.
Life Force alternated between side- and vertical-scrolling levels, and unlike the Gradius games the player picked up from where they died rather than being returned to an earlier point in the level. That act of kindness might have been motivated by how insane some of the levels were, many of which featured organic environments that “grew” surfaces for the player to crash into.
The 2-player mode made for fun competition to grab the power-up capsules that added new weapons to the players' ships.
64. Micro Machines
Released: 1991
Fun Fact: Players could also drive toy tanks and shoot cars out of their way.
Considering the number of racing games on the NES that attempted to depict what amounted to “realism” in that console generation, it might be strange to consider that Micro Machines was considered one of if not the best racing games on the platform. Perhaps it was the playfulness of the title which sold it to the audience, but driving little tiny cars around kitchen tables and school desks was different and clever, and head-to-head races on the nine different tracks was a blast.
63. RBI Baseball
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: The last real Major League Baseball player from the RBI Baseball roster to play professionally was Julio Franco, in 2008.
Like Tecmo Bowl, RBI Baseball licensed the names of real baseball players, but not the real names of professional baseball teams. Instead, teams were identified by affiliation with American cities.
RBI Baseball used the names of baseball stars to draw NES players in, but kept them engaged with stat tracking and an attempt at accurate depiction of the real life players' strengths and weaknesses. Winning was about managing lineups and baseball strategy as much as skill with the controller.
62. Legendary Wings
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: One of the characters from Legendary Wings, Michelle Hart, appears in the first Marvel vs. Capcom game as a support character.
Legendary Wings was a port of an arcade game that took Greek mythology and used it as a backdrop for a sci-fi shooter. Most of the gameplay was top-down, with weapons to attack air and ground targets and power-ups to increase the strength of your weapons and your resistance to damage. There were also secondary modes that played out as side-scrollers.
61. Double Dragon II: The Revenge
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: The NES version of the game features a happy ending, where the woman players are trying to save is alive. That's not the case in the original, arcade version.
Double Dragon II: The Revenge was a side-scrolling beat-em-up. It was also an arcade port but had significant improvements over the original version including new levels, new fighting moves, and featured the addition of animated cut scenes.
Double Dragon II was a particularly fun co-op experience if you turned on the option that allowed players to hurt each other. The default mode made it impossible for player attacks to damage other players by accident. Turning this mode on made for some hilarious backstabbing.
60. Adventure Island II
Released: 1991
Fun Fact: The Adventure Island games were quirky. For instance, one of the power-ups for Master Higgins is a skateboard and helmet. For a caveman.
The Adventure Island games were side-scrollers in the vein of the Super Mario Brothers games. Players controlled a caveman named Master Higgins who, surprise, surprise, had to rescue his girlfriend from a villain!
Master Higgins could mount dinosaurs which helped him traverse the levels and attack enemies. This sequel added underwater levels and vertically-scrolling levels, and introduced an inventory system which allowed the player to choose which dinosaurs to “equip.”
Adventure Island II was more difficult than the preceding title in the series: checkpoints were moved, and dying meant you started the level over from the beginning.
59. A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: The creator of A Boy and his Blob is David Crane, the programmer and designer of Pitfall! , one of the most beloved games ever designed for the Atari 2600 console.
A Boy and His Blob was part platformer and part puzzle game. The player controlled the Boy, who was trying to get an alien named Blobert to its home planet. By feeding Blobert jellybeans, the Boy could transform it into various objects, which allowed the Boy to navigate the levels.
Exploration was a big part of the game, giving players plenty of time to experiment with the Blob's various shapes. This is considered one of the strangest games ever released for the NES.
58. Willow
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: There were two other Willow games produced, one for the arcade and one for home computer. The NES version is generally considered to be the best of the three.
Willow was a tie-in to the 1988 film of the same name that roughly followed the same plot, but expanded on the story with new characters and enemies.
Willow mixed mechanics from several different genres. Story sequences were reminiscent of RPGs like Shadowgate. World navigation and combat felt more like The Legend of Zelda, but Willow also had hit points, learned and used magic spells, and gained experience points and levels as in an RPG. What could have been just a cheap franchise cash-in was actually a very respectable hybrid title that was met positively.
57. Duck Tales
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: The music for the “Moon” level of Duck Tales is considered one of the most iconic pieces of video game music from the 8-bit era.
Duck Tales was an animated series that premiered in the late 1980's featuring Donald Duck's nephews Huey, Dewie and Louie and Donald's rich Uncle Scrooge McDuck. The success of this title is what paved the way for Chip 'N Dale: Rescue Rangers a year later.
It's arguable that Duck Tales is still so fondly remembered largely on account of its soundtrack, but the game was an extremely solid platformer with attention to detail across the board.
56. Wizards & Warriors
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: Wizards & Warriors was adapted into a novel as part of Nintendo's Worlds of Power book series.
Wizards & Warriors was a fantasy-themed platformer with a funky soundtrack and an extremely busy play space. There were always hordes of enemies around you, all sorts of hidden nooks and crannies to explore, ridiculous amounts of treasure to collect, and plenty of special weapons and power-ups to grab and princesses to save.
Most critics thought Wizards & Warriors was pretty challenging, but the game allowed you to pick up precisely where you left off when you died. Players, therefore, thought the game was too easy.
55. Bomberman II
Released: 1992
Fun Fact: Bomberman 2 is one of the only North American games on the NES with a 3-player mode.
Bomberman II was a showcase for the NES Four Score peripheral, which plugged into one of the two controller ports on the console and expanded it to accommodate four controllers.
The basic game mechanics were the same as the first Bomberman, but added versus modes where Bombermen were attempting to kill one another instead of the monsters.
54. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles won Nintendo Power's “Game of the Year” award in 1989.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was developed during the heyday of the cartoon by the same name, but didn't have the same playful vibe to it. TMNT the game gave players a lot to chew on. World exploration took place from a top-down camera view as the player controlled one of the four titular Turtles, and when they entered a building or sewer grate, the game changed to a side-scroller.
There were six stages in TMNT, which taken together told the usual story of the turtles fighting the evil ninja Shredder and his Foot Clan. On-foot missions were mixed with vehicle segments, most notably in the Turtles' “Party Van,” and if one of the Turtles ran out of health he was not dead, but captured. Players then took control of another Turtle to continue the mission and later could attempt a rescue.
53. Shadowgate
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: Shadowgate was another NES game adapted into a novel for Nintendo's Worlds of Power book series.
Shadowgate is a port of a point-and-click adventure game that was originally designed for the Apple Macintosh computer. If you can imagine Zork with graphics you have the idea. Much of the game took place through text-based storytelling. Interaction with the environment was presented both as a series of text commands (Look, Use, Hit, Open, etc.) and the ability to click on objects through the point-of-view window on the screen.
The game played out as a series of puzzles encountered while the player explored a castle and tried to find their way to the Warlock Lord. Shadowgate was extremely unforgiving to the point where the NES port, ostensibly in an attempt to make the game more friendly to the console audience, included a hint system. Unfortunately the further one got into the game the less useful the help system was, and failing to solving puzzles correctly got you killed pretty much every time towards the end.
For gamers who didn't own a home computer, Shadowgate may have been one of their first exposures to adventure games, which helps explain the lasting popularity of this NES title.
52. The Guardian Legend
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: The fast-paced speed of The Guardian Legend was a technical achievement that rivaled what the average home computer was capable of at the time.
The Guardian Legend is another NES game that blended genres. Player took the role of The Guardian, a robot in female form who can transform into flight mode. The Guardian's mission was to destroy an alien planet called Naju, by detonating ten self-destruct charges before Naju crashed into the Earth.
When the Guardian was exploring the surface of Naju the game was played like a top-down adventure game. When the Guardian was exploring the inside of the alien planet, the game was played like a vertical-scrolling shooter.
The Guardian Legend is remembered by fans and critics for pushing the envelope of video game design by the fashion in which it blended genres that did not seem appropriate, and for its high production values.
51. Adventures of Lolo 2
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: Some of the puzzles in Adventures of Lolo 2 were taken from Japanese releases in the Eggerland series which American audiences had obviously never seen before.
Adventures of Lolo 2 was a puzzle game based on the Japanese Eggerland video game series. Players controlled King Lolo, a spherical, blue character attempting to ascend a tower and confront the villainous King Egger. The path to Egger was blocked by a series of puzzle rooms.
Each room had items called Heart Framers which, when collected, would open a Jewel Box within which was the key to escaping the room. The Heart Framers also contain Magic Shots which Lolo uses to turn enemies into pushable objects. The key to solving each puzzle was neutralizing and navigating around the monsters in the room long enough to get to the Jewel Box.
50. StarTropics
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: StarTropics is one of the few NES games released in North America but not in Japan.
StarTropics is an adventure game with a twist: the hero is just an ordinary kid named Mike. Mike travels to a Caribbean-like island to visit his archeologist Uncle, but when Mike arrives his Uncle is missing. Armed only with a yo-yo, baseball bats, baseballs and his pitching arm, Mike sets out to find him. Overworld exploration that included seeking information from villagers revealed dungeon locations where the game's combat took place.
At a certain point in the game, players had to wet part of the game manual to reveal a code without which they could proceed no further. The code was the same for everyone, of course, but this was before gamers had the ridiculous amount of web resources for hint guides and cheat codes that they have today. If you lost your game manual and forgot what the number was, and had no friends who had the game or knew the number, or couldn't get the issue of Nintendo Power which published the number because so many people were asking for it, you were screwed.
It's 747, by the way. You're welcome.
49. Maniac Mansion
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: The NES version of Maniac Mansion was censored on account of Nintendo of America's strict content policies.
Maniac Mansion for the NES was a fairly accurate port of the PC original published by LucasArts. Maniac Mansion revolutionized adventure games by replacing the need to type out commands with a point-and-click system.
It wasn't as easy to navigate through the revolutionary interface with the NES controller as it was with a mouse, but the effort was worth it. Maniac Mansion is famous for its zany humor, told through the adventure of seven teenage kids exploring a spooky mansion owned by a couple of mad scientists. Oh, and don't forget about the giant tentacles and the microwaved hamster.
48. Little Nemo: The Dream Master
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: The music for Little Nemo was composed by Junko Tamiya, who also composed the music for the famous game Bionic Commando.
Little Nemo was an adaptation of an adaptation – it was based on an anime called Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, which was based on the American comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland. This game was another example of how Capcom took their Mega Man side-scrolling formula and successfully applied it to licensed properties.
Nemo is whisked away to the Kingdom of Slumberland, where he has to rescue the king from the Prince of Nightmares. Nemo has to search the levels for the keys required to open the door at the end of every level. Nemo has a bag of candy he can use to feed animals and ride them, thereby gaining their special abilities.
It sounds like a quaint little kid's game, but Little Nemo was quite challenging. Enemies never stopped spawning, and one had to be thorough to find all the keys they needed.
47. Snake Rattle N' Roll
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: The game was named after the two snakes in the co-op mode: Rattle and Roll.
Snake Rattle N' Roll was clearly influenced by Marble Madness. Developer Rare took the same isometric viewpoint and applied their penchant for quality art and animation to create a new sort of puzzle/navigation challenge.
Players started off as just a head and had to grow a body for their snake by eating food pellets spread throughout the level. Getting struck by an enemy knocked a segment off the snake's body, and the player died if they got hit while their snake had no segments at all. The snake moved similarly to how the marble did in Marble Madness, but movement was much more free in Snake Rattle N' Roll, with lots of jumping and warp portals thrown into the mix.
When the snake was heavy enough due to having many segments, the player had to maneuver it onto a weighing scale to open a door to the next level. In the co-op mode two players could cooperate together to weigh down the scale enough to move on.
46. Rad Racer
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: Key members of Square's Final Fantasy team worked on the programming for Rad Racer.
When the driving game Out Run was released for Sega Master System, the rival platform to the NES, Nintendo responded with Rad Racer. Players could choose a Ferrari or F1 racing car, and had to rally through check points before the timer ran out, avoiding the trees and road signs that would cause instant crashes, and the other cars on the road which would slow the player down.
That Rad Racer was a response to Out Run was clear to everyone, but developer Square included a pair of old-school red/blue-lens 3D glasses for use with the game's 3D mode. The Power Glove peripheral also purportedly worked with Rad Racer, but one had to have a pretty liberal definition of “worked.”
45. Blades of Steel
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: Blades of Steel enforced icing penalties, but not offside penalties.
Double Dribble was to NES basketball what Blades of Steel was to NES ice hockey. It got the number of players on the ice correct. When penalty shots were called, it cut to a 3rd-person camera view behind the shooter as he faced the goalie. And when players fought in Blades of Steel, they actually fought – the game on the ice paused, and the view cut to a boxing-like, side-by-side view so the player could pummel either the computer or his friend if they were in head-to-head mode.
The other comparison to Double Dribble besides an early attempt at simulation was Blades of Steel's liberal application of digitized speech. Between that and the fast-paced, smooth gameplay, Blades of Steel felt like a really technologically-advanced game when it came out.
44. Faxanadu
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The Gurus who served as save points in Faxanadu displayed Christian iconography in the Japanese release, all of which was stripped for the international release.
Faxanadu is always compared to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link on account of being a platform RPG. Players took control of an Elven warrior who had to confront an evil force dwelling within the World Tree, and which had poisoned the land's water supply.
Faxanadu was actually much darker than Zelda II in both visuals and audio design, and felt more akin to the Castlevania series in mood. In the eyes of many critics, Faxanadu did not receive its due recognition in the pantheon of NES games.
43. Ghosts 'N Goblins
Released: 1986
Fun Fact: Arthur appears in Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Ghosts 'N Goblins for NES is a faithful arcade port of the action platformer developed by Capcom, and is considered one of the most difficult games published for the system. The player controls the heroic knight Arthur, who is trying to fight through a horde of various fantasy monsters in order to rescue the imaginatively-named Princess Prin Prin, who has been captured by Satan.
If Arthur gets hit by an enemy, his armor flies off and he is reduced to his boxer shorts. The second hit kills him. Not only are there plentiful opportunities for Arthur to be forcefully disrobed, but the player is also on a timer. If they take any longer than three minutes on a level, they die and have to start over again. This is what people mean when they invoke the phrase “That's game's Nintendo hard.”
42. Journey to Silius
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: Journey to Silius began development as a licensed Terminator game. When the deal fell through, developer Sunsoft altered the graphics and designed a new game around the assets.
Journey to Silius is a revenge tale. The player takes the role of Jay McCray, the son of a pioneer in space colonization. When terrorists destroy a space station and kill his father in the process, Jay sets out to confront and punish the men responsible for his father's death.
The introduction to Journey to Silius involves Jay's father leaving him a message on a 3.5” floppy disc, which makes this scene supposedly set in a sci-fi world hilariously-dated; but generally-speaking Journey to Silius is a solid shooter with really great music for the 8-bit era.
The side-scrolling shooter gameplay looks and feels a lot like Contra, but unlike Contra the player does not die immediately if they take damage. Jay McCray loses health off a health meter, instead, which he can refill with capsules dropped by his enemies.
41. Section Z
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: North American players had to beat Section Z in one playthrough if they wanted to finish the game, but the Japanese version was released in a Disk Card format which allowed saves.
Section Z was an arcade side-scrolling shooter developed by Capcom and ported to the NES two years later. The home version had one of the funkiest if not repetitive soundtracks of all the games on this list. The player controlled Captain Commando and his flying armor suit as he invaded the alien battle platform known as Fortress Balangool.
The player could touch down and walk on the ground but it was advantageous to remain in flight and maintain full freedom of movement. The A and B buttons shot left and right respectively, and enemies would come at the player from both sides. Section Z got very hectic, very quickly. Destroyed enemies dropped health and speed boosts, weapon upgrades and shield capsules.
The best and most frustrating part of Section Z was that at the end of each level, the player had to decide to take a transport beam up or down. If the player made the wrong choice, they might have to repeat certain corridors of the alien base several times until they got it right and eventually worked their way to the “L Brain” at the heart of the fortress, which they destroyed to win the game.
40. IronSword: Wizards & Warriors II
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: Male model Fabio posed for the IronSword box art.
IronSword was a great example of how to do sequels right: leave the good stuff alone and just add some more. The player's goal was to find and assemble the four pieces of the titular IronSword, which were spread throughout a game world much larger than that of Wizards & Warriors.
The game was split into four elemental domains, each of which required the player to find an artifact and a magic spell, and then defeat the Elemental who ruled over that realm. IronSword introduced shops where players could purchase gear and participate in a gambling mini-game.
The basic mechanics still revolved around the same platforming and combat as in Wizards & Warriors, but the improvements to visuals, animations and sound made IronSword the best game of the Wizards & Warriors trilogy.
39. Super C
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: The famous Konami code only granted 10 extra lives instead of 30 as in the original Contra, and it only worked once in Super C.
Super Contra was an arcade sequel to the coin-op Contra. It was ported to the NES as Super C, another “impossibly hard” NES game. Playing this game with a friend is strongly advised.
The 3rd person corridor sequences from Contra were replaced with top-down vertical-scrolling levels. The NES port of Super C had three unique levels not featured in the arcade version, and the flamethrower-type power up weapon was adjusted to be more devastating in the sequel.
Super C was otherwise more of the same, but that was okay because “the same” in this case was Contra, one of the most popular games on the NES.
38. Dragon Warrior IV
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: Dragon Warrior IV would be the final game in this series localized for North America
Dragon Warrior IV was another top-down exploration, turn-based combat JRPG. It broke from the tradition of the series by compartmentalizing the story into chapters divided among the main characters. They would all come together by the end of the game to form a party and share a unified experience.
A new party management system called “Tactics” was added to Dragon Warrior IV, which allowed players to assign strategies rather than discrete commands to party members. Other new mechanics were the ability to choose which players to bring into battle from all available characters; a casino to gamble in; and the ability to search inside containers for loot.
37. Mega Man 4
Released: 1991
Fun Fact: The winners of the Robot Masters design contest for Mega Man 4 were awarded “golden cartridge” editions of the game. Only eight of these cartridges were made.
The fourth game in the popular Mega Man platformer series introduced more story into the mix, but the mechanics were mostly the same. A new “Mega Buster” version of Mega Man's arm cannon premiered in Mega Man 4, and a new character named “Flip Top” Eddie would appear at predetermined positions within levels to give Mega Man random items like health or ammo.
Some critics took issue with what they felt was a silly story, and held Mega Man 4 up as a clearly lesser title in the series, if not the turning point in its quality overall.
36. Rygar
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: Rygar's ending was generally considered to be quite lame.
Rygar was an NES port of an arcade game developed by Tecmo. Where the arcade version was a side-scrolling action game, the NES version was much more open like an adventure game.
The player had to navigate the hero Rygar through five different worlds, fighting dinosaur-like enemies with the distinctive Diskarmor weapon, which was kind of like a yo-yo covered in razor-sharp blades. Most of the levels were side-scrolling platformers, but top-down levels served as bridges between major areas in the game. Rygar accrued experience points for defeating enemies, which the player could use to permanently power-up his abilities.
There was a recursive element to the game, as well. Rygar had to defeat the bosses guarding five Indora gods, and then confront King Ligar in a flying castle. Each Indora god would give Rygar an item, some of which could be used to access previously-inaccessible areas of the game like the grappling hook and crossbow.
Between its unique art aesthetic and distinctive soundtrack, Rygar made an impression on NES gamers as a solid adventure game early in the console's software lineup.
35. Dr. Mario
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: Dr. Mario appears as a character in Super Smash Brothers Melee. He throws pill capsules to attack opponents.
Dr. Mario was a lighthearted puzzle game. Players would have to use color-coded medicine pills and match them with like-colored viruses to destroy them. The color of the pills was random and so the game played out similarly to Tetris. When four or more viruses or pill pieces were aligned in a row, they would all vanish simultaneously.
In the 2-player mode, whoever emptied out their bottle full of viruses first won the round. The winner was the first player to win three games in total.
34. Blaster Master
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: Blaster Master was yet another game adapted into a novel for Nintendo's World of Power book series.
When Jason follows his pet frog Fred into a hole in the ground, Jason discovers a battle tank called Sophia the 3rd and a subterranean world full of radioactive mutants. Jason dons the pilot outfit he finds and uses the tank to defeat the mutants and save his pet frog.
Anyone who complains about the quality of modern-day video game narratives is well-advised to reflect on some of the tales that passed for stories in the NES era, but Blaster Master fans didn't care how strange the story was. They cared about smooth, tight controls and an extremely challenging shooter that alternated between platforming vehicle levels and top-down shooting levels where the player controlled their character outside of the tank. Blaster Master also had an excellent soundtrack.
33. Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: A sound test called “Musicruise” can be unlocked from the main menu of Ninja Gaiden II.
Ninja Gaiden II continued the tradition set by the first game in the series of cinematic story mixed with punishing platformer gameplay. The player once again controlled the ninja Ryu Hayabusa, who had increased abilities to hang on walls. The other, substantive mechanic was Ryu's ability to clone himself and use the double, who copied his every move, to take down enemies.
While the gameplay was better, the story in Ninja Gaiden II disappointed some critics for being too generic.
32. Gradius
Released: 1986
Fun Fact: The Moai statues in Gradius, based on the real-life statues on Easter Island, would appear in many other Konami games in the future.
Gradius set the template for a host of follow-up side-scrolling shooters on the NES, many of which were also developed by Konami. Gradius was such an iconic game that the space ship players piloted had a name – the Vic Viper – which would appear in Gradius II and Life Force on the NES, and in numerous games on other platforms continuing to the present day.
Players controlled the Vic Viper through forced-scrolling levels and defended themselves against air targets and ground turrets with bullets and bombs. Enemies dropped power-up capsules which contributed to a power meter, and the player could decide when they wanted to “cash in” those power ups for a ship ability. This mechanic would be repeated in several other games on the NES.
Another central concept that Gradius established was the need to target specific, obvious locations on larger targets or bosses to destroy them. Contra made extensive use of this technique.
31. Dragon Warrior
Released: 1986
Fun Fact: The “slime monster” from Dragon Warrior, or Dragon Quest as it is known in Japan, is practically a Japanese cultural icon. Dragon Quest had a huge impact on gaming in Japan.
Nowadays we would call Dragon Warrior a “JPRG,” or an RPG that is very heavy on character grinding to level up and inventory maintenance. For many North American NES gamers, Dragon Warrior would be their first exposure to this genre.
The goal in Dragon Warrior was to defeat the even Dragonlord. The game world was open for exploration. Tantegel Castle was the player's home base, filled with characters to meet and shops to provide gear. The further away from the castle players wandered, the more dangerous the creatures they would find in the wilderness.
Players explored the world from a top-down view, and when combat began the view would change to an adventure-game-type interface. Players could choose to Fight with their selected weapon, cast a Spell, use an Item, or Run. Combat was turn-based, so players could plan out their strategies. If the player died they were returned to Tantegel Castle with a penalty to their total amount of gold.
The success of Dragon Warrior was tied in no small part to a giveaway promotion with Nintendo Power magazine. It's estimated that 500,000 people subscribed to Nintendo Power and received a free copy of Dragon Warrior. The eventual success of this title is considered a turning point in gaming history, and could be considered the birth of JRPG popularity in North America. It also is considered to have been an important step in raising the visibility of the writers who crafted narrative in video games.
30. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: This was one of the first games to feature in-game advertisements, in this case for Pizza Hut.
One of the benefits of the NES was the ability to stop slamming quarters into arcade games and play home ports instead. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game was an absolute hog for pocket change, so the NES port was fantastic for arcade fans.
While the visuals and audio were clearly inferior to the arcade version, the mechanics were a fine translation. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game was a side-scrolling beat-em-up that included bonus levels, additional music tracks and new varieties of enemy compared to the arcade version.
The co-op mode was fantastic, in no small part due to being able to just sit down with a friend and keep going and beat the game without walking away from the experience ten dollars lighter.
29. R.C. Pro-Am
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: R.C. Pro-Am is often considered a precursor to Mario Kart by critics.
R.C. Pro-Am was one of the best racing games for the NES. Developer Rare's decision to depict remote control cars instead of real vehicles opened the door to all sorts of creative options that racing games which attempted to be “realistic” couldn't touch.
Power-ups were a big part of R.C. Pro-Am's mechanics. Tracks were littered with power-ups that increased performance and enabled weapons to destroy opponents. R.C. Pro-Am had great visuals and sound, and helped cement Rare's reputation for the level of polish in its games.
28. River City Ransom
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: The graphic novel series Scott Pilgrim has several references to River City Ransom.
River City Ransom was a side-scrolling beat-em-up. The game's heroes, Alex and Ryan, had to get across town to save Ryan's girlfriend. Alex and Ryan would fight nine different gangs along the way.
The combat was very similar to the Double Dragon series. Players could jump, and use kicks, punches and dropped weapons to beat up the gang members. The game also incorporated some basic RPG mechanics. Alex and Ryan could loot gang members and use the money to buy books from which they could learn fighting skills, or purchase other items from stores, all of which could increase their stats and ability to fight.
River City Ransom also had a much more open game world than Double Dragon. It was non-linear and had room for exploration. Unfortunately, River City Ransom never really caught on and is considered a hidden gem among NES games.
27. Battletoads
Released: 1991
Fun Fact: The Battletoads appeared in a team-up brawler title with the Double Dragon characters.
Battletoads was an action platformer. Rash and Zitz were anthropomorphic toad warriors from outer space, who are trying to rescue their friends Pimple and Princess Angelica from the evil Dark Queen.
Brawler levels in Battletoads became known for ridiculous finishing moves punctuated by the character's appendages swelling up to comedic proportions. For instance, a toad's foot might grow huge just before he kicks an enemy off the screen.
Co-op play was a little problematic. Friendly fire couldn't be turned off, so players had to be careful not to hit one another. Battletoads was already considered one of the most difficult games for the NES without the players getting in each other's way.
26. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: The Japanese version of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was released before American audiences had even seen The Legend of Zelda!
Zelda II is a direct sequel to the first game. Link is now a teenager, and learns that the real Princess Zelda (apparently the Zelda from the first game is named after this sleeping beauty) is under a sleeping spell and needs Link's help. If Link can unlock six palaces in Hyrule, he can gain access to the Great Palace and recover the third and final Triforce of Courage, which will wake Zelda up.
The sequel to The Legend of Zelda dramatically changed things up. World navigation was via a top-down view, but most of the game was played like an action platformer. Zelda II also incorporated RPG features such as experience points which could be spent to level up total life, magic points and offensive striking power, and magic spells could be learned from NPCs in towns. The experience points system would never be repeated in future Zelda games on the North American market.
Link could be attacked by wandering monsters while traveling through the Overworld of Hyrule, and players could actually see the tiny portion of Hyrule that The Legend of Zelda took place in on the Overworld map in Link's Adventure!
Zelda II was well received by critics, who also recognized that it didn't carry nearly the same power as the first game.
25. Mega Man
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: Mega Man was colored blue because the NES had more shades of blue than any other color, so making the hero blue allowed programmers to present him in more detail.
Mega Man was a story about the genius Dr. Wright and his assistant Dr. Wily. The two men created a humanoid robot named Mega Man and six specialized robots for industrial construction purposes in the city of Monsteropolis. When Dr. Wily reprograms the specialized robots into Robot Masters to take over the world, Dr. Wright sends Mega Man to defeat them.
Mega Man was an action platformer. Players had to run, jump, and shoot their way through six stages to face a Robot Master at the end of each. When each Robot Master was killed, his special weapon would be added to Mega Man's arsenal. The player could tackle the six stages in any order, and then fought all the Robot Masters once more in a seventh stage before defeating Dr. Wily and winning the game.
Mega Man suffered from some of the worst North American cover art in the history of the NES. Series co-creator Keiji Inafune laid the lack of commercial success of Mega Man in no small part on just how bad the box art was, because the game itself was well-received by critics even though it was extremely difficult and shorter than other games at the time.
24. Baseball Stars
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: A hidden feature in the game enabled the purchase of female baseball players for team rosters.
Baseball Stars may be the best baseball game developed for the NES. It was one of the first sports games to have battery saves, which allowed players to create teams and virtual players, set up leagues for their teams to play in, and store statistics.
There was no depth to pitching and hitting, rather it was strictly about swinging the bat at just the right time. The fielders were much more realistic than in other baseball games, however, which more than made up for this.
Players could earn money by winning games, which could then be spent on upgrading players or purchasing new ones. The better a team did, the more people attended their games, and the more money the player would earn. The presentation of facts, figures and stats appealed to the nature of real-life baseball fandom, and surely had much to do with how popular Baseball Stars became.
23. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The Nintendo Power cover for Simon's Quest showed Simon holding Dracula's dismembered head, which spurred complaints from parents.
Castlevania II took a decidedly-different form than the first game in the series. Where the original was a linear platformer, Simon's Quest was more of an adventure. The goal was to retrieve the parts of Dracula's body and the Magic Cross to finally destroy Dracula forever and remove the curse that would otherwise kill Simon.
Players traveled through a side-scrolling overworld as they sought the six mansions that contained Dracula's remains and the Cross. There were towns along the way where players could spend accumulated Hearts on items and equipment. Townspeople would also give Simon hints or clues. Hearts were not only a currency for purchase, but also served as an experience mechanic. Simon would level up and gain additional health with each new milestone of heart collection.
The mansions themselves were more similar to the first Castlevania than the rest of the game, but featured some very large main rooms off of which the rest of the mansion branches. The parts of Dracula's body that Simon recovered were also used as equipment that gave him new powers or abilities.
Simon's Quest had a day/night mechanic that increased the frequency and strength of enemies at night, and also removed the ability to talk to townspeople as the streets were packed with zombies. There was no way to hide out from this mechanic. Players always had to face the night cycle, such that the transition signaling the end of daylight could be extremely foreboding if the player was far from the nearest town. The zombies were much easier to deal with than the night creatures in the wilderness!
There were three different endings to Simon's Quest, based on how long it took players to beat the game.
22. Crystalis
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: Critics suggest that some of the art in Crystalis was inspired by the work of famous anime director Hayao Miyazaki.
Crystalis was an action-adventure/RPG game that is considered a cult classic. The hero wakes up from cryosleep after a nuclear war to face a medieval world filled with mutant monsters. The planet is under the control of Emperor Draygon, who rules humanity from a floating Tower filled with technology left over from before the war. The player's goal is to enter the Tower and defeat the Emperor to save humanity.
The game was played in a top-down perspective similar to The Legend of Zelda, but was much more concerned with action. The player could move in eight directions instead of four. The primary weapon was a sword, and some enemies could slide under a sword strike. Different shields and suits of armor could be worn through the inventory screen, and the character gained experience and levels to boost their stats.
The plot for Crystalis was highly-regarded by players, and the game had great graphics and sound, but the gameplay was a little too repetitive for some people which may explain why Crystalis wasn't more of a commercial success. Viewed as a total work of game design it ranks high among the titles produced for the NES.
21. Dragon Warrior III
Released: 1992
Fun Fact: Dragon Quest III was so successful in Japan that developer Enix decided to not sell further Dragon Quest games in Japan until the weekends, so as not to disrupt public school schedules.
Dragon Warrior III was a top-down exploration, first person turn-based combat RPG and the final game in the original Dragon Warrior trilogy. It had a much larger and more open world to explore, and introduced a day/night cycle. Players had the ability to recruit and dismiss party members at will, and a new class system allowed supporting characters to learn multiple sets of abilities once they had leveled high enough in their base class.
While Dragon Warrior III was a huge success in Japan, it was released in North America after 16-bit consoles had hit the market. American audiences, who lacked the same cultural buy-in as Japanese audiences, had turned their attention to flashier, newer games. It was also a game meant for the hardcore JRPG fan. As is the case with this genre, the deeper and more complex the experience became, the more investment it required from the player. North American audiences did not seem willing to ante up and the game performed more poorly in that market.
20. Mega Man 3
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: Proto Man was originally called “Blues” in the Japanese version, but Capcom North America changed the name because they didn't think “Blues” made any sense.
Mega Man 3 introduced a new character, a robot dog named Rush, who could give Mega Man the ability to jump higher, fly around the screen, or travel underwater. Another new character named Break Man appears as a recurring mini boss, and at the end of the game is revealed to actually be Proto Man, Mega Man's brother.
The basic structure of the series remained unchanged, although additional stages were set between the areas for the eight Robot Masters that Mega Man had to destroy, and the final area of Dr. Wily's fortress. Mega Man 3 also introduced the slide maneuver that allowed Mega Man to avoid bullets and slip under low walls within the levels.
Mega Man 3 was considered by some critics to be the best game in the series, while others took issue with the increased level of difficulty and visual flaws.
19. Metal Gear
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: Metal Gear was ported from the MSX2 computer version, and was very different from the original. The overall level design and story were changed, and the player never fights the titular Metal Gear robot in the North American port at all.
The original Metal Gear was advertised on the back of comic books with layouts of all the weapons and gear offered in the game, but hero Solid Snake relied on stealth more than combat to infiltrate Outer Heaven and destroy the walking nuclear tank known as Metal Gear. This was the beginning of a franchise that would become a key part of video game history to the present day.
Metal Gear is often attributed as the inspiration for the entire stealth genre of video games. If an enemy saw Snake an exclamation mark appeared over their head and they would attack. The player had to slip out to another screen and escape. If the player triggered an alarm in any way, enemy soldiers would pour into the screen from all directions and Snake had to kill them all, or leave the building or that floor of the building entirely. While there was a huge array of weapons and equipment that Snake slowly accumulated, they were more for problem-solving than straight-up combat.
Snake had to find key cards to infiltrate buildings, and by rescuing hostages could increase his rank, which upgraded his inventory space and maximum health. The transceiver which managed radio communications was extremely important for conveying the story, and players could call various experts for advice by remembering their radio frequencies. Metal Gear also set the stage for the franchise's love of odd boss characters.
18. Castlevania
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The theme to the first level of Castlevania is one of the most recognized music tracks from the entire NES era.
Castlevania was the story of Simon Belmont, who had to infiltrate Dracula's castle and destroy the vampire. It was a basic, early platformer for the NES that was defined by its unique, creepy soundtrack and excellent visuals. Candles on the walls could be destroyed to reveal power-ups that made Simons's whip longer, or powerful “sub-weapons” like flying crosses and vials of holy water, or the Hearts that served as ammunition for special weapons. Food and power-ups that allowed Simon to shoot multiple special weapons at once were also hidden in the levels.
Each of the six levels in Castlevania was very unique aesthetically from the others, and ended with a boss fight that drew from monster mythology, Medusa, the Mummy, Frankenstein and the Grim Reaper being the most memorable. In the final boss fight with Dracula, players have to face two versions of the enemy, as he transforms after his first “death.”
Castlevania was one of the earliest games published by Konami for the North American NES market, and Konami games were packaged in distinctive silver boxes. The success of Castlevania would play a huge role for Konami in brand recognition and teaching NES players to pay special attention to the games in those silver boxes.
17. Bubble Bobble
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: Developer Taito lost the source code to the NES version of Bubble Bobble in 1986.
Bubble Bobble enjoys a reputation as one of the best co-op experiences in the entire NES library. Each player controlled a cute Bubble Dragon named Bub or Bob. The goal of the game was to travel through hundreds of stages to rescue Bub and Bob's girlfriends from the monsters.
Bub and Bob could blow bubbles that were used as platforms to rise through the stage or trap enemies. To kill an enemy, players had to pop the bubble once the enemy was trapped within it. Killing an enemy released food into the level that was worth points. Enemies moved faster if they were trapped in a bubble and then escaped, and as the number of enemies on the screen decreased.
There were over a hundred stages in Bubble Bobble, and some of the designs were pretty bizarre. Power-ups throughout the stages would shoot lightning bolts across the screen when picked up, or speed the players' movement, or increase the speed at which they could blow bubbles, or allow players to skip levels. Bubble Bobble was also an early example of a game that had multiple endings.
16. Kirby's Adventure
Released: 1993
Fun Fact: Kirby's Adventure was one of the largest games ever made for the system at a whopping 6 megabits.
Kirby's character premiered on the Game Boy and was popular enough that Nintendo gave him this shot on the NES. Kirby's Adventure is a platformer with seven worlds, each of which is broken into several levels with a boss fight, following the basic side-scroller formula that Nintendo had so well-established by 1993. There were also plenty of mini-games and side-activities that could give the player extra lives and new powers.
The defining mechanic of Kirby's Adventure was Kirby's ability to eat things and either spit them out as weapons, or digest their powers and abilities. He could also gulp in air to keep himself afloat. Because Kirby's Adventure was released so late in the life of the console, all the graphics tricks engineers had figured out for the NES resulted in this game having fantastic visuals, some of the best on the system in the eyes of many critics.
15. Kid Icarus
Released: 1986
Fun Fact: The programmers for Kid Icarus sometimes slept on cardboard boxes, covering themselves with curtains, within the development building in order to make the game's deadline!
Kid Icarus was an action platformer set in Angel Land, which was based on ancient Greek aesthetics. Players controlled a hero named Pit who had to kill monsters with a bow and arrow, and could collect the hearts they left behind as currency to buy items and upgrades. As the game progressed, Pit would collect key pieces of gear that would make him exponentially more powerful, like a crystal shield, flaming arrows, and a holy bow.
The game was split into three areas – the Underworld, the Surface world, and the Sky world. Each area was then split into three platforming areas for exploration, and a fortress that was more of a maze, with a boss Pit needed to destroy for one of the three pieces of gear that would eventually allow him access to the final level.
The Sky Temple at the end of the game was a scrolling shooter, not a platformer, which made the ending exciting as it was such a dramatic change from all the previous gameplay.
Kid Icarus wasn't the most powerful NES game visually at the time of its release, but it was bursting to the seams with style. The music was fantastic, and nothing else on the system looked like Kid Icarus at the time. It was also very challenging mechanically, and gave NES players a lot to sink their teeth into.
14. Tecmo Super Bowl
Released: 1991
Fun Fact: Tecmo Super Bowl is one of the most frequently hacked cartridges for the NES.
Tecmo Super Bowlwas the premiere football game on the NES. This time Tecmo had the licensing rights to both the team names and the player names.
The length of a season inTecmo Super Bowl was brought into line with the proper number of games in an NFL season. The number of plays was also greatly expanded, including playbooks that players could edit. Stats were also tracked. Players could choose to play preseason games, a full regular season, or a Pro Bowl game which allowed them to use players from all the various teams in one half of the league.
The game was still arcade style versus simulation, but the added authenticity as a result of all these changes more than made up for any lack of realistic play, and increased the illusion that NES gamers were playing “real football.” Tecmo Super Bowlremains a cult classic to this very day.
13. Super Mario Bros. 2
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: Super Mario Brothers 2 began development as an entirely different game called Doki Doki Panic that had nothing to do with Mario whatsoever!
Super Mario Brothers 2 took a very different approach to the series, owing to the quirks of its development. Players could now choose one of four different characters, each of whom had their own characteristics. Mario was a balanced choice, Luigi's jump was farther and held him in the air for longer, Princess Toadstood could float, and Toad was the strongest.
Toad's ability came in handy because there was a lot of stuff to pull out of the ground in Super Mario Brothers 2. It was one of the core mechanics added to the side-scrolling platform play of the first game. Players would have to yank vegetables out of the ground and throw them at enemies.
The game also had a strange mechanic where players could throw a magic potion on the ground and open a door into an alternate mirror-version of the world where everything was dark as night. That's where players would find the coins that granted extra lives. The game also featured a life meter for the first time, and used hearts as the currency by which the meter could be refilled.
The incongruous nature of Super Mario Brothers 2 as compared to other games in the Mario series could always be explained by the end of the game, where the entire adventure is revealed to be nothing other than Mario's dream.
12. Tetris – The Soviet Mind Game (Tengen)
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: Hundreds of thousands of copies of Tengen's version of Tetris were destroyed after Nintendo won an injunction asserting their sole right to publish the game.
There were two versions of Tetris published for the NES. The second one chronologically was published by Nintendo. For four weeks before this, the original version published by Tengen was on the marketplace, and this is usually acknowledged as the superior version. If you are building an NES collection, this is the version you want to hunt down as it bore a much closer resemblance to the arcade version of the game.
Tetris was a puzzle game originally and famously designed by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. It was simple but addictive. Random block selections were dropped into the play space, and had to be matched together by color. Put enough blocks of the same color together and they would disappear. The blocks would be introduced into the play space faster over time, until eventually the blocks would spill out of the play space and the game was over.
Tetris is usually associated with the original Game Boy handheld, as it came packaged with the system and played a huge role in popularizing it, but the Tengen NES version was just as well-regarded by the gaming community.
11. Contra
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: While Gradius was the first game to feature the “Konami code” that gave the player extra lives, the code became synonymous with Contra as it was such a more difficult game.
Contra was a port of an arcade shooter. Up to 2 players controlled the Rambo-esque heroes Bill and/or Lance as they fought the armies of the alien Red Falcon. Most of the game played out in side-scrolling mode, but there were also third-person sections where the players fought their way through military bases.
There was no subtlety to Contra whatsoever. The name of the game was “shoot EVERYTHING.” One had to be able to jump and dodge enemies and bullets flying at them from both sides while also shooting and grabbing power-up capsules that floated by, and at the end of each level players had to face a boss which often required some modicum of shooting precision while also dealing with bullet hell.
The map designs began with military facilities but slowly transformed into organic, alien nests that drew no small modicum of inspiration from H.R. Giger (the designer of the original Alien creature). Contra was a glorious, early example of both how much fun shooters could be on the NES, and also of the quality titles that developer Konami would provide for the system.
10. Ninja Gaiden
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: Ninja Gaiden was another game that was novelized as part of Nintendo's Worlds of Power series.
Ninja Gaiden was the beginning of a series that would run into the current console generation. Players took the role of Ryu Hayabusa, a ninja on a quest to avenge the murder of his father. Ryu eventually discovers a conspiracy by an ancient evil to destroy the world, and has the chance to get his revenge and save us all in the process.
Ninja Gaiden was heavily influenced by Castlevania. Ryu's main weapon was a katana blade, but he also had secondary weapons like shuriken (throwing stars) and fireballs that drew off his “spiritual strength.” Lamps on the walls could be destroyed to reveal spiritual strength items and other power-ups. Ryu could also hang on walls, and each level ended with a boss fight.
Ninja Gaiden's cinematic cutscenes were extremely stylish and attractive to players as the technique was very unique compared to other games, but the reputation of Ninja Gaiden was founded on its difficulty. The game was straight-up brutal. Stage 6-2 in particular was maddeningly difficult for most players to pass.
9. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!!
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The referee in Punch-Out!!! looked a heck of a lot like Mario.
Nintendo wanted to port its Punch-Out!!! arcade game to the NES, but they had a problem: there was no way the NES could replicate the full-size, wire-frame boxer from the arcade properly. So instead, they created the tiny character of Little Mac, such that players could clearly see their opponent during a fight.
This also helped with the creation of a story for the game. Little Mac was a scrappy boxer trying to work his way through the circuit to get a shot at Mike Tyson and the championship belt. The version of this game with Mike Tyson is the most famous, but when the licensing deal ran out, this game was sold as plain-old Punch-Out!!!, and Tyson was replaced by a character called The Dream King.
Punch-Out!!!was about timing and pattern recognition. Players had to learn when their opponents would be about to throw a punch, and what the pattern of those punches would be, and then get out of the way or block accordingly until they could counter-punch. The better the player did with their counter-punching, the greater the chance they would earn a Star, which could be spent on a powerful uppercut.
All the opponents in the game had a ton of character, but there was something special about making it to Mike Tyson at the end of the original release.Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!!was released during the height of Tyson's career, when he seemed like an unstoppable machine. Imagine, then, being a ten-year-old kid who could look in the mirror and say “I just beat up Mike Tyson.”
8. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: An animated Castlevania film inspired by Dracula's Curse has been on-and-off in production since 2005.
Castlevania III returned to series roots and was a more traditional platformer. In many ways, Dracula's Curse felt like the proper sequel to the original Castlevania, with Simon's Quest being more of an experiment in-between the two games.
Castlevania III was a prequel. Players took the role of Trevor Belmont, an ancestor of the hero of Castlevania, Simon Belmont, and set out to once again infiltrate Count Dracula's castle and destroy him. This third game in the series added some important twists to the formula, like branching paths on the main campaign map which provided a ton of replay value to the game through multiple endings determined by those pathing decisions.
Players were also not limited only to Trevor Belmont as a playable character. Depending on which path they took, there were three different supporting characters to meet. Grant was a pirate ghost first presented as an enemy for the player to defeat, who could climb on walls and change direction in the air. Alucard was the half-vampire son of Dracula who could shoot fireballs and turn into a bat. Sypha was another vampire hunter who used spells to fight the enemy. Once the player chose an ally, they could switch between Trevor and their ally at any time by pressing the select button. Both characters shared the same health meter.
Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse was an improvement across the board for the Castlevania series. The visuals were more colorful and varied, the mechanics more complex, and the music was simply amazing.
7. Bionic Commando
Released: 1988
Fun Fact: The word “damn” sneaks into the dialogue towards the end of the game. Whoops!
In Bionic Commando the player takes the role of Ladd Spencer, who is dropped behind enemy lines to rescue Super Joe, the hero of another Capcom game, Commando. Super Joe had been dispatched on a mission to infiltrate the Empire and discover the secret of their new weapon system, the “Albatros project.” Now it was up to Spencer to stop whatever the Empire was up to.
Players could choose where they wanted to go on the campaign map. There were neutral areas patrolling by peacekeeping troops where Ladd could gather intelligence, and enemy-occupied areas which had to be cleared out in order to progress. The Empire ran trucks along the transit routes in an attempt to catch Ladd's helicopter, but fighting was so much fun in Bionic Commando that players would sometimes just steer right into their paths.
The bionic claw mechanics for quickly swinging between platforms and ascending buildings were very smooth. It was really easy to pretend you were a kick-ass commando, so fast and deadly that the enemy couldn't keep a bead on you, especially with the fantastic, martial music score behind all the action. Battle areas had headquarters spaces where you could either eavesdrop on enemy communications or call in to base, and that's primarily how the story was told.
The Japanese version of Bionic Commando made it clear from the outset that players were fighting a resurrected Nazi Empire. The North American version stripped the swastikas and other Nazi iconography from the game, so for North American audiences it was a shock to discover at the end of the game that the final boss was clearly a resurrected Hitler.
Nintendo of America did not censor out the final scene where Hitler's head explodes, which for a little kid playing Bionic Commando was one of the coolest things ever. The shock of the ending surely had something to do with why Bionic Commando was raised to such iconic status in the NES era.
6. Metroid
Released: 1986
Fun Fact: Metroid is sometimes credited with starting the phenomena of “speed running” through a game, as players wanted to see the multiple endings as quickly as possible.
Metroid is the story of bounty hunter Samus Aran, dispatched to the planet Zebes to retrieve the dangerous, energy-leeching Metroid creatures from the Space Pirates led by Mother Brain. Players had to navigate Samus through the tunnels of Zebes and slowly increase her power by gathering energy tanks and attachments for her powered armor suit until Samus was prepared for the final challenge.
Metroid's design was recursive. Players would guide Samus Aran to a part of the planet Zebes, achieve a goal, and then leave. Once they had found a new piece of equipment which allowed them to further explore that area, they would come back. And so on and so forth. Metroid's environment wrapped around itself enough times that by the end, the player could navigate the entirety of Zebes without needing to glance at a map or look for a landmark, and that was a pretty amazing thing for someone to realize they'd done, especially if they hadn't been a video game player before the NES came out.
Players' minds were blown when Samus was revealed to be a woman at the end of the game.
5. Super Mario Bros.
Released: 1985
Fun Fact: Super Mario Brothers has been ported to almost every Nintendo video game console ever made.
Super Mario Brothers shipped with the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was the first chance that Nintendo had to impress upon the new owner what their game system was capable of. And it sparked a revolution. It popularized side-scrollers. It re-invigorated the entire video game industry. And it turned Mario into an icon of both Nintendo and video games as a whole.
Super Mario Brothers was technically a sequel to the platformer Mario Brothers, but bore almost no resemblance to the first game mechanically. Mario and Luigi were no longer limited to a single screen's real estate. They raced through eight levels, broken into four stages, to rescue Princess Toadstool from the evil Bowser. The simple play of Super Mario Brothers was extremely accessible, yet challenging enough to capture the attention of a wide range of game players.
4. Final Fantasy
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: The title of the game was inspired by designer Hironobu Sakaguchi's thoughts that if the game was not a success, he would have to quit the industry.
The Dragon Warrior series opened the door for RPGs on the NES, and Final Fantasy walked through it. It's not unreasonable to give Final Fantasy the credit for popularizing in America what would become known as the JRPG genre, as it gave birth to a game franchise that would continue to be a major industry force two decades later.
Final Fantasy adopted the basic design mechanics that the Dragon Warrior series pioneered, like a top-down overworld map for navigation, menu-based combat (but without the first person view), character classes and operating within a party structure. What Final Fantasy brought to the table, and why it was held in such high regard, was a better story in the eyes of many critics. Final Fantasy also caught flak for being just a clone of the Dragon Warrior series.
3. Mega Man 2
Released: 1989
Fun Fact: Capcom only allowed the Mega Man 2 team to develop the game while they worked on other projects, owing to the first game's lack of success.
Mega Man didn't sell very well, but Capcom decided to allow the Rockman development team to create a follow-up anyway. Smart choice: Mega Man 2 is the most popular and best-selling game in the series, and is also often considered to be one of the best video games of all time.
Mega Man 2 was a platformer like the first game, and featured vast improvements to the graphics, audio, and game mechanics. Players could recharge Mega Man's health at any time by picking up energy tanks which could be stored and used later, and a password system allowed players to virtually save their progress.
Players fought against eight Robot Masters instead of six this time around. The level design was better, the variety of enemies was better, and Mega Man 2's North American release also included an easy setting. That may have had a tremendous amount to do with how popular this sequel was, as it made the game so much more accessible to the general audience.
2. Super Mario Brothers 3
Released: 1990
Fun Fact: Super Mario Brothers 3 was listed in a 2007 survey by a committee of game scholars, developers and journalists as one of the 10 greatest video games of all time, to be enshrined by the Library of Congress as a “game canon.”
Super Mario Brothers 3 is not only generally considered to be the best game ever released for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but it also is considered to be one of the best video games of all time, on any system.
Super Mario 3 was a quantum leap forward for the series. It turned the “world” structure of Super Mario games into actual worlds, with variable paths to take and embedded mini games and choices. Each of the eight worlds in the game had very distinct personalities, which were translated down into the levels within those worlds.
Super Mario 3 introduced mechanics like the Tanooki Suit which are beloved to this very day. The two-player mode traded active control of the game between Mario and Luigi, so they could explore the worlds independently, which made playing the game with a friend somewhat cooperative as they could unlock areas for the other player. This was a game that simply did not miss in any way.
1. The Legend of Zelda
Released: 1987
Fun Fact: The Legend of Zelda was the first home console game cartridge to include batteries for the storage of save data.
Lists like these often present our final two choices in the opposite order. We stated at the beginning of this feature that our goal was to put together a list of 100 NES games that could demonstrate the history and value of the system, and The Legend of Zelda is the only single game on this list which, if paired with an NES unit, can tell the entire tale of the Nintendo Entertainment System by itself.
Players donned the role of Link, a young man who wandered upon an old woman and begged for his help in freeing her Princess from the clutches of the evil Ganon. To defeat him, Link would have to reunite the eight pieces of the magical Triforce of Wisdom, which were hidden in dungeons throughout the land of Hyrule.
The game was played in a top-down view, and as the player moved out of each screen the game paused and slid the next screen into place. This clear partitioning of space made the construction of homemade maps a little easier conceptually, which came in handy as in order to find the locations of those dungeons, unless they wanted to cheat by asking friends or reading help guides players had to explore the environment on a very granular level.
By encouraging players to experiment by pushing every rock and burning down every bush and trying to blow holes in every wall with bombs, The Legend of Zelda took a compact space and made it feel huge. This was the goal of designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who wanted to recreate the sense of wonder he felt as a child exploring nature in Kyoto, Japan. The Legend of Zelda was filled with little discoveries to be made.
That's what the Nintendo Entertainment System did for everyone. It gave us a very small thing, a little grey box to hook up to our television, and out of that box poured adventure, and majesty, and beauty and all the things we take for granted as modern day video game players. The Legend of Zelda created a sense of wonder like no other game ever released for the system. The gold cartridge was not just ostentation. It was a truly special game whose design holds up to this day.
We would like to thank NESguide.com for their efforts in curating a fantastic collection of game video recorded from original Nintendo Entertainment System consoles and original cartridges, which helped make this feature possible. Thanks also to Complex's Brian Conlon for his assistance in the production of this feature.
Dennis Scimeca is a freelance journalist from Boston, MA. His weekly video game opinion column, First Person, runs Thursdays on The Escapist. You can reach him through his blog, Punching Snakes, or follow his random excitations on Twitter: @DennisScimeca.