What can one even say about the NES? It was the quintessential game system of the '80s and early '90s, single-handedly reviving a dying console market thanks to its colorful high-resolution graphics, tight controls and high-quality titles. And now, after many years of scouring game shops, thrift stores and the giant internet game shop/thrift store known as eBay, I think I can at last declare my collection complete. So in celebration, I'm going to be giving a shout-out to all of my picks for the platform's best titles.
For this list, I've imposed only two rules: The games must still be fun to play today, and only games which were commercially released during the NES's heyday are considered. That means no pirates, ROM hacks, bootlegs of unreleased titles or contemporary homebrews are eligible.
111. Dragon Warrior (Chunsoft, 1989)
Dragon Quest (localized as "Dragon Warrior" for several years as the name was already taken in North America by an
Anne McCaffrey novel and a
tabletop game) is pretty much the quintessential Japanese RPG. While not the first to ever be made, it brought the genre to consoles and won over many fans with its high-quality artwork by Akira Toriyama, surprisingly good music and polished puzzle-oriented design, and it sold (and continues to sell) like hotcakes. Nintendo saw an opportunity to cash in by publishing the first game in North America, but as RPGs were still a niche genre at the time they ended up giving away most of the copies they'd printed with Nintendo Power subscriptions (about 400,000 in total). Still, the series found a small but devoted fanbase in the west thanks to the original title, and while the sequels expanded and improved upon its design in every conceivable way, the first game holds a special place to me as it was the first RPG I ever played and completed.
110. Duck Hunt (Nintendo, 1985)
I think everybody who ever owned an NES played Duck Hunt; in no small part because almost all of them got it with the system, either on a two-cart with Super Mario Bros. or on a three-cart that also included World Class Track Meet. To most of us, it was also our first exposure to a light gun peripheral - the Zapper, which detected targets by blanking out the screen for a brief moment and then flashing a bright spot where the targets were to register hits. Duck Hunt has three modes - one duck, two ducks and clay pigeon shooting, and of course, nobody will ever forget that dog, who taunts you every time you miss a duck or waste all your bullets each round. The game is a little one-note, but it's a fun and addictive experience. Sadly we never got a home port of the arcade version, VS Duck Hunt, which cycled through game modes between rounds and even had an exclusive bonus round (where you could get revenge on the dog at long last if you didn't mind losing points).
119. Dig-Dug (Namco, 1985 in Japan)
Another popular arcade title that got ported to just about every platform under the sun, and for good reason. Well, almost - it was conspicuously absent on the NES in North America despite getting ports to both the Famicom and the Disk System in Japan (though we did get Dig Dug II... blech). A bit of a shame, as like Galaga and Pac-Man, it's a fine conversion that plays nearly identically to its arcade counterpart. The objective is simple enough - clear each screen of enemies - but it's made more complicated by the fact that you must dig your way through the dirt to create paths for them to follow, which can then be utilized to set up traps for them - dropping a rock on one or more enemies at a time will rack up serious points. However, they will also occasionally turn into a ghostly form and pass through walls to get to you more quickly, so you must stay on your toes. A fun and addictive little game.
108. Mario Bros. (Nintendo, 1985)
The original Mario Bros. one gets a lot of flak from retro and modern gamers alike, and I'm really not sure why. Sure, it hasn't aged quite as well as the legendary sidescrolling platformers that succeeded it, but it's still a pretty entertaining game in its own right. Bump enemies, dodge fireballs and icy floors, collect coins, shove player two into that enraged shellcreeper coming for your blood, rush for the panic POW block when things get too crazy... what's not to love here? It's easily among the best of the black box era games, if nothing else. Hell, it even spawned a pretty fun little two-player competitive minigame in Super Mario Bros. 3, so it must be good!
(There is also an enhanced advertisement-laden update on the Disk System called "Kaettekita Mario Bros" if that's your sort of thing.)
107. Rygar (Tecmo, 1987)
Rygar was a pretty decent hit in the arcades, with fast paced sidescrolling combat and a uniquely weird Greek mythology inspired setting. The NES game of the same name was a very different beast, though, taking the same basic setting and storyline but changing up its gameplay into a nonlinear Zelda-styled adventure. In fact, it actually predated Zelda's release in North America by about a month, so technically this was the very first game of its type on the NES. Fittingly, the game works in a fair number of RPG elements - there are spells to cast, defeating enemies gradually boosts your "Tone" (attack power) and "Last" (health), and throughout the game you gain new items that grant you access to new areas - a grappling hook to climb to higher ledges, a "wind pulley" to cross gaps, and potions of health, among others. Boss fights also appear throughout, and the gods themselves appear in numerous hidden rooms to give you advice. It's even got some pretty detailed graphics and solid music for the time period. A relatively early NES adventure, but one still well worth visiting.
106. Galaga: Demons of Death (Namco, 1988)
An arcade smash for sure, Galaga (here given the extraneous subtitle "Demons of Death" for no particular reason) is just pure fun - blast aliens, avoid their increasingly aggressive movement and firing patterns, and shoot for a high score. Having your ship captured and then freeing it to control two ships at once and get double the firepower was also a pretty awesome feature for the time, and the sparse-but-catchy music and spacey sound effects perfectly immerse you in the atmosphere. The NES version is a nearly perfect copy of the arcade game with no frills to speak of but that's no bad thing in my book when you're dealing with a game as classic as this.
105. Klax (Atari, 1990)
The title screen of this one proudly proclaims that "it is the nineties and there is time for Klax!" Well, the nineties are long gone, but Klax is still around and just as fun to play as ever. A clever little tile-matching puzzle game in the vein of Dr. Mario, but with a slight twist - instead of simply clearing tiles from the screen, you're given objectives to fulfill - survive a set number of tiles, get a set number of Klaxes or diagonal Klaxes, earn a certain number of points, and so on. All while trying to manage space on a small 5x5 playing field and maintaining a stack of up to five tiles on your paddle; drop three or fill up the field without a match, and your game is over. It starts out simple enough, but managing the chaos and staying alive quickly becomes a challenge. Better get good at matching up those diagonal Klaxes and setting up combos!
104. Fester's Quest (Sunsoft, 1989)
A game that quickly became notorious for its exceptional difficulty (even the
TV commercial gleefully boasts that one death sends you all the way back to the start) and its somewhat baffling tie-in to the Addams Family of all things, Fester's Quest is a common target for caustic reviewers. But I always had a soft spot for it - I rented it as a kid, I've played it through several times, and honestly, once you know the ins-and-outs of its design (and know to bring a turbo controller) it's a pretty fun top-down shooter. It's got that polished Sunsoft design, some nicely creepy atmosphere, eerie boss designs and, of course, some excellent music. I'm also probably the only person in America nerdy enough to import a European copy; the European release famously toned down the difficulty a lot, allowing your shots to pass through walls and halving all enemies' health. So while many gamers may malign it, Fester's Quest is one I'll always have some fondness for. After all, you don't sell over a million copies without doing something right.
103. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Konami, 1989)
A game which may be the focus of a lot of mockery and ridicule these days for having very loose ties to the source material and some occasionally baffling design, but one must also remember that this was the first video game based on a popular property, and weird or not, your game doesn't sell over four million copies without doing something right. TMNT was certainly ambitious for its time, combining side-scrolling action segments with top-down, open-world exploration broken up into several stages, and the variety of enemies, sub-weapons and creative stage designs make it well worth a look. That, plus Konami's consistently high standards for visuals and music, quickly made it into a pretty big hit. People nowadays mostly talk about the arcade beat-em-ups, but being one of the first games I owned and played quite a lot of (but never actually finished as a kid), this one will always hold a special place in my memories. And an occasional revisit on a lazy Sunday afternoon.
102. The Goonies II (Konami, 1987)
Goonies II is a strange case in many ways. While there was a game based on the Goonies, it actually never got a home release outside of Japan, only appearing in the west on the Playchoice-10 and VS system cabinets in the arcades. Then, as if that wasn't odd enough, Konami decided to produce a sequel to it even though there wasn't a sequel to the movie. It changed up the format quite a bit, taking cues from games like Metroid; you explore a very large environment, uncovering clues, finding upgrades for your character, and eventually rescuing all of the Goonies from captivity. Even at this early stage, though, Konami definitely showed off the quality in their games with some detailed visuals, smooth animations and a quite good soundtrack (including a rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough"). It may not have had a corresponding film, but Goonies II was a classic game just on its own merits.
101. Moai-Kun (Konami, 1990 in Japan)
Moai-Kun is a little bit of self-parody combined with a well-crafted single screen puzzle game. Starring the titular Mr. Moai of Gradius fame, you dodge or defeat enemies, push rocks, smash blocks, drop bombs to create new paths beneath you, and try to rescue all of Mr. Moai's friends before exiting out the door. It sounds simple enough, but like any good puzzle game, it gets quite tricky as you progress, with a lot of careful planning being required and one mistake usually forcing you to restart the stage. There are 56 stages in total to complete, but there's also a password system, so thankfully you don't need to do the whole thing in one go. Maybe not the deepest puzzle game on the platform, but it's a well-made and entertaining one.
