Alright here's MY top 100 NES games

Obviously inspired by transcience's list, I was like "I wonder if I can also do a top 100 NES games list" and the answer is, I managed to scrap together enough games to reasonably do it! I was 6 when I first got my SNES so the NES wasn't the only gaming presence in my life for very long, but it was still my first love and I think there's just something special about it that no other console has ever managed to capture for me since. The NES is like the beginning of modern (Japan-centric, at least) video game history to me and its library always kinda holds a special fascination for that reason alone. A lot of these are childhood favorites, a lot of these are later discoveries, some of these are shit I played this week. I'll do brief writeups but it's gonna be a pretty short list (some of these will get longer writeups when I do my overall fave games list)

Disclaimers:

I haven't played every game, please don't yell at me
Some of these games I've only played for like half an hour tops
I kinda prefer action games over RPG/adventure games on the NES just for aging reasons so I'm not very well-versed in the latter
This includes Japan-only releases, so it's really a list of NES/Famicom games
It's just a list of my favorites, not the ones I think are the most good or whatever, don't expect much diversity at the top of the list (you know where this is going)

tag

100) Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light

I'm not really that huge a Fire Emblem fan - I liked the GBA games, I liked Awakening, but I could kinda take or leave the franchise as a whole - so the novelty here is a little lost on me, but considering its age it's surprisingly robust and well-presented so the experience of turning this thing on and playing through a couple of chapters is kind of interesting nontheless. I haven't beaten it, I'm never going to play all the way through it, I'm certainly not going to touch Fire Emblem Gaiden, but this seems like a suitable 100 just because it's kinda neat

99) Zombie Nation

I like how it doesn't matter if you're playing the Japanese or NA version of the game, it's a completely indecipherable fever dream either way. I first experienced this game while I was half-passed out because it was like 80 degrees in my friend's room and I'm still not really sure what happened but I played through like half this game for some reason

98) Rad Racer

Out of all the NES games I've played this one really feels like it actually captures the feeling of what it would be like to drive 200 miles per hour down a highway - it's not just a game that's fast, it's a game that creates a feeling of speed with its animation. That's kinda cool. Oh I'll be absolutely FUCKED if I can beat the first course without savestates, but it felt right to include the third game in the NWC trio on this list somewhere (yeah OBVIOUSLY the other two are on the list, no shit)

97) Double Dare

It wouldn't be a personal list if I didn't include some horrible favorite from my childhood that nobody gives a shit about. This game absolutely sucks, probably the only true kusoge on this list (I like good games, normally), the controls are a nightmare to figure out and nobody wants to play a quiz show game made for children in the early 90's, but look, I loved kid's game shows in the 90's, Double Dare was awesome, and I was absolutely dead set on mastering the obstacle course at the end of this game because I fucking LOVED obstacle courses as a kid, totally obsessed with them, so this game holds a weird special place in my heart (and also in hell because it sucks)

96) Ms. Pac-Man

I dunno. Is Ms. Pac-Man good? I guess. I was really excited to own this as a kid for some reason, I think I liked Pac-Man more back then and I was just really dazzled by the bright colors and mazes because I was a stupid kid who liked mazes a lot. I liked how the little foods bounce around and you have to chase them down and eat them. I don't really know why you would sit down at your NES console to play Ms. Pac-Man but if you do it's really quite a good port of an, I guess, classic arcade game, you know, you could do worse and I had to hit 100 games somehow

nice! wonder how many games will overlap with my list

95) Bubble Bobble

Bubble Bobble is pretty fun, especially with a friend, but eventually the repetitive music, repetitive gameplay, and unchanging black void DOES kind of make you feel like you're in hell

94) Mario Bros.

Like most red-blooded Americans, my primary experience of playing this game was as a bizarre, tacked on multiplayer mode in Super Mario Bros 3, and then like half-heartedly playing it whenever they re-released it on GBA a couple times or whatever. Scientifically speaking I think it's strictly better than Bubble Bobble so it has to be at least this high on the list, oh no I'm already turning into Gerstmann, shit

93) TwinBee

Spoilers: There's a lot of shmups on this list because the NES is absolutely LOUSY with shmups, and most of them hold up pretty well, in the sense that 'move the ship around the screen and shoot things' is kind of an evergreen concept that they couldn't really fuck up unlike some of the more ambitious stuff that kind of falls apart. Anyway TwinBee is cute, I randomly loaded it up on NSO once and got kind of weirdly addicted to it, it's not very ambitious but it's also kind of old and just has a very simple charm to it compared to some of the more involved shmups that would come later. I haven't played the sequels but they look pretty goofy, they've got like banana sharks, that's great

92) Gun.Smoke

I like that you can press either A or B to fire your gun at two different angles, that's neat. And I love that the equivalent of getting a fire flower or whatever in this game is getting on a motherfucking HORSE - every time I get the horse I'm like HAHAHA YES FUCK YOU aw man oh no my horse is gone. shit. my horse. this game sucks

91) The Little Mermaid

Okay look hear me out. Does this game have kind of simplistic level design and controls that are a little clunkier than they should be? Yes. Is it kind of mid? Yes. But good god there are so few games on this list that star honest-to-god female protagonists, and the few exceptions are mostly either balls (Ms. Pac-Man, Clu Clu Land yes Clu Clu Land is on the list later also yes Bubbles is canonically a girl) or they're Samus and they don't take off their fucking armor until the end of the game. The Little Mermaid is like, fuck that, here are the tits now! Thank god. I was desperately obsessed with mermaids as a child and also an adult so it's really weird that I didn't have this game as a kid

90) Famicom Wars

Unlike Fire Emblem, I DO regard myself as a superfan of Advance Wars, so playing Famicom Wars is kind of a weird little treat for me. It's really slow and it's missing like 90% of the features that make the Advance Wars games actually fun, but there's still something weirdly satisfying about playing this game and realizing that everything here makes sense to an Advance Wars vet and I can pretty easily play through a few maps with hard AI and win. There isn't really much of a REASON to play this game, it's just a sheer novelty thing at this point, but I like seeing the roots of my favorite strategy game franchise

89) Tennis

I dunno. It's Tennis. What is there to say about Tennis? It's basically outclassed by every tennis game that anyone has ever made since then - Mario Tennis, Virtua Tennis, etc - but I dunno, there's still kind of a simple, clean fun here that I appreciate. You're batting a ball back and forth. It's slightly more complicated Pong. I don't know, I just like NES Tennis, I think it's good, fun little game to play with a friend

88) Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers

It's a pretty solid platformer but I sort of hate that the Big 20 race has forced me to learn this game twice, I was admittedly a little happy to be done with it the first time. Pretty simple romp that's a little bit unforgiving just because you don't get any continues but hey, people like Ducktales too

87) Darkwing Duck

Did I mention that Ducktales isn't on this list btw? Sorry, I only have room for one duck-related Disney/Capcom platformer on this list, and I'm taking the better one here. Weirdly a lot harder than it looks but it's pretty good and better than Ducktales, yeah I'm dunking on Ducktales two writeups in a row, imo it's just not that good guys

86) NES Open Tournament Golf

More or less a predecessor to Mario Golf and it's a pretty solid golf sim once you get the hang of the slightly unmodernized controls and UI scheme. The fact that your golf swing has so little visual and audio feedback kind of pisses me off, like did they not THINK of that in the 80's/90's? Oh well - aside from that it still holds up pretty well I think, it's golf

Tag

85) Jackal

It took me a really long time to understand, and become at peace with the fact, that you can only shoot your gun up in this game despite being able to move in 8 directions. I thought it was a bug or something. No you just have a gun that only shoots up. Hope the guy you want to shoot is precisely due north, fucker

84) Batman: Return of the Joker

Finally, a Batman game that answers the question: What if Batman were REALLY BIG and took up like a third of the screen? The answer is: the game's actually still pretty good somehow despite the fact that we're like one zoom-in away from seeing Batman's nipples

83) Bucky O'Hare

This game is like strangely fucking impossible I swear to god but it looks really nice and plays pretty smoothly so one day maybe I'll figure out how to not suck at it

82) Battletoads

I want to like Battletoads more than I actually do, because it's a game that's oozing with weird personality and creativity and varied level design, but good fucking lord this game is like ACTUALLY impossible, there's 'regular NES hard' and then there's whatever the fuck this shit is. This is one of the few examples of them making a game EASIER for the Japanese market (although weirdly not the only one on this list, there's another that I know of)

81) Final Fantasy

I'll be up front with you - there are no Dragon Quest games on this list, sorry! I tried to get into them, I appreciate them for what they are, but I can't really personally enjoy them that much, they're just too slow and grindy for me. Final Fantasy is a lot more my speed - four characters, quicker combat, just kind of more accessible overall really. Not the most well-aged RPG of all time but it's still fun to play at it and kind of marvel at it being the beginning of something totally unrecognizable now, like somehow we got from this to fucking One Winged Angel in only 10 years, I want you to think about that, really chew on it

I played nes tennis for the first time when I was making my list and it was enough to get me to really consider it. if I had played that as a kid, it would be in the baseball tier of good enough nes sports games.

damn this is making me want to make a list of my top 100 nes games

spoilers if i did that it would be an extremely basic list but also have some insane nonsense on it

WarThaNemesis2 posted...

also have some insane nonsense on it

Sounds like a good reason to me.

80) Marble Madness

Man this game kinda fucking sucks, but I had to learn how to beat it, not just once but on command and quickly, for the Big 20 race a few years ago and it made me feel hella accomplished doing so, Marble Madness ain't shit to me now, I have fully conquered this game and it feels pretty good because I remember renting it as a kid (remember, fucking love mazes) and I got really stuck on it

79) Bubble Bobble Part 2

NOT Rainbow Islands, the story of Bubble Bobble 2 - that's an entirely different game which is actually the canonical sequel for some reason but it sucks because it's not very interesting and it turned Bub and Bob back into human children for some reason? Sacrilege! No, this is the OTHER sequel to that game, the one that plays like Bubble Bobble and keeps Bub and Bob as adorable little dragons, and I like it a little bit more because it's more colorful and varied so it doesn't quite feel as much like being in purgatory as the original

78) Lagrange Point

Haha FUCK NO I've never beaten this, are you kidding. No I played it for like an hour tops just for the sheer novelty of it - it's the only game to use the most advanced NES sound chip available and it's just super weird to look at and listen to, it feels like a Genesis game, like some kind of lost sister franchise to Phantasy Star or something. It's neat! I didn't include a lot of weird bespoke Japan-only NES RPGs on here but I really think this one's super cool

77) Dragon Fighter

Despite one of the most generic possible names for a game, as well as sounding like a direct knockoff of Dragon Warrior while having absolutely nothing to do with it in any way, I do actually like this game - the ability to change the game's genre from a platformer to an auto-scrolling shmup at will is a REALLY strange gimmick that I don't think I've seen in any other game to date and it's just such a weird choice that I can't not include it

76) Power Blade

Worth it alone just for having the goddamn funniest run cycle on the entire NES. Just look at this guy's POWERFUL stride, just putting his whole ass into his run, legs out, arms flailing, just absolutely going to kick the SHIT out of something with his boomerang, really has the kind of energy a random muscleguy in a generic NES platformer needs. game's actually pretty good but I haven't beaten it

What was the Big 20 race? You've mentioned it a few times now.

TeamRocketElite posted...

What was the Big 20 race? You've mentioned it a few times now.

Oh yeah, it's a twice-yearly speedrunning race where you have to play 20 NES games, each one with some different goal that takes about 5-15 minutes each, and you get like a month to practice it all beforehand before race day. I suck at it but I've competed a couple of times when it's games I actually know (I was thinking about doing this month's but there's too many games on the list I don't feel like learning)

tag

Darkwing Duck > DuckTales is based

Just wanna give props to you for playing and finishing in some Big 20s! Good stuff!

Bubble Bobble way too low

I was going to say, I am somewhat of an amateur nes historian and I've never heard of lagrange point! but if it's japan only I can sorta keep my nes cred card in my wallet

Lagrange Point is notable for being the only game to use the VRC7 sound chip; it sounds COMPLETELY different from any other NES game out there and it's worth checking out for that alone. It has a good translation

Okay you DO know you have a second weapon on the A button in Jackal that does shoot in the direction youre facing, right

Rainbow Islands is actually crazy interesting if you look into how the secret item system works. I certainly wouldnt play the console versions though. (Bubble Bobble item spawn rules are also pretty deep but RI takes it to another level)

and yeah Lagrange Point is straight up FM Synth so the Mega Drive comparison is totally apt. One of the Tiny Toons games also used VRC7 but they didnt use the audio expansion for that one, probably since it was primarily made for the western audience who wouldnt even be able to use the audio expansion

WazzupGenius00 posted...

Okay you DO know you have a second weapon on the A button in Jackal that does shoot in the direction youre facing, right

I do yeah, lol

thank you for including The Little Mermaid

75) Micro Machines

It's a fun little racing game that plays pretty well but what I like most about it is the inventiveness of the tracks themselves, it's always really fun to see what weird little theme they'll do for each course and that kinda keeps it fresh and unique throughout instead of getting too repetitive

74) Wily & Light no Rockboard: That's Paradise!

Okay look, look. We don't talk about Rockboard enough. There's a secret 7th NES game featuring the Mega Man cast and it's a BOARD GAME and you can play as Dr. Wily and Dr. Cossack and Kalinka for some reason??? This is the weirdest shit. It's a fucking NES game! There's something special about the fact that there's all this little-known Mega Man-related material like sprites and shit that nobody gives a shit about becauseit's a board game for some reason. It's special. It needs to be protected and studied

73) Metal Gear

I'm not a Metal Gear Solid fan at all, never really played the games, but I DO like Metal Gear for the NES, as far as I know all the Metal Gear Solid games are exactly like this one - slightly obtuse stealth/adventure games where you're just a little guy sneaking into vents and onto trucks and stuff

72) Gradius

It's Gradius. It kind of pisses me off a little bit because taking even one hit makes you lose progress and kind of grinds the pace of the game to a halt, but still, it's Gradius

71) Deja Vu

MacVenture games! I like all of the ones on the NES. I think Deja Vu is my least favorite just because I like the spookier atmospheres in the other two more, and also the text scrolling here is weird, but this is still a classic

Holy shit Gun.Smoke mentioned! Tag.

I don't enjoy actually playing RockBoard but it is cool that it exists, and it also introduced my favorite Z-tier Mega Man character, Reggae

Supposedly Digital Eclipse asked Capcom if they could do a translation of it for Legacy Collection and were told no

WazzupGenius00 posted...

I don't enjoy actually playing RockBoard but it is cool that it exists, and it also introduced my favorite Z-tier Mega Man character, Reggae

Supposedly Digital Eclipse asked Capcom if they could do a translation of it for Legacy Collection and were told no

Yeah it's not actually... all that GOOD but I'm just really happy about it existing

I'm sad that they weren't able to port it, I wonder why Capcom was against it

Paratroopa1 posted...

Lagrange Point is notable for being the only game to use the VRC7 sound chip; it sounds COMPLETELY different from any other NES game out there and it's worth checking out for that alone. It has a good translation

I've heard some of the music and was pretty confident it was Genesis or PC<?> based on it. Wild

Paratroopa1 posted...

I like most about it is the inventiveness of the tracks themselves, it's always really fun to see what weird little theme they'll do for each course and that kinda keeps it fresh and unique throughout instead of getting too repetitive

Agreed, this is what makes it stand out. Great game.

NES Open Tournament Golf very underated (if you're playing it muted.......the audio is terrible)

70) Uninvited

Neither of these games are as meaningful to me as Shadowgate (spoilers) since I didn't grow up with them and only discovered them later. As a result I've only played them once and kind of forgotten about them. Uninvited's great though, pretty similar to Shadowgate, has kind of the same moodiness with a little bit more creepy imagery and all the same fun fuck-you death easter eggs that I'm accustomed to. Probably still holds up?

69) Sweet Home

Here's an even better NES horror game, though, a really novel survival horror/RPG that feels way ahead of its time in a lot of ways. I've never beaten this game - spent a couple hours with it, couldn't figure out, but it was extremely memorable and I feel like a lot of people probably regard it as one of those hidden masterpieces. I'd probably have it higher if I didn't suck at it lol. It's definitely worth a look, it's creepy and macabre in a way that few NES games really pull off and the gameplay mechanics are pretty ambitious

68) Batman: The Video Game

Sunsoft has quite a few appearances on this list because, well, they make really solid platformers that look good and have great music and that's the fastest way to get onto this list. This is another one in the "I learned this doing a Big 20 race" category, so I know the first half of this game REALLY WELL and the second half of it NOT AT ALL because the goal was only beating half the game and I never got around to the other half. But it's good! More challenging than it looks, a little clunky but in the Castlevania way where you get used to the particulars of the jumping mechanics and learn how to utilize them.

67) Life Force

It's basically Gradius again, but better! I like Life Force more because the top-down segments give it a little more spice, and the fact that you don't just immediately lose progress whenever you get hit once keeps the flow of the game a lot better. It's still not one of my fave shmups on the system because I feel like it's just too unforgiving - I don't like how many situations in this game just don't feel like I could have done anything about them or have to know there's a trap coming ahead of time (even the first level starts with this immediately), and getting hit even once is really punishing.

66) Ninja Gaiden

Dude, fuck Ninja Gaiden, I hate this game so much. Here's my experience with it - I had to learn how to beat the game any% for Big 20, I learned how to pull it off in about 20-25 minutes (depending on how few deaths I take), it took me forever to figure out how to kill the final boss safely... and then on race day, it's like 5 hours into the race, Ninja Gaiden any% is the last goal of the race, and I'm just fucking exhausted and it took me like an hour to beat the game, just to not be able to execute when I needed to beat the final boss, which infamously sends you all the way to the start of the stage. Infuriating. Awful. I fucking hate Ninja Gaiden. But I'm also a person on this earth who is able to beat Ninja Gaiden in 20 minutes and that's kind of insane. In some ways I feel like I'm a worse person for having undertaken this challenge but I also kind of feel accomplished. I didn't just beat Ninja Gaiden, I like, sort of semi-mastered it over hours and hours of practice and I have to admit it feels kind of good. I had to fucking persevere with this game in a way I've never had to do with a video game before. Normally you can just give up on a game you can't figure out but I HAD to solve Ninja Gaiden and I did and I would like to never play it again.

Played Sweet Home for the first time last Halloween, and loved it! If it ever got a western release they would have had to really censor it

Paratroopa1 posted...

this game holds a weird special place in my heart (and also in hell because it sucks)

Paratroopa1 posted...

This game absolutely sucks, probably the only true kusoge on this list (I like good games, normally),

Paratroopa1 posted...

Man this game kinda fucking sucks

Paratroopa1 posted...

aw man oh no my horse is gone. shit. my horse. this game sucks

Paratroopa1 posted...

Dude, fuck Ninja Gaiden, I hate this game so much.

Banger list (sincere)

I feel like the big thing I learned so far is never speedrun

Speedrun a lot just never Ninja Gaiden unless you want to hurt yourself

Speedrunning is fun, but it can be mentally draining too. If youre doing a serious grind taking a day or two off can be a huge issue

it's amazing how diving into the nuances of a straightforward game for something like a speed run can make you really love it, almost form a new relationship with the game. I can attest.

That was how it worked for me with Jaws. I came away really liking the game itself, but absolutely hated the speedrun.

65) Kabuki: Quantum Fighter

This game's all over the place. There's a plot that doesn't make any sense and I guess you're a guy with long red hair where you whip your hair to attack and all of the enemies are fucking weird and the whole game just has a bizarre, frantic energy to it that makes me laugh - especially the music which is especially frantic and weird. The controls feel good in this one and I like climbing and jumping from overhangs. (In my head I thought your character climbs stuff with his hair but I checked and no he just uses his arms and legs.) I have absolutely no idea if people consider this game good or not but I consider it good.

64) Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers 2

Better than the original by a decent clip - I find the original a bit on the frustrating side but this is just a really solid platformer, and probably better with two people but I've never had the chance to play it co-op personally. I feel like it's more well known for being rare and expensive than it's known for being good, and it's certainly not worth tracking down at the prices you'd find it for today, so good thing emulation exists!

63) Clu Clu Land

Clu Clu Land is an underrated game. Once you get used to the controls it becomes really fun to maneuver around with them and the kind of puzzle-ish gameplay keeps me invested. This was one of my favorite games to play in Animal Crossing because it was just kind of a fun one to drop in on from time to time when I wanted a break from playing a video game to play a different video game. Man, I loved playing NES games in Animal Crossing, it was really novel at the time that you could get NES games as rewards! I wish they'd bring that back just for fun, it's not like they'd really be losing much.

62) R.C. Pro-Am II

I only learned this game existed like, this year! What a surprise that was. And it's uh... it's not as good as the original IMO, for some reason it just doesn't have the same sense of speed and tight controls that I think the other one hand, but then you get to the part where you can CUSTOMIZE YOUR CAR'S UPGRADES and my monkey brain neurons activate like that. Love to fucking upgrade my shit in video games.

61) Pinball

You're probably like "What the fuck Para, it's just NES Pinball, who the hell pops off for NES Pinball." I do, motherfucker! Along with Clu Clu Land and Tennis this was a fave chill-out NES game in Animal Crossing, and I also played it a bunch on the e-reader. Remember the fucking e-reader? You could store an entire NES game on a few cards! I don't know why the novelty of that was always so amazing to me as a kid - it's really no different from storing a game on a cartridge, but using cards on the e-reader made me feel like I was unlocking some secret, special thing and that made it weirdly fun and exciting to play Pinball on my GBA. I dunno, I still think this game is fun even if it's really bare-bones and not that interesting.

I can confirm that Clu Clu Land and Pinball were 2 of the best NES games in Animal Crossing.

60) Summer Carnival '92 - Recca

What kind of game is featured at a summer carnival? A high tech futuristic shmup, of course! Japanese-only shmup, it looks gorgeous and plays really smooth, I still have no idea what kind of summer carnivals they have in Japan where they just play cool shmups

59) Ninja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of Doom

When you start playing Ninja Gaiden III, you're like, hey! It's not quite as hard as the previous two games! You can see powerups before they drop! Maybe the series has kind of turned over a new leaf! Then you get to the end of an excessively long volcano autoscroller, die, realize that you got sent back all the way to the BEGINNING of the stage that has no checkpoints for some reason, and also there's CONTINUES now, and you realize that Ninja Gaiden is up to its same shit again. You have to play the Japanese version because at least it has unlimited continues, I have no idea why they made this game HARDER for western markets

58) Adventure Island 4

If you want a break from Ninja Gaiden's bullshit, try Adventure Island 4! The last game ever released for the Famicom in Japan, which is kind of surprising to me because it's not a particularly ambitious game. It's a departure from the series in which it's kind of like a very light Metroidvania romp instead of a pure action-platformer, but I still like it, it's charming and accessible and not that difficult. Kinda surprised it never got released here but I guess it came out in 1994 and there wasn't much of a market for NES games anymore. Playing this game makes me feel just a little sad, knowing this was the end, but it's a nice little capper on a great legacy.

(I forgot to mention this at the start, but I didn't include any games on this list that are like, romhacks or indie games developed after 1994. Only contemporary NES/Famicom releases, no Battle Kids or the like)

57) Bomberman II

The first Bomberman didn't have multiplayer, but Bomberman is all about multiplayer, and this is the game that introduced it, I think! I dunno there were a shitload of Bomberman games so maybe it was introduced on the MSX or something. You can even have up to THREE players in this one, but not four for some reason, despite the fact that the multitap supports four players. Anyway, it's Bomberman - there's way better versions of Bomberman throughout the ages that are better to play now, but Bomberman II is still fun and still one of the best multiplayer games on the NES.

56) Kick Master

Kick Master! How can you not like this one? He's a master of kicks! Once you get used to the completely ABSURD gravity in this game - jumping makes you fly to nearly the top of the screen - it's actually not so bad to control, you have a variety of ways to kick things, and the RPG elements in this game make for a nice touch that make this one more interesting to play than some of its contemporary random platformer games. It's an underrated little gem.

55) Blades of Steel

Dude Blades of Steel is fucking hilarious. On top of being really frenetic and violent, every time someone gets knocked over and goes "Ah!" I fucking lose my SHIT. Peak NES comedy. Can you imagine how awesome the NHL would be if every time there was a fight, they fight until someone gets knocked out and they put that person in the penalty box? The casual brutality in this game is hilarious considering that it's trying to go for something of a semi-realistic hockey sim. Good fun. I have it on good authority that basically every Canadian of a certain age has played this game.

54) Ice Hockey

Yeah I decided to put the two hockey games together, I enjoy them about equally. Hockey makes for a really good sport to put on the NES - it's faster and more compact than soccer, easier to represent the physics of than basketball, and not as complex a sport in general as football or baseball. It's basically just high-speed Pong where you can move around and pass more or less, and that makes it the perfect NES sport. Between this and Blades of Steel, I like this one because I think the more cartoony and unrealistic style has aged better, I like that it has music and it's more colorful and I think I'd rather play this game today by a small margin, but they're both good.

53) Shadow of the Ninja

Now HERE'S a ninja game that's... also really hard, but not quite as bullshit as Ninja Gaiden. It's really solid and it has incredibly funky music, the first stage theme is an all time banger. And you can play as a female ninja! Lots of stuff going for it here. I still only barely understand how the weapon system is supposed to work, and that stupid chain weapon has a really annoying blind spot right in front of it, which can make it annoying when you're accidentally stuck with it, but whatever. Really solid platformer that I'd NEVER heard of until recently but it's worth checking out. They just released a remake of this game like two weeks ago for some reason.

52) S.C.A.T.: Special Cybernetic Attack Team

Hey it's a shmup that's not absurdly punishing and unforgiving! It's still hard, you only have one life with like six health bars or so, but it at least feels like you're allowed to make a mistake or two or three and play on in this one, which I appreciate. Being able to fire both left and right is a surprising novelty for a side-scrolling shmup and I really like the little satellites around you that you have freely rotate or that you can lock into place.- I like when shmups have little strategy/tactics things you can play with to break up the monotony of just dodging bullets and firing.

51) Moon Crystal

Another Japanese-only game that's worth checking out. It's a platformer that's short and not too difficult but the animation is so smooth that it's hypnotizing to look at. It kinda plays like Zelda II and Prince of Persia had a baby. It's pretty accessible and fun once you realize you have a double jump, which I didn't realize until like stage 3, and also once you realize that you have to engage the second jump while you're rising and not after you're falling, which I didn't realize until I died in a pit like 20 times on stage 3.

tag

I remember liking Super Adventure Island II on SNES way back. Sounds like 4 is closer to it.

also Moon Crystal is pretty solid

Interesting - I haven't played the Super Adventure Island games (I haven't really done a deep dive into the SNES like I have with the NES) and it's kinda funny that Super Adventure Island came out BEFORE Adventure Island 3 and then Adventure Island 4 was like months before Super Adventure Island II

I'd put Blades of Steel way above Ice Hockey but I agree with your write-up. The NHL should definitely start putting the losers of fights in the penalty box.

TAKES THE PASS

I figured Ice Hockey > Blades of Steel is probably a hot take but man that TAKES THE PASS voice clip gets old for me after a while and that's like literally what it came down to lol

Paratroopa1 posted...

Remember the fucking e-reader? You could store an entire NES game on a few cards!

It's amazing how little memory those games required. It reminds me of a picture of the code from Combat on the Atari 50 compilation, where the caption said that the picture took up more memory than the code itself.

I don't think I ever played Ice Hockey. Loved Blades of Steel though.

Summer Carnival was Naxat Softs own version of the Hudson Caravan Tournament. You know how a lot of old shooters have a caravan mode option that lets you play for a couple minutes and see how much you can score in that time? That originally comes from an annual touring event Hudson would do with its shooters, and other companies adopted the idea. The difference with Summer Carnival is that the game was developed specifically for the event rather than the way Hudson would just say were doing it with Star Soldier this time or whatever. So there are a couple other Summer Carnival games including one called Alzadick lol

The Shadow of the Ninja remake legitimately deserves to be in GOTY contention btw, its that fucking good