It’s no secret that I didn’t grow up playing the NES, like so many of my readers did. I grew up in Australia, where the NES, thanks to its horrid outsourced distribution and promotion, was the LOSER KIDS SYSTEM.
(Now, it should be noted that my wife grew up playing the NES, so I should be careful what I say here…oops!)
Gamers of the mid to late eighties were either Commodore or Sega owners, or in my case both, and the NES was that weird machine that nobody knew much about. You can thank Mattel, who distributed the system here, for that one. Even the gaming magazines I read didn’t mention the system that much, and even whether did they were years behind what was happening with the system in the US and Japan.
ANYWAY! This is a roundabout way of saying that I didn’t really play a lot of NES games, and most of my exposure to them was through magazines and later emulation. Of course, I played the big games that deserve your respect no matter what you were into: Super Mario Brothers, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid…and I ended up playing a lot of famous Nintendo franchises on the Game Boy which I was a huge fan of.
But I want to learn more about what made the system great…so a few weeks back I asked on Twitter for what the games are that really defined the system beyond the big names. Y’know, like the NES equivalents of Wizball, Mayhem In Monsterland and Great Giana Sisters. Some of these games I played, some I endured, and some I surprised myself by finding already in my collection.
So let’s get stuck in as I discover NES games for the first time, without the alure of nostalgia to guide me! I tried to just play games that are just on the NES, but I break the rule when curiosity got the better of me…
Bayou Billy: Hey bad guy get your hand off her boob. I like how bad guys give you chicken when they die. Games that guve you chicken are better than games that don’t, and that’s a fact. Or maybe it’s not chicken and you’re eating them? And what’s up with “this stage use the controller?”, what else am I meant to use?
Alien Syndrome: Huh. Not many Colours compared to the c64 version…what’s up with that? I thought the NES had 52 colours which, and I know I need to check my math here, but seems like more than the 16 colours the Commodore 64 sported. And the colours seem really…weirdly muted and washed out. Hmm. Moving on.
Balloon Fight: Oh wow, this is just like Joust! I loved Joust! I wonder which one came first? Maybe they both occurred simultaneously independent of each other, I find that really fascinating when that happens, like how Metroid and Sacred Armor of Antiriad came out within weeks of each other purely by chance. Anyway this is really nice, I like the physics of it. But man the sound – that constant…I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like a bunch of 70s era computers talking to each other. Ugh. Man, I can’t get over how much like Joust this is. There’s even a thing that drags you down to your death at the bottom of the screen if you get too close. I really like it!
Baseball – Oh this is familiar, I think I must have unlocked this on Animal Crossing back in the day or something. It’s baseball! The P team is the best team. That’s pretty much all I remember about it. Not being American I don’t really get Baseball, but it seems way better than cricket.
Bionic Commando – This was one of my earliest exposures to the NES back in the day, and man oh man did this put me off the whole system. First of all, this isn’t the Bionic Commando I know and love. The C64 version is my go-to source of Bionic Commando, because it’s a bloody nice conversion of the arcade classic and oh man that MUSIC. But this is nothing like it! And I know that doesn’t mean that’s a bad thing, but it really put me off then and I have to admit it still does now. HOWEVER! I persevered and discovered a really ace game with a nice feel to the swinging and plenty of depth. I really like the map screen where enemy units move between rounds. That’s a neat idea. I like this a bit more than the XBLA remake I tried a few years ago, but overall it’s just too different and it made me scared of change like an old person. I know how wrong that is, but old habits die hard. Sorry.
Blades of Steel: Wait, is that speech? Oh that’s neat. I still prefer EA Hockey on the MegaDrive but this is fast and it feels good and there’s fighting! Every hockey game needs fighting. And man alive is this thing hard! NES games seem to be really hard as a general rule, which isn’t bad. I think I would have liked that back in the day when I needed my gaming purchases to really last. The MegaDrive was infamous for how easy its games were, which sucked when I dropped $80 on Golden Axe or whatever and I could finish it in an hour. Um anyway Blades Of Steel is pretty good, I imagine it would be incredible with two players.
Blaster Master: I’ve long hear good things about this one, and it’s easy to see why. First it’s a platformer where you’re a car, then you’ve get out and explore, and then it’s this overhead shooter maze exploration game. Cool! It’s SUPER pretty, too. What’s up with the slowdown? I mean growing up as a PAL gamer I’m used to slowdown but yeeeeesh. OK, I need to come back and play this more, I think.
Boy and His Blob: I loved Boy and his Blob on Game Boy, I love it here, plus yeah I’m a David Crane fan. So cool to finally play a colour version!
Break Time: More speech! And the music’s terrible! And we have had 30 odd years of advancement in pool games since this came out! And I’m moving on to the next game!
Bubble Bobble WHOA this is a fast and easy version of Bubble Bobble! I love Bubble Bobble so much. It’s so weird to play it with larger sprites and that weird NES aspect ratio, but MAN do I like playing it with proper controls. The C64 version mapped “jump” to pressing up on the joystick, which was kinda awkward, and the NES version plays much nicer. I’m so glad I found this!
Castlevania: I first played this on the C64 but pretty much all of Konami’s NES to C64 conversions were hot garbage. Hmm. I wasn’t grabbed by it and the way enemies just continually kept coming at you bugged me. There wasn’t enough RAM to remember when you killed everyone in the room or something? On the C64 that would be considered bad form but it seems to be just a regular thing here, maybe? Anyway I liked Castlevania on the Game Boy, it seemed more linear.
Chip ‘n’ Dale: Aww I liked this. It was cute. And really hard! But I liked how you picked things up and your little guy sweat a lot if it was a big thing like an apple. Put some effort in, mister!
City Connection: If my parents bought me this for Christmas I would have been SO MAD let me tell you.
Cybernoid: Oh wow they ported this to the NES? Neat! Shame it’s missing the killer music. Shame it’s still waaaaaay too hard. Shame it was never that great a game to begin with! And it’s missing the neat effect where big objects shattered when destroyed. Alas.
Dark Seed: HAHAH WHAT THEY CONVERTED THIS TO THE NES? What the heeeeeell hahahahahah. I can’t even bring myself to play it.
Ikari Warriors: OK, bigger sprites that the c64 version but the music JESUS CHRIST it’s bad, it’s PC without a sound card bad.
Kirby’s Adventure: WOW WOW WOW WHERE HAS THIS GAME BEEN ALL MY LIFE THIS IS AMAZING HOLY CRAP HOW DID I EVER NOT KNOW HOW FANTASTIC KIRBY IS?! I love it! I love it to bits! Damn! I’m really really tempted to just stop going through my NES games now and just play this every day until I die or go buy the Wii Kirby game I ignored. God damn! It’s so fun and clever and gorgeous and I love how you get new abilities and the level design is really nice and it feels super polished. Apparently this was one of the last NES games? 1993 so that makes sense. Wow. I love this to bits. This game alone has made this experiment worthwhile.
Lunar Pool: Yep I should have just kept playing Kirby. GARBAGE.
MC Kids: Once you get over the McDonalds thing this is actually a neat little platformer. Physics-wise it reminds me a lot of Psycho Fox on the Master System. There’s a lot of NES games that involve picking up blocks and throwing them, what’s up with that?
Mega Man: OK, I know this series is considered NES royalty, but man I am just not getting it at all. It’s just too hard and not in a good way. It just reminds me that im too old for these kinds of games now, and I dont have the patience to spend weeks learning how to get past one level. The main character is a real pain to control and feels really limited in what he can do. Fire upwards, you moron!
Might Final Fight: Seriously the NES gets a better Final Fight than the SNES? How the hell does THAT happen? Also by this stage I am thinking the NES colour pallets is really full of neon pinks. It’s everywhere!
Mike Tyson’s Punch Out: uh. Hmm. I played this last night and thought, eh, I don’t like this. But I ended up thinking. About a bit during the day today and played it again tonight and really really enjoyed it. The mistake I made was thinking this was a fighting game and I just hammered buttons waiting to make a connection, like I was playing a third person Final Fight or something. But it’s not! It’s a bit cleverer than that. Yeah I’ll be back for more of this.
Rad Racer. Haven’t seen many racing games on the NES, and this is really nice and compares favourably with similar titles on the Sega Master System. Well, early Master System.
Rainbow Islands: Oh man there’s those HORRID neon pinks again. Did the NES, like, just not have yellow or red in its pallete or something? This looks like the PC port running in CGA mode. And that scrolling! Why do so many NES games have this horrid scrolling where you reach the edge of this invisible scream and it pushes the next screen while juddering all the way? It’s sloppy and it really annoys me here because Rainbow Islands is one of my favourite games of all time, and this looks like it was made my some colour blind person. God damn. It’s called RAINBOW Islands not NEON PINK Islands.
Rampage: Only two characters? Whaaaaaat.
Tetris: STILL THE KING. I played the Nintendo version not the apparently Godlike Tengen version, but it still rocks.
Wario’s Woods: Oh, THIS must be the last NES game. And I have no idea what the hell you’re meant to do, except (shock) PICK UP BLOCKS. And I can’t see Wario in it?
OK that’s my first dive into the wonderful world of the NES back catalogue. I had a lot of fun! Some games just didn’t grab me the way I was told they would, but that’s nostalgia for you. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go play some more Kirby…
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