NES-a-day challenge

[Bosstone]

Crystalis! Crystalis! Crystalis!

No, it's not a short game. Shorter than RPGs, but longer than most NES games. If you know precisely what to do and where to go you can probably beat it in about 6 hours. But dammit, it's worth mentioning. It's just an excellent adventure RPG game that beats the hell out of the original Legend of Zelda and holds its own against SNES games like Link to the Past, Secret of Mana, and Soul Blazer.

[Pushkin]

Are there any NES games that were enjoyable, in an non-hair pulling way? I'm finding it hard to remember any, but the games I had on the NES I played until that damned pad made my left thumb hurt.

[fusoya]

Crystalis sucked. I'm going avoid playing that one again for as long as possible. It is nowhere NEAR on the level of any of the other excellent games you compared it to, and I never got how it got such a following. Any game which REQUIRES you to level up just to DAMAGE a boss is automatically lame.

Pushkin:
Kid Dracula fits your description pretty well (with the exception of one stage). Also, these which I already completed in this challenge:
All of the Super Mario Bros
The first Zelda game (might take you some time to get going, but the gameplay itself isn't that hard. Zelda 2 is way worse)
Duck Tales
Contra WITH the 30 lives code is pretty fun
1943
Boy & His Blob I think you get unlimited lives, so it's fun to mess around with
The first two Double Dragons never get very hard (stay the hell away from 3 though!)
The Mega Man games vary. 2-5 are reasonably easy and very enjoyable. 1 and 6 (and 9) are "Nintendo Hard" though
If you HAVEN'T played Shadowgate before, it's a really fun game to mess around with too - you WILL die a lot, but you will always restart just before you entered the last room, so it can be beaten with persistance.
TMNT 2 & 3 are really fun if you have a second person to play with. TMNT1 will make you go bald though.

[Bosstone]

Crystalis sucked. I'm going avoid playing that one again for as long as possible. It is nowhere NEAR on the level of any of the other excellent games you compared it to, and I never got how it got such a following. Any game which REQUIRES you to level up just to DAMAGE a boss is automatically lame.Counterpoint: It's paced so that you're the right level if you play without a walkthrough. The last time I played it (about a month ago) I used a walkthrough and only had to stop to level up once.

It has good graphics, good gameplay, and good music. If it was an SNES game it would be sorely lacking, but for an NES game it plays very well.

[Palooka]

That's the problem right there. The Genesis was already out and everyone was loving Golden Axe and Phantasy Star II, so who would be impressed by some NES title's music or graphics? fusoya is right about the gameplay being a snooze.

[Mahaloth]

Which X-men game did you guys play on the NES? I believe there are two, both by LJN. Yikes.

[YogSosoth]

So finally, last night I beat Mr. Sandman. Super Macho Man's actually easier than him too. I thought my decades of experience would prepare me for the battle that is Mike Tyson.

I was sooooo wrong.

Without cheating, I do not know how anyone can beat this guy. Apparently, from the FAQs, his first 90 seconds is all punches that can knock you out with one hit. I lasted 6 seconds before I got knocked out, then the TKO came about 20 seconds later. Every punch of his is like Mr. Sandman's Dreamland Express. He just flashes, and POW! You're dead! The reflexes required to beat him is inhuman! I may be rethinking my 'no cheating' policy with him...

I want to play Crystalis. I've always heard great things about it so I can't wait to get it started

Which X-men game did you guys play on the NES? I believe there are two, both by LJN. Yikes.

I own and have beaten the first (I think) X-Men game. This was a terrible terrible game. You get to select a bunch of characters for like 4 or 5 stages. When you die, you cannot use them again for the rest of the game. The stages were top-down view. You got stuck often near corners. Plus, some of the X-Men didn't even have projectiles, so you had to get super close to something to damage it, then you'd get damaged too.

There was a weird thing on this game about getting to the last level. Apparently, the code to do it was printed on the game pak itself. You had to beat the normal 4 or 5 stages, then enter the code which will take you to the last stage. And woe be unto you if you didn't have a projectile character alive at this point. I think I saved Cyclops for last because he was the only one I could use to kill Magneto. And I don't think I beat him fairly, I exploited some kind of bug or glitch which made him stuck to one place on the screen so I could shoot him with impunity from a safe distance. God I hated that game. Why did I ever bother to beat it? I guess I was desperate for entertainment back when there was no internet ;)

[YogSosoth]

After massive cheating, I beat Mike Tyson :D

How. THE FUCK. did people beat him back before save states were invented??? I'd rather fight 2 Jaquio's than Iron Mike! I tried, I really really tried to beat it without cheating, but I couldn't even make it past the first round. That 2nd round is murder, he just starts throwing random punches after beginning with 10 punches with no warning. WTF man??

And has anyone pointed out the massive discrepancy between weight in some of these fighters? Bald Bull is 298 pounds to Little Mac's 107. Even the Nevada Athletic Comission wouldn't approve something that lobsided. Don King-lookalike must have bribed a lot of people to get his boy into matches against some of these people. Organs were probably traded.

Next game I played was Abadox. I don't know if you played this yet but I remember you saying that you beat Gradius. Did that game or Abadox come out first? Because one of them stole massively from the other one.

Abadox has a ton of similarities with Gradius and Life Force. It's got verticle scrolling levels, a bio/cell level, those grabby arms that come out of the wall that you can only destroy by shooting it's base, a mechanical level, and ends with you flying out of the planet before it blows up. It even has a ripple laser that looks and SOUNDS almost identicle to Life Force's ripple laser! Near the end, it's got a set of 3 enemies that shoot you just like Life Force in that temple stage. Missiles, speed, force fields, and a Option-like upgrade are just like Konami's game.

One weird thing I noticed was that you still died when you touched the walls even though your character's a flying guy with a gun. What, are the walls poison?? And after beating the game, apparently he gets into a jet and flies off, since the ending of the game shows a plane. Ummm, ok :dubious:

[Munch]

How. THE FUCK. did people beat him back before save states were invented???
Pattern memorization. He does the same thing every time you fight him. Fight him enough, learn his pattern, and beat him.

[YogSosoth]

Pattern memorization. He does the same thing every time you fight him. Fight him enough, learn his pattern, and beat him.

It took me more than a dozen tries just to get past the 90 second mark in the first round. After that, implementing what I memorized was even harder :mad:

[Bosstone]

It took me more than a dozen tries just to get past the 90 second mark in the first round. After that, implementing what I memorized was even harder :mad:Insane difficulty requiring hundreds of attempts is how games achieved longevity and replay value back in the day, before the advent of deeper storylines, multiple endings, multiple playstyles, and achievements. TVTropes calls such games Nintendo Hard (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard).

[fusoya]

And that is why I do not consider using save states to be cheating for this challenge. The whole idea is to get exposure to every game on my favorite gaming console. Beating many of these "Nintendo Hard" games requires playing stages/bosses over and over until you learn how to beat them. Castlevania and Contra can be beaten in 10 minutes ONCE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING, but no way did anybody open the box, stick it in the NES, and see the ending screen 10 minutes later. Save stating is just a way of speeding up the "learning the patterns" aspect, since each time I die, I can go back to right before I made the mistake, rather than have to backtrack the whole stage again (and in many cases, lose the upgrades for the second try).

Well, if I get back onto the chronological Konami streak which I started last year, my next game is Mission Impossible, a game which earned its name.

[YogSosoth]

Especially annoying were games that make you repeat huge portions of the game after you die. Ninja Gaiden had those 3 difficult bosses at the end of stage 6 and if you lost to any of them, you'd have to do the entire stage over again. It makes one appreciate how good some of the classics were that didn't have to resort to this insane difficulty. Zelda 1, Metroid, and the Mario games had hours of playing time and they weren't overly difficult.

I beat Phantom Fighter last night. This was a game I begged my parents to get me when I saw it on the Home Shopping Network way back in the day. You're a martial artist who is trying to rescue these 8 towns from an invasion of Kyonshies, or "Chinese Vampires". I've always thought they were more like Chinese zombies, as the Kyonshies are mindless and eat people. They hop around, not walk, because rigor mortis has rendered all but their calf and toe muscles immovable, apparently. I think the legend goes like that simply because it's scarier.

This game has annoying gameplay because your character Kenchi moves around like he's slipping on ice. When you get all of the movement speed upgrades, it's even harder to judge where to stop. In games like this, sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I could import the gameplay from one game into another. If Kenchi had the movement speed and dexterity of, say, Metroid, this game would be a piece of cake. Stop on a dime, turn, kick zombie, roll into ball, jump over zombie, etc. While not terribly hard, I think the addition of a simply move like being able to walk backwards would get rid of the Nintendo Hard status.

Been playing some Dr. Mario. Though the game goes on forever probably, there's a thing after stage 20 that tells you how good you've done. I pretty much just pretend that's the end. This game is pretty easy. It was one of the many Tetris clones that came out after that game became a cult and mainstream hit. I guess Nintendo wanted their own version that nobody could take away from them (ie. Tengen). So the NES got Dr. Mario. The Genesis, I think, got Columns.

I think Dr. Mario would have been a lot better if they eventually ended up with more than just 3 colors. Hell, Bust a Move has like 8 colors, Magic Drop has at least 4, with special bubbles thrown into the mix. You'd think Mario could battle more than just AIDS, Ebola, and the Black Plague (or whatever those viruses are :D). By about level 10, it was getting really repetitive. Then again, that was the point of this game.

I'm fooling around with an old, terrible game that I remember fondly from my youth, Tag Team Wrestling. The redeeming quality of this game is that it's where Strong Bad originates from. With a turbo controller, this game offers almost no challenge. Every stage is the same, and every opponent is the same. You could win a match in about 20 seconds if you knock a guy out of the ring, smash his head into the post a few times, and jump back in before the count is up.

So after playing that for a few minutes, I remember another wrestling game I used to play a lot with my friends. Simply called Pro Wrestling, this one has memorable characters that have stuck with me for 20 something years. The Amazon, King Slender, and Starman were my best characters. The Amazon looks like an early precursor to Blanka from Street Figher 2, he even has the same bite attack!

I think I'll play Lengendary Wings next. I miss that game for some reason. :D

[YogSosoth]

Legendary Wings. Already posted on by a couple of people so I won't get into the gameplay but wow! Actually reading some of the storylines in these old games are mindblowing! Thousands of years into the future, mankind built a computer named DARK to keep peace throughout the world. Unfortunately for mankind, the computer flipped out and started killing people (in hindsight, maybe they shouldn't have named it DARK). Then, and I shit you not, the GOD OF WAR ARES gives a couple of guys (in the original Japanese, it was a guy and a girl) wings and, taking mankind's last stash of weapons, they set out to destroy dark.

In retrospect, I've always wondered why there were so many mechanical aspects in a game that looks like it was set in ancient times. Now I know. I don't know if I'm better off for it.... :dubious:

It's funny though. I would have guessed that it was made by Capcom even if I didn't know it due to those drill enemies in the 5th stage that are also in Metal Man's stage from Mega Man 2. And that other guy KMFD recognized the Elecman sound in the game too! I guess Capcom was really cheap back then

[fusoya]

Mega Man 10 is out now. Wonder if I'll be able to beat THAT one in a day.....?

[Autolycus]

On Easy Mode you definitely could. Not sure about the others. I haven't played it yet, but that's just what I hear.

Ugh, I still have to beat 9. I got frustrated on Wiley's Castle and gave up, but I collected 999 screws and 9 lives in the Hornet Level in like 30 minutes, so now I'm trying again. Got to Wiley's 2nd form without too much trouble, so I'm thinking I'll beat it on the next try.

[c_goat]

On Easy Mode you definitely could. Not sure about the others. I haven't played it yet, but that's just what I hear.

Ugh, I still have to beat 9. I got frustrated on Wiley's Castle and gave up, but I collected 999 screws and 9 lives in the Hornet Level in like 30 minutes, so now I'm trying again. Got to Wiley's 2nd form without too much trouble, so I'm thinking I'll beat it on the next try.

Haha, I never finished 9 either after getting to Wily's Castle. I just don't have the time to play through all the stages in one sitting. Now that 10 is out I'll have to try again.

[Pushkin]

And that is why I do not consider using save states to be cheating for this challenge

Why :smack: don't :smack: I :smack: do :smack: that :smack:

I never thought, at all. And it was staring me in the face all along.

[Bosstone]

Another suggestion that I just rediscovered today: Rockin' Kats. Think Bionic Commando with seriously cartoonish graphics and vastly, vastly better controls. It's a platformer where your main weapon is a boxing glove on a spring, which you use not only to punch enemies out but bounce off the ground and swing off ledges and lampposts, as well as a few other tricks. It's actually pretty fun and not too difficult.

[fusoya]

(Mike Tyson's) Punch-Out!!, Nintendo, 1987, 30 minutes

One of my favorite NES games. Upon initial appearance, it's a boxing game. However, it has a very unique gameplay to it which is less about the sport, and more about NES-style pattern learning, try-fail-repeat-improve action. You're a lightweight boxer from the Bronx who somehow ended up in the heavy weight division, and you have to fight your way through all different types of stereotypes (jive-talking Philly black guy, most honorable Japanese warrior, tiger-crazy Indian, drunk Russian, etc) in order to become world champ. In the original release, Mike Tyson was the final fight, but when Nintendo reprinted the game, they wanted to distance themselves from him (for obvious reasons) and so he was re-pixelated into Kevin Federline, who still knocked you down in a single punch. Actually, I always found Mr Sandman to be the toughest fight in the game, simply because there's no good way I know of to do damage to him (Tyson/Federline may punch hard, but he leaves himself open to counter-punches too), and the best way to win is to finish round 1 with him one hit from going down, so you can get a knockdown right at the start of round 2. It's been a while since I've played this one, but I still made it through without losing any fights (and to up the challenge even more, I was playing on a DS which scrambled the energy meter and timer!) - it's like Contra or riding a bicycle - once you learn the patterns, they stick with you for life.

[YogSosoth]

I hate you. It took me a week to beat that game. Mr. Sandman alone was like 2 or 3 days.

[fluiddruid]

Now I'm debating whether to get started on Dragon Warrior 4. I actually did beat that game back in the 90s, and it's even longer than DW3, believe it or not......I know there's a remake for it on the DS.Oh, you gotta! I loved, loved, loved that game. I've replayed it so many times. The characters are actually memorable, too. I loved playing Chapter 3, where you are Taloon, the merchant, and run a shop (and you can mightily cheat -- Taloon had a Sword of Malice and a backpack full of the most expensive armor whenever I got into Chapter 5, since gaining money got so easy). He was kinda crap in combat, though. As I recall, I used to like Cristo and the old guy from Chapter 2, and then rotating a heavy into that last slot (Ragnar? from Chapter 1 or Alena from Chapter 2). I didn't really care for the sisters from Chapter 4 in the end, though I did enjoy their storyline.

Oh man, it was great. Basically Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 are the backstory for everyone in your party that you'll pick up once you're the Hero in Chapter 5. You don't even get introduced to the Hero until hours and hours into the game. Then you start back at level 1. ;)

One of my favorite parts: all of chapter 3 from the start, when your wife gives you a pack lunch and kisses you ("Smack!") and sends you off into the world... the arena tournament... Healie, the Healer (levitating jellyfish) companion... having a wagon to carry around your extra party members, and swapping them out in the final battle. Even the AI is decent; in Chapter 5, you only control the Hero, but your party members will actually pick their commands as their turn comes up in battle -- the healer will heal someone injured immediately before, not on the next turn.

Great game.

[fusoya]

Final Fantasy, Squaresoft, 1990, 6 hours*

The one that started one of the best known RPG series in history. You all know the story. Squaresoft was on the verge of going bankrupt - King's Knight and Rad Racer weren't selling well enough, so they decided to make one FINAL game that would make them or break them. So they ripped off the Dungeons & Dragons enemy list and took some cues from Dragon Warrior. This game has 4 Light Warriors (you could pick your party at the beginning from any combination of 6 types of characters, but then were stuck with them the whole game--for this play through I picked one Red Mage (not wizard, MAGE) and killed off the other 3 characters at the beginning and left them dead, so I could go at it solo. Yeah, I'm hardcore) on a quest to re-light the four elemental crystals, and destroy the fiends (Earth, Fire, Water, Wind) which have harnessed the power of the those elements to destroy the world. Pretty basic stuff, although for it's time, it's pretty deep. I was a HUGE fanatic of this game when it came out. The 3 issue review + the separate strategy guide which Nintendo Power released just made me want the game even more. For this play through, I actually played the GBA remake, but I've beaten the much much harder/more tedious NES version plenty of times, so I'm still counting it. The GBA remake (which also got released for the PSX and PSP) basically spruces up the graphics and music, gives a more in depth translation, and removes many of the annoyances and bugs that the NES version had, so I would recommend it to all but the most hardcore RPGs (who I'm sure have already played the NES one anyway). Every RPG fan should play this game, as it will put you in touch of how most later RPGs got their origin.

[fusoya]

Final Fantasy 2J, Squaresoft, 20 hours

Okay, I actually played the GBA remake, so I can't really comment on how harder or easier it is than the original Japanese NES release (although it did have a bug removed which could cause you to level up really easily, which would be a game-breaker for this one). Yes, I, fusoya himself, has never beaten this game before tonight. For those of you not familiar with the history, this game never got an American release until it was remade for the GBA/PSP, due to the lateness of FF1 arriving here (itself 1 year before the SNES and FF4, which got called FF2 here. Little did Square know that this would make things even MORE confusing down the line). Anyway, this game was never as popular as the first one, even for those who played the Japanese or fan-translated versions, and I can definitely see why. First of all, while FF1 did the original-at-the-time story of saving the world from evil based on the elements, this one went with the much more generic/boring "stop the evil empire from trying to conquer the world through brute force" .... yes, it worked well in FF4 and FF6, but that was because both of those added much more originally to the mix. This was simply stopping the evil Emperor. Also, the mechanics were pretty generic and weird - you keep the same 3 characters throughout the game, and all of them are the same except for appearance - it's like later FF's where you can choose who you want to be the swordsman, mage, etc, but you can't change their jobs. The 4th slot is a revolving door of temporary characters. The battle/leveling up system is like the Game Boy FF's - rather than gaining EXP, a character will gain individual stats after a battle, based on a formula of how much they NEED that stat increase. Also, weapons and spells gain exp - rather than Cure1-4, there's just one Cure which starts at 1 and gets up to 16 based on how much you cast it. However, I do have to give this game some credit, since it would introduce a bunch of things that would become staples in the FF games to come - it was the first one with chocobos, dragoons, Mysidia and cut scenes with playable characters who actually have their own voice,

[fusoya]

King's Quest 5, Sierra (ported to the NES by Konami), 1991, 2 hours 30 min

KQ5 is an interactive point and click adventure game, in the same feel as Shadowgate and Maniac Mansion, sort of. Anyone who has played a Sierra adventure game knows just how incredibly EVIL they are. Well, KQ5 was the most evil of them all, and the NES port did not let up a bit on that. If you miss one little 4 pixel item an hour ago, not only will you not be able to progress in the game, you might not even be able to RETURN to the original spot where you found it, thus making your save file impossible to beat! And this happens numerous times in KQ5....it had been a while since I've played this one, and I had to start over TWICE because of this. There's also an event which, if you fail to complete it on the first try, will let you continue playing, but there will be another upcoming event which will result in your death. Anyway. KQ5 was an otherwise revolutionary game in so many ways. One of the first games with voice acting. The first in the series to use point and click rather than typing sentences. The first with numerous new areas (and no backtracking allowed!). Of course, the NES version was unable to carry over most of the stuff which made this game unique and fun. The music is HORRENDOUS (I purposely muted the rest of the game), and using a control pad as a mouse cursor was as annoying as hell. I remember how huge KQ5 was when it first came out on PC, so I can understand Sierra wanting to profit even more from the increased fanbase of NES owners, but Konami did a terrible job with this port, so just play the PC game instead (and use a DIFFERENT name each time you save, or you will regret it!). Also, one warning to those of you who DO play the NES one - this is not a battery-pack. Even though you can save and restore games, it only holds them in the RAM, sort of like save states (and yes, you will have to load a saved game A LOT in this game - like every single time you die. And yes, you will die. A lot). When you want to quit for real, you need to ask the game to give you a PASSWORD, to input the next time you power on the game.

[fusoya]

We're only 4 days away from the 25th anniversary of the NES first being released in the United States. While I have been slowing chugging along, completing about 130 games since this challenge started (not to mention the 100 or so others I've beaten over the last 25 years but haven't documented on here), THIS GUY HERE (http://thepunkeffect.com/?p=522) has even bigger plans to celebrate the 25th anniversary. He plans to play all 750 games within a 24 hour span this Saturday. The means he's only gonna get about 2 minutes per game, so I'm not sure how he'll manage that (Dragon Warrior 3, for example, takes at least 4 minutes from the point you power it on until the point where you can actually start playing the game, aside from entering your name).

[Tom Scud]

We're only 4 days away from the 25th anniversary of the NES first being released in the United States. While I have been slowing chugging along, completing about 130 games since this challenge started (not to mention the 100 or so others I've beaten over the last 25 years but haven't documented on here), THIS GUY HERE (http://thepunkeffect.com/?p=522) has even bigger plans to celebrate the 25th anniversary. He plans to play all 750 games within a 24 hour span this Saturday. The means he's only gonna get about 2 minutes per game, so I'm not sure how he'll manage that (Dragon Warrior 3, for example, takes at least 4 minutes from the point you power it on until the point where you can actually start playing the game, aside from entering your name).

In theory you could have multiple machines going, and play one of them while another is loading or going through an unskippable intro.

[fusoya]

22 hours in, and they're only up to the S's. I've been watching much of this challenge (although I had to sleep so I missed H-Q) ... they have a whole pile of front-loading NES's, and they've gone through a couple boxes of q-tips and a number of systems in order to get the games to load properly. They're playing each game between 30 seconds and 5 minutes, depending on how fast they get bored with it. For the Dragon Warriors, they loaded a saved game and went outside and fought 1 battle.

The funniest part was when they were playing Dr. Chaos and Snooki started chasing them.

"sweet, two Koei games in a row. Now we can sit back and watch rice grow"

I'm gonna do some marathoning of my own today, since I won't have much of a chance on the real 25th anniversary tomorrow.

[Mahaloth]

He's playing Silver Surfer now. My God have mercy on his soul.

[fusoya]

Super Dodge Ball, Technos, June 1989, 30 minutes
One of my favorite games ever. It's a sports game, but really has an action edge to it. You're in a dodge ball tournamant, taking your team all over the world. Each stage has a theme related to its country (ice field for Iceland, tropical setting for Kenya, etc), which adds to the atmosphere. The 3 offensive players on each team has an energy bar, which you bring down by hitting them with the ball. You can also perform special attacks by getting a running start. Only problem with this game is it's too easy for me. I played on normal difficulty (per challenge rules), and I didn't even break a sweat beating the game. This is a really fun game to play in vs 2 player mode. One warning to anyone playing this game - when you get up to India, keep changing your lineup until India puts Swami on defense. Due a programming error, he has 50 defense rather than 5, meaning he will take about 100 hits to eliminate. Also, the final match against the Team USA Ghosts has my favorite NES song EVER.


Mega Man 2, Capcom, June 1989, 45 minutes
Wow, how did I overlook this game so long in this challenge? I've beaten this game more than any other video game in history - I used to beat it every single morning before school as part of my morning routine. Metal, Quick, Air, Bubble, Crash, Flash, Heat, Wood....even though this is the only NES Mega Man where the stage order doesn't really matter (although if you try to do Heat before Air, good luck!), which is part of what makes this game so enjoyable. The funnest (and also easiest) of the NES Mega Man games, with an amazing soundtrack, and the Metal Blades are the best Mega Man weapon in the history of the series. If I have one complaint about this game, it's that there's too much waiting between stages, with Dr Light going ON AND ON about the weapon upgrades.


8 Eyes, Taxan, January 1990, 1 hour 15 minutes
I first got this game because it was advertised in Nintendo Power as being similar to Castlevania. Really, the ONLY thing it has in common with CV are the graphics (which are utter ripoffs of CV!), and the castle setting. The gameplay is actually more like Mega Man, since you can choose which castle (each modeled after a different country) order you want to play, and each boss is weak against the sword you get from a previous boss. The problem though is each time you beat a castle, you trade in your sword for a new one, so until you figure out the order, chances are you won't have the strong sword for most of the bosses. Like Mega Man, you have to fight all of the bosses again, in a row, at the end. The levels themselves are maze/puzzle platforms, which involve finding switches to open the door to the next room. 8 Eyes fails to live up to either CV or MM, infact it's downright crap at time. 1 player mode has HORRIBLE play control - to control the Falcon (in 1 player mode, it just flies back and forth), you have to press Up+B to leave his shoulder, and then Down+B to attack, and Up+A uses special weapons. This game actually does have a fun 2 player mode, since your character (who looks like Simon with a sword) has a falcon which can attack enemies and pick up items, and is controllable by the computer or player 2. This game does have some amusing elements - you can actually FALL down the stairs if you try to walk off a ledge, and after you beat each boss, you and him sit down and have a cup of tea while your password is being given! India, Spain, Egypt, Italy, Africa, Germany, Arabia

Shatterhand, Natsume, December 1991, 1 hour 30 minutes
Straight up side-scrolling platform action, which is what made the NES popular. You're some guy with a fist of steel, running around levels, punching robots and saving the world, or something. You can collect cubes, which will make a little flying robot hover over you, who has various types of guns, and you can also collect coins, which can be turned in for energy recharge, extra lives, or more powerful armor (really just a leather jacket). There are also fences in the background which you can hold onto by pressing Up, which I kept forgetting about. The game lets you choose the order of the stages to do, although I couldn't tell if it made any difference which ones you did.....fun game, overdone explosions, great soundtrack, the obligatory reverse-gravity stage, Shatterhand made me remember again why I became such an NES fan!

Maniac Mansion, Lucasarts (ported by Jaleco), September 1990, 1 hour 50 minutes
Unlike King's Quest 5, the NES version of Maniac Mansion is actually superior to the PC version. It's a similar type game, except you control three characters (you can choose from a pool of 8, each of which have their own skills) who explore a mansion in order to rescue the main character's girlfriend from a crazy family. Also unlike KQ5, you have to work very hard in order to die, although there are some situations where you can make your save file unwinnable, both by misusing items, and by not having the right items with the right character at the right place. This game still makes me laugh -- it also has a reputation both for what got censored from the game (if you read the Nintendo Power review, note that some of the screenshots are NOT in the final version), and what Jaleco still managed to sneak by NOA's radar (yes, there's an actual item in the game called "HAMSTER GUTS"). This is the first time I tried beating it using Bernard and Michael, and is actually a pretty swift way to do it, since you can get Ed on your side, and he'll take care of most of the end sequence for you. One of the nice things about this game is it has a ton a replayability, since you beat the game a different way depending on your party. This game has an absolutely INSANE soundtrack, I LOVE it. Also, not an NES game, but the PC sequel Day of the Tentacle is quite simply one of the most brilliant adventure games ever made (and even funnier!)

[Pushkin]

I've been trying a few NES games on my DS (using the save state to save tempers) that I remember from when I was just new to the NES. Some of them are quite amusing, but for the most part, playing them makes now me wonder how I put up with them as a kid. They're damned frustrating, stupidly easy or NES hard, no in between it seems unless you were playing an RPG like Zelda.

[fusoya]

Vice: Project Doom, Aicom, November 1991, 90 minutes

Another great side-scrolling platform game, at the end of NES's lifetime. This game follows the formula of Bayou Billy, where it's mostly side scrolling action levels (although more like Ninja Gaiden, complete with respawning enemies who want nothing more than to knock you down a cliff), but they throw in a couple of driving stages and a couple of stages with the light gun zapper. Also like Ninja Gaiden, there are cut scenes between each level, although I had a very hard time following the story. You're some guy who escaped from a biological lab, and you're trying to seek revenge on your creators and rescue your girlfriend....I think? You have a sword (and with turbo, you are UNSTOPPABLE with it), a gun (which can only fire halfway across the screen) and molotov cocktails, the latter two have limited ammo, but I mostly stuck with the sword. The game wasn't TOO hard, except for those damn enemies that throw the giant bolts at you, and the game's final boss, mainly because with all of the cool graphic effects going on, it causes severe slowdown - and to make matters worse, during slowdown your weapons won't work! Also like Ninja Gaiden, if you lose against either of the 2 final bosses, you have to replay the last stage again!

[YogSosoth]

Aaahhh I gotta get back to playing this. But right now I'm in the middle of Final Fantasy Tactics. Still old, but not NES old

[fusoya]

Gun-Nac, Compile, April 1991, 1 hour

A very underrated game, probably due to its cheezy title. This is an overhead shooter game, much in the spirit of 1943 (there's even a stage where you fight 1943 battleships!). You're one little space fighter out to save the world. The weird thing is, this game can't seem to decide if it wants to be Galaga or Parodius, since the enemy list is about evenly split between other spaceships, and enemies such as rabbits and the evil floors from Ultima 3, and one boss which is a giant Hello Kitty (no, I'm not joking!). This game also has one of the oddest NES endings I've ever seen. It's a very good shooter game, starts off easy but gets extremely difficult in the second half, although the game is VERY generous with extra lives (I had 19 lives when I beat it) it also suffers from the problem that once you die, you go back to having the weakest gun - and there are a ton of different types of weapon upgrades, my favorite being the triple flame thrower.

(upon reading the Wikipedia entry, it turns out that Gun-Nac is actually a "sequel/parody" to Compile's Zanac, another NES shooter, which explains the title. I should play that one next)

[fusoya]

Zanac, Compile, October 1987, 1 hour

Pretty much everything I said in my Gun-Nac review applies for Zanac too. The only differences are that this one takes itself more seriously (you're the same ship, but rather than being in space and alien planets, you're flying through a super computer, attacking robots and enemy ships and the like), and it has something I've never seen in a video game before - a timer which only activates while fighting a boss.....and if you run out of time, you fly right by the boss without defeating it (but don't get the bonus points, which add up to extra lives - again, I finished the game with 18 extra lives racked up) and then you still continue on to the next stage! Also, while there is a nice variety of weapon choices, they don't kick as much ass as in Gun-Nac, so I'm giving that one the higher score. Play both though, they're both great shooters.

[vdgg81]

This thread inspired me to finally figure out how I could use my ps3 controller in my computer. I downloaded a nes emulator a few years back along with a bunch of roms, but stopped playing quickly because using the keyboard was so awkward.

So, I've played through:

Contra - with a friend. Really fun game. I'd actually never played this one before.

Abadox, Life Force, Legendary Wings - Life Force wasn't too hard and Legendary Wings wasn't too fun. My favorite was Abadox just for the graphics, which were mind-blowing, but damn, this game was hard!

Bionic Commando - I actually got to be pretty good at this and even managed to finish it without save states. (But only after I'd finished it using save states). One of the best nes games ever!

Super Mario Bros - I'd forgotten how good this game was! Tons of fun and with an adequate challenge level. Hard but not impossible. Must have been 20 years since I last played this.

The Flintstones - I loved this game when I was a kid, but always died on the penultimate stage. I finished it easily but didn't have too much fun.

I'd never played any Mega Man games before, so I'm playing the first two right now. The first one I can't get trough the one-eyed yellow thing, so I'm giving it a rest, while with the second I just got tired near the end. I'll do those later. I think I'm getting tired of platformers and need some time off as I also gave up on Batman for the time being. Though with Batman it maybe the game is just too ridiculously hard.

Talking about ridiculously hard games, fusoya, how about you try The Hunt for the Red October? I loved this game as a kid but it was just too hard for me. Eventually I got a GameGenie and used an invincibility code, but even so couldn't finish it. The last stage is completely different from the ones that come before and the code didn't work for that one. The whole game you control a sub, then for the last stage you're in a shoot-out in the sub's engine room and one shot was all it took to die. I always died! The other day I decided to try it but died 5 times in 5 minutes and decided to quit before I started crying.

Right now I'm playing Final Fantasy which would be wonderful were it not for the facts that I chose a Thief for my party (how was I supposed to know they were so fucking useless?) and that the combat is so needlessly, sloooowwww!

[Barkis is Willin']

I did not see Mickey Mousecapades mentioned when you played through Capcom games. At least I assume that was a Capcom game because it was Disney. I remember it being pretty fun as a kid but it had its flaws. You play as Mickey, but Minnie shaddows you and you have to keep her nearby at all times. I never beat it. I remember there being a very difficult level, maybe after the forrest level?

[vdgg81]

Wario's Woods

I did, i finally did it! Bow before me, mortals!

It sure as hell took me more than a day, though. This is probably the funnest puzzle game since tetris and I may like it even more than that one, but it sure gets hard near the end. The frustrating thing is that in the endgame you have nightmarish levels that seem impossible at first (the penultimate level took me a couple of weeks) followed by levels I got through easily on the first try (like the last one).

[fusoya]

Dragon Warrior 4, Enix, October 1992, 29 hours*

Yeegads, this is a LOOONG game. I've been working on beating the DS remake for literally a year (I beat the NES version back when it first came out, and it was by far the longest game I had ever played up to that point). The NES version was even longer, since the DS remake plays a lot faster and has more menu shortcuts, but otherwise sticks very closely to the original, aside from the beefed up graphics and sound. This excellent RPG consists of 5 chapters. In the first 4 chapters, you get introduced to different characters, and then they all come together in the 5th chapter. It's an interesting way to tell the story. Note that this game isn't related to the first 3 games in the series, but supposedly DW 5 and 6 continue the trilogy. Note that I used Hero, Alena, Kiryl and Maya for most of chapter 5.

I do have one question about a plot point, which didn't get resolved in my playthrough (I don't think I did most of the side quests, so there was probably even more to the game than I saw this time around)

What was the deal with everybody in Alena's castle disappearing? That storyline didn't get resolved, except the King and everyone else re-appears during the ending sequence with no explanation as to where they went, since the castle was still empty in my saved game at the end

Now that I have all 4 NES DW's behind me, I should start concentrating on doing the one sitting games some more again.....

[Mahaloth]

The Dragon Warrior/Quest games form loose trilogies at best. The 4th one is the start of the "heaven" trilogy, where you visit something like heaven once per game.

Did you play Final Fantasy 3j? It was the biggest and longest game I've played for the NES.

[fusoya]

Mickey Mousecapade, Hudson, March 1988, 20 minutes

Somebody upthread suggested that I played this, since I missed it on my Capcom marathon. I actually didn't miss it, since Capcom only ported the game to the US, but Hudson created and programmed the game. And this game has one of Hudson's NES trademarks - having to shoot everything to find hidden passageways. This game starts out pretty simple - Mickey and his mother hen Minnie (who in one player mode will lemming Mickey, but can still die, which means you have to overshoot every cliff otherwise she will land behind him and fall to her doom) are out to save Alice from Maleficent (yeah, it's like a distant prequel to Kingdom Hearts!) and its typical sidescroller gameplay. However, once you get to the forest stage, not only is it a maze, and not only do you have to shoot a random tree in just the right spot to open a hidden passageway, but in the next section, if you find the hidden passageway it takes you back to the start of the stage! What you have to do is play all the way through the section, and then when you return to the beginning of it (it loops) shoot the first tree after the Start sign, and then the real hidden passage opens. How in the hell ANYONE, especially a 6 year old, would figure that out on their own is beyond me....that's the NES for ya.....the game can probably be beaten in under 10 minutes once you know what you're doing.

Also, the final boss battle is incredibly easy, once I realized that if you jump over Maleficent, she will CONTINUE to shoot to the left and you just shoot her in the back til she's dead.

Mahaloth - DW 1-3 is more than loose. 2 and 3 both feature the same country as DW1, and the protaganists are all related (the main character in DW2 is the son of the first game's main character). I know absolutely nothing about DW5 and 6, but since they were originally SNES games, they aren't part of this challange, but I hope to play them someday anyway. And I also haven't played FF3J yet (surprise surprise!) but when I do, it'll be the DS remake.

[fusoya]

Bugs Bunny's Birthday Blowout, Kemco-Seika, September 1990, 1 hour 5 minutes

WB's answer to Mickey Mousecapade. Both games have a lot in common - they're both sidescrolling platformers, both very easy but with some tricky maze sections, and both have stage enemies which aren't from the cartoon series, followed by bosses who are. Bugs is trying to get to his 50th birthday party, but the other Looney Toons characters want to kill him for being such a stinka over the years. Bugs has a giant mallet which you can use as a weapon, but the aim with it is horrible and I got damaged just about every time I tried to kill something, so it's a lot easier to just avoid enemies. One really weird thing about this game is that it was made by the same company that did the NES versions of Shadowgate and Uninvited, and they recycled a lot of the music, which is totally inappropriate for this game.

[Mahaloth]

And I also haven't played FF3J yet (surprise surprise!) but when I do, it'll be the DS remake.

Seriously, though, you should totally bootleg the translated version for the NES. It's amazing. Perhaps the best game on the NES.

[fusoya]

Paperboy, Tengen, December 1988, 15 minutes

I don't know what it is about this game, but I used to LOVE it when I was a kid. Maybe it was the morals the game taught - be a good servant to your customers, and to hell with anyone who isn't! The object of the game is to deliver newspapers (which are thrown from your bike into their mailbox or front doorstep) to the white houses, and try to do as much damage as possible to the red houses (non-customers). It's no wonder everything that moves on the street wants to kill this kid. The absolute worst is the dog - especially since you can only throw papers to the left, and if the dog attacks from your right, you are completely defenseless and WILL get mauled to death. Also, even the customers are dicks - if you miss ONE day of delivery, they will cancel their subscription! Apparently you win the game as long as you beat each day with at least one remaining customer. After my 7th day, I only had two customers left, but still got the ending sequence.

[fusoya]

Solstice, Software Creations, June 1990, 25 minutes*

I bought this game back in 1990 after seeing this commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HfDiTAIQgA). Seriously. The game was nothing at all like the commercial, but it was still amazing. It was an action puzzle game. You're a wizard going through a castle in order to collect the pieces to a wand which can then be used to save the princess and destroy the warlock. You have a couple of potions (one makes hidden platforms visible, one makes you invinsible, one kills everything and one stops time) but you can only carry 4 of each at time, so they have to be used wisely. Otherwise, you need to find your way through rooms, avoiding spikes and enemies, using moving platforms and blocks which you can pick up and drop (including midjump, which requires extremely good timing to pull off properly!). The game is a logistics nightmare, since it's played in a diagonal perspective with fake depth (meaning that if you are on the ground level, you can jump to a moving platform that SHOULD be at the top of the room but appears right next to you). Along with Shadowgate, this was a game I used to speed run way before anyone was uploading videos to the internet. I could usually do it in about 15 minutes, with a couple of deaths from bad timing mistakes. However, this was the first time I've played through the game in at least 15 years, so I finished in an embarrassingly bad 1h20m. I had to redeem myself by giving it a second play through - now that I remembered how to solve all the rooms, I did it in a more respectable 25 min. Interestingly, this game was made by a British company, not a Japanese one....and has without a doubt one of the most KICK ASS soundtracks in NES history!!!!

[fusoya]

Warning to anyone who tries Solstice - I woke up with an extremely sore right thumb. All those damn mid-jump block drops require the precise timing of A, B, A, B, A

[fusoya]

Okay, my thumb finally healed, but then my DS went missing. I finally found it today in a binder which was on my shelf. I must've mixed it up with some paperwork when I was cleaning my room last week. Challenge onward!

Alfred Chicken, Twilight, February 1994, 1 hour, 15 minutes

Another British-made game. File this under the "what were the creators smoking?" category. So you play this action-puzzle game as a little chicken, who attacks with jumping downward thrusts (similar to Link in Zelda 2) and you get a plane with missiles for boss fights. The goal is to find all of the balloons in side scrolling maze-ish levels in order to warp to the boss battle. Most puzzles involve finding switches for turning on and off different shaped blocks, which would be used for jumping ledges, or used against you to block paths. Many puzzle elements in the stages reminded me of Super Mario World for the SNES (which actually came out 3 years earlier!). And this game has a crazy soundtrack, sort of like something out of a Parodius game crossed with Leroy Anderson. I wonder if anyone bought this game, since it came out so late in the NES's lifespan and doesn't have a "buy me!" appeal. However, this game was surprisingly good, and I would recommend it to those who have never heard of it.

Wow....after looking up Twilight on wikipedia, it turns out Alfred Chicken WAS their last game. Guess nobody bought it afterall......

[fusoya]

(missed the edit window)

Upon further research, after Twilight folded, three of the developers went on to found another little company....Rockstar Games! Their games sold a bit better.....

[BigT]

Solstice, Software Creations, June 1990, 25 minutes*

I bought this game back in 1990 after seeing this commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HfDiTAIQgA).

I watched the making of video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=894_PNqBkx4) that is in the suggestions. This game is gorgeous. The isometric 3D is better than I thought possible on the NES, and the portraits look amazing.

[fusoya]

Ultima 3: Exodus, developed by Origin Systems, ported to the NES by Pony Canyon, February 1989, 8 hours, 30 min (although the box advertises it as the first 100 hour game!)

Ah Ultima, the very first NES RPG, and a much superior port to the original PC game. I spent so much time playing this game when I was a kid, and this was the game that both introduced me and got me hooked on the RPG genre. This game introduced many new concepts to what was a pretty primitive genre - parties of 4 (with a backup tribe of 16 more), movable battle grids, classes/jobs, etc. Being a western RPG, the king gives you a speech and then dumps you outside a town and the rest is up to you. Rather than a series of quests, there's a checklist of stuff to do and collect in order to enter and complete the final castle (with some hilarious NPC dialogue, including lines like a kid who says "My name is John and I know more about Ultima than you!". The first time I played through this game, I'm sure I did clock at least 100 hours. Again, being an early NES-era RPG, there is a ton of level/gold grinding to do, and it's definitely NOT optional. Since it's been a good 15 years since the last time I touched this game, I was a bit fuzzy (pun intended) on some of the locations and had to consult gamefaqs a couple of times.

BTW, when I did that "what's the longest looping NES song?" thread, Lord British's theme was the longest candidate, at almost 4 minutes long. Here is a version of that song that I can't believe actually exists!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h2mCQyIcjE)

Ultima 4 is up next. Must redeem myself for all that shop robbing and guard-killing I did to speed up the grinding process!

[Chimpsmack]

After massive cheating, I beat Mike Tyson :D

How. THE FUCK. did people beat him back before save states were invented??? I'd rather fight 2 Jaquio's than Iron Mike! I tried, I really really tried to beat it without cheating, but I couldn't even make it past the first round. That 2nd round is murder, he just starts throwing random punches after beginning with 10 punches with no warning. WTF man??

When I was in high school I had a buddy that got dumped by his girlfriend and spent like two weeks so depressed he wouldnt leave his room. Two days into that stretch, I came over to play Tekken, only to find his Playstation had bitten the dust in a tragic being-thrown-against-the-wall accident. Desperate for something to do, he pulled out his old Nintendo, and started sorting through the cartridges. He was firing up Punch-Out! just as I left, and when I stopped by again a week later he was capable of beating every opponent, including Tyson, in one sitting, start to finish. After seeing it happen, I can only say that it inspires both awe and terror in equal measures. Like watching as someone memorizes a phone book.

[fusoya]

Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar, developed by Origin Systems, ported to the NES by Pony Canyon, December 1990, estimated 5 hours?

Considered (along with 7, which I sadly have never played) to be the best western RPG ever made, and I have a hard time denying that claim. This was one of the most unique games ever made - after all the shitstorming that Ultima 3 brought Richard Garriott (you basically couldn't beat it in a timely manner without a ton of theft and murder of the townspeople), he set out to make something to redeem the series. The goal of this game was to collect enough virtue points to be dubbed the Avatar. You gained virtue points by doing heroic deeds (fighting every battle--you got Sacrifice virtue points if you died, giving money/blood to the poor, being honest when paying blind shopkeepers, answering townsfolks questions with the heroic answer, etc) and lost virtue points for being an asshole (stealing from homes, attacking villagers, running from battle, etc). Aside from becoming the Avatar, there was an unwritten checklist similar to in Exodus of things you needed in order to enter and complete the final dungeon. Once again, the NES version is far superior to the original PC game, and Pony Canyon really did an excellent job this time around, since it is way more polished than Exodus. The only complaint is the translation, since you need to be very careful with how you answer yes/no questions in this game, and some of them are flat out WRONG (hint-when you reach the stone room in each dungeon, ALWAYS answer yes even if it sounds like answering yes will get you kicked out).

I spent a ton of time playing this game when I was a kid too. Thank goodness for Nintendo Power doing a very thorough review of the game, as they covered just about everything, and there's a LOT to do in this game (and you need to learn the 8 virtue venn diagram really well, since they come up over and over). I came THIS close to beating the game in the summer of 1991. I was literally on the last floor of the last dungeon after playing the game for MONTHS when my home suffered a power outage, and when the power returned, my saved games had all been erased. It was truly the low point in my video gaming history (although having the same thing happen to me in Final Fantasy after I threw a controller at the NES was almost as bad). I finally went back and beat this game for real 10 years later in college, and this is my second time beating it. I read an interesting strategy which I wanted to try out. DON'T recruit any characters to join you. I played through as Iolo the Bard, and let the other 7 characters stay in their town. The reason this works is because enemy groups are determined by how many characters are in your party. With 1 character, you'll never face more than 4 at a time, where with a full party of 4, you'd be fighting 12 monsters (and would have to worry about buying equipment for the other 3) and made the game much longer. First I hurried to collect enough $ to buy the key and the +1 Bow (I did a couple of town treasury raids, as I would make up the virtue points later). Once I had those, I started making the rounds to the shrines in order to get avatarhood, which got me the strongest sword, armor and 99 MP. Then it was off to the dungeons. This strategy works really well, even though it isn't how the game is "meant" to be played.

So Ultima 5: Warriors of Destiny is up next. I've never played this one, so I expect it to take a while. I've also heard that Pony Canyon really screwed up the NES port this time around, and that I'm better off playing the PC version, but I'll see how it goes....

[antonio107]

I just found this thread. I'm crushing on it pretty hard, no lies.

I used to think I was awesome at NES games, but in many cases it was just the game genie. But not always!

I still have 150+ cartridges I amassed over my childhood, with such gems as Action 52, the original Mega Man, and North and South.

I'm presently playing Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom in the wii ware. I own the cartridge, but I wanted the wii so I could shut the game down and not have to reload from the last password screen.

I haven't beaten it, and frankly I hate that game. The only thing left to do is consult gamefaqs, and figure out the convoluted storyline that the game developers thought I would get on my own, somehow...

[fusoya]

Wow, they weren't kidding. Ultima 5 on the NES is AWFUL. The gameplay is similar to Ultima 6 (which has one big world, rather than an overworld and various towns with a separate battle screen) but that just does not translate to the NES well. If I do play through this, I'm gonna have to guide dang it.

I think I'm gonna take a break from Ultima (and 8 bit RPGs) and branch out for a while.

[Sofis]

Ultima 5 on the NES is AWFUL. The gameplay is similar to Ultima 6 (which has one big world, rather than an overworld and various towns with a separate battle screen) but that just does not translate to the NES well.

It's peculiar that they would alter it from the original in that manner. The NES port did come out after Ultima VI, though, so I suppose they might have wanted to use the more modern model, and then did a terrible job at implementing it.

[fusoya]

I think the big reason that Ultima 5 didn't translate well to the NES is because this is the first Ultima game which used a mouse cursor. The NES interface is d-pad to move characters, and press the b button to switch it to the cursor (meanwhile you can't move your characters). It's a very ugly control scheme. I also don't think that the NES could handle the size of the overworld in that game, since unlike games like Zelda where it loads one screen at a time, this game tries to keeps the scrolling continuous, resulting in some SEVERE lag. That works fine for Ultima 3 and 4's overworld since there's very little going on, but in 5, the towns are implemented into the overworld, rather than stepping on a town icon in order to load the town map, so things are very busy.

Pony Canyon/FCI has a very strange run with their NES games. Some were excellent (Ultima 3/4, Zanac/Gun-Nac, Dragonstrike), while others were beyond bad (Heroes of the Lance and Hydlide are two games I am going to put off playing for as long as possible)

[fusoya]

My new job is gonna have a lot of down time for playing video games. I need to get back into this.....

Pro Wrestling, Nintendo, 1986, 20 minutes

I had so much fun with this game as a kid, I think I rented it about 5 times. Definitely the best of Nintendo's "black box" games (Super Mario Bros aside). For being an early NES game, it really had a lot of features - different characters to choose from who all had unique moves (I used Star Man), a number of different types of moves - punch, jump kick, body slam, throwing the opponent outside the ring, running and bouncing off of the ropes, illegal moves which can only be done when the ref isn't looking, climbing onto the corner pole and doing a drop-knee, etc. And a lot of humorous features, like being able to knock down the ref, both opponents running into each other and falling down, and my favorite - rolling out of place when the opponent is trying to jump onto you so that he gets hurt instead. My only complaint is that this game doesn't have an energy meter, so you never really know for sure if the opponent has been drained enough to pin him for 3 seconds, so there's a lot of trial and error with that.

Note that the only way to BEAT the game is to defeat every other character in the game, and then you have to keep "defending your title" where it just cycles through the other characters forever. A winner is you!

[fusoya]

Followup on Pro Wrestling - it turns out there actually IS a definitive ending to the game. You need to beat each opponent 3 times, and then you face off in the world championship match against the Great Puma, who is this east Indian guy (Great Tiger's brother?) who has the special moves of every other character in the game. I beat him by luring him outside the ring and knocking him down at 18, and then climbing back in, and then I got one of those craptacular NES-style ending screens. The whole game takes about an hour to finish.

[fusoya]

This project has been on a long hiatus, but I am bringing it back! A couple weeks ago, I was watching the Angry Video Game Nerd episode on Ikari Warriors, and when they got up to the part where you get a tank, I started thinking of how much better Iron Tank was, since it was like Ikari Warriors but with the tank the whole game, and I had an urge to play it, but I wanted to be able to play it with an advantage controller (which is like a big arcade stick made for the NES). I also started reading up on new refurbishment methods for NES front-loaders, including being able to replace the 72 pin connectors with more sturdy ones, and being able to disable the lock out chip on the motherboard, which was an anti-piracy tool but most gamers remember it as the cause of games to blink or randomly reset when it malfunctioned. So I purchased one of these, and a couple of games, and I am now gaming like an 80s kid again! I'm going to slowly start building up my cartridge collection too!

Iron Tank, SNK, 1988, 2 hours

One of my favorite games when I was a kid. It's a very fun game - you operate a tank during the Normandy invasion. The control scheme gets a bit getting used to, since you use the d-pad to control your movement in 8 directions (overhead view), but your cannon can also face in 8 directions, and you must hold the B button to rotate it - this way you can fire forward while moving in reverse, or fire diagnonally which is a strategy which makes the game a bit easier. And man, this wasn't an easy game. I played through with no save states, codes or cheats, and it's a good thing you get unlimited lives because some sequences I had to play over and over, just like in the good ole days! Another cool thing about this game is that it has multiple paths from the beginning to the end, with a choice of different stages, similar to Castlevania 3, so has some good replay value.

[Mahaloth]

Glad to see this thread resurrected.

"Where did the hair go?" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-TgvdKnQbDI#t=23s)

[hiebram]

And then the thread died again? Too bad, I was another one glad to see it poke its head up a second time...

[antonio107]

And then the thread died again? Too bad, I was another one glad to see it poke its head up a second time...

You could always, you know, dig up a NES game for us, and give it a fair shake! It's not cheating. :)

I got sick of that fucking zero punctuation guy, so perhaps there's a niche to be filled!

[fusoya]

It didn't die, I was on vacation for the last 2 weeks. As we speak I am looking through ebay and nintendoage for some additions to my collections.

[antonio107]

It didn't die, I was on vacation for the last 2 weeks. As we speak I am looking through ebay and nintendoage for some additions to my collections.

I haven't gone through this lengthy thread to see what you have and haven't played, but...

If you're looking for a dumb game to master in a long weekend, I LOVED North and South. A civil war RTS on an 8 bit system, and it's actually way better than that sounds.

For something a bit more hefty, Castlevania II was a favorite as a child. The Adventure of Bayou Billy was the first game I got with my NES, and also features exciting (optional) Zapper levels!

[fusoya]

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Toho, 1988, 35 minutes

I know you've all been waiting for this one. This game gets a really bad reputation, and it deserves most of it, but I've played far worse NES games. It's a side scrolling action game where you play as Dr. Jekyll, the most hated man in town, who is just trying to get to church while everything and everyone is trying to kill him (kids with guns, bird literally shitting on you, opera singers throwing deadly notes at you, deranged cats and dogs) and if you take enough damage, you transform into Mr. Hyde who plays a mirror image demon world. You need to kill enough zombies (you can punch with B, but if you press Up+B he will shoot bouncing balls) in order to transform back into Jekyll. You can also collect coins from killing enemies, but I was never able to figure out what they were used for. A pretty dull game, but not too difficult once you get the hang of it.

[Really Not All That Bright]

Bloody hell. You're still at it!

[Mahaloth]

6th anniversary coming up soon!

[YogSosoth]

I should break out some NES games too. Recently, I made a CD of 8-bit music (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=16235166#post16235166) and I got all nostalgic about some of the games. Not sure which ones I've already played as part of this thread though, gotta look it up again. I really want to beat some Mega Men and Ninja Gaidens, but I think I always play that...

[YogSosoth]

In honor of the remake, I'd like to suggest Duck Tales as your next game. This game is balls full on charm and pretty fun to boot. The only thing that confused me when I played this years later was some kind of a wall you couldn't get past in the haunted mansion. I think you had to beat some other level first.

And this wasn't an NES game, but you might want to try the fan-made Mega Man vs. Street Fighter game that game out recently. Its basically a Mega Man game but the bosses are all Street Fighter characters. A real throwback treat, even some of the music and stages are similar to old MM games.

Also, there was a game I remember famously voted as the worst game on the NES. I think it was Dragonlance: Warriors of the Lance, based on the books. I remember this game because I used to be a huge Dragonlance fan and was excited to play the game, but it was every bit as horrid as people made it out to be.

[antonio107]

They're remaking the ducktales game?!?

[YogSosoth]

They're remaking the ducktales game?!?

Enjoy! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N0PzqF9gWY)

[fusoya]

In honor of the remake, I'd like to suggest Duck Tales as your next game. This game is balls full on charm and pretty fun to boot. The only thing that confused me when I played this years later was some kind of a wall you couldn't get past in the haunted mansion. I think you had to beat some other level first.

Duck Tales (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8618881&postcount=42) and the less popular and much better Duck Tales 2: The Quest For More Money (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9300886&postcount=186) were covered a while back. And a shame too, because I was trying to think of a quick game to play tonight, and can't believe I overlooked that one.

I went a bit crazy buying up old original NES games on ebay, and now am facing a huge back log of having to clean games, as some of these were not stored in the best conditions. I opened up a copy of Zelda 2 to find it still had the original (and non-working, of course) battery from 1988. I wonder if the game will lose value if I replace it?

[YogSosoth]

How about Batman? It was one of the games I had on my 8-Bit music CD and rekindled my desire to play that again. I remember great music, some tricky jumps, and the batarang is better than the gun or the dirk in most situations.

One of my favorites from way back then was the Uninvited, which is basically like Shadowgate but in a mansion instead. There was another game that came out later in that same vein called Deja Vu, but I never got around to playing it.

[antonio107]

Enjoy! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N0PzqF9gWY)

Omg, you are my hero right now. I'm buying that the millisecond it comes out.

I hated the Batman game when I was a kid. Of course I got my NES in 1988/89, before my 3rd birthday, so I admit that not having the keenest motor skills could have soured me on that game.

I'm at my grandma's right now, where my sizeable 200+ cartridge collection is, some favorites off the top of my head:

- Amagon
- Little Nemo and the Dreammaster
- Tiny Toons, 1, *and* 2 (different game genres)
- Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle, AND Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash

I'm amazed how many games based on cartoons are on here, and are good. WB games lately have been sorely lacking. Also, Blades of Steel, because I'm Canadian and every Canadian child of a certain age played and loved this game. It's still my favourite ice hockey game ever.

(Apologies if any are repeats)

[fusoya]

CRAP! As was suggested up thread, I took the time tonight to clean my newly acquired copy of Batman, stick it into my NES, and spent a good 2 hours struggling to finish that game (no turbo or save states, just the real console and original controller), only to discover when rebuilding my list of beaten NES games, that I already did this game back in 2007..... (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=8638194&postcount=58)

Yes, I really need to keep a list of beaten games handy so that this doesn't keep happening. I guess I already met most of your challenges (except for the one to beat Genghis Khan...)

[fusoya]

Today marks a huge milestone in my life - it was 25 years ago today that I first got my NES! I'm going to celebrate by beating the first NES game that I ever beat!

Double Dribble, Konami, 1987, 22 minutes

The first basketball game on the NES, and possibly the best of them (yeah, that system had a lot of lousy sports games). This game is probably best remembered for the extreme close up animations when dunking, the cheezy half time show, and the corny ref voices. The New York Eagles beat the Boston Frogs 70-59, by taking a lot of 3 pointers (something the computer doesn't seem to know exists) and pressing the A&B buttons while on top of the player with the ball to steal it back (which sometimes results in a foul). The challenge in this game seems to increase or decrease based on how much of a lead you get, as once you start to get ahead the computer gets RUTHLESS and WILL come back really fast no matter how good you are. This game doesn't have a season or playoff mode, so once you win the game, you get a trophy and "You are a winner!" and then goes back to the title screen, so it's one of the few sports games you can legitimately beat in one sitting.