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.
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!
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
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)
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.
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!
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?
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).
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…
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.
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.
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.
Seriously, though, you should totally bootleg the translated version for the NES. It’s amazing. Perhaps the best game on the NES.
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.
Solstice, Software Creations, June 1990, 25 minutes*
I bought this game back in 1990 after seeing this commercial. 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!!!
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
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…
(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…
I watched the making of video 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.
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!
Ultima 4 is up next. Must redeem myself for all that shop robbing and guard-killing I did to speed up the grinding process!