Duck Tales and the less popular and much better Duck Tales 2: The Quest For More Money 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?
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.
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)
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…
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…)
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.
WWF Wrestlemania, Rare, January 1989, 10 minutes
Ugh, I JUST wrote a full review for this game, but vBulletin lost the post because I’ve had this window open for the last 2 weeks, and I’m not rewriting that whole thing again. Anyway, the first of 4 WWF games on the NES, not as good as Nintendo’s Pro Wrestling, but can be beaten quickly if you use Hulk Hogan (who is also the only wrestler on cover art and the title screen!), has some pretty catchy music (I Am A Real American in 8-bit glory!), but has terrible controls and a cheap technique where the computer will trap you in the corner and hit you over and over every time you try to get up, which is really hard to break free from, but fortunately two can play at this game!
Bubble Bobble, Taito, November 1988, 1 hour, 6 minutes
An action puzzle game with an incredibly catchy theme song. You’re this little dinosaur/dragon Bub (and his brother Bob if you have it on 2 player, which is MUCH more fun and strangely REQUIRED to get the good ending) and there are 100 screens which you need to clear by shooting a bubble at each enemy and then popping it. I used to have a lot of fun with this game when I was a kid, but it can be pretty tedious to play through the whole thing alone and in one sitting, and my two biggest complaints about the game are that some of the levels designs are terrible, where you spend more time just trying to reach where some of the enemies are, and that if you don’t land RIGHT on the middle of a block, you will instead fall through it, taking even LONGER to get to some of the enemies!
Friday the 13th, LJN, 1988, 40 minutes
This game seems to always get a bad rap, but it’s one of my favorite NES games and also one of the most unique games ever made! It could be considered the first survival horror video game, as the game is completely open-ended and whether you progress or not is dependent on the player. This game also did day & night sequences before Castlevania 2 or King’s Quest 4! I think most people just don’t understand how the game works, so they cast it aside without giving it a chance.
The idea of the game, as if you couldn’t guess, is to kill Jason. You need to kill him 3 times in order to beat the game, and each time you kill him, he will come back stronger and faster (at least you get your energy refilled each time you kill him!). You have 6 different camp counselors to choose from, each of which have different strengths and weaknesses and have their own health meter and carry their own set of items and weapons, and you can swap between them (very similar to TMNT1) whenever you put your current character into a cabin. All of the counselors you aren’t using will remain in their own cabin, which makes it a lot faster to move about the map by swapping between them. Jason will also wander around the map, and every minute or so will go into one of the cabins, and will either start a fight with the counselor in there, or if it’s a cabin with just kids and no counselor, will kill all of the kids if you don’t get to it in 45 seconds (yeah, I think this was also the only NES game where innocent kids get slaughtered if you’re too slow). The game is over if either all of the kids are killed, or if all 6 counselors die, and features a game over screen which explicitly states YOU AND ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD! So every time Jason is in a cabin, you need to get to it to take over the fight, and you gradually work down his health meter. In between fights with Jason, you wander around to upgrade your weapons and items (you can also fight Mrs Voorhees in the cave once a day, which will give you a big weapon or armor upgrade). The one annoying thing about this game (which is a trait which showed up in a lot of NES games) is that most of the items are found by randomly jumping around, so a lot of the game’s progression is luck-based.
Anybody who has played this game and said they didn’t jump out of their seats when they find Jason around the corner, even when they already know he’s going to be there, is A LIAR!
Have you done Nightmare on Elm street?
Hey, have you been keeping a list of the games you’ve done? If so, would you be able to post the list here so we can see it?
I have not actually done Nightmare. That game actually IS supposed to be terrible.
134 games beaten so far (yeah, I’ve really been dragging my feet on this. I know someone who has already beaten over 300 NES games since the start of 2012! Including the longest NES game - Bases Loaded 2 which took him 68 hours):
8 Eyes, Taxan, January 1990, 1 hour 15 minutes 07
1942, developed by Capcom, released 1985, (plus about 30-40 minutes on 1942) 02
1943, developed by Capcom, released 1988, completion time: about an hour and a half 02
Abadox, developed by Natsume, released 1990. Completion time: 30 minutes 01
Adventure Island, developed by Hudson, released September 1988, completion time: about 50 minutes 02
The Adventures of Bayou Billy, developed by Konami, released March 1989, competition time: about 2 hours 02
Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, developed by Capcom, released 1992, completion time: 24 minutes 03
The Adventures of Dino Riki, developed by Hudson, released September 1989, completion time: 20 minutes 04
Adventures of Lolo, developed by HAL, released 1989, completion time: 2 hours, 18 minutes 04
Adventures of Tom Sawyer, developed by Seta, released 1989, competion time: 21 minutes 04
Alfred Chicken, Twilight, February 1994, 1 hour, 15 minutes 08
Amagon, developed by Vic Tokai, released April 1989, completion time: 30 minutes 02
Astyanax, developed by Jaleco, released 1989, competion time: 30 minutes 04
Athena, developed by SNK, released 1987, completion time: 1 hour
Bad Dudes, developed by Data East, released 1989, completion time: 27 minutes 03
Batman, developed by Sunsoft, released 1989, completion time: about 45 minutes 02
Batman: Return of the Joker, developed by Sunsoft, released 1991, completion time: 27 minutes 04
Battletoads, Rare, June 1991, 2 hours 06
Bionic Commando, Capcom, 1988, 50 minutes 05
Blaster Master, developed by Sunsoft, released November 1988, Completion time: 2 hours, 54 minutes 01
A Boy and His Blob, developed by David Crane, released March 1990, completion time: 3 minutes (yes, MINUTES) 01
Breakthru, developed by Data East, released 1987, completion time: 9 minutes! 03
Bubble Bobble, Taito, November 1988, 1 hour, 6 minutes 09
Bugs Bunny’s Birthday Blowout, Kemco-Seika, September 1990, 1 hour 5 minutes 08
Castle of Dragon, developed by Seta, released 1989, completion time 1 hour, 10 minutes 04
Castlevania, Konami, May 1987, 35 minutes 05
Castlevania 2: Simon’s Quest, Konami, 1988, I played it over 3 sittings and didn’t keep track…but I know it can be beaten in about an hour 05
Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse, Konami, 1990, 1 hour, 15 minutes 05
Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers, Capcom, 1990, 15 minutes 05
Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers 2, Capcom, January 1994, 32 minutes 05
Chubby Cherub, developed by Bandai, released 1986, completion time: 25 minutes 02
Code Name: Viper, developed by Capcom, released 1989, completion time: about an hour 02
Commando, developed by Capcom, released 1986, completion time: 35 minutes 02
Contra, Konami, 1988, 16 minutes 05
Darkwing Duck, Capcom, June 1992, 42 minutes 05
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Toho, 1988, 35 minutes 08
Donkey Kong 3, Nintendo, 1986, 7 minutes 05
Donkey Kong Classics, developed by Nintendo, released 1988, completion time: 4 and a half minutes 04
Double Dragon, developed by Technos, released 1987, completion time: 25 minutes 02
Double Dragon 2 - The Revenge, developed by Technos, released 1989, competion time: 27 minutes 02
Double Dragon 3: The Sacred Stones, developed by Technos, released 1991, competiton time: 40 minutes 03
Double Dribble, Konami, 1987, 22 minutes 09
Dragon Spirit, developed by Namco, released 1990, completion time: 40 minutes (most of which was spent on the last stage) 02
Dragon Warrior, Enix, 1989, 2 hours 30 minutes* 06
Dragon Warrior 2, Enix, 1990, est. 25 hours 06
Dragon Warrior 3, Enix, 1991, est. 60 hours 06
Dragon Warrior 4, Enix, October 1992, 29 hours* 08
Duck Tales, developed by Capcom, released September 1988, completion time: 18 minutes 01
Duck Tales 2: The Quest for More Money, Capcom, April 1993, 51 minutes 05
Fantasy Zone, developed by Sega (believe it or not!), released 1989, completion time: 23 minutes 03
Fester’s Quest, developed by Sunsoft, released 1989, completion time: 1 hour, 40 minutes 04
Final Fantasy, Squaresoft, 1990, 6 hours* 07
Final Fantasy 2J, Squaresoft, 20 hours 07
Freedom Force, developed by Sunsoft, released 1988, completion time: 22 minutes 04
Friday the 13th, LJN, 1988, 40 minutes 09
Ghostbusters, Activision, 1988, 30 minutes 07
Ghosts 'N Goblins developed by Capcom, released 1986, completion time: 50 minutes 04
The Goonies, Konami, 1986, 35 minutes 05
Gradius, developed by Konami, released 1986, completion time: 25 minutes 04
Gremlins 2: The New Batch, developed by Sunsoft, released 1990, completion time: 40 minutes 04
Guerrilla War, developed by SNK, released 1989, completion time: 33 minutes 02
Gun-Nac, Compile, April 1991, 1 hour 08
Gunsmoke, developed by Capcom, released 1988, competition time: 35 minutes 02
Gyruss, developed by Konami, released 1988, completion time: 43 minutes 02
Iron Tank, SNK, 1988, 2 hours 08
Jackal, developed by Konami, released 1988, completion time: 20 minutes 03
Journey to Silius, developed by Sunsoft, released 1990, completion time: 30 minutes 04
Kabuki Quantum Fighter, developed by HAL America, released March 1990, competition time: 22 minutes 02
Karate Champ, developed by Data East, released 1986, completion time: 15 minutes 03
The Karate Kid, developed by LJN, released 1987, competition time: 12 minutes 02
Karnov, developed by Data East, released 1987, completion time: 20 minutes 03
Kid Dracula, Konami, 1993, 1 hour, 15 minutes 07
Kid Icarus, Nintendo, 1986, 2 hours, 7 minutes 06
Kid Niki: Radical Ninja, developed by Irem, released 1987, completion time: 33 minutes 03
King’s Quest 5, Sierra (ported to the NES by Konami), 1991, 2 hours 30 min 07
Kung Fu Heroes, developed by Culture Brain, released 1986, completion time: 36 minutes 04
Legendary Wings, Capcom, 1988, I was multitasking and pausing, so I wasn’t keeping track of time, but 35 minutes sounds about right 05
Life Force, Konami, 1989, 30 minutes 06
The Little Mermaid, Capcom, July 1991, 20 minutes 05
Little Nemo The Dream Master, Capcom, 1990, 1 hour, 10 minutes 05
Maniac Mansion, Lucasarts (ported by Jaleco), September 1990, 1 hour 50 minutes 07
Mega Man, developed by Capcom, released 1987, completion time: 45 minutes 04
Mega Man 2, Capcom, June 1989, 45 minutes 07
Metal Gear, developed by Konami, released 1988, completion time: 1 hour, 35 minutes 04
Metroid, Nintendo, 1986, about 2 hours 06
Mickey Mousecapade, Hudson, March 1988, 20 minutes 08
Mighty Final Fight, Capcom, July 1993, 57 minutes 05
Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, Nintendo, 1987, 30 minutes 07
Monster In My Pocket, Konami, 1991, 52 minutes 06
Ninja Gaiden, developed by Tecmo, released 1989, completion time: 45 minutes 03
Paperboy, Tengen, December 1988, 15 minutes 08
Popeye, Nintendo, 1986, roughy 5 minutes 05
POW, developed by SNK, released 1989, completion time: 48 minutes 03
Power Blade, developed by Taito, released 1991, completion time: 1 hour, 10 minutes 03
Pro Wrestling, Nintendo, 1986, 20 minute 08
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, developed by Virgin Games, released 1991, completion time: 2 hours, 15 minutes 04
Rush 'N Attack, Konami, 1987, 20 minutes 05
Rygar, Tecmo, 1987, 2 hours, 15 minutes 06
S.C.A.T. - Special Cybernetic Attack Team, developed by Natsume, released April 1991, competition time: about an hour 03
Section Z, Capcom, 1987, 1 hour, 30 minutes 05
Shadowgate, developed by ICOM Simulations, released 1989, completion time: 15 minutes 03
Shatterhand, Natsume, December 1991, 1 hour 30 minutes 07
Silkworm, developed by Tecmo, released 1988. Completion time: ~45 minutes 01
Sky Kid, developed by Namco, released 1986, completion time: 37 minutes 04
Solstice, Software Creations, June 1990, 25 minutes* 08
Spy Hunter, developed by Sunsoft (original arcade version by Bally Midway), released 1987, completion time: 14 minutes 04
Star Force, developed by Tecmo, released 1987, completion time: 1 hour 03
Street Fighter 2010: The Final Fight, Capcom, 1990, 52 minutes 05
Strider, Capcom, 1989, 1 hour, 30 minutes 06
Stinger, Konami, 1987, 42 minutes 05
Super C, Konami, 1990, 20 minutes 05
Super Dodge Ball, Technos, June 1989, 30 minutes 07
Super Mario Bros., developed by Nintendo, released 1985, completion time: 48 minutes 03
Super Mario Bros 2, developed by Nintendo, released 1988, completion time: 1 hour, 30 minutes 03
Super Mario Bros 2 (J), developed by Nintendo, released 1986, completion time: 1 hour, 10 minutes 03
Super Mario Bros 3, developed by Nintendo, released 1990, completion time: 1 hour, 59 minutes 04
Super Spy Hunter, developed by Sunsoft, released 1991, completion time: 40 minutes 04
Sword Master, developed by Athena, released 1991, completion time: 52 minutes 04
TaleSpin, developed by Capcom, released 1991, completion time: 35 minutes 04
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Konami, 1989, 45 minutes 05
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game, Konami, 1990, 40 minutes 06
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Project, Konami, February 1992, 1 hour 10 minutes 06
Time Lord, developed by Rare, released 1989, completion time: 35 minutes 04
Top Gun, Konami, 1988, 1 hour, 20 minutes 06
Top Gun 2: The Second Mission, Konami, 1989, 32 minutes 06
Trojan, developed by Capcom, released 1986, completion time: 30 minutes 04
Ultima 3: Exodus, developed by Origin Systems, ported to the NES by Pony Canyon, February 1989, 8 hours, 30 min 08
Ultima 4: Quest of the Avatar, developed by Origin Systems, ported to the NES by Pony Canyon, December 1990, estimated 5 hours? 08
Vice: Project Doom, Aicom, November 1991, 90 minutes 08
Wrath of the Black Manta, developed by Taito, released 1989, completion time: 35 minutes 03
WWF Wrestlemania, Rare, January 1989, 10 minutes 09
Xenophobe, developed by Sunsoft, released 1988, uncompletable 04
Yo Noid!, Capcom, 1990, 1 hour 05
Zanac, Compile, October 1987, 1 hour 08
That’s an impressive list!
You must play Mega Man III-VI, next. Also, you have Bugs Bunny Birthday Bash, but not the NES classic “Bugs Bunny and the Crazy Castle,” otherwise known as Roger Rabbit and the crazy castle in Japan…
I’m of course speaking based on my personal all time favorites. Also on the subject of Warner Brothers, there were two different Tiny Toon games, which were both playable and quite decent!
A Nightmare on Elm Street, Rare, October 1990, about 45 minutes
I kept getting requests to play this game, and after finally doing so, I don’t understand why. This game is DULL. It’s not terrible, but it’s been done before and much better. This is a side-scrolling beat-em-up (if you consider punching spiders and bats to beat-em-up) where you go through various haunted houses and have to collect every bone in a room. Then you’ll go into the dream world version of that same house, where everything goes from being creepy to being extra creepy (now the spiders have skulls for heads, and the bats have … skulls for heads) and you have to collect the bones again (this sort of reminds me of Dr Jekyll), and then it brings you into a fight with Freddy. You go through about 7 of these, and then finally fight every single incarnation of Freddy all over again in a row, and then your character dumps all of those bones into the furnace in the basement of the school and the game is over…or is it?
One unique thing about this game is it actually supports 4 controllers. I did it solo, but then I looked up a video of 4 player mode on youtube…and it looks like it would be a fun novelty for a couple minutes, but I couldn’t imagine 4 people ever actually beating the game together. It’s hard enough to do Contra with 2 people!
Another even more interesting thing about this game is that Nintendo Power previewed it as being a game where you played AS Freddy, and you were supposed to torment kids! I’m not sure if it was Nintendo or LJN who finally realized that wasn’t a very kid friendly concept for a game, but it probably would have been a much cooler game in the original form, which might explain why the final product feels so slapped together.
Wait, how could it support four controllers? The hardware only supported two. Did it come with adapters to turn two ports into four, or something?
IIRC, there was a port adapter for it. I had a similar device on my PSX and SNES. But it’s one of those novelty things that since not a hell of a lot of games supported it, why bother, right?
Did you try RBI Baseball?
Yeah, there were two multitap devices for the NES, the Four Score and the Satellite. Both of these had plugs that went into both controller ports at the same time. I wonder if the NES had actual hardware support for more than two controllers, or if these devices did something tricksy, like alternate which controller’s input it was sending each frame. I believe the SNES had actual hardware support for up to eight controllers.
Nightmare was one of the few NES action games that actually supported 4 characters at the same time, and somehow did it without a ton of lag. Controllers 3 and 4 only support the control pad and A & B, not Start/Select. I actually use the Four Score as an extension cord!
Etv78: For the most part I’m holding off on sports games, since most of them involve you doing a playoffs or season which would be extremely time consuming. RBI Baseball was a fun game, but I grew up in a Bases Loaded household (which supports an entire 100+ game season…and there are 3 sequels too!).
Now for a game which I’m surprised I hadn’t covered yet:
Mega Man 3, Capcom, September 1990, 1 hour 45 minutes
One of the NES classics. This is the one where Mega Man gets sliding and Rush. I owned this game as a kid and played it many times, but it was MUCH harder than I remember when I played through it tonight. I did it on a real NES with a regular controller (no turbo), and it was a ball buster, and I died and continued many times. If you’ve played a Mega Man game, then you know the deal with the whole series. The unique thing about this game is after you finish the 8 stages, there are extra-hard versions of Spark, Needle, Gemini and Shadow stages, and each stage has two bosses from Mega Man 2, who are about 50x harder now. The worst thing is that if you die against one of those MM2 bosses, you don’t start over right before them with full health; you have to do the entire stage over again! Fortunately once you get past those stages, next is by far the easiest Wily Castle in the entire series, where extra lives, energy tanks and weapon refills are given away like Halloween candy (and I didn’t die a single time). MM3 is also by far the buggiest game in the series, the story was that the game was rushed (pun intended) out before it could be fully tested, and lots of crazy things can happen, like when I remained blinking and invincible for the second half of Gemini Revisited all the way into the Bubble Man fight. This game might still be the highlight of the series. I love Mega Man 2, but you can beat that game without thinking. MM3 really makes you work for it, but has enough gimmicks to keep everything interesting.
Snake, Top, Shadow, Magnet, Gemini, Needle, Hard, Spark — I’m probably the only one who uses this strategy. Snake & Top are the two easiest bosses to take on with the arm cannon, and with the weakness pattern, you have to take on TWO bosses with it, so I get those both out of the way first (doing Snake before Top means that I can take out the cats with the snake). Then I do Shadow, who is EXTREMELY hard to beat with the arm cannon, so that I can get his over-powered shadow blade. Gemini’s stage is much easier with the magnet missiles, so I do that so that I can do Needle next and get the rush jet. Then Hard and Spark are left.
I always started with Hard Man. But when I was a kid, I used A6-Red as my starting password to give me 8 energy tanks!
back from the dead once again…actually I’ve been busy playing NES Remix on Wii U, a game ALL of you need to check out!
Urban Champion, Nintendo, August 1986, 10 minutes (the game actually goes on forever, but after 15 rounds the background graphics loop back to level 1)
One of the Black Box games, and also one of the earliest street fighting games. This game is a one trick pony - the blue haired guy and the green haired guy duke it out. B does a stomach punch, A does a face punch, down blocks, and that’s it for special moves as far as I could tell. You also have people throwing flower pots at you from buildings, which will stun you if they land on your head, and one of the more amusing parts of the game is that if you keep going too long without a winner, a police car will cruise by and both fighters will lean back on the building acting like nothing’s out of the ordinary (which also refills your stamina) and then as soon as the fuzz is gone, will go right back at it. Another game I imagine would be much more fun with 2 players fighting each other.