Ah, yes, memories of the fetch-quest cascade after you got the Crown from the Marsh Cave in FF1. You brought the CROWN to the Northwest Castle, where you fought Astos (an easy fight, given that you could save right outside and keep re-loading until your MUTE spell worked), then took the CRYSTAL to Matoya, who gave you the HERB, which you took to Elfland to wake the prince and get the KEY, which you used to unlock the Coneria treasure room to get the TNT, which you brought to the dwarf cave so the engineer could finish the CANAL, so you could sail on to the rest of the world.
The first half of Final Fantasy was pretty linear, but once you got the canoe, things opened up a bit (you had 3 choices - Castle Ordeals, Ice Cave or Volcano), and once you got the airship (which you only needed to complete the Ice Cave to obtain), the rest of the game, aside from the final dungeon, and fetch quests to open up certain dungeons, could be done in any order.
Dragon Warrior 2 and 3, on the other hand, once you got the pirate ship, which was generally pretty early in the game, you were on your own. Sail around and pick a town, because each of them had a quest waiting for you. Both games waited for you to complete most of these (some of them were mandatory, others were red herrings that only wasted your time) before you could proceed towards the end game sequence. I went absolutely INSANE playing through DW3 earlier this year because I was ONE quest short of proceeding and didn’t know what to do next. Thank god for gamefaqs…I suppose a game counselor would have to go down the list and ask the caller which quests they have and haven’t completed yet.
So those binders DO exist. I would give my left nut to be able to read them. Especially the Castlequest one…I am NOT looking forward to trying to beat that game.
No Earthbound on the Wii Virtual Console still? Shame. That may still be the single best RPG I’ve ever played.
[Disclaimer: I got my NES in my first year of high school. I was a kid then. I was not especially harcore. That would shape a lot of my opinoins.]
My favorite Super Maro Bros. was 2. There being no Internet at the time, I had no way of knowing that it was originally a different game and loathed by pretty much the rest of the world and wouldn’t have cared if I did. It was great running around, throwing stuff at enemies, and finding all the secrets. (I found it weird at the time that nobody seemed to know all four warp locations.) My next favorite was the first. It was just tons of fun exploring all the places, and the difficulty was perfect for a timid 15-year-old. I only played 3 a few times and never was too fond of it. All those items and puzzles and micromanagement, just too rich for my blood (even now).
Only Castlevania I ever cleared without codes was 2. That one’s my favorite, although not by much. Lots of fun trying to get through 1, even though I never beat that effin’ Count clean. Only played 3 on emulator, and it’s a monster, especially when you get to the castle. Don’t like that one, even though the music is awesome.
Played the first 3 Mega Man games on cart. Really intense; stretched my meager teenage skills to the limit. 2 was my favorite (no, really); it was the only one I cleared without any cheats or tricks. Would’ve been better if there weren’t so many instant-death pitfalls. Did the rest on emulator. Much better game with save states, rewind, codes, and GameFAQs on tap, I tell ya. Still don’t care for them much; more pointless than anything.
Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out is one of my favorite games of all time on any platform. What can I say; the perfect blend of challenge, action, achievement, and irreference. Shame my reflexes aren’t what they used to be and I can’t clear it at full speed anymore. Actually think Mr. Sandman is tougher than Super Macho Man.
Contra. Great game, quintessinal 80’s action game. Poured a bazillion tokens into this at the arcades. Baffled that all anyone ever says about it now is “30 lives code”, “Nintendo Hard”, and “spread gun”. It’s not that hard, really. I actually thought the fire gun was underrated, as it was easier to hit moving targets with.
The Legend of Zelda did more for my socialization skills in high school than anything else. I swear at least 80% of the game was finding out where the hell things were. Again, no Internet, so the only way was to find people who’d played it and talk to them. I have no idea why, but most of them said that they had trouble remembering because they hadn’t played it in ages. In 1988. Zelda 2 was freakin’ hard; never got anywhere without my trusty Game Genie.
Owned Blaster Master; finished it completely clean (twice!). About 2-3 hours each time, and of course, no saves. Just gotta deal with it. Hardest part is keeping your gun energy up before getting to the final boss’ room. You must keep your gun energy up if you’re going to beat it.
Final Fantasy, unfortunately, was what turned me off to console RPGs. The final straw was an area (don’t remember where, but it was well before anything resembling an ice cave) I had to get through that was full of monsters and no place to save or recover. I do not deal with life-or-death stress well, especially with results determined purely by blind chance.
Loved Metal Gear. Just the thrill of taking on and completing tasks one by one. Never understood how Solid Snake was supposed to be this invisible stealthy spy; I did just fine mowing down all the enemies in the room. (I completed the game at least three times without even knowing about the cover-blowing Transmitter.) Baretta was by far the weapon of choice; other weapons at most occasionally useful. Often the most viable strategy was just running like hell, knowledge that would serve me well in future games. Had no idea American kids in the late 80’s cared deeply and passionately that this was a remake of a game on something called the “MSX”, or that it made all the difference in the universe that Snake’s Revenge didn’t employ someone involved with Metal Gear, or any of the roughly 300 other gripes about Snake’s Revenge. It sounds fun. I should try it sometime.
Never played Tecmo Bowl or any of the Dragon Warriors. Uh, yeah.
Your post reads like a list of my greatest hits, DKW. 
You beat Blaster Master? It used to take me and my brother forever, and then we hit some glitch more than once in level 5 (or 7) where Jason got stuck in the floor in a place where there were no enemies, so reset was the only option. Why why why wasn’t there a save feature in a game that long?
On the other hand, while I don’t remember Zelda 2 being a walk in the park, it doesn’t stick out as impossibly difficult. Definitely ran through that a couple times, a good solid game. No, the legendary “let’s try to beat this stupid game one more time” but we never could was Double Dragon 3. Got to the last boss I can’t tell you how many times, and never pulled it off. Frustrating, but finally beat it on emulator years later, and the ending was terrible. 2 was a much better game anyway.
I also share your enjoyment of SM2. Although I remember using the warps constantly, as the game kinda dragged in the middle. One of the ice levels was super fun though, and I loved playing the desert ones with Luigi, as he could jump over huge parts of the level. Mario 3 was also fun, especially using the boot and getting the tanuki suit (thanks for teaching me some Japanese at a young age, nintendo! I also know the word for pirate because of Final Fantasy).
Also loved Castlevania 2 (Simon’s Quest, right?). Man, I think there was definitely some consultation of Nintendo Power magazine to figure out how to use that random-ass tornado warp with the red crystal.
Bases Loaded is one of the few sports games I liked. I don’t really know why-- it’s not great. It just worked for me. Plus the umpires were named YUK, DUM, BOO, and BUM. Blades of Steel also was a fun sports game, I think largely because you could get into fights on the ice.
And good god, was Metroid ever hard. I did love the SNES version, though.
After having owned the NES for awhile, one of the later games my brother and I got was Smash TV. Pretty repetitive shooter, but you could play with two controllers turned sideways. One controller direction pad would steer your character, and the other one would shoot. My brother would drive, and I would shoot. Good times.
Nintendo was a really big part of my childhood. I dunno if that’s bad or good, but it definitely gives us players a wide cohort.
Most likely the Marsh Cave. The boss fight at the end with the Wizards guarding the CROWN is one of the hardest fights in the game, for the level you’re at when you do it, and there’s a chance of random encounters like Scorpions and Gargoyles on that level, too, which can really mess you up. If you ever feel like going back to it, a tip: Whenever you get a random encounter that includes Scums, just run: They’re all but impossible to kill unless you’re willing to waste Fir2 spells on them (hint: You’re not willing to do that, since you’ll need those spell slots for Lit2 vs. the Wizards). Oh, and stock up on a few dozen pure potions before you go in, too, because those Scums will poison you.
EDIT: BellRung, I certainly agree with you that Blaster Master needed saves or continuation codes. I did eventually beat it on an emulator, but it still took about 30 hours of gameplay. Back when I was using the actual console, I never even saw the water world.
BellRung - Wow, never expected such a positive response. (I should know better by now…)
Re. Blaster Master: Yes, I really had that little a life that I got all the way through twice (and I remember failing past the halfway point at least once). The most important thing to remember is that other than the lack of saves, it’s no different from Metal Gear, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, or any of the other 8-bit action adventures. It’s all about staying alive and doing things in the right order. There are no timers, so you can always backtrack to heal or replenish your weaponry. A guide definitely helps a lot, and being able to take a breather at any time with an emulator is a big help. Once you know where everything is, it shouldn’t take you more than 3 hours to get from start to finish.
Castlevania 2 was indeed Simon’s Quest. One of the reasons it wasn’t well received was that a big part of the challenge was figuring out how to make things happen. (And of course, in today’s Internet era, that’s no challenge at all.) Also, if you were used to usual 8-bit RPG convention and assumed that random passerby’s comments were inherently trustworthy, you were in for a cold, hard reality check. Meh…change of pace, says I.
Come to think of it, there’s a virtually identical development pattern for Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania: Mundane arcade port, user-friendly console style “quest” game, really complicated arcade-style game where you need to be a good manager.
Am I the only one who realizes that YUK, DUM, BOO, and BUM are initials? Was it really that hard to figure out? (Heck, look at my username.)
I too loved Super Mario 2, though 3 is my favourite NES Mario game. Me and my brother did manage to beat Double Dragon 3. The secret is to use the super spin kick, stand in the same spot and do the spin kick at the same time.
The update of the original Addams theme song was great. The sounds and music in general were great.
I love the game except for two things-
Seemingly at random, sometimes a powerful monster or monsters not in the game booklet would show up and be hard or impossible to kill.
When you died, you kept all items and all the bosses you killed stayed dead BUT you restarted geographically back at the beginning of the game. As it could take an hour or more just to walk back to whatever point you were killed at, this sucked.
My top ten:
- SMB3. Kind of obvious.
- Zelda I.
- Faxanadu. Borrowed it from a friend, would never have given it back if I didn’t have to.
- Snake, Rattle & Roll. Should have been remade for one of the later consoles.
- Duck Hunt. Hours of entertainment despite almost laughable simplicity.
- SMB1, just for sentimental value.
- Metroid.
- RC Pro-Am.
- Trog. Okay, this one was pretty awful as a game, but it was also hilarious.
- Tetris. Not as good as the Game Boy version, and why the fuck was it single player only?
Zelda - Argubly one of the best video games of all time. I had so much fun trying to find everything in this game. My brothers, sister and I worked together to finish the first quest, sharing our knowledge alng the way. We didn’t have nintendo power, and our mother wouldn’t let us call the help line, so we where on our own. There were only a few things that really stumped us, bothe in the second quest: the treasure in dungeon 4 and the location of dungeon 8. Both were cleverly hidden by new tricks that you don’t expect that late in the game.
Little Nemo’s Dreamland - What a fun game, with wonderful music. The difficulty scales up pretty well after the gameplay and music enslave your attention. Its not a long or in-depth game, but its entertaining, and thats what really counts.
Zelda II - This game was the black sheep of the franchise, but that didn’t matter to me in my youth. This game empahasized action and sword skills more then the previous game, and every battle demanded your attention. I actually liked the mundane aspect of leveling-up and micromanaging my magic meter. I mastered the tactics of fighting each boss. And with the help of my sister, who still loves the zelda games to this day, we found our way through the final level. But just once, out of countless attempts, I beat dark link before finding out about the duck-n-stab trick. I felt accomplished for doing something that most zelda gamers couldn’t do.
SMB 2 - The original was mundane and repetitive. Nintendo was right in thinking that Americans wouldn’t buy a sequel of the exact same thing. Super Mario Brothers 2 was entertaining, addictive, frusterating at times, rewarding at others, and just alot of fun.
There were other great games, like Ice Hockey, Gradius, Castlevania, Metroid etc. I won’t go into all of them, but The NES was a wonderful part of my childhood.