Hampered somewhat by obtuse point-and-click adventure elements reminiscent of Shadowgate that threw many people off, The Goonies II still offered a sprawling mansion and its subterranean environs to explore via traditional platforming. Arcade, Famicom, NES: Nintendo: A 1984 light gun shooter adapted from a 1974 EM arcade game. Nevertheless, it was still pretty cool when the NES finally made it possible to hunt spies in the comfort of your own home. After all, it is 2009, and there's been a lot of time for Tetris and Dr. Mario. It's not only the hardest in the franchise, but one of the hardest NES games period. When that happened, the gameplay actually switched away from the hockey design and into a one-on-one versus fighter while the two mad men slugged it out. If the name "Willow" isn't immediately familiar to you, we suppose you can be forgiven but you really should get to know it. Top 100 NES Games - IGN.com 100 NES Games Start Over Comments 100 Ice Hockey 99 Rush'n Attack 98 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 97 Astyanax 96 Dragon Warrior III 95 Mega Man 4 94 Kickle. But not all licensed titles are bad. With classic titles ranging from Batman to Journey to Silius (which was originally supposed to be a licensed Terminator game), Sunsoft had the skills necessary to take even the most unusual licenses and make them into compelling adventures. Taking cues from open-ended adventure games like Metroid, you'll need to find certain weapons and equipment to progress in Bionic Commando, and that sometimes means returning to area you've previously visited to take care of unfinished business. ** No Japanese exclusives ** The likes of Jackal doesn't count but Gunsmoke does because the screen automatically scrolls up even though it's not your traditional. The fourth game in the franchise had little to offer fans that was different, other than a new cast of interesting Robot Masters, a new character (Eddie) and a new ability for Mega Man to exploit (charging your arm cannon). These powerhouse efforts were complemented by a robust library of third-party titles. The answer was simple line up the appropriate colors of pills matching the viruses, and voila, they disappear. Crazy how that happens, no? It is possibly the most awesome car ever made aside from the "Metal Attacker" in Blaster Master. It's a good thing, too, since this was the last Dragon Warrior game to appear in the United States for nearly a decade. Not content to just slash his foes to death, Niki had to slice and dice them with a whirlwind blade just to be that much more radical. At least, they're our favorite NES shooters to play. - Colin Moriarty, IGN Guides Associate Editor. Death Rally is a top-down combat racing game developed by Remedy, published by Apogee, and distributed by GT Interactive Software. I felt such a sense of relief every time I returned to the vehicle from an on-foot segment, like running indoors to escape the Boogeyman in the woods. Crap I should really get this awesome gem of a game back to him. The music rocks, the night/day system inspired my brother's own work with Shantae, and like Zelda II it's truly unique among the series. There really is nothing quite like punching a guy in the gut, jump-kicking him in the face and watching him fall backwards out of a chopper's open side-door, then imagining his terror as he plummets to a watery death in the waves below. Though I thought the Genesis release of Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse was ultimately a better game, I found myself going back to play this one more because of how easy it was to get into and how satisfying it was to play. And if racing in two dimensions isn't your cup of tea, grab your Power Glove, pop on a pair of 3D glasses, and experience Rad Racer in red and blue stereoscopic bliss. 95. Review score. With Contra III on the Super NES, this game didn't get the attention it deserved. Turned off? In fact, I liked Willow so much that I'd put it up there on my top list of NES RPG favorites with games like Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy and Crystalis. Who's Link? But after Baseball Stars hit the shelves (and subsequently flew off of them), expectations on what a sports game could do changed forever. In Klax, a conveyor belt feeds tiles that can be stacked in columns. Old-school arcade gamers have found and will continue to find a lot to love in any iteration of Mario Bros., but new gamers beware! Platform(s): NES Genre: Top Down Alien Shooter Game Estimated year of release: Probably before 1990 as I'm pretty sure my dad stopped buying games not long after I was born Graphics/art style: I recall it was top down, a shooter, pretty sure the backdrop is Mars but maybe it was just another alien planet. Add it to the list! And, because our hero loves Fred so much that he doesn't care if he's a giant, disgusting mutant toad, he takes command of the equally-massive armored tank S.O.P.H.I.A. It may be hard to believe, but at one point Zombies were a greatly underrepresented class of brain-dead enemy in videogames. It's flashy, it's clever, and it's one of the few puzzle games worth revisiting on the NES. Something about Adventures of Link scared memaybe the dark backgrounds in the forest stages, or the increased detail in the enemy designs. Sure, it borrowed from Mega Man apart from the engine selecting stage orders, for instance but standing on its own, Duck Tales is one of the must-have games in any NES aficionado's library. The protagonist of this peculiar game is the disembodied noggin of a samurai, who packs some serious cranial power. Released in 1988, Zelda II proved to be an entirely different experience from the first and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. . And Mega Man 3 took the mantle and ran with it. You can't beat that. You'll find a few other games that got thrust into the limelight the same way on this countdown, like VICE: Project Doom. While friends moved on to Super NES, I made do with Kirby. programmer and designer David Crane abandoned his traditional Activision backing, formed Absolute Entertainment, and went on to create what has become known as one of the NES catalog's quirkiest games, A Boy and His Blob: Trouble in Blobolonia. A spiritual sister series to Nintendo's Legend of Zelda, StarTropics was an overhead dungeon-exploration action/adventure that, unfortunately, never made it past the NES. I remember playing this a lot with my dad when I was younger. R.C. Set in an ancient Greece-inspired future (mind blown yet? You'd think a sword that spins would hurt you, but it doesn't. My greatest memory of this game is trying to convince a dozen IGN editors why this game was so awesome nearly 20 years ago. But back on the NES, there was no besting LucasArts' Maniac Mansion for deep, involved and genuinely funny pointing and clicking action. I think Tetris is the better game, but Klax is very creative and the NES version was surprisingly well developed and accurate to the original. To capitalize on the puzzle trend, Nintendo threw its first-party hat into the ring and released Dr. Mario on the console just in time for the 1990 holiday season. The Ice Climbers, as the two starring characters are popularly known, are relentless lovers of the alpine trek, and they'll stop at nothing to climb mountain after mountain just to reach its apex, where untold valuable items can be found. Although prominently featuring traditional Japanese settings and mythology, Demon Sword seems to have suffered from a poor North American localization, as evidenced by the goofy box art featuring a naked blonde guy glaring at his sword. While the first dozen or so screens will seem like a walk in the park, as you make your way deeper into the cave you'll encounter some puzzling situations. But Slumberland is an unexpectedly dangerous place, and the game's advanced difficulty level no doubt took some unsuspecting youngsters by surprise. Now if I could only figure out what that tank game with huge bosses was. And talk about difficult if you were unlucky enough to lose all of your lives in the game's final stages (which gamers did over and over and over again), you'd have quite the trek in front of you to get back to where you were to try all over again. I was one of those poor saps that actually enjoyed a similar and ultimately less impressive game, Legend of Kage, so I took to this game immediately. the primary challenge is to obliterate chains of arthropods that creep down from the top of the screen. VPD may in fact be in my top 10 NES games of all time personally, and I didn't discover it until back in 2002 when a few of the WayForward guys all got into retro gaming together. By 1990, Capcom was churning out quality 2D platformers at frightening rate, making it entirely possible for the gamers of yesteryear to have missed this strangely licensed gem. A balanced team, for instance, may include two Fighters, a Black Mage to deal damage and a White Mage to heal. Zelda II's entire system suggested it was trying to be more of an RPG, and in many ways, it was a huge success. Unfortunately, almost everyone agrees that Tengen's version of the game was far superior to Nintendo's, even including a two-player mode which Nintendo's version sorely lacked. And Kid Niki was indeed a radical adventure, starring a young ninja-in-training whose own princess-rescuing adventure was set apart by two defining features his spiked-out, punk-rock hairstyle and his vicious spinning sword. Rush 'n Attack is a side-scrolling beat-'em-up/shooter that didn't reward new players for attempting its titular strategy. Clouding Dr. Wily's actual involvement in the nefarious deeds coursing through the game's loose story, a Faux Protoman leads Mega Man on for most of the game until surprise! This game mixes amazing platforming with some quirky gun and driving missions; almost like Bayu Billy, if that game didn't suck and instead played like Ninja Gaiden. Early adopters who made the next-gen leap without looking back missed an incredible game design. I remember getting this game like it was yesterday. Not too shabby. Its action-platforming style was well-known by Mega Man 3's release, and with the addition of two important new characters, Rush and Protoman, and a new skill, sliding, Mega Man 3 is many fans' favorite in the franchise. Admittedly, the exhilaration of burning past the beach-going VW beetles in your red Ferrari 328 (the F1 was significantly less radical) is indeed worthy of such high self praise. Top-down games have been enjoyed by gamers alike for almost as long as video games have existed. I can remember looking at the Rad Racer flap at Toys R Us (remember the old system of flaps and slips?) Little Samson arrived at the tail-end of the NES era, when most gamers had moved on to newer, although not necessarily better, consoles. So when I saw the commercials for the system air with footage from Super Mario Bros, I couldn't believe that it looked identical. It only took a year for Tecmo to follow-up the smash-hit status of the original Ninja Gaiden with its sequel. Unfortunately, virtually all televisions today render the game unplayable, so a new generation of gamer has yet to be exposed to the wonder of duck hunting and skeet shooting. I bought my own cart off of eBay and experienced the wonders of this influential grinding J-RPG without the help of my peers. The Cobra Triangle gunship was a versatile vessel, and the power-ups it could obtain were what made this one a blast to play. Snake parachuted into the jungle fortress of Outer Heaven with nothing but his courage and a pack of smokes, and skillfully avoided detection while sneaking through the enemy encampment to find and destroy the titular weapon of mass destruction or, if sneaking didn't work, he beat the snot out of the soldiers in his way. The NES had its fair share of unique puzzle games, and Adventures of Lolo 3 might take the cake as the genre's quintessential title on the console. It was sort of like Mega Man meets Strider, which I thought was spectacular for the time. Oh Little Samson, we hardly knew ye! Despite their popularity, cooperative games were rarity on the NES and hey, when was the last time you got to spend some quality time with your little sister? You could take several different paths through the house, discover tons of interactions between characters and objects, and replay the game again and again with a completely different trio of the seven potential playable characters (each with unique skill-sets and abilities). The entire game can be played with a wingman, but make sure whoever it is can appreciate a heaping dollop of cuteness, served Japanese-style (with extra "cute" on the side). Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Millipede Nintendo Entertainment System NES 1988 Box and Manual only Authentic at the best online prices at eBay! Rad Racer doesn't disguise its arcade origins; in fact, it unabashedly rips off SEGA's arcade contemporary, Out Run. Nintendo was pretty heavy handed about content on the NES, so some of the ribald stuff in MM was yanked. While not entirely innovative, Final Fantasy did make some interesting iterations on the RPG formula. Mega Man 5 continues the tradition of tight action-platforming which made the series incredibly prolific by the time of its release. Toad, the Princess, and Luigi all offer unique qualities that make them viable protagonists. As the name of the game suggests, the idea of Ice Climber is to climb, climb, climb. While not nearly as deep or polished as Ninja Gaiden, as you progress you can amass new skills, weapons and powers befitting of a ninja. Unlike other popular cooperative games like Contra, crowding the screen with blue and green bubbles was just as enjoyable with an experienced player as it was with a total novice I believe we called them "posers" back in those pre-n00b times. I spent hours tackling puzzles using different methods to trap enemies or to drop them through flooring. So what if it wasn't originally a Mario game? Death Race (1990 video game) Devilish (video game) Die Hard (video game) Dig Dug II. That was the cryptic fantasy tagline offered up on the box of Faxanadu, one of the best and least-known Nintendo-published adventures to hit the NES throughout the 8-bit systems lifespan. And for the most part, franchises that did flood the NES were of a high quality. Growing up, my neighbors seemed to have all of the great games, when we could only afford one here and there. Metroid proved to be one of the biggest and most daunting games early in the NES' lifecycle. Jackal - A top down shooter based around the NES version get a new Amiga v6 demo via Neeso Games! Yes, please! The Tetris cartridge was circulated amongst us and our various neighbors forever after collected dust. This was so I could put on different weapons and gloat (because once you don the final tier of weapons and armor, you can't remove them). Super Mario Bros. was a smash hit, and its American sequel was a completely different type of game. Much like with platformers, the Nintendo Entertainment System was not hurting for top-down shooters. What stuck out most for me about Double Dragon II was how varied the game was. However, word of mouth combined with a Nintendo Power promotion that sent copies of the game around the country allowed it to blow up. on the NES is a straight port of the top-down shooter arcade game that sees up to two players clear different stages featuring paths, hordes of enemies, and powerful bosses. And you had side-scrolling stages, the core of the game, in which your character ran, jumped and attacked the invading alien hordes with a laser-whip. - Matt Casamassina, IGN Nintendo Editor-in-Chief. I'm a lifelong boxing fan, so being able to "sim" matches this early was something of a breakthrough for me. Mega Man is one of the few franchises on the NES that made it to four games. Although I initially displayed the poster of IronSword's cover art that shipped with the game on my wall, Fabio's polished pectorals quickly became a discomforting presence in my bedroom. Pro-Am, and cast players as the captains of a high-speed, heavily-armored attack ship cutting through tropical waters to take on sharks, rival watercrafts and giant sea serpents. Good stuff. That's a shame, because its blend of three different types of gameplay set it apart from the crowd and made it a classic. I lived in Maine when Mega Man 5 came out, which was an SNES-dominated era in my life. Initially, this appeared to make the game much easier, but in fact, Ninja Gaiden II's difficulty could easily be considered on par with the original, if not for different reasons. I played this game for the first time on a vacation to Wisconsin (that was back when most kids had three NES games total, and liked it), and dug the game so much I had to own it. Pro-Am without it, racing games might have just been all about steering and accelerating. Then you've got "Ninja," which summoned up the best emotions from Ninja Gaiden, the Ninja Turtles and Zen: Intergalactic Ninja. While it was known mainly for platformers such as Super Mario Bros. and the like, it had a decent selection of shooters. Castlevania was not only a brilliant vid, but the music too is timeless I can still hum it on cue. Nintendo's little pink powerpuff got his start on the Game Boy with Kirby's Dream Land, but it wasn't until this late-generation NES sequel arrived that he gained his trademark trait absorbing enemies' abilities as his own. Dragon Warrior IV, released in the US in 1992, tried to buck this trend with a unique approach to unraveling the game's overarching narrative. He's hidden himself inside the enormous, Tower of Babylon-esque World Tree a massive, multi-leveled living structure that holds the entire game's worth of town, fortresses and enemy lairs within its roots, trunk and branches. Dumb, I know. A port of a graphically superior arcade version, Konami gave Super C lots of love to help it make a successful transition, including the addition of several unique levels. There's nothing wrong with combining RC Pro-AM with boats, guns, and dragons. Although, in hindsight, going up against the Tetris juggernaut probably wasn't the best strategy, but still, some lucky NES players found time for both. Astyanax is armed with a massive golden axe which has a unique mechanic attached to it it's linked to a power meter at the bottom of the screen which depletes and refills after every attack. Why is Baseball Stars so important? Happily, this fine action platformer broke with the stereotypical dungeon crawlers, allowing you to hop around, bashing enemies with your Wand of Whatever without a single roll of multisided dice, virtual or otherwise. Although Nintendo's licensed, "official" version of Tetris was ubiquitous, happening upon this strange, black cartridge in the cobwebby recesses of a used game joint proved an eye-opening experience for this young NES collector-to-be. Simple, straightforward side-scrolling action, lots of baddies to send flying off the screen with a quick swipe of your blade, and stylish graphics for its time. 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