Favorite NES Games. Part Four.
Back now to enter into the Top Ten! So pumped. The way I’ve done this list is that I took an initial list of maybe 20–30 games just remembered from the top of my head and then went down the list of games in Wikipedia and other list sites (avoiding ranking and top ten lists so as not to be influenced by any other opinions) and eventually whittled down 20 games to stay and really talk about them. Then I ranked those. And beginning my paragraphs about these, knowing the next five I’m going to write about, it genuinely makes me want to break out the old NES and spend a full day in front of an old tube TV and take these on again. Truthfully, seeing these next five games that I’m about to talk about tonight, I’m purely excited.
10. Startropics
For some reason, when I begin to look back, I think about this game as being one that came out when I was “older” but seeing the release date, I think it actually dropped some time when I was around 8 years old. I never got games when they were brand new, so I was probably 9, maybe 10 when I eventually got around to it. I guess that makes sense. Around 5th grade is when the SNES came to be, and I wasn’t often looking back to the NES after that. It’s interesting to look in and see that that age group, the age that Parker is now, is when I was starting to fashion an idea of actually feeling older and more capable, at least in the video game sphere. This game had a lot of memories for me, and most of them entail me going through this game solo, and not needing any help from people older than me. When I just recently went back in and tried to play through it again, I definitely got the feeling that either this game wasn’t as brutal as a lot of its predecessors, but also that its difficulty felt more grounded in “paying attention” and really sharp patterns and understandable enemies as opposed to what seemed to be just computer programs and algorithms purposely trying to end your life. Ruthlessly. So I think it felt way more sophisticated in that rite. This game had a cool vibe all the way through it, and seemed to be one of those games that took its story and allowed it to expand greatly in scale as you started to solve smaller problems and watch them become applied in a bigger picture. Sure, all of it was tied directly to your finding your uncle, but the sources of all of the problems were global and universal. Such a cool game. Overall, thinking back on it, I don’t remember the format really feeling fresh. Although there was the overworld map and then diving in to the cave/combat modes which were closer and had a Legend of Zelda vibe about them. But it was just one of those games that had personal victory tied to it. So cool.
9. Blaster Master
I think this might have been the first game that I borrowed from a friend. I remember playing it somewhere and being blown away by how cool the aspect of the outerworld was, and you driving this amazing truck with guns and stuff on it. And then YOU COULD GET OUT and be to scale, a smaller little guy and still explore and get to different places. BUT THEN, you could also go into underworld areas, and it would go into a completely different format. Sort of a screen-based, room-based game, similar to the aforementioned Legend of Zelda and Startropics, and you would have grenades and a blaster to shoot the enemies with. And I remember feeling a real rush fighting the boss battles. I felt like the coolest dude alive when I found out that you could throw a grenade at one of the enemies and pause the game while it was exploding and it would continuously damage the enemy. Brilliant. I think this was one of those games where I frequently played the beginning areas of the game and found myself getting “too good” at that part and one day just decided to buckle down and run through the whole thing and figure it out. I played [what felt like] deep into the day, and beat the game. The game begins with you chasing down your frog who escaped and you go down a hole and find this massive tank. But when I beat the game, I felt like the MAN. I felt like I’d done the frog this massive service. I think I even remember uttering “I won’t let you down” to the video game frog. I also think I read a book of this game. I feel like at some point, Nintendo was releasing little novels based on some of its games, and I read this one as well as Castlevania: Simon’s Quest. I think also, this game allowed you to walk not only in a grid (up, down, left, right) but also in the diagonal directions too, which felt really smooth and “advanced”. Such a great experience. Would love to have another shot with this one and get that feeling of exploration again. I remember being wow’d by the feeling of swimming underwater as well.
8. Ninja Gaiden
PURELY BRUTAL. I remember this game having some of the hardest, most difficult platforming and expectations of what one person should be able to perform in a side scrolling beat ’em up game. But I think that’s what adds to its legacy. Not that I ever got too far in it, but it’s somewhat reminiscent of what the process of playing through Bloodborne is like. When you finally surpass a certain moment in the game, you actually feel like you’ve been able to really embody that character and perform something truly heroic. I also really loved the way that the game was broken up into little moments as if it were a graphic novel or television show. The fact that you got all of these cool little ninja weapons throughout the game was cool as well. Just a few little shurikens, whether they were the ones that boomeranged back or the smaller ones that whipped out and did less damage was cool. Then the wall clinging felt really NINJA-esque, especially to me who was super young at the time. The storyline, while the actual entirety of it escapes me, felt really cool too. Little statues that looked like xenomorphs and some demon or demon cloaked character trying to get them together to become some sort of supreme evil being? Something like that. And also the fact that you were trying to find more information about the death of your father. Just a really well-layered, well-portrayed narrative overall. It took you a lot of different places, a lot of different locales. To this day, I still vividly remember fighting the first boss fight SO many times, where you were in some sort of bar and there was this massive Jason Voorhees looking guy swinging a massive axe at you and you had to jump over him and do the wall cling to really avoid him. Incredible game.
7. Baseball Stars
My love of sports games still might be the number one thing that keeps me tied to gaming so strongly to this day. It’s the one type of game that I played, even when I wasn’t actively playing action games, shooters or RPGs. And this one was one that kept me coming back for more and more. I loved this game. I loved playing as all of the different teams, each having their own specific strengths. But the best part of the game was the ability to create a team. The stat tracking was so deep. And you could do this massive, MASSIVE season (100 games or something), none of which I finished. But I genuinely loved the simple controls and the fast pace of the game. Baseball was never my game, was never in my wheelhouse. But this game made it enjoyable. And a game that I could play for a whole afternoon. The cartoon-ish stylizations were fun and kept “A Sports Game” from becoming just another one of those games that fell all the way into something that became far too serious, especially for me at that age, who was looking for something that was way more fun than just a nine inning sports game at the time. Still, to this day, one of my favorite sports games of all time, even if only for leaving such an incredible stamp on the genre. Not much more to say about it, other than the fact that even without ANY MLB licensing, this game held so many incredible moments for me. This game is one that really very clearly influenced easily one of my favorite games on the SNES, Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball.
6. Tecmo Bowl
Iconic. Real players? Yo. This game was one that I played at home on my NES and then would switch over to my Gameboy to play on the go. I constantly played this one. In my younger years, I was all about football. I played it in a little league. I kept a composition notebook and wrote down every final score every week and gave the week an MVP (which was usually just who I thought was cool that week or if I watched a game, a guy that made a cool play). And then being a NY Giant fan, being able to use one of the most dominant players in the league, Lawrence Taylor, and to be able to actually see him be just as dominant in the game as well was so pleasing. I played this game so frequently that I played through the entire game with each team multiple times. I got to use Bo Jackson, who even to this day holds strong as one of the most overpowered players in sports game history. The Montana to Jerry Rice combination, as well as having Ronnie Lott and Roger Craig? Murder. This game, similar to Baseball Stars, really solidified my love for sports games. Just the process of it, the quick ability to just jump in and complete a game and then jump out, and also once they started including real teams and real players really put the game directly in an incredible place for me. The sheer volume of time I spent playing this game, and then its sequel on SNES is staggering.
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