Licensed. The atypical confluence of high quality and low sales of Little Samson ultimately resulted in it being one of the most sought after cartridges for collectors today. Top-down action video game Alone in the Dark 3: 1995: DOS, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows: Infogrames Interplay: America: 2001: Microsoft Windows: Data Becker: A real-time Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux game. I was blown away by how complete an experience Crystalis was. Or maybe it was just that I died so much. - Sam Claiborn, IGN Game Help Associate Editor. Because of that, there was no rushing around; Dragon Warrior was for patient gamers only. As the boy treks into the underground maze, Blaster Master presents its deviously challenging mixture of side-scrolling platforming, shooting, and overhead dungeon exploration with action taking place in and outside of the cockpit. This one's a classic in both gameplay and theme. The drama surrounding Tetris is one of the most storied sagas in the history of the NES. I always thought Ice Climber was just another way to repackage Mario Bros. "It's just the same game with a bunch of white," I thought. The sequel to the original Mega Man was quick on the heels of the first, with barely a year in between the release of the two titles in the United States. The beloved NES game is every bit as addictive today as it was 20-plus years ago, which is a testament to the quality of its design. Do you need anything else? In Klax, a conveyor belt feeds tiles that can be stacked in columns. This is another one that really paved the way for others too. It sold a million copies in Japan for a good reason. Developed on the same engine as Kid Icarus, and released around the same time, Metroid toned down the action-platforming found in Icarus and focused on exploration. At some point in the latter half of the 1980s, Konami's instantly-recognizable silver-framed package art became a surefire visual indicator of a top-notch NES experience. The concept is actually no different from most top-down shooter games, where you “only” have to kill every enemy you meet. Platforming... with zombies and mummies? Journey to Silius wasn't experienced by many gamers in its time, but it has more than earned its place on our Top 100 for its smooth gameplay alone. share. You can't beat that. Navigating your way through the colorful set pieces proves a bit more harrowing than the colorful, kiddie graphics let on, making it the perfect title to impress girls with… if you're nine, that is. And this time Mario doesn't steal the spotlight. The arcade version hooked me first, but the NES edition kept my addiction going. Weird, right? If you are wondering, that formula is one part Aliens, two parts First Blood, and perhaps a dash of Predator to keep things exotic. Enlist a second set of wheels and you'll be nuking twice the whatever-the-hell-you-want-to in no time. In the game, our pajama clad mascot navigates the often psychedelic Slumberland with the help of wild animals. 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. … Fun Fact: This was the very first Konami game to … From simulated parallax – that means multiple backgrounds moving at varying speeds – to precise, multi-celled animation, this mech platformer pushes the NES to the very limits of its hardware capabilities. It was essentially a late generation Mega Man-esque science-fiction platform/actioner at its best. And what gamers found in Mega Man 2 was something seen in few games since – a title that was virtually flawless. Super C, like Contra, is a nearly perfect cooperative experience, and is best enjoyed with a buddy to high five as the iconic level finish tune plays. If you nibble enough of the Nibbleys, your snake's body would grow, his tail extending longer and longer behind his comical head and forked tongue. Favorite top down shooter? This feature is concentrating on all of the most noteworthy top down shooters, scrolling games with a birds-eye view, multi-directional firing, and a high emphasis on pure unadulterated shooting action. Perhaps the best example of the NES's capability at adapting and even improving on arcade games of its era, Contra offers the best shooting action on the NES and is also the console's definitive multiplayer experience. As usual, the game introduced eight new Robot Masters to defeat in any order the gamer desired, inheriting defeated boss' weapons to use on other less-fortunate foes. Whatever!). And I get to hit him with a whip? Turned off? 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. It's a shame the character known as Kickle has died with history, as well. 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. The detailed, cartoon-like graphics go a long way towards easing the pain of the game's extreme difficulty, as does the inclusion of cooperative play – at least you have someone to blame when you run out of continues on the second level. Toad, the Princess, and Luigi all offer unique qualities that make them viable protagonists. Dracula is the bad guy? This Top down Shooter has been inspired by retro titles such as 'Action Fighter' & 'Spy Hunter'. I remember seeing this game being pushed on the Home Shopping Network months before it was available in stores. 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. But Bionic Commando's Rad Spencer gets by just fine with the help of his bionic appendage. Yeah, it looks like a dress, but it really frees up his arm for easy decapitations. The Game Pak is truly worth tracking down for its multiplayer selection, including a wacky cooperative mode. Strangely, though epic in scale, Rygar doesn't feature a way to save or even a password system, so make sure your NES is hooked up to a good power source before embarking on your quest. We celebrate 100 of our favorites in the pages that follow with our list of the best games for Nintendo's killer system. After the ... What ensued was an NES classic combining side-scrolling, top-down gameplay, ... a top-down adventure/RPG in the … Although you can't tackle Gradius with a pal, you can outfit your ship with "options" – mindless, floating turrets that flank your ship. Shooter An arcade port of a top-down shooter similar to Commando, but a bit slower and more calculated, concentrated, and refined. Playing this game constantly every time we manage to rent it from an NES store in our small town, Guerrilla War which can also be played in multiplayer ends up being a super fun action game that will make your time pass by. It only took a year for Tecmo to follow-up the smash-hit status of the original Ninja Gaiden with its sequel. The original video gameplay archive and reference directory for every game released in the US for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. It should come as no surprise that the man behind the rock is Yoshihiro Sakaguchi, a composer that worked on the Mega Man series, also distinguished for its 8-bit anthems. While it clearly adopted its non-linear level select structure from Mega Man, the similarities end there. The game that changed horizontal shooters forever. We aim to represent the best of all genre's, we try to limit the number of sequels included to allow more underrated games to shine, and also tend to avoid games that have been ported from earlier systems that don't use the hardware to its full potential. When I first encountered Zombie Nation it was love at first sight: the disembodied head of a samurai destroying buildings with what appears to be vomit? I think I've got the same fond memory for this one as everyone else does: skinny dude, medium dude, and fat dude. I guess since it was an unlicensed Nintendo game, Codemasters had a hard time getting retailers interested in stocking it. Then once you enter a cave or palace, it switches to a side scrolling shooter like Section Z . Zelda was an action-adventure game with RPG elements, and in an age without the Internet, people were on their own about how to get through the game in one piece. It goes down something like this: an extra-terrestrial force named Darc Seed has zombie-fied the world, oh and there's some kind of stolen sword involved or something. After releasing several games for the Atari 2600 and other computer-based consoles, famed Pitfall! Ask anyone who played this game extensively and they'll tell you, it was one of the hardest games of all time. Watching my neighbors play the series endlessly as a child, my first independent go-around with Dragon Warrior was when I was in the 8th grade in 1997. It's one of the earliest games that convinced me that RPGs were my favorite. If you fully power up your weapons you turn into a flaming, butt-kicking phoenix. 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. Funny that both of these defining characteristics have carried over through the years into modern day Gaiden sequels. Take your average shooter and replace all the enemies with spreading fire and malfunctioning robots, and you've probably got a pretty good idea of what The Firemen is all about. One of the NES's premier racing games may have a peculiar title, but we pose this question: would a racer by any other name be quite as rad? The permutations through Mega Man were many, giving the game great replay value. 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. Tengen, an ambitious Atari-associated game developer, began releasing official NES games in 1988. Add some simplified adventuring elements into the mix and you have what I feel is a classic NES game. If you can stomach the Princess in all her pinkness, her levitation ability will get you over the game's widest gaps. And then there was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, the follow-up to the smash hit The Legend of Zelda. "Games are too easy now." RPGs were still an extremely niche genre at the time and Dragon Warrior was no guaranteed hit. It's an undeniable classic. For such a late release, Mega Man 6 ended up being worth the temporarily ignoring of my SNES I had to go through when I played it. It's not only the hardest in the franchise, but one of the hardest NES games period. Sure, Duck Hunt's gameplay was as simple as pointing-and-shooting, and one could easily cheat by standing an inch from the television. My earliest forays into the Cave of Monsters were rarely solo. This game plays and looks like a 16 bit generation game. ), Legendary Wings features standard shoot things/power up/shoot more things gameplay but it's the oddball setting that truly sets it apart from vertical space shooters. The ridiculousness of the premise was only matched by the difficulty of the game's control scheme, and the superb 8-bit soundtrack that accompanied all the hungry, hungry action. If you can get past the partially naked winged dudes, Legendary Wings offers some other treats as well. To this day, this is still the only game that's ever shipped with a coupon for five bucks off an order at Pizza Hut printed on the back of its instruction manual. Next time you think all movie licensed games are garbage, dust off this old classic and surprise yourself all over again. While it's undeniable that Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! The very last project created by Irem for the NES, Kickle Cubicle appeared to be a straight rip-off of the aforementioned Adventures of Lolo, but had gameplay features of its own that made it a unique offering, and one worth anyone's time interested in the genre. You'll soon realize how much better off you are without a rookie to keep track of. The Big N's amazing 1980s home console reinvigorated the videogame market with classic, genre-defining games including Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. The first Double Dragon for the NES was a capable and compelling coin-op conversion, but this sequel was superior to that original in many ways, primarily because it kept a core feature of the franchise, co-op play, intact on the home system. The game also seemed to take forever to play – which made me wonder at the time if it was one of the biggest games ever made. Vague memories of a strange, somewhat girly shooter plagued me as I restocked my NES collection a few years back. Your objective is to take them all down for the joy of the audience. Super C, the somewhat unfortunately-titled sequel to Contra, features the same co-op shooter action of the first without toying with the formula too much. But after getting used to Castelvania's inherent control quirks, what was found was a smooth action game rife with suiting atmosphere and difficult gameplay. It was much harder than the first game, which I liked, and even though I played through it a couple of times, it didn't leave me with a "been there, done that" feeling that so many other games did. Then, Skate or Die 2 came along and trumped its predecessor in many ways, offering a full storyline adventure in addition to the standalone skating events as well as adding in the "Double Trouble" half pipe, a massive structure that spanned two full game screens and let you pull off highly stylish (for the time) vert skating tricks. Although originally an arcade game, the NES port of Legendary Wings is especially welcome on the NES due to its cooperative mode, which allows you to experience the weirdness with a pal. A competitive one-versus-one shooter; outthink and outmaneuver your opponent. The NES's original adventure with Konami's cigarette-smoking, tough-as-nails commando, and the stealth action now most associated with PlayStation platforms was just as intense in the '80s as it is today. Thankfully, Sunsoft didn't throw this game into the dumpster after losing the Terminator license, because Journey to Silius is one of those seldom-played but everyone-should-play-it NES gems. The visuals are just a top down of the world map with scrolling text telling you the events that happen ... late 80's NES golden era. It's like someone took the Gradius series' Vic Viper and transformed it from a spaceship into a jet ski. 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. You have to deal with enemies galore and traps aplenty; the game even gave the player the option to kill his or her character off by pressing the Select button if they found themselves trapped or unable to proceed, a true testament to Lolo 3's deep and difficult gameplay built on a deceivingly-childlike facade. Platformers were my favorite genre during the 8-bit generation thanks to Mario and Alex Kidd, so why wouldn't I fall for Castlevania? When I wasn't burning my eyes in playing 3D Rad Racer on my brother's water bed I was wasting my life away with this shooter. Tecmo World Wrestling's main gameplay screen split the action, with the core wrestling taking place on the top half on the screen while the television's lower portion was dominated by the text bubbles of an overly enthusiastic ringside announcer calling all the play-by-play. This original and its sequel, Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II, are still fondly remembered by faithful Nintendo fans to this day for their unique and light-hearted twist on genre conventions. Friggin' troll, I've got only a copper coin! And that's where Lolo's difficult gameplay comes in, because it's getting those icons that are the true feat. 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. Pro-Am – without it, racing games might have just been all about steering and accelerating. An improvement over it's earlier incarnations, Tower Assault added a much more set-piece focused design as well as improved graphics and presentation, all the best elements still remained such as the adventuring style shops for upgrading weaponry and the great 2-player co-op mode. Your standard melee attack was a stabbing knife, with distance-attacking firearms available later on, but no matter what your armament, you had to be precise with your placement or cheap death was inevitable. Known as Dragon Quest in Japan, Dragon Warrior was one of the NES's early smash hits that didn't come from Nintendo itself, even though it was released nearly three years after it saw the light of day on its native Japanese Famicom. technology that allows it to flip from floor to ceiling with abandon. With the 8-bit rendition of the Cyndi Lauper theme from the movie blaring, lead Goony Mikey sets out to rescue the remaining kids, and, for some reason, a Mermaid, from the Fratelli family. Good luck finding a copy now that doesn't have a warped parchment…. Armed only with a brick-zapping raygun, your only defense in Lode Runner is the ability to bury your opponents alive, thus freeing them of an enticing pile of gold. Ice Climber's biggest claim to fame for its time, however, was the ability for two players to play the game simultaneously. No sooner would an unprepared adventurer leave a town and cross a bridge into a new area than he would find himself smashed by an enemy much stronger than he. Years before Yoshi first crammed a fat plumber on his back, Adventure Island II offered some of the coolest dinosaur wrangling in the business. Welcome to our Top 100 Best NES games. 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. And never got anywhere. Being the first Mega Man game with tangible secrets within, Mega Man 4 got a lot of playtime when I was a youngster. The original Mega Man is perhaps best-known, however, for its staggering difficulty level. 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. Who's Link? 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. From a technical standpoint, Metal Storm is something of a tour de force. But if you wait for the axe's power to fully recharge between swings, the individual swipes will pack more impact. Haha, the box art to this game was awful (just a guy that looks like Iceman from Top Gun with enormous sunglasses). First off, screw you Nintendo Nerd. You'll find a few other games that got thrust into the limelight the same way on this countdown, like VICE: Project Doom. 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