Did they borrow from our dear friend, Mario? Possibly. The Hudson’s Adventure Island games on NES are underrated classics. But if you can only play one, this is where it all started. The truth is, if you’re diving into the world of the NES, you should absolutely play both Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden II. The memorable levels are seared into the brains of players and if you’re remembering 8-bit Ninja Gaiden there’s a good chance it’s the first instalment that has captured your attention. The degree of challenge in the game is memorable, and despite being one of the most frustrating games of all time to play from a difficulty perspective, it’s that same phenomenon that brings players back again and again. That said, the original Ninja Gaiden is, in some ways, far more iconic. It expands the game mythology and has a slightly more even scale of difficulty across the game than its predecessor. Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos is regarded by some as the best in the series. Selecting a single Ninja Gaiden title to appear on a list is a chore.
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Gamers new to the series via the popular Netflix animated series that are interested in exploring the game’s roots could definitely use this as a starting point. Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse is regarded as the best entry on the NES console due to diverse ways of navigating the game with the addition of companion characters. In general, the gameplay is a little slower and the narrative far more gothic. Acknowledging this, the Castlevania series has a very different look and feel than Metroid. The gameplay of both franchises actually spawned the title Metroidvania in gaming culture to describe the niche games like Hollow Knight fill. It’s fitting that this entry from the popular Castlevania series lands near Metroid on our list. Metroid really earned the devoted fanbase it sports today. No matter how fast you do or don’t complete the game, the game is an absolute blast! It has the holy gaming trinity of good sound, great graphics, and tight controls. The game also has varying endings based on completion time making it one of the earliest titles to be popular for speedrunning. This scifi shooter that (sometimes annoyingly) requires players to traverse a winding map searching for powerups to unlock new locations is one of the first games to feature a female protagonist in Samus Aran. With hordes of fans today eagerly awaiting the new side-scrolling release on Nintendo’s Switch console, 2021 is really the perfect time to revisit this classic. The word is probably overused, but Metroid is truly epic. The scaling difficulty of the game is fantastic, and although obviously a product of a bygone era, Punch-Out!! is still really fun to play today.
It’s one of the early examples of celebrity game endorsement, has great graphics with huge onscreen characters, features fun gameplay, and has an obligatory appearance by Mario himself. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! really has everything. Otherwise our top 10 would probably end up as a redundant Mario and Megaman stream of consciousness. For inquiring minds wanting to know, we did limit franchises like Super Mario Bros. Ranking the 10 best NES titles of all time is a huge undertaking, but we’re ready to feature the best of the best for your enjoyment. The collector market is healthy and the console even appears in backgrounds of newsrooms and livestream personalities. It has a massive catalog of games spanning racers like RC Pro-Am to puzzlers like Tetris, and even niche ports like Bubble Bobble. Today, the NES is possibly the most legendary console of all time. This series of events would inform Nintendo’s corporate viewpoint going forward and gave birth to the company name being synonymous with gaming and gaming exclusives.
This gave breathing time for a redesign of the Japanese Famicom toploader system into an NES that would mirror popular tape decks of the time with a frontloading system that was more appealing and interactive. Not many realise the console almost released in North America as an Atari product, but a last-minute contract dispute over exclusivity that arose from Donkey Kong’s presence on the Colecovision console at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in 1983, combined with a later executive shakeup at Atari, forced Nintendo to ultimately release a console on their own. Its North American platform development between 19 saw decisions that determined the fate of console gaming for decades to come. The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) single-handedly authored the future of videogames with its US nationwide release in 1986.