Blog:Grust's Top 10 Favorite NES Games

In 1983, a terrible evil swept through the gaming world, The North American Video Game Crash of 1983. This great evil was born through a combination of greed, oversaturation, lack of quality control, and really poor decisions. Dark clouds swept through the Gaming World nonstop for two years, until a light of hope broke through and brought light and life back to the land. That light was the Nintendo Entertainment System and close to 35 years later, is still regarded as not only one of the greatest consoles of all, but hands down the most important. Not only did it kick the Crash of 83 in the balls, but it brought us great I.P.s beloved to this very day. So in honor of its importance in gaming history, I'm going to look at what I think are the top 10 best games for the system. As before the game must be in my collection so even great games like the Megaman hexology or Metroid will be excluded. However, I'll be be removing my one game per franchise rule since well... Just read along and you'll see why.

10. Astyanax: In Greek mythology, Astyanax was the son of Hector, the crown prince of Troy. But in this game, Astyanax is a 16 year-old boy sent to a fantasy world to rescue the Princess from an evil sorcerer planning to drain her of magic and rule her kingdom. Astyanax wields a magic axe that transforms into a spear and later a sword. The spear is the weakest but allows Astyanax to use less magic points while the sword is the opposite, which lets you play how you want. It's also very story driven and there are some cutscenes. A shame this game is so obscure. Still it's not perfect as the jumping is not great.

9. Castlevania: A great franchise got its start here though sadly well... Konami. Anyway, this is among the first horror games to reach mass popularity and introduced horror games to a new audience. You play as Simon Belmont, destined to face Count Dracula and his legion of undead and demonic forces. While the jumping isn't great, the overall gameplay is still great with tough bosses, secondary items, and iconic monsters. The grim reaper himself works for Dracula. Dracula's second form may even be the original One Winged Angel when he transforms into a monstrous demon to defeat his mortal nemesis.

8. Dragon Warrior (AKA the original Dragon Quest): One of the very first JRPGs, this game set up a lot of basics we see in many great JRPGs and unlike Final Fantasy for NES, Dragon Warrior has aged better with less bugs. You play as the descendant of a hero that delivered a Ball of light to the kingdom, and is destined to face off against the evil Dragonlord who seeks to end an era of peace by stealing the Ball of Light. The ending of the game even sets up the sequel to the next 2 games. While some may call this simplistic by today's standards with much better gameplay in other JRPGs, I appreciate this game for helping to perfect the greatest video game genre ever.

7. Hogan's Alley: When people ask what's the best light gun game for NES, most would respond with Duck Hunt. If you'd ask me though, I'd go with Hogan's Alley. It's a police training simulation game where cardboard cutouts appear and you must react to see if they are threat or citizen. Making things complicated there's a timer forcing you to think fast. There are 3 different games available. First is a lineup where you must react quickly to shoot the gangster and avoid citizens. The second is a simulated city where you shoot gangsters at windows and doors. Finally a game where you shoot cans, which is stupidly easy. If you have a CRTV or technology that can make light guns work on a modern TV (they exist), give this game a shot.

6. Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link: I already discussed this in my Top 5 Crappy Games I Actually Like, so I'll be brief. This is the first Zelda game to have towns, a magic meter, and the only one that is an action RPG. I actually like this game so much I was shocked when I first heard that this game had a negative reception, though thankfully both AVGN and ProJared put an end to that. Hopefully.

5. Super Mario Bros. 2 (AKA the reskinned Doki Doki Panic): Technically this wasn't originally a Mario game but still a fun game. Each character has their strengths and weakness, Luigi jumps the highest, Mario's fastest, Toadstool (you know her now by Peach) floats, and Toad lifts the fastest. While this originated as Doki Doki Panic, several enemies in the game would become recurring characters, like Snifits, Shy Guys, and Birdo. Fun fact, the planned sequel for the panned Mario Bros. movie would have had Wart as the main villain. Even as a little kid, I had a feeling Wart would have been the main villain.

4. The Legend of Zelda: The game that started what is hands down my all time favorite franchise. Playing as Link, you must gather pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom and save Zelda from the evil Ganon. This is the first game ever to have battery back-up and one of the first games to fully focus on exploration, not counting Adventure on Atari 2600. This game is also very cryptic which started one of the very first video game hotlines to handle it. This also started the biggest reason I love Zelda, the secondary items which aid further in exploring the environment. While not my absolute favorite Zelda game (those go to Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time), I hold this game in deepest respect.

3. Super Mario Bros.: The NES didn't end the Crash of 83 on its own. Hardware is only truly great for software and the software that helped to end the evil Crash is Super Mario Bros. AVGN calls Super Mario Bros. the time tested approved way to make a side-scroling platform game and often references it when criticizing a bad feature in a shitty game. This game is so beloved that it is iconic even in modern gaming with the Mario in this game being featured in Super Mario Odyssey. I mean what can I say about this game that hasn't already been said. It's simply a masterpiece and probably without any doubt the most important video game ever made. If this is only 3 though imagine the last two then :)

2. Super Mario Bros 3: Often regarded as the greatest NES game of all time, Super Mario Bros. 3 took what was awesome about the first games and cranked it up to 11 with so many upgrades. In addition to improved graphics, the game is much bigger with 8 Countries with numerous stages in between making for a much bigger game. Even more, while the mushroom and fire flower make their return, numerous new power-up appear including the leaf which gives us Raccoon Mario, a tanooki suit that has the flight abilities of the Raccoon but also lets Mario turn into a statue to evade enemies, a frog suit for faster swimming, and many more. I said this before but the amount of variety in this game makes me love it more than Super Mario World.

Honorable Mentions

 * Bucky O'Hare: Awesome game and a must-own but leaving off the list for being Konami's answer to Megaman.
 * Sweet Home: Japanese only and I don't own, but it helped inspire modern survival horror (second favorite video game genre) especially Resident Evil, so it deserves a mention.
 * Any of the Disney Capcom games: Already discussed in my Top 10 Favorite Video Game Franchises so I'll leave off the list.
 * Karnov: Possibly the first video game I ever beat so wanted to give a mention. It's either that or Capcom's The Little Mermaid.
 * Duck Hunt: Still a good light gun game, even if I prefer Hogan's Alley.
 * Ninja Gaiden trilogy: Awesome series of games, but hard as Hell.
 * Final Fantasy: Started what is often regard as the greatest JRPG franchise of all time, but with numerous ports fixing some bugs, the NES version has aged poorly. Still deserves a mention for its importance to gaming.

Okay onto number 1.

And my number 1 Favorite NES Game is..

Oh come one you know what it is.

1. Contra: I LOVE THIS GAME!!! This shows how you can have a great challenging game even with very fluent controls. Playing as a soldier (2 with 2 players), you must stop a terrorist organization and the alien menace controlling them. Control as said before is extremely fluent, numerous power-ups (spread forver, laser never), nonstop enemies to gun down, and one of the first games to utilize the Konami code for 30 extra lives. If you begin playing this game, the code is necessary, but once you get much better, I urge you to beat it without. Anyone who does deserves to have the title, Retro Gamer. For giving great challenge while still having very fluent controls, I consider Contra my all time favorite NES.

As always, if you have a favorite NES game, let me know in the comments.

