Top Nintendo Entertainment System Games

The original, the best. Here we are on Friday and we finally come back to the NES and a top 15 games for it. There were around 700 games for the system and given Nintendo's strict licensing and control systems...that was a remarkable number of games and variety. Without further ado,

15. The Adventure of Link - This game may not have made the list until the past couple of years when I got on a quest to beat a lot of older games I could not stand or be good at as a kid. While I still believe it was a huge mistake to change Zelda to a completely different style of game, the game is pretty well done for what it is. Zelda 2 also happens to be one of the hardest games in Nintendo history because the controls were kind of tough to get good at consistently.

14. TMNT 2: The Arcade Game - Like Street Fighter for the SNES, TMNT 2 stole many quarters from me and others in the arcade era. TMNT 2 is not a great single-player game, but partying with one other player (or 3 others in the arcade) was what made the game awesome. How can you beat finally giving Shredder the heave-ho as well? The only thing keeping this game out of the top 10 was the fact that on the NEW you couldn't play with 4 turtles at once.

13. Galaga - While this game may have been much more cool back in the arcade or back on the atari, the space invader battle game was simple enough to get good at and challenging enough to keep players coming back for more. There's nothing like the outbursts you have when your double-ship gets plowed by kamikaze alien forces or you mess up when trying to make a double ship. Sometimes the most simple games are the best.

12. Dr. Mario - This game is another that might suffer from me not being introduced to it until recently. I had originally thought this was a Nintendo knockoff of Tetris, but the game is an amazing 2-player battle which Tetris did not offer. You can up the intensity and handicap the players, all aspects of making a tetris-type game into something even better. This game is reaching legendary status on our bowling team.

11. Metroid - Again just recently playing this game, but the game that started the Metroid series in 1985 is amazingly well-designed. The gameplay is simple and challenging, but all the power-ups and add-ons (missiles, morph ball mode, etc.) that are so amazing when done in 3D in the Prime series were thought up in 1985 for the 2D original. It's actually amazing there were not more of these games over time, but we will always have the original thanks to downloading it on the Wii.

10. Marble Madness - While I realize that I'm in the severe minority by putting this "stupid marble race game" above games like Metroid, this is a game I've always been fascinated with. It is a successful concept too as Super Monkey Ball ran with it on the GCN and just this month there's a Marble Madness type race game on the Wii. While there are only 6-7 levels and they are easily memorized, the game is still challenging to get through today. What really made the game was the 2-player race mode.

9. Disney's Adventure of the Magic Kingdom - There were a couple of kiddy games that ended up being really good for the NES (Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers being the other), but this game had it all and then some. Not only did this game make fun battles out of 6 of the most famous DisneyWorld rides, it remains challenging today. The variety in the games was also refreshing.

8. Tecmo Super Bowl - If there's one thing you can see from my game collection, I love playing sports games and always have. Unfortunately they get dated every single year by the newest and updated version, and old system sports games fade into obscurity when looking at the top games in retrospect. This game breaks from that mold though and was the absolute shit back in the day. The quintessential football game on the NES remains playable and fun today.

7. Super Mario Bros. - I've seen this game on the top of many NES lists, but these people are simply delusional in my opinion. This game is great, but it was just the beginning on the NES. The game has lots of replay value, but you do get so good at it eventually that it is not really challenging. This is still the game that hooked us all into the revolution of gaming that was Nintendo and the lovable plumber platformers. Our princess is indeed in another (later) castle on this system.

6. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out - Whether it is Mr. Dream or Mike Tyson, this game is the only real good boxing game until the Wii allowed us all to actually punch and dodge. While Glass Joe and Soda Popinsky are some of the biggest jokes ever, learning how to combat and getting good at beating fighters with great special moves like Bald Bull, King Hippo, and the dude with the turban and tiger was a tough challenge and fun at the same time. This game also kind of channels the spirit of Rocky movies in my opinion...in any event beating on boxers was always a great way to let off steam on the NES.

5. Final Fantasy - One of the more disappointing yet awesome moments of the past 4 years was when my dad found a sealed copy of this game at a yard sale. Yes sealed. Yes a yard sale. Absolutely unbelievable, as there might not be 25 other sealed copies of this game in existence. What was disappointing was he broke the seal wrap and tried the game out, not liking it and giving it to me. Well I was happy to have the box and book and everything in mint condition, but still...this is the RPG that blew open the RPG market. Good characters and varied gameplay allowed this classic to spawn the most famous series of games in the past 20 years.

4. The Magic of Scheherazade - While Final Fantasy gets all the credit and deservedly so, this RPG was actually the only one I got into back in the NES days. This little hardly known gem was certainly one of the best games on the NES as far as gameplay and depth and difficulty go. There was also plenty of comedic value in pissing off the shopkeepers by making low offers on their goods multiple times until they kicked you out of their store. The title of the game is nearly unspellable and copies of the game are damn near impossible to find now, but it's worth it if you ever see one.

3. Tetris - From Russia With Fun. This play on the famous movie title really was fun as the Cold War was just beginning to wrap up. This Russian block dropping game was so addictive and fun (the Sudoku of its days for you young kids out there) that it actually led to worried companies because worker productivity was down due to people playing this game obsessively. The only downside was no 2 player mode, but the game is still iconic and good enough to overcome that.

2. Super Mario Bros. 3 - This game was the most expensive and hard-to-get game in NES history because Nintendo hyped up the release and did the worst of their short stocking of stores for this game. It was still worth the $65-70 dollars retail stores demanded for it (after this game Nintendo went to a $50 price for everything that has not changed in 20 years and is now pretty affordable). This update of the classic SMB platformer had better graphics, more items, inventive levels, and nice controls and music. The thing that keeps this game super-playable though is the fact that you can play it in a co-op 2 player mode instead of the independent 2 players in competition for SMB 1. One of the best games ever made, this game set the bar high for all future Mario games (and has only been matched in awesomeness by Super Mario 64...but high hopes for Super Mario Galaxy).

1. The Legend of Zelda - Unlike SMB 3, this game is not loved as much overall because it is not a kid's game and not a casual gamer's kind of game. For someone like me though the Zelda game is the best you could get for an adventure battle kind of game, and it was unique and smooth in its creativity. Zelda and Mario have to be one and two in any NES discussion, and the genius of S. Miyamoto in bringing both these games to light is unparalleled in game design even today. The original Zelda had plenty of depth and difficulty to make it hard to get through over and over again, so the replay value is high even today. For a single player game on the NES, it doesn't get any better than this.

So now it is finished. You've seen my top lists this week for all the various Nintendo systems, so feel free to comment and tell me how you would rank them. But enough talking about the Nintendo, it's time to go play some of these old classics and solve my craving. Have a great long weekend!