Can you do games you wish you did not learn how to play , no one has done this. Friday the 13th , Roger Rabbit like best game ever but once you learn how to play not so much.
I would love to see a part 2 of this with the color dreams games just to see your opinion on them. Any video you make on NES, I will very likely watch it. Anything for more NES. :D
I remember my mom renting me where's Waldo when I was sick. I was so disappointed. She felt bad and went back out to get another game. Even she realized how terrible it was.
The best part of being sick, was missing school, while my mother made me Chicken Noodle Soup before going to work. Then playing SMB3 and Punch on the NES. It was back in 2010, we got the NES for cheap and everything was old school. Man the congestion sucked, but my parents took care of us even when they had busy schedules.
The whole strategy of "not getting punched" you described in George Foreman's KO boxing is pretty much the strategy I try to use every day in the real world. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but it helps to have a strategy.
The NES was my first console, but I was also born almost a decade after its launch and we only had a few games-so watching your channel over the past few years has been a special treat! Thanks man!
Piazza got him back. They were on the same team at the All Star Game a few years later and Piazza supposedly told the batters which pitches were coming. Clemens got torched in that game. ha ha ha
I had a lot of fun playing this version on the snes. Once you get used to the screen change it ramps up your response time and the game is fast paced. Not like the typical snes baseball games where the cpu would shell you.
Praised on Apple II as well. I'm pretty sure that the NES game is a port of The Last Ninja 2. Either the port is badly done, or console gamers just don't appreciate this style of game for some reason.
Didn't he have that game as a kid or something and so he has a weird amount of nostalgia for it? I swear I heard that. May not have been Pat who said it though
I bought the damn game as a kid and I hated every minute of it. I was so pissed off with not being aboe to get far into the game I used a game genie to beat it. Once I realized where to go and what to do it didnt seam so bad. Just honestly the game was a fkn nightmare!
I give Deadly Towers negative 10 stars. One summer the only new games me and my sis had were T&C Surf and Skate, Solamans Key, and Deadly Towers. I really put time into DT, but...damn.
Hydlide originally came out on Japanese computers in December of 1984 whereas the NES version came out on the US in June 1989 making it appear far more dated than it actually was at the original time of release.
I'm noticing a lot of these games have pretty good graphics for the time. Makes you wonder if they focused more on that than game play and that's where it went wrong. You can see graphics on the box and maybe that was all they thought they needed for sales.
@@danielespeziari5545 I disagree. These bad games are so much worse than the bad games we have today or even back on the playstation. And it is only becoming easier to make games look nice.
Hey, Riggo. I'm 44, so I can relate so well to your memories of growing up with some of this stuff. I was really sick as a child, and had to stay home from school for about a week. My mom let me rent a couple of games from the local store, so I could do something with my brain. I rented Back to the Future and The 3 Stooges. I'd have rather gotten my friends sick and done sentence diagramming. Do they even teach how to diagram a sentence anymore?
Even though your Deck Enhancer blew up under mysterious circumstances, I’d love to see you review the games on The Aladdin Deck Enhancer. Or the Camerica cartridges!
Roger Clemons MVP Baseball for the NES is actually my favorite baseball game of all time. I had it growing up (still do), and played it ALL THE TIME. I've since come to find out, that I'm about the only person who feels this way about that game. :)
So my thoughts on the Jekyll and Hyde game. It was developed by the same people who made Rygar. It wasn't that they couldn't make a fun game. It's that Jekyll and Hyde was too ambitious of a game, especially for it's time. I'm sure a game like Jekyll and Hyde would be fantastic if it were made today.
Oh my! Had endless fun with Classic Concentration! Long story short… I played so much as a kid I could solve so many of the puzzles with just 2 or 4 tiles revealed. And my bro would never play against me in it. I could see where some of the annoyances of the game would ding it on the rating, but not one star!
Its other problem is it came out well before Zelda on PC in Japan (1984). It was a popular/revolutionary game... but was released in the US on NES in 1989 when it was obviously dated and lack that context.
Remember when you would pour over instruction booklets while waiting to FINALLY play the game you'd bought/rented? Hydlide was SUCH disappointment when I finally turned it on. I was ready for an RPG or Zelda clone...
Hydlide came out on Japanese computer before either Zelda 1 or Dragon Warrior. Those games were influenced by Hydlide, not the other way around. Zelda actually copied some mechanics, like burning trees, straight from Hydlide.
@@PCGamer77 Yes, but the context is lost if I use a title like, "Heart of Fantasy." The audience for my comment was individuals who are familiar with North American NES games.
So lucky that I was recommended this! My aunt and I love to watch the Classic Consentration reruns on Buzzr, and we would love to play the NES version!
I remember Wayne Gretzky’s hockey to be especially disappointing. I mean, Blades of Steel was out there and Ice Hockey ruled, too. This, however, was a steaming piece.
I noticed you mentioned Blades of Steel in your comment. While it was an excellent game it was far very much a game of its time *1987. By the time Wayne Gretzky's Hockey: NHLPA Allstars came out there were much better offerings. The best hockey games from that time period were NHL 91-NHL 94 for the Sega Genesis. The Snes had a rough start with the NHL series until NHLPA 93. From that point forward both versions were the gold standard for hockey games. Addendum- If you haven't played any of them before you're in luck. NHL 94 was so damn good EA re-released it with modern rosters for like 5 bucks on all Xbox and Playstation consoles. Well...I haven't tried to play it on out PS5 but it works on the Series X.
Would have definitely given Back to the Future Part II & III a 2 instead of a 1. Most of the stuff I'm okay with. I love the exploration and running into the landmarks from the trilogy. But it's another game that implements the one-hit kills rule, plus the fact that this is a long game with no real way to record your progress. No save battery or password feature. There were times where I'd play this game, get very far, only for something to happen, which caused the game to get shut off and all progress be lost. But at least I did one day make it to part three which you're given a password to play that part. A great idea on paper, but only half executed.
FLUX CAPACITOR IS THE POWER i played II for a bit, didn't get far, then just figured this part out by playing with letters, figuring i could spell FLUX CAPACITOR, then filling in the blanks
I don't fully agree that a game shouldn't need a game manual to be playable; I think it's ideal, but there are some great games that really need the manual to make them more approachable. That said, this was a fun rundown, and I also love Rambo!
i like rambo too. my friend had it growing up he could never get anywhere but i borrowed it and beat it. your right it is vania like a lot of memorization
Maybe I'm biased because I have a lifelong neurodivergent hyperfixation on game shows, but I believe Classic Concentration absolutely deserves more than one star. It's my favorite game show game on the NES, mainly because of the bonus round. Winning a car in this game is just about the most uniquely difficult thing you'll do in a Nintendo game, and it is SO satisfying when you finally do.
I believe Wrestlemania should be on the list. Not only does it play terribly but in game Hulk Hogan wears red trunks. They got his look (well minus the facial features) right on the title screen!
"1star is justified because you shouldn't need to pick up a manual" is kinda a weird statement for a AD&D game... because it basically is "Manual the game"
Super Pitfall gets a bad rap because of AVGN. The truth is, yes, it's difficult and requires tiral and error, but it is also the largest truly open world game on the NES and there are many different ways you can achieve your objectives. It emphasizes exploration and the willingness to take risks, and isn't nearly as janky as AVGN made it out to be. I've never seen a major glitch in the game and I've beaten it several times.
OK, not even one minute in and I love this video! LOL, Heroes of the Lance STUNK. I remember thinking it was gonna be so cool, because I was (and am) a big fan of the DragonLance books, but I was sorely disappointed. I couldn't figure out what the hell to do, lol
I like the book, but I always feel more sorry about Ian and Pat hating on Battletoads. Which is one my two favorite NES games. As for these games, I have no huge objections, although you're probably right Rambo is better than one star. I also remember playing Hillsfar and thinking it was interesting although not executed very well. Its one of those games with ambition at least.
Battletoads was awesome to play... it was just so damn HARD. I could never get past the jet ski section as a kid. I finally did on an emulator, only to get stuck in a later stage where my keyboard can't superjump, so I'm stuck in a pipe.
@@Swiftbow Yeah, I think I know the level. Battletoads is very very hard, but also very good. I don't think that is a problem if one is willing to "get guud", but I can understand those liked it but got stuck on level 3 (over 90% did, it seems). The difficult spike probably went up to high... a good game if you get into it though!
I un-ironically like George Foreman KO boxing. We had around 10-15 nes games as a kid and never got more because technology progressed and i played it a ton. I need to revisit it , but I remember as a kid thinking it was hard but so satisfying when i finally beat the whole game
I am going through each NES game in the library, and I swear, these games are pretty much developed by Satan. Once you get into SNES territory and further, it's unbelievable how easier games get the more you advance. Most NES games were so difficult that I even greatly struggled with cheats turned on. In fact, I've used cheats pretty much on 98% of the games I've played. Games off the top of my head I did not use cheats was Maniac Mansion, Deja Vu, Uninvited, and Doki Doki Panic.
Many of the NES games were arcade ports, which are designed to eat quarters, not really provide a balanced game. It's strengths are the native games, like Mega Man and Super Mario, with some of the PC ports being pretty good for the day as well (a lot of western style RPGs got ported, including Wizardry, Might and Magic 1, and more).
@@drg5352 They also used increased difficulty to make games last longer, since NES cartridges can't contain all that much data. (Especially the early ones.) They found pretty clever ways to stretch the limited memory, but it was always a factor.
I played Rambo as a kid some. As I recall, none of my friends thought it was a terrible game. Super Pitfall is the only game here that I beat, and if it did not have Pitfall in the name, then I never would have bothered.
Me and my friends had so much fun with Hilsfar, it was one of our goto sleepover rentals. Although it consists mostly of a single town, it was one of the first "open world" games I ever played. The game is a little aimless, and we never had a manual so it could be very confusing, still we'd always come back for more. I later picked up the DOS version, and realized the game doubles as a trainer for characters you can load in from your other gold box D&D games. In fact, that seems to be the whole point.
Shoutout to Pat the NES Punk for creating the Ultimate Nintendo guide. I'm sure JohnRiggs appreciated Pat for making the book feel so heavy in his hands (and on his head lol).
Ironically in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde you *are* supposed to get hurt, just not too soon. Hyde has a boss that you need to get rid of for the ideal ending (and also to purge the last map of enemies), but if Hyde catches up to Jekyll before then you explode.
The concept of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is just a little much for a NES game. The Jekyll parts of the game aren't so much enemies as just day to day occurrences that annoy him. When he's annoyed enough, he turns into Hyde. But, if he stay Hyde too long (ie, catches up to Jekyll's position), he loses himself to rage and "explodes." I played it on an emulator, but I didn't realize there were multiple endings! Fascinating.
I confirm that Alien 3 is quite an enjoyable game, especially for the great music. It features even some kind of dark atmosphere who really belongs to the Alien movies.
@@charleybarley7148 that's interesting, because I've never tried the Genesis (Mega Drive for we europeans) version! Is it good as the SNES version or even better?
@@retrojoe85 I personally feel that the Genesis version is the better 16-bit game (more action; less redundant). But, this might be the nostalgia talking (at least in part).
@@charleybarley7148 I understand perfectly, nostalgia is a brutal factor when it comes to be transparent in being objective. It happens to everyone, myself included.
There was only 1 game I had on here Super Pitfall and I gave it a chance and did enjoy getting really close to the end of the game. My friend had 3 games on the list and I know he did like them. Rambo was a game he played a lot and I seen him play Roger Clemon's Baseball and Where's Waldo a bunch of times. I guess back then we only got like one new game a month so we had to play it with the ones we already were playing so that we did keep trying games. Most games I wouldn't want to play again unless for nostalgia. It brings me back to a very happy time in my life when I wasn't working and hung out with friends.
AVGN has already done some great videos about many of these games over the years. Especially "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." That game is the bane of AVGN's existence! LOL Plus, Pat Contri AKA The NES Punk, wrote the NES book featured here.
I feel we tolerated more crappy games than we would today as that was a lot of our first home consoles and only got so many games. I played the heck out of Rambo especially once I figured out what I was doing. I played ghostbusters more than I should have but the stairs were awful unless you had a turbo controller.
I have fond memories of Nintendo, but perhaps they were doing quantity over quality at a certain point. They also seemed quite content to not upgrade their system. Who knows how many more years it may have been if Sega hadn't have pushed them?
I like the Roger Clemens game on the SNES and it looks very similar if you get past the odd setup it has for fielding it can be pretty fun. I certainly got my 1.99 that I paid for a used copy out of it on the SNES.
I had a friend obsessed with the Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde game (along with Hydlide), but was the type who had to beat every hard game he could find, especially if it was horror themed. Ghostbusters was awesome on Commodore 64, pretty bad on any other system. Now Hydlide I did find fun playing on the Retron 5 so that you cannot die and internetting what to do next. Ninja on C-64 was a lot of fun. Massive disappoint on The Last Starfighter, awful awful awful. Worse than NFL football was NES Play Action Football, isometric, even worse than Atari 2600 Football. Robocop 2 arcade version is awesome. Rocket Ranger looked awesome on Amiga 500, but the controls made it stupid-hard. Thanks for the review!
I love that one of the answers to a quiz question in an NES game is "Nancy Sinatra" hahaha. Who's next for the kids to guess the name of? Chubby Checker?
Hillsfar was part of a trilogy but was the only one ported to Nes. There was Pool of Radiance and my favorite Curse of the Azure Bonds. You can transfer your character party from one game into the next.
It's so weird, The Last Starfighter is a port of the game Uridium on the C64, and on that system, it's an 8/10 on lemon64, usually quite well respected, but apparently awful on the NES? Very strange!
20 NES Games Nobody Talks About - ruclips.net/video/eBWYlk2uSR8/видео.html
Love the nes awesome games for its time ✌️
Can you do games you wish you did not learn how to play , no one has done this. Friday the 13th , Roger Rabbit like best game ever but once you learn how to play not so much.
You have landed John the scammers have infiltrated your channel. Congratulations! Lol
*Awesome to meet you at SEGE years ago, and I love to the see that Gameboy GameFrame!!!*
S/O to the man @JohnRiggs !!
I would love to see a part 2 of this with the color dreams games just to see your opinion on them. Any video you make on NES, I will very likely watch it. Anything for more NES. :D
I remember my mom renting me where's Waldo when I was sick. I was so disappointed. She felt bad and went back out to get another game. Even she realized how terrible it was.
The best part of being sick, was missing school, while my mother made me Chicken Noodle Soup before going to work. Then playing SMB3 and Punch on the NES. It was back in 2010, we got the NES for cheap and everything was old school. Man the congestion sucked, but my parents took care of us even when they had busy schedules.
Dassa good mum.
Good moms know the healing power of the NES.
Moms: Going beyond the call of duty for as long as anyone can remember.
The whole strategy of "not getting punched" you described in George Foreman's KO boxing is pretty much the strategy I try to use every day in the real world. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't, but it helps to have a strategy.
Everyone has a “strategy” until they get hit…. Mike Tyson.
Played this at my friend's as a kid. Loved it but it is hard as hell
The NES was my first console, but I was also born almost a decade after its launch and we only had a few games-so watching your channel over the past few years has been a special treat! Thanks man!
I laughed when John apologized to Roger Clemens when panning his game. Lessens the chance that Clemens will throw a bat shard at him.
Hilarious! Piazza should have kicked his butt!
Wasn't Clemens a pitcher? Sorry I'm not a baseball fan lol.
@@m00k61He was a roided up pitcher who threw a piece of a broken bat at Mike Piazza.
Piazza got him back. They were on the same team at the All Star Game a few years later and Piazza supposedly told the batters which pitches were coming. Clemens got torched in that game. ha ha ha
I had a lot of fun playing this version on the snes. Once you get used to the screen change it ramps up your response time and the game is fast paced. Not like the typical snes baseball games where the cpu would shell you.
I love Rambo for NES, the music was fantastic and the game was decent.
The Last Ninja was a Commodore 64 game and one of the greatest and most praised ones!
Praised on Apple II as well. I'm pretty sure that the NES game is a port of The Last Ninja 2. Either the port is badly done, or console gamers just don't appreciate this style of game for some reason.
Chubby Cherub is my one star. I can still hear my mother playing it in the other room, swearing when she died calling poor Chubby Cherub a turdbird.
Actually amazed Pat didn't give Deadly Towers one star (or less)
That one is probably a 2 star game… I semi liked it when I was a kid, but even then I knew it was pretty bad. Same thing I feel about Karnov.
Deadly Towers is at least twice as playable as the 1 star Heroes Of The Lance, ergo 2 stars 😆
Didn't he have that game as a kid or something and so he has a weird amount of nostalgia for it? I swear I heard that. May not have been Pat who said it though
I bought the damn game as a kid and I hated every minute of it. I was so pissed off with not being aboe to get far into the game I used a game genie to beat it. Once I realized where to go and what to do it didnt seam so bad. Just honestly the game was a fkn nightmare!
I give Deadly Towers negative 10 stars. One summer the only new games me and my sis had were T&C Surf and Skate, Solamans Key, and Deadly Towers. I really put time into DT, but...damn.
Hydlide originally came out on Japanese computers in December of 1984 whereas the NES version came out on the US in June 1989 making it appear far more dated than it actually was at the original time of release.
I'm noticing a lot of these games have pretty good graphics for the time. Makes you wonder if they focused more on that than game play and that's where it went wrong. You can see graphics on the box and maybe that was all they thought they needed for sales.
Good point
Good graphics are a great way to distract players from awful gameplay. This technique became even more widespread in later eras
A bunch of those late release licensed/movie games look great but just play terribly.
@@dpgreene yeah was gonna say I think it's just because they were late releases they look decent.
@@danielespeziari5545 I disagree. These bad games are so much worse than the bad games we have today or even back on the playstation. And it is only becoming easier to make games look nice.
The Last Starfighter is a reskin/rework of Uridium on the C64. Notice it’s Graftgold as the Dev on the start screen.
Hey, Riggo. I'm 44, so I can relate so well to your memories of growing up with some of this stuff.
I was really sick as a child, and had to stay home from school for about a week. My mom let me rent a couple of games from the local store, so I could do something with my brain.
I rented Back to the Future and The 3 Stooges.
I'd have rather gotten my friends sick and done sentence diagramming.
Do they even teach how to diagram a sentence anymore?
I really like Classic Concentration too. It was a great gameshow growing up and a great game on the NES.
The where's waldo music is forever engrained in my brain.
Even though your Deck Enhancer blew up under mysterious circumstances, I’d love to see you review the games on The Aladdin Deck Enhancer. Or the Camerica cartridges!
Hydlide actually has a modern spiritual successor in the Fairune series, with a simplified but mostly identical gameplay experience.
Great video! I had no idea the PAL version of Dragon's Lair moves faster! I gotta check it out!
John, I appreciate how, while your videos have a theme, you do a great job of coming up with new ideas and keep it interesting.
Roger Clemons MVP Baseball for the NES is actually my favorite baseball game of all time. I had it growing up (still do), and played it ALL THE TIME. I've since come to find out, that I'm about the only person who feels this way about that game. :)
I've been craving a video like this! Everyone talks about top ten this, top then that. Cool idea! Can you do more systems? Love the content.
I always thought Rambo looked exactly like Ricky the Dragon Steamboat LOL
So my thoughts on the Jekyll and Hyde game. It was developed by the same people who made Rygar. It wasn't that they couldn't make a fun game. It's that Jekyll and Hyde was too ambitious of a game, especially for it's time. I'm sure a game like Jekyll and Hyde would be fantastic if it were made today.
I was amazed watching AVGN play the whole thing.
It was so complex and challenging!
I feel like Hydlide should get a 2 out of 5.
Oh my! Had endless fun with Classic Concentration! Long story short… I played so much as a kid I could solve so many of the puzzles with just 2 or 4 tiles revealed. And my bro would never play against me in it. I could see where some of the annoyances of the game would ding it on the rating, but not one star!
Hydlide's problem is that everyone thinks it's a Zelda clone when it's actually a Dragon Warrior game where all the combat is simulated.
Its other problem is it came out well before Zelda on PC in Japan (1984). It was a popular/revolutionary game... but was released in the US on NES in 1989 when it was obviously dated and lack that context.
Reminds me more of YS
Remember when you would pour over instruction booklets while waiting to FINALLY play the game you'd bought/rented? Hydlide was SUCH disappointment when I finally turned it on. I was ready for an RPG or Zelda clone...
Hydlide came out on Japanese computer before either Zelda 1 or Dragon Warrior. Those games were influenced by Hydlide, not the other way around. Zelda actually copied some mechanics, like burning trees, straight from Hydlide.
@@PCGamer77 Yes, but the context is lost if I use a title like, "Heart of Fantasy." The audience for my comment was individuals who are familiar with North American NES games.
I LOVE that book & the SNES version!!!!
Hopefully they make a N64 version 🤞🤞
Pat said he's making a certain N64 book!👏
Literally all the Ultima games have that camera angle after 4 lol, they're all good, too. The PC version definitely looks like it plays better though
So lucky that I was recommended this! My aunt and I love to watch the Classic Consentration reruns on Buzzr, and we would love to play the NES version!
5:55 Home Alone could be a great game rebooted as a survival booby trap strategy game. Nice vid!
Color a dinosaur is awesome. Thanks for not showing more footage of it though, wouldn't want to give anyone seizures 😅
I always liked Classic Concentration. It's faithful to the show and that's all it needs to do so I don't agree with the low rating.
I remember Wayne Gretzky’s hockey to be especially disappointing. I mean, Blades of Steel was out there and Ice Hockey ruled, too. This, however, was a steaming piece.
I noticed you mentioned Blades of Steel in your comment. While it was an excellent game it was far very much a game of its time *1987. By the time Wayne Gretzky's Hockey: NHLPA Allstars came out there were much better offerings. The best hockey games from that time period were NHL 91-NHL 94 for the Sega Genesis. The Snes had a rough start with the NHL series until NHLPA 93. From that point forward both versions were the gold standard for hockey games.
Addendum- If you haven't played any of them before you're in luck. NHL 94 was so damn good EA re-released it with modern rosters for like 5 bucks on all Xbox and Playstation consoles. Well...I haven't tried to play it on out PS5 but it works on the Series X.
Riggs talking about contris book is like hogan and savage forming the Mega Powers. We aren’t ready for it.
haha, it's a great book!
Would have definitely given Back to the Future Part II & III a 2 instead of a 1. Most of the stuff I'm okay with. I love the exploration and running into the landmarks from the trilogy. But it's another game that implements the one-hit kills rule, plus the fact that this is a long game with no real way to record your progress. No save battery or password feature. There were times where I'd play this game, get very far, only for something to happen, which caused the game to get shut off and all progress be lost. But at least I did one day make it to part three which you're given a password to play that part. A great idea on paper, but only half executed.
FLUX CAPACITOR IS THE POWER
i played II for a bit, didn't get far, then just figured this part out by playing with letters, figuring i could spell FLUX CAPACITOR, then filling in the blanks
I don't fully agree that a game shouldn't need a game manual to be playable; I think it's ideal, but there are some great games that really need the manual to make them more approachable. That said, this was a fun rundown, and I also love Rambo!
i like rambo too. my friend had it growing up he could never get anywhere but i borrowed it and beat it. your right it is vania like a lot of memorization
Good video! Robocop 2 always amazes me with the "ice" walk. Like who in their right mind thought sliding through levels on ice skates was fine?
As someone who watched NES streamers a lot, this video is fantastic.
3:47 “unfortunately it isnt so unfortunately it is”. Put that on your tombstone
Just want to point out that, from the thumbnail, you look like the alternate reality version of High Pitch Eric.
Keep up the great work Mr Riggs! I really like your honesty and lack of drama when doing your reviews. Love your videos man!
I also love Rambo. The backgrounds and levels are kinda trippy and cool.
Surprised X-Men got such a high rating.
Maybe I'm biased because I have a lifelong neurodivergent hyperfixation on game shows, but I believe Classic Concentration absolutely deserves more than one star. It's my favorite game show game on the NES, mainly because of the bonus round. Winning a car in this game is just about the most uniquely difficult thing you'll do in a Nintendo game, and it is SO satisfying when you finally do.
That book balancing on your head, I can see you completed Finishing School. You're so proper
I believe Wrestlemania should be on the list. Not only does it play terribly but in game Hulk Hogan wears red trunks. They got his look (well minus the facial features) right on the title screen!
What a kick in the teeth Dragon's Lair was.
I also really like Rambo!
How am I feeling? Much better since I'm watching a John Riggs video
"1star is justified because you shouldn't need to pick up a manual" is kinda a weird statement for a AD&D game... because it basically is "Manual the game"
Super Pitfall gets a bad rap because of AVGN. The truth is, yes, it's difficult and requires tiral and error, but it is also the largest truly open world game on the NES and there are many different ways you can achieve your objectives. It emphasizes exploration and the willingness to take risks, and isn't nearly as janky as AVGN made it out to be. I've never seen a major glitch in the game and I've beaten it several times.
I always enjoyed Magic Johnson's Fast Break. To each their own.
OK, not even one minute in and I love this video! LOL, Heroes of the Lance STUNK. I remember thinking it was gonna be so cool, because I was (and am) a big fan of the DragonLance books, but I was sorely disappointed. I couldn't figure out what the hell to do, lol
Pat is way too underappreciated in my oppinion. He is also one of the really early RUclips creators.
I like the book, but I always feel more sorry about Ian and Pat hating on Battletoads. Which is one my two favorite NES games. As for these games, I have no huge objections, although you're probably right Rambo is better than one star. I also remember playing Hillsfar and thinking it was interesting although not executed very well. Its one of those games with ambition at least.
Battletoads was awesome to play... it was just so damn HARD. I could never get past the jet ski section as a kid. I finally did on an emulator, only to get stuck in a later stage where my keyboard can't superjump, so I'm stuck in a pipe.
@@Swiftbow Yeah, I think I know the level. Battletoads is very very hard, but also very good. I don't think that is a problem if one is willing to "get guud", but I can understand those liked it but got stuck on level 3 (over 90% did, it seems). The difficult spike probably went up to high... a good game if you get into it though!
great video!
We really need to see a close-up of that Robotnik plush behind you! Looks incredible :D
Ultima was so badass! Still is in my book.
I un-ironically like George Foreman KO boxing.
We had around 10-15 nes games as a kid and never got more because technology progressed and i played it a ton.
I need to revisit it , but I remember as a kid thinking it was hard but so satisfying when i finally beat the whole game
"Games shouldn't need manuals" is the argument that grinds my gears when it comes to reviewing 30+ year old games.
I like Dr.Jekle and Mr. Hyde a lot. Dragons Lair I always come back to. I have no idea why lol
wow, I only have 2 of the games on this list. That is a surprise
The last ninja and last starfighter are iconic C64 games shame they didnt translate
Winter Games by Epyx was another horrible translation from the C64 to NES
Fun fact: Hydlide was the first game with regenerative health
Great idea for a video John, always enjoy your content, keep up the good work!
I am going through each NES game in the library, and I swear, these games are pretty much developed by Satan. Once you get into SNES territory and further, it's unbelievable how easier games get the more you advance. Most NES games were so difficult that I even greatly struggled with cheats turned on. In fact, I've used cheats pretty much on 98% of the games I've played. Games off the top of my head I did not use cheats was Maniac Mansion, Deja Vu, Uninvited, and Doki Doki Panic.
Many of the NES games were arcade ports, which are designed to eat quarters, not really provide a balanced game. It's strengths are the native games, like Mega Man and Super Mario, with some of the PC ports being pretty good for the day as well (a lot of western style RPGs got ported, including Wizardry, Might and Magic 1, and more).
@@drg5352 They also used increased difficulty to make games last longer, since NES cartridges can't contain all that much data. (Especially the early ones.) They found pretty clever ways to stretch the limited memory, but it was always a factor.
I played Rambo as a kid some. As I recall, none of my friends thought it was a terrible game. Super Pitfall is the only game here that I beat, and if it did not have Pitfall in the name, then I never would have bothered.
Jekyll and Hyde has a very cool and creepy ending.
RAMBO WAS AN EXCELLENT GAME!! Played that game so much as a kid, and eventually beat it
Me and my friends had so much fun with Hilsfar, it was one of our goto sleepover rentals. Although it consists mostly of a single town, it was one of the first "open world" games I ever played. The game is a little aimless, and we never had a manual so it could be very confusing, still we'd always come back for more.
I later picked up the DOS version, and realized the game doubles as a trainer for characters you can load in from your other gold box D&D games. In fact, that seems to be the whole point.
Shoutout to Pat the NES Punk for creating the Ultimate Nintendo guide.
I'm sure JohnRiggs appreciated Pat for making the book feel so heavy in his hands (and on his head lol).
Ironically in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde you *are* supposed to get hurt, just not too soon. Hyde has a boss that you need to get rid of for the ideal ending (and also to purge the last map of enemies), but if Hyde catches up to Jekyll before then you explode.
The concept of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is just a little much for a NES game. The Jekyll parts of the game aren't so much enemies as just day to day occurrences that annoy him. When he's annoyed enough, he turns into Hyde. But, if he stay Hyde too long (ie, catches up to Jekyll's position), he loses himself to rage and "explodes."
I played it on an emulator, but I didn't realize there were multiple endings! Fascinating.
I'm surprised I did not see deadly towers on this list but I will say I just bought Rambo because I loved it as a kid and it's still pretty good
I confirm that Alien 3 is quite an enjoyable game, especially for the great music.
It features even some kind of dark atmosphere who really belongs to the Alien movies.
I honestly think it comes down to controls and the timer. It's just...frustrating. Hard to justify spending time with it when the Genesis game exists.
@@ClavainRS I agree, I own a copy and I play it almost every time I turn on my SNES. Best version of the game.
@@charleybarley7148 that's interesting, because I've never tried the Genesis (Mega Drive for we europeans) version! Is it good as the SNES version or even better?
@@retrojoe85 I personally feel that the Genesis version is the better 16-bit game (more action; less redundant). But, this might be the nostalgia talking (at least in part).
@@charleybarley7148 I understand perfectly, nostalgia is a brutal factor when it comes to be transparent in being objective. It happens to everyone, myself included.
if you care, Last Starfighter is a port of Uridium.
fun memories playing classic concentration!
There was only 1 game I had on here Super Pitfall and I gave it a chance and did enjoy getting really close to the end of the game. My friend had 3 games on the list and I know he did like them. Rambo was a game he played a lot and I seen him play Roger Clemon's Baseball and Where's Waldo a bunch of times. I guess back then we only got like one new game a month so we had to play it with the ones we already were playing so that we did keep trying games. Most games I wouldn't want to play again unless for nostalgia. It brings me back to a very happy time in my life when I wasn't working and hung out with friends.
Last Starfighter looks a lot like Uridium on the C64.
I picked up BTF2+3 at an outlet mall in the 90s for $5. I felt like I got ripped off 😕
Alien 3, Rambo and Super Pitfall aren’t that bad to me. The rest of this list though, those are deserving
AVGN has already done some great videos about many of these games over the years. Especially "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." That game is the bane of AVGN's existence! LOL Plus, Pat Contri AKA The NES Punk, wrote the NES book featured here.
I miss the old Nerd quality. I get that he's got a family now and whatnot but most of his new stuff blows.
@@theskoomacat3106 nope
Fun video Riggs thanks for the smile on my face
I remember playing Ghostbusters. Totally agree.
I feel we tolerated more crappy games than we would today as that was a lot of our first home consoles and only got so many games. I played the heck out of Rambo especially once I figured out what I was doing. I played ghostbusters more than I should have but the stairs were awful unless you had a turbo controller.
I'm just glad you didn't play all the sound effects from Rocky and Bullwinkle. My ears are still trying to recover after AVGN reviewed it.
Actually X-men game in NES is good. It just takes a while to figure things out. There’s a strategy to picking partnerships even on one player
”Don't get punched" is a great strategy for both George Foreman's KO Boxing and life in general
I mean, I follow that advice every time I go anywhere. Words to live by.
Think I'm more surprised by the ones NOT on this list than by the ones that are here. Athena, anyone?
X-men got me mad. The cpu would die randomly going into areas it shouldn’t lol
I have fond memories of Nintendo, but perhaps they were doing quantity over quality at a certain point. They also seemed quite content to not upgrade their system. Who knows how many more years it may have been if Sega hadn't have pushed them?
I like the Roger Clemens game on the SNES and it looks very similar if you get past the odd setup it has for fielding it can be pretty fun. I certainly got my 1.99 that I paid for a used copy out of it on the SNES.
John Riggs is the Everyman of retro gaming
whoah robocop 2...no way, awesome game once you get a hold on robocop.
"Dad why do you love your games more than us?"
I had Classic Concentration on MS Dos. We played that game a ton.
I had a friend obsessed with the Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde game (along with Hydlide), but was the type who had to beat every hard game he could find, especially if it was horror themed. Ghostbusters was awesome on Commodore 64, pretty bad on any other system. Now Hydlide I did find fun playing on the Retron 5 so that you cannot die and internetting what to do next. Ninja on C-64 was a lot of fun. Massive disappoint on The Last Starfighter, awful awful awful. Worse than NFL football was NES Play Action Football, isometric, even worse than Atari 2600 Football. Robocop 2 arcade version is awesome. Rocket Ranger looked awesome on Amiga 500, but the controls made it stupid-hard. Thanks for the review!
Well until today I've never seen gameplay of Rambo ... and I'll take your word for it being good and keep a eye out for it !👍🏼👍🏼
The Last Starfighter is such a wonderful film.
I love that one of the answers to a quiz question in an NES game is "Nancy Sinatra" hahaha. Who's next for the kids to guess the name of? Chubby Checker?
Hillsfar was part of a trilogy but was the only one ported to Nes. There was Pool of Radiance and my favorite Curse of the Azure Bonds. You can transfer your character party from one game into the next.
It's so weird, The Last Starfighter is a port of the game Uridium on the C64, and on that system, it's an 8/10 on lemon64, usually quite well respected, but apparently awful on the NES? Very strange!
The Last Ninja (it was a C64 game not PC) was also well regarded on C64.
@@DragonGrafx-16 That's a good point! I was so fixated I forgot about that one xD It's true, Last Ninja is a classic on C64
According to a "certain NES guidebook..."