The Nintendo Entertainment System was released in 1983 when it was called the Family Computer or the Famicom. In 1985, the NES was launched across North America and saw a release in Europe and Brazil in the following y🧜ears. While Nintendo ha🏅d a pong clone called the Color TV-Game, the NES was their first original home console with swappable cartridges.
The NES started many great🗹 series that are still going on to this day. The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario, and more all got their start on the grey VCR-like box, but what abouꦉt those games that slipped through the cracks? Here are 10 of the best lesser-known NES games that need more love.
10 Metal Storm
Metal Storm was developed by IREM, the creators of the R-Type series, in 1991. Being such a late release, Metal Storm has some outstanding visuals, with the explosion made by your mech upon death being♓ especially noteworthy.
In Metal Storm, you play as a mech with the ability to ♓change gravity, which will allow you to walk on the ceiling. You collect different power-up to give you shield, turn your mech into a deadly fireball while switching from ceiling to floor, and more. The majority of the games level design and bosses are designed around the gravity changing mechanic creating a very cohesive and well-made experience.
9 Bucky O’Hare
Bucky O’Hare was a children’s cartoon, a comic book, and a line of toys that were made to ride the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles craze. The NES game was developed by K🍌onami, who, at the time, was pumping out amazing game after amazing game like the Contra and Castlevania series.
In Bucky O’Hare, you can choose from one of four levels, with each one unlocking a new character. Each🍌 character has different abilities and can be changed to at any point during the game. After you have beaten the four initial levels, you are presented with even more levels you have to tackle using each member of your team.
8 Gargoyle’s Quest II: The Demon Darkness
Gargoyle’s Quest II: The Demon Darkness stars Firebrand, wh꧋o is one of the enemies in the Ghost N’ Goblin games. Firebrand is tasked with finding out th🅠e mystery behind The Black Light which has come across the ghoul realm.
Firebrand i🐻s capable of hovering for a few seconds before falling, a🌳nd, as you progress through the game, you find power-ups that will allow you to fly longer and longer before you are able to fly indefinitely. All of the platforming in the game is based around Firebrand’s ability to fly, so you will be timing your hover to make it across platforms or dodge enemy attacks.
7 Monster Party
Monster Party started off as a parody of different classic horror movies, but, due to licensi𒐪ng issues, they were forced to take out all of the references. Monster Party creates a strange world, with🧔 some levels drastically shifting to something much more sin🎶ister.
You are a young boy named Mark who t🦹eams up with a dragon-like humanoid named Bert, who has asked you to rid his world of evil monsters. You must go through each world and take out all of the bosses before you can complete the stage. Mark has a baseball bat that he can use to hit enemies or reflect their projectiles. However, occasionally𒁏, you are given the ability to turn into Bert, who can fly and fire projectiles.
6 Little Nemo: The Dream Master
Starting off as a comic from the early 1900s, Little Nemo was later turned into a film called Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, which Little Nemo: The Dream Master for the NES was based on. You play as Nemo in Slumbe🌠rland, befriending animals with candy so that you can ride them or wear them like a suit.
Each animal will have different abilities based on their 🔴innate skills such as a bee with the ability to fly and a mole with the ability to dig. You must find keys hidden in each level in order to progress and reach the next stage.
5 Darkwing Duck
While you constantly hear Duck Tales and Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers talked about, the Capcom a🌱nd Disney NES collabor𒅌ation that deserves much more attention than it gets is Darkwing Duck.
In Darkwing Duck, you play as the titular hero and are given a set amount of lev𓆏els you can choose from at the beginning of ඣthe game similar to Capcom’s Mega Man series. In fact, 🎶most of the game from level desღign and enemy placement is very similar to the Blue Bomber’s games. Unlike Mega Man though, Darkwing Duck can hang from platforms and make platforms of his own with his arrows.
4 Sweet Home
Sweet Home started off as a movie that was only released in Japan before being created into a game. You play as five different characters, each with different i♉tems that are needed throughout the game. You can only have three people in your party at once, so you must choose wisely based on the task at hand. When one of your party members die, they are dead for the remainder of the game. Sweet Home ꦉis one of the fi𓂃rst survival-horror games and went on to inspire Capcom’s Resident Evil series.
3 Star Tropics
Star Tropics is one꧂ of the best lesser-known games made by Nintendo. While the game did get a sequel, Zoda’s Revenge: Star Tropics 2 also released on thꦐe NES, the series has never seen any sequels since.
You play as Mike Jones, a man who is looking for his lost father. The 🧸game controls like The Legend of Zelda with a top-do꧂wn view and gameplay that focuses mainly on combat with some puzzleꦏs. Unlike 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Legend of Zelda, in Star Tropics, you fight with a yo-yo, baseball bats, and other contemporary tools a young boy wou♌ld have.
2 Ufouria
Ufouria is a Japanese-exclusive ga💛me made by Sunsoft, the creators of NES classics like Blaster Master and Journey to Silius. In Ufouria you mus🐻t find one of your friends and battle them until tꦫhey are knocked out of their psychosis and decide to join you.
Ea♎ch friend you meet an🌱d team up with controls slightly differently and has different abilities that help you make it through certain areas making the gameplay, similar to Nintendo’s Metroid series. Ufouria is packed wi🐽th personality, from the odd faces on platforms to the quirky way your character mov𒈔es.
1 Mr. Gimmick
Mr. Gimmick is centered around the gimmick🉐 that the stars you charge up and shoot from your head bounce off of surfaces and can be used as platforms. As you progress through the game, you use your ability to use y𓆉our projectiles as platforms to make your way to secret areas which will contain special plants that all must be collected to unlock the game’s true ending.
Mr. Gimmick, along with many other games on this list, was released very late in the NES’s lifecycle, w𓆉hich allowed the game to have great sound and graphics, though that also more or less doomed it to irrelevancy.