NES – DaveGladow.com

Vice: Project Doom review

I mean, it’s another NES action platformer. Surprise!

There are so many of these kinds of games, the developers no doubt had two key objectives in mind:

1. Polish it the fuck up.

2. Do something strange.

“Vice: Project Doom” at least understood the assignment. The graphical presentation is impressive, boasting scrolling backgrounds, lots of color, and “Ninja Gaiden”-style cinematics. The controls are solid, as is the hit detection. It really does get the basics right.

In terms of getting weird, the game presents a couple of shooting range levels and some “Spy Hunter” style drive and shoot stages.

That’s nothing to speak of the plot, which is delightfully absurd.

I think where this game suffers a little is that so much of what it does reminds you of other games. The examples noted above are the most blatant, but it also at varying points feels like about a dozen other games which have done all of this before (often better).

If you like this sort of thing (8-bit platformers), you’ll probably enjoy it. I’m a little less enthusiastic just based on how derivative it all feels. But it’s a solid time.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Crystalis review

You’ve gotta tread lightly with these old-school RPGs on the NES. People love them. They’re influential as heck. And if you keep an open mind, you can have a decent time.

But there’s no denying that genre of game — perhaps more than any other — can struggle to connect with modern audiences. In many cases, it’s the absence of quality of life improvements from modern titles that stand out. With the action RPG “Crystalis,” the problem is less about aggravating grinding demands or an absence of creature comforts, and more about a baffling level of intentional befuddlement.

You just don’t know where to go. The solution, naturally, is to lean on a guide to help you progress. So much so, it’s virtually impossible to imagine anyone navigating this game without one. Cryptic puzzles, confusing dialogue, hidden items … this is like Zelda on steroids.

The story and action are good stuff. And as alluded to above, more modern touches, such as the ability to warp from place to place, are welcome. It’s frankly impressive that they’re here.

So I can see why people love this game and brag on it being one of the hidden gems on the NES. I’m glad I played it. But fair warning: you’re gonna need to keep a guide handy throughout the experience to make any kind of headway.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Shadow of the Ninja review

We’re all entitled to change our minds.

As a goofy teenager, I was a “Ninja Gaiden” apologist, to the point that I found all other ninja-themed video games to be lacking.

Fast forward a few decades and “Ninja Gaiden II” popped up on Switch Online, so I eagerly consumed it and found it be … quite obnoxious.

For one thing, the game didn’t advance enough upon the original, but it was also irritatingly difficult., the kind of experience you’d walk away from without save states unless you were:

A.) A masochist.

B.) Transported back in time to 1990.

C.) Both?

“Shadow of the Ninja,” released that same year by developer Natsume is, dare I say it, a more enjoyable use of one’s time.

13-year-old me would be shaking his head right now.

Shadow tones down the difficulty of the Gaiden series, provides a similar flair for the theatrical (great music, graphics and level/enemy design), and offers several goodies that Gaiden doesn’t: some useful weaponry that makes the journey a smidge easier (such as a kusarigama for longer range attacks and bombs for heavier damage) and a two-player mode that included a female character (this was still a big deal in 1990).

This game kind of rocks, if I’m honest, which is a far cry from what I thought when I rented it back in the day.

Shadow better than Gaiden II?

I’m shook.

Dave’s Score: 8/10

Balloon Fight review

The older, Nintendo-published “black box” games on the NES are, on the whole, an interesting experience.

Most of them feel a little arcadey, for lack of a better term, calling to mind previous generations of home gaming which aimed to recreate the arcade experience at home in lieu of basically everything else.

“Balloon Fight” is no exception. It involves a single screen of little dudes floating about via balloon. The object is to be like Obi-Wan and get the high ground (or high “air”) from where you can pop the other balloons, rather than have yours popped instead.

The basic game is fun enough, but it turns into an endless repeating level quest, wherein you try to get high scores before you eventually die.

Like I said, arcadey.

I enjoy it in bursts, but it’s not the sort of thing I make a point to return to.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Xevious (NES) review

One of the very first vertically scrolling shooters, “Xevious” stood out quite a bit at release for having a varied, topographical background rather than a simple star field.

It’s also a smart game, varying the enemies it sends at you based on the way you play.

All of this is really cool.

The NES port is … okay. It literally never ends. And it’s a tough game. And of course, as an NES shooter, it’s ugly.

It didn’t piss me off like “Star Soldier” did, so that’s something. But it’s definitely dated.

How much you enjoy probably depends on how much you appreciate the historical importance.

I like video game history, so …

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Star Soldier (NES) review

I’m a big fan of the Super Star Soldier trilogy on the Turbografx-16, so much so that I have listed the third entry in that series, “Soldier Blade,” as one of my greatest games of all time.

(I also listed parody spinoff “Star Parodier” for good measure.)

So visiting “Star Soldier,” the very first game that inspired all that Turbografx greatness, for the first time was an interesting experience.

First off, this NES port, much like “Gradius,” features concessions in order to run an arcade game on 8-bit hardware. This is to be expected. And, like Gradius, this port mostly runs way better than you might anticipate.

Generally speaking, I prefer vertically scrolling shooters to horizontal ones, and that helps this game along, as objectively, the power ups and level design are fairly mid. The gameplay and some of the set pieces (such as obstacles you can hide under) do the majority of the heavy lifting.

Where Star Soldier struggles most of all is with its stupid repeating boss, who gets more and more obnoxious in every iteration, until you get to the final boss and would rather put a literal boot through the screen than try to engage with him again, particularly when he’s at his most annoying.

I’m serious, he’s a genuine asshole. There’s this weird dynamic in the game where if you don’t defeat the boss quickly enough, he escapes, and you get warped back to the beginning of the level.

Fuck. That.

Plus, the trouble with defeating him quickly is he throws a gazillion projectiles at you to avoid. So, it sucks. And your reward is basically no ending at all.

I think most people will be left wanting for more with this game. I originally gave it a passing grade since I’ve been relatively generous with scores lately and there is some historical value here. But in good conscience I just can’t recommend it. That warping nonsense is unforgivably evil design.

Dave’s Score: 5/10

Mega Man 3 — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 48)

I don’t know that I’m going to have much more room for series duplicates and sequels in the rest of this countdown.

And yet, here we are anyway.

I mean, sure, we’re still going to have to see some covered ground as we go along, because I just have too much fondness for particular games to leave them off. And if we can acknowledge that sometimes sequels can exceed the original work (as we have done), we can likewise acknowledge that sometimes they don’t *quite* get there … yet they have a great deal of value just the same.

Even more than that, if I’m honest with myself (and you), I can also allow that on occasion, my own choice for elevation in this list is more of a coin flip than a definitive proclamation. In other words, the relative quality between two choices for inclusion from a particular property might be essentially equal.

So, let us state for the record that even though it feels a shame to lean into a specific series often during a countdown of this sort (since it will inevitably result in the exclusion of other series), it is also not entirely without merit. Truly, sometimes, the games in question simply just deserve to be here.

For me at least, the real litmus test, above and beyond personal attachment, historical importance, or even quality, is going to be how distinctive an experience you might get from game to game within a particular series.

I can wince a little at all of the Mario games we have on this list so far, but only for appearance’s sake, because when you peer a little closer, you’ll see a unique experience from one game to the next.

To elaborate, Mario 1 was the original promise of continued fun and excitement. Mario 2 was the colorful oddball sequel that innovated. Mario 3 was excellence personified. Mario World was even more excellence personified. Mario 64 was a groundbreaker. And so on, and so on.

It’s the same with Castlevania. “Dracula’s Curse” is perhaps the best possible example of old-school “NES-hard” platforming, “Rondo of Blood” was the transitional game, introducing more dynamic branching levels and upping the visuals and sound, and “Symphony of the Night” was the natural end point for that evolution, going for more explorer-based action.

With all of that considered, you can probably pretty safely guess why we’re now going to talk a little about Mega Man 3. Sure, I have a personal attachment to it. But it’s also a titan among 8-bit platformers giving it a historical relevance, and it’s roughly as good as the game we already covered – Mega Man 2.

But ALSO, it’s here because it’s distinct enough from Mega Man 2 to merit inclusion on its own.

Mega Man 3 at a glance:
Genre: Side-scrolling platformer
Released: 1990
Platform: NES
GamePro’s third-greatest 8-bit video game of all time

Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 47)

So, other than Mario and Link, the omnipresent faces of Nintendo who will still be around long after I’ve left this big blue rock, I haven’t had another game/series/character manage to break past two appearances on this list of nearly 50 (so far!) games I think everyone should try playing.

Until now, that is.

Welcome to the club, Castlevania!

Truly, it is a distinguished honor.

Your children’s children will be talking about this moment.

Okay, probably not, but we can still talk about “Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse” for a while if we want to, so let’s do that.

Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse at a glance:
Genre: Side-scrolling platformer
Released: 1990
Platform: NES
Nintendo Power’s ninth-best NES game

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 46)

This section of the countdown might seem a little like the department of redundancy department.

The next few titles we’ll be featuring in this space are games in series that I love that already had representation in the countdown, and yet, here I am, saying you should play this other game too.

The onus then falls on me to make the case for why people should play not just the game that falls higher on the list (in this case, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time“), but for them to play that game AND this one.

In the case of the arcade classic beat ‘em up “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” we’re going to be looking at three distinct things, I’d say.

The importance of the coin-op brawler as a genre within video games.
The massive cultural relevance of the ninja turtles.
Why this game, itself, is fun.

So yeah, let’s get to it. Why should someone play that other turtles game … and this turtles game too?

Let’s read on to find out!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at a glance:
Genre: Beat ’em up
Released: 1989
Platform: Arcade
Konami’s highest-grossing arcade game.

Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 35)

They say age is but a number, but I do believe that our age can come to define us in many respects.

For instance, age can be an important point of common ground. An indication of shared experiences. A garden for bonding.

This reservoir of a common language, both figurative and literal, which arises from those shared experiences represents an easier connection point. It facilitates communication and understanding.

Whether I yell out “Norm!” in a bar or start humming the theme song to “Mission Impossible,” my actions can elicit an emotional response in the people around me. That emotion triggers a willingness or eagerness to connect. And off we go.

Those things that we have watched, heard, read, and experienced differ from generation to generation. And while me aping “Star Wars” for my immediate family is going to yield positive results, the communication will inevitably be lost for folks who have yet to see it. And that – whether they’ve experienced a thing – is determined, at least in part, by age.

Super Mario Bros., the definitive pack-in title for the Nintendo Entertainment System, stands tall as an incredibly important title historically. We’ll get into some of the reasons for that shortly, but it is enough to know at the outset that this game helped define an entire industry, saved a company from near-death while vaulting it to the head of that video gaming industry, and launched a mascot into the sort of fame generally reserved for the likes of Mickey Mouse.

A lot of people know this.

I mean, when I wear a Zelda shirt in public, I get the occasional question: “What is Zelda?”

Maybe this is a meme I am unaware of, but mostly I take it at face value: people who don’t game very often don’t know what Zelda is.

Yet people who don’t game still know who Mario is. And that often cuts across generational divides. Most people can grasp the significance:

Mario and by extension Nintendo are super important/popular in video games.
This was Mario’s first big starring adventure.

That second point is of course muddier than it needs to be, as Mario had previously appeared in a number of other titles, but the modifier of “first big starring” hopefully adds some clarity. This game was a gigantic hit, and the game was about him, Mario.

And people can accept this thing, because they’re at least vaguely aware of the other games that have come along since.

Super Mario Bros. 1.

One.

It was the first.

Okay, I can understand that.

Even a non-gamer in their teens can probably accept these basic truths and connect with an aging gamer in his 50s and carry on a brief conversation about the topic, just through general historical pop culture knowledge and logic.

Where the age gap enters the discussion is when the “other” pack-in game for the Nintendo Entertainment System is brought up.

“What about Duck Hunt?”

And this is why I “cheated” by listing both games here. Yes, they’re technically both included in a single cart. They’re both included as pack-in games for the NES. And each game is provided its own optimal control device in the form of a standard d-pad for Mario and the light-gun zapper for Duck Hunt. But let’s acknowledge: these are two separate games.

So why list them both?

It’s really pretty simple.

I don’t think either game is as good on its own. And I further don’t think that I can ever truly think of one without thinking of the other.

For a certain number of people who lived through that time period in the 1980s, these two games are unfailingly joined at the hip.

And for those people, who lived the experience in real time, that is as it should be.

Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt go together like peanut butter and jelly.

Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt at a glance:
Genre: Side-scrolling platformer / Shooter
Released: 1985 / 1984
Platform: NES
GameSpot community rated 9.1 out of 10