NES – DaveGladow.com

Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll mini review

If you play enough NES games in quick succession, you run the risk of being lulled to sleep, expecting an endless parade of basic platformers to bore you into submission.

That might be overstating it. I mean, I LIKE platformers, so the “risk” here may result in a fate that’s not half bad. But anyway, the point is, some NES games can be “same-y.”

“Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll” is anything but. The objective is for you to move a little snake guy safely through an increasingly difficult to traverse 3D-isometric landscape. The pun of the title plays out with 50’s style music adaptations, a bright, colorful setting, and a bunch of critters trying to kill you.

Appropriately enough from the same studio that ported “Marble Madness” to the NES (Rare), this game reminds of that one, particularly as it relates to challenges inherent to the perspective (such as movement). The snake has to consume little bouncing pellets like Pac-Man to advance through stages … and he attacks enemies with his tongue.

If any of this sounds strange, I think that was the plan. Ultimately, Snake feels like a breath of fresh air compared to so many other NES games that refuse to deviate from established norms. That makes it an easy recommendation (with the caveat that it gets stupid levels of difficult in the end game).

Dave’s Score: 8/10

S.C.A.T. mini review

This game is decent.

A shoot-em-up on the NES … I mean, that tracks, yeah? It’s probably gonna be decent … but no better than that.

S.C.A.T. is way too short a game. It makes up for that with typical (for a shooter) unforgiving gameplay to prolong the experience, and it also does some interesting things. And no, by “interesting” I don’t mean “shamelessly rip off 80s sci-fi movies, to the point they named their characters ‘Arnold’ and ‘Sigourney.’”

What the game does is give you the ability to fire either left or right, send enemies at you from both directions, and then leave you to try to figure it all out. What helps you in this effort is the ability to set rotating secondary weapons to fire in specific directions, which allows you to cover your rear end when appropriate.

Usually, this gimmick of firing in either direction falls super flat for me, but here it works. And like I said, it’s a short game, so the weirdness doesn’t drag on forever. There’s something to be said for that.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Vice: Project Doom mini 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 mini 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 mini 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 mini 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) mini 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) mini 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