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Posted by: hyzmarca Jul 6 2008, 09:52 PM

Rockin' Kats

A game about an anthropomorphic cat with a giant extendable glove fighting through 5 stages to rescue his girlfriend from prohibition era gangsters. That's either a recipe for awesomeness or a recipe for total suck. By some miracle, it turned out to be the former.
The giant glove serves as a punching tool, a grappling tool, and a grabbing tool. One can use it to knock out enemies, swing from ledges, or pick up and throw items. The unique and interesting gameplay that results makes what would otherwise be an uninteresting cartoon platformer one of the most fun games on the NES.

Little Nemo: The Dream Master
When I was a kid, I got this game confused with Nightmare on Elm Street IV: The Dream Master and the Captain from 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea, and thus avoided renting it far longer than I should have. Little Nemo is a licensed game based on on a comic strip that ran from 1905 to 1913. Licensed games suck. This is a well known fact. Licensed games based on 85 year old (at the time) comic strips that couldn't possibly be translated well into a 2D video game must suck even worse. Yet, by some miracle, Little Nemo is totally awesome.
Nemo is the John Holmes of video games. It is lone and hard and it died of AIDS related complications after contracting the disease making gay porn films in South America in the 80s. Okay, maybe not the last one. But it is long and hard. It is, however, long and hard in a good way. It is a game that you want to play for as long as possible because it is just so fun. The goal of Little Nemo is go get though several worlds in order to find the princess of Slumberland . To do this, you must unlock the doors in each world, doors which require many keys. As everyone knows, key collecting is boring. It is one of the most boring tasks possible in any video game. Yet, somehow, Little Nemo makes it fun.
The fun of Little Nemo comes from a combination of brilliant level design and a variety of brilliant power sets. Nemo is just a little boy in pajamas. He has no abilities other than jumping and throwing candy, which he has an unlimited supply of. Candy, of course, can't hurt anything. And stomping on things does work either. Instead, nemo uses his candy to tame friendly animals scattered throughout the each stage so that he can ride them. Each animal mount has a unique set of offensive and mobility powers. The gecko can walk on walls and ceilings. The mole can dig. The bee can fly and sting. Sometimes, one animal in particular is needed to get to a key. Most of the time, however, you have a wide variety of choices and the best animal for the job depends totally on your own playing style.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 7 2008, 12:54 AM

I always wondered if Little Nemo, being anime style, wasn't actually a game of some anime show or manga in Japan that they decided to call "Little Nemo" for a US audience.

Also, Rambo for NES is a pretty good side scroller in the style of The Goonies II.

Posted by: Kagetenshi Jul 7 2008, 05:51 AM

Add in Adventures of Lolo. With a game that long, you'd think a music loop in the vicinity of 25 seconds long would drive you utterly bonkers, but it's incredibly addictive.

~J

Posted by: Cantankerous Jul 8 2008, 10:28 PM

"Romance of the Three Kigdoms, Wall of Fire" for SNES was absolutely addictive. It was the ONLY SNES outside of a couple of Golfing games and Monopoly that I found really interesting, but IT was INCREDIBLE!


Isshia

Posted by: Adarael Jul 8 2008, 10:42 PM

Lu Bu gonna mess your face up, man.

Posted by: Rad Jul 12 2008, 09:45 PM

I think the OP just meant regular NES, not super.

If we include SNES, then I'd have to say Rock 'N Roll Racing.

A mad-max-in-space racing game with SNES-ified versions of hard rock songs for the soundtrack?

Wait, that does sound kinda' awesome--and it is.

Posted by: Hatspur Jul 12 2008, 11:27 PM

I thought the original Excitebike was amazing. It even had a course generator to go along with the always classic 8-bit crash sequence which sounds the same as an 8-bit earthquake in other games.

Posted by: Alex Jul 13 2008, 05:39 AM

WOW! I had forgotten about that game. I loved it!

Posted by: Hatspur Jul 16 2008, 05:07 PM

I just loved going max speed off of a jump and crashing. While nowhere near as dynamic or artistic as flying off of a mountain/truck/prostitute in GTA, it brought on a very satisfying feeling at the tender age of 6.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 17 2008, 06:32 PM

I remember back in college I was enjoying that game on a SNES emulator and my roomate, a physics major, just went and point blank said, "That game SUCKS."

Posted by: Blade Jul 18 2008, 08:20 AM

Had it on my SNES, still playing it from time to time on my Zodiac. Great game.

Posted by: shuya Jul 22 2008, 01:31 PM

the game was based off of the animated film "Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland," released in 1989, which in turn was based off of the original Winsor McCay comic

also, StarTropics had no business being as good as it was. it was quirky and funny and challenging and had an engaging story, which were things people didn't realize video games could have yet in 1990. also, i loved the save select screen that was a direct rip from Legend of Zelda. and that letter you had to dip in water to get the secret code. that game was just a big bundle of wtf for an 8 year old.

Posted by: imperialus Jul 22 2008, 05:45 PM

I played the hell out of StarTropics.

Posted by: paws2sky Jul 22 2008, 05:54 PM

Anyone else play Low G Man? I have no idea why, but I got addicted to that damn game.

Posted by: TonkaTuff Jul 23 2008, 03:41 AM

Yeah. It was alot more fun than it probably had any right to be, with the weird combat mechanic and the ability to jump across a good chunk of a given stage. Really seemed to provide quite a bit of variety within the constraints of an 8-bit cart, too. Like that boss who was three or four screens tall. Or that stage where you just kept falling and falling.

Posted by: Drogos Jul 23 2008, 10:36 AM

I recall liking A Boy and His Blob, but as that was many years ago and I have since been introduced to alcohol, I'm not sure that was the case...

My all time favorite NES game is River City Ransom, but seeing as that game was destined for awesomitude by design (I mean, rumbling to save your girlfriend, how can that not be AWESOME), I guess it really doesn't fit in this discussion.

Posted by: OneThirtyEight Jul 23 2008, 02:59 PM

Dude, Low G-Man ruled.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 23 2008, 08:48 PM

You know, once I tried a ROM of A Boy And His Blob, but I couldn't figure out the controls of the game. Which is weird considering the NES had only start, select, A, and B. You'd think someone who can figure out the controls in Hitman: Blood Money could do it for ABAHB, but I guess not.

Posted by: hyzmarca Jul 23 2008, 11:04 PM

The controls for A Boy and His Blob was simple. A throws a jellybean, B whistles, and Select switches jellybean flavors. If you throw at the Blob it eats the jellybean and this causes it to change form, each flavor producing a different tool. Whistling reverted the Blob to its original form and called it to you. The exception of the Ketchup flavored jellybean, which the Blob will not eat. Instead, if thrown when the Blob is offscreen it will cause the Blob to teleport to your location.
Unfortunately, being a graphical adventure game, some of the puzzles require the obtuse sort of thinking that is unique to graphical adventure designers.

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 24 2008, 12:57 AM

See, that's actually pretty hard to figure out. It's not the controls per se, but I guess the game interface. Without a manual it would be tough to guess exactly what the jellybeans are supposed to do or the relationship between the Blob and the environment. Well, what can I say? Today, for me, a mystery was solved.

Posted by: Cadmus Jul 29 2008, 12:03 AM

I don't know for NES I liked megaman and rolling thunder what was it with the dudes in the hoods? the first FF was cool too, For SNES I really liked MetalMarines myself

Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jul 29 2008, 05:45 AM

MetalMarines wasn't bad at all. A nice coffee break game.

Um, on YouTube you can see videos of people beating Rolling Thunder really quickly. Sadly, but perhaps unsurprisingly given the date and the genre, this is done by cheesing the hell out of the game. I was surprised to see in the cinema scenes that the eville last boss tortures your chained up girlfriend with electric shocks, which is pretty S&M.

Posted by: Rad Aug 11 2008, 06:22 PM

W00T! Googling.

Wait, did I just give away more about my interests than I should?

Anyway, finally dragged an 8-bit nes game out of the dark recesses of my memory: Guerrilla War.

Not sure if it fits the "shouldn't be good" category, but it was inexplicably fun.

Ah, wait! Got one:

Tetris.

Seriously, why the hell should that game be as amazingly awesome as it is?

Posted by: hyzmarca Aug 11 2008, 06:35 PM

Guerrilla War is automatically awesome because player 1 is Che Gurevera and player 2 is Fidel Castro.

Posted by: hobgoblin Aug 19 2008, 02:10 AM

ah, that other game where a jojo is a lethal weapon

Posted by: hobgoblin Aug 19 2008, 02:11 AM

and then nintendo do the genius things and release excitetruck for wii