Some NES Games that Should Have Sucked but are Awesome Options

[hyzmarca]

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.