25 Best NES Games

Faxanadu started as a licence deal. Hudson Soft took the name of Falcom's computer RPG Xanadu and built its own game for the Famicom, and the title is a portmanteau formed from the names Famicom and Xanadu. Nintendo released the game in the United States and Europe as a first-party title. You play a wanderer who returns home to find his elf town in trouble, and you climb the giant World Tree above it, buying better swords and spells as you go.

It is slower and moodier than most of this list, with dark brown colours that some people find drab and others find perfect. The soundtrack was composed by Jun Chikuma, and it fits the gloom well. It is the kind of game you hear about from one friend who swears by it, and it keeps turning up in short lists of NES picks for that reason.

Tecmo Super Bowl is the sequel to Tecmo Bowl, and it was the first video game to be licensed by both the National Football League and the National Football League Players Association. That meant real teams with real players, using rosters from the 1990–91 season. You can play a full season, track stats and watch your quarterback get hurt at the worst possible moment.

Since the advent of modern console emulation on computers, Tecmo Super Bowl is one of the most modified NES games, and fans still make versions with current rosters. It is also the football game that players who don't care about football still recommend. The controls take about a minute to learn, and the running game is so fast that a good back can take over a whole afternoon.

R.C. Pro-Am is a racing game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo, and it was one of Rare's first successful NES games. You race a radio-controlled truck around tracks seen from above, picking up missiles and bombs to clear the way, and collecting the letters that spell NINTENDO to win a faster truck.

Its overhead view set it apart from earlier first-person racing games, and it inspired Super Off Road, Rock n' Roll Racing and the Mario Kart series. It is the kind of game you sit down to for five minutes and get up from an hour later, because the next race always looks winnable. Rare went on to much bigger things, and this one is now part of Rare Replay on Xbox One.

This is the first Dragon Quest, renamed Dragon Warrior to avoid trademark conflict with the unrelated tabletop role-playing game DragonQuest. Yuji Horii designed it, with art by Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama. Nintendo released it in North America in August 1989 and added battery-backed RAM save games in place of the Japanese password system, along with dialogue written in a fake old English style.

Dragon Quest was commercially successful in Japan, but its later release as Dragon Warrior in North America was less favorably received. It is slow by today's standards. You fight one monster at a time, and a lot of the game is spent grinding levels near the first castle. For many American kids it was still their first console RPG, and the series that grew from it is huge.

Dracula's Curse is the third numbered game in the series but a prequel to the original Castlevania, set a few centuries before its events. You play Trevor Belmont, and the game keeps giving you choices. Trevor can be assisted by one of three possible companions, and after the first level you pick between branching paths to Dracula's castle. Trevor can be accompanied by only one companion at a time, so recruiting Alucard means saying goodbye to someone else.

Multiple critics called the game a great return to roots for the Castlevania series, and its soundtrack gets singled out often. The story also became the first two seasons of the animated 2017 Castlevania television series. Players who pick one NES Castlevania as their favourite often pick this one.

Double Dragon was one of the first successful beat 'em up games, and it became America's highest-grossing dedicated arcade game in 1988 and 1989. Home versions were released for the NES and a long list of other systems. The NES game changes a lot. The main mode is for one player only, and Billy learns new moves as he earns experience points from fights.

Arcade fans still grumble about the missing co-op, and it is a fair complaint for a game called Double Dragon. Taken on its own, the NES version is a solid brawler with smart level design and a versus mode for two players. The sequel brought co-op back, but this is the one people remember, with Billy and Jimmy standing back to back on the cover.

Kid Icarus came out in Japan in December 1986 and reached North America in July of the following year. Pit, a young angel, goes after three sacred treasures to rescue Angel Land and its ruler, the goddess Palutena. It was designed by Toru Osawa and Yoshio Sakamoto and produced by Gunpei Yokoi, on the same team that made Metroid.

Kid Icarus had a mixed critical reception but became a cult classic. Reviewers praised its music and its mixture of gameplay elements from different genres, but criticized its graphics and high difficulty level. The first world is a long climb upward, and falling off the bottom of the screen kills you, which is a rough way to greet a new player. In 2016, Kid Icarus was included on the NES Classic Edition.

The Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 was a harder take on the original, and Nintendo of America found this sequel too similar to its predecessor, and its difficulty too frustrating. So the West got a different game, built on Doki Doki Panic, a Famicom Disk System game, with Mario characters swapped in. Super Mario Bros. 2 was released on October 9, 1988, in North America.

You pull up vegetables and throw them, and you can pick Mario, Luigi, Toad or the Princess, who each handle differently. The Princess can float, which makes her the right choice for most stages. The game was a resounding success, becoming the fifth-best-selling game on the NES. It is the odd one out of the NES Marios, and plenty of people like it for that.

The first Mega Man was produced by a small team specifically for the video game console market, a first for Capcom, which up until that point focused on arcade games. It was directed by Akira Kitamura. You choose the order of the stages, and each one culminates in a boss fight against one of the Robot Masters that awards the player-character a special weapon.

It is rougher than the sequels. There is no password system, and a score counter is left over from arcade thinking. Still, Mega Man established many of the gameplay, story, and graphical conventions the sequels kept, and the boss weapon idea is still in use today. Players who recommend the series usually point to the second and third games first, then send people back here.

Adventures of Lolo is a puzzle game from HAL Laboratory. Each screen is one room. You push blocks, collect every heart and reach the treasure chest before the monsters get to you. It is the fifth game in the Eggerland series but the first one released in North America, where it came out in April 1989.

A Nintendo representative commented that Nintendo was "trying to stretch the kids' imaginations" with Lolo, and it did. The early rooms teach you one trick at a time, then the later ones ask you to combine them in ways that feel unfair until they click. HAL made two more Lolo games for the NES and later gave Kirby's Adventure the same careful design.

Super C is the NES version of Konami's arcade game Super Contra, ported under the shortened title of Super C in North America and as Probotector II: Return of the Evil Forces in Europe. It is the sequel to Contra. Bill and Lance must not only fight against their former comrades-in-arms, but also a new mutated form of the same alien creatures.

The fake 3D base stages from the first game are gone. In their place are vertically-scrolling stages played from an overhead perspective, which keep the shooting fresh between the side-scrolling levels. It is a little easier than Contra and still very hard, and the two-player mode is as chaotic as ever. Players keep naming it among their NES favourites, often in the same breath as the first game.

Battletoads came from Rare, and the game was developed in response to the interest in Mirage Studios' Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. It was released in North America and Japan in 1991 and in Europe in 1993. It starts as a beat 'em up with toads whose fists turn into giant hammers, and then it keeps changing into something else, level after level.

Critics praised the graphics and variations of gameplay; however, many critics were divided over the game's difficulty. The Turbo Tunnel is where most childhood copies were abandoned. You ride a speeder bike through walls that come at you faster and faster, and the only way through is to memorise the whole run. Playing with two people makes it harder, because you can hit each other.

Crystalis is an action RPG from SNK. You wake up from a long sleep in a world wrecked by war, and you fight your way across it with swords that each carry an element. The world is presented in a top-down perspective, and you swing at enemies in real time. The game was released in Japan on April 13, 1990, and in North America that July.

Nintendo re-released Crystalis for the Game Boy Color on June 26, 2000, with an almost completely new soundtrack and other changes, and fans of the NES game prefer the original. That original is now easy to play again, since it has been re-released via the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection. For a lot of people it is the NES game that most feels like a SNES game.

Punch-Out!!, originally titled Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, is a boxing game Nintendo made for the NES. You are Little Mac, a small boxer whose punches are limited to left and right jabs, left and right body blows, and a powerful uppercut. The uppercut can only be used once the player earns a star, usually by punching an opponent right as he opens up. Tyson himself was swapped for Mr. Dream in later releases of the game.

Every opponent is a pattern with a tell, so the game is less about fast hands than about reading people. Glass Joe teaches you the basics, and then the circuit gets meaner. It received critical acclaim, and is retrospectively considered one of the greatest video games of all time. Getting to the last fight is a badge of honour.

Mega Man 2 almost did not happen. Sales for the original Mega Man were unimpressive, and the team made the sequel in their free time while working on other Capcom projects. Takashi Tateishi composed the soundtrack, and it is considered one of the greatest of all time. Dr. Wily's castle theme alone has been covered by more bands than anyone can count.

It was a commercial success, with more than 1.51 million copies sold, and it remained the best selling Mega Man game until it was surpassed by Mega Man 11 in 2019. Reviewers praised its audio, visuals, and gameplay as an improvement over the first game. Asked to pick a single NES favourite, plenty of players answer Mega Man 2 and leave it there.

DuckTales was first released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989, made by key personnel from the Mega Man series. You play Scrooge McDuck, bouncing on his cane like a pogo stick and hunting treasure across five stages you can take in any order. One of them is on the Moon, and its music is the part everyone remembers.

DuckTales sold over a million copies worldwide on each system, becoming Capcom's best-selling title for both platforms, the NES and the Game Boy. It is short and gentle by Capcom standards, which makes it a good first NES game for a kid today. For its 2013 remake, see DuckTales: Remastered, which brought back the surviving members of the show's voice cast.

Kirby's Adventure is the first game to depict Kirby in color and the first to include the Copy Ability, which allows Kirby to gain new powers by eating certain enemies. Masahiro Sakurai returned as director after Kirby's Dream Land on the Game Boy. The NES was already on the market for eight years when Kirby's Adventure was released, and it shows off what the old console could still do.

It is one of the best-looking games on the system, with big colourful sprites and smooth scrolling that most earlier games could not manage. It is also easy, and that is fine, because the fun is in trying every power. It keeps showing up when players pick a handful of NES favourites, and it later got a 3D Classics version on the 3DS.

Super Mario Bros. is a 1985 platform game developed and published by Nintendo. Directed and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, it is the successor to the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. The team designed the first level, World 1-1, as a tutorial for platform gameplay, so you learn to jump and stomp before anyone tells you how.

Koji Kondo's soundtrack is one of the earliest in video games, making music a centerpiece of the design, and you can probably hum the overworld theme right now. It is one of the best-selling games, with more than 58 million copies sold worldwide. A lot of NES consoles came with it in the box, often on the same cartridge as Duck Hunt, so for many people it was the first game they ever played.

Blaster Master is a Sunsoft game, created by Kenji Sada and made by a part-time development team of about five people. You drive a tank across a big side-scrolling map that opens up as you find upgrades, and you hop out to explore top-down dungeons on foot. In the Japanese version of the game, the plot is only explained in the manual. The American release gave it a new story about a boy chasing his pet frog down a hole.

Blaster Master was praised for its smooth play control, level designs, detailed and clean graphics, and music, but was criticized for its high difficulty level and lack of passwords or save points. Players keep putting it on their short lists of NES favourites, often as the one less obvious pick among the famous names.

Ninja Gaiden on the NES was made at the same time as an arcade beat 'em up of the same name, and the two games have little in common. The NES game came out in March 1989 in North America. Ninja Gaiden has an elaborate story told through anime-like cinematic cutscenes, starting with Ryu Hayabusa finding a letter from his father.

It is famously hard. Criticism focused on its high difficulty, particularly in the later levels, and the birds that knock you into pits are a big part of that. Die on the final boss and you go back three stages, which is cruel. Director Hideo Yoshizawa named Ninja Gaiden as his most commercially successful project, with over 1.8 million cartridges sold worldwide. Players who recommend it tend to recommend the sequels in the same breath.

Castlevania, known in Japan as Akumajō Dracula, came out for the Famicom Disk System in September 1986 and reached the NES in North America in 1987. You are Simon Belmont with a whip, and each block ends with a boss usually themed after a classic horror movie monster such as Frankenstein's monster or the Grim Reaper. You also find sub-weapons like axes and holy water, but only one such weapon can be carried at a time.

The jump is stiff, and getting hit knocks you backwards, often into a pit. That is part of the design, and once you accept it the game becomes a tight, fair test. The music is some of the best on the console. Super Castlevania IV was released in 1991 for the Super NES and follows the same story.

Metroid came out on the Famicom Disk System in August 1986 and reached North America in August 1987. It was developed by Nintendo R&D1 and Intelligent Systems and produced by Gunpei Yokoi. You explore one huge connected planet as a bounty hunter in a power suit, and the game was also lauded for being one of the first video games to showcase a female protagonist, a reveal saved for the ending.

There is no map, and many of the corridors look alike, so a lot of kids drew their own on graph paper. Reviewers praised its graphics, soundtrack, and tight controls. It has been rereleased on the Game Boy Advance in 2004 and on Nintendo's download services, and it started a whole genre that still carries its name.

Super Mario Bros. 3 was released in Japan on October 23, 1988, in North America on February 12, 1990. It was developed by Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development, led by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. It added a world map, a pile of new suits, and an airship controlled by one of the Koopalings at the end of most worlds.

It is regarded as one of the greatest video games and the greatest title ever released on the platform. It is the third best-selling NES game, with more than 17 million copies sold worldwide, and it even inspired an animated television series. For a lot of players it is their NES favourite, full stop, and it is hard to argue with them.

Contra is a 1987 run and gun game Konami made for arcades, and a home version was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988. In Europe the NES version was called Probotector. You and a friend run right and shoot everything. The player can also shoot in any of eight directions, including downwards, while jumping, which makes the spread gun feel unstoppable.

The NES version was also a critical and commercial success, with Electronic Gaming Monthly awarding it for being the Best Action Game of 1988. One hit kills you, which is why the code for thirty lives became schoolyard knowledge. Played with two people on one couch, it is one of the best times the NES has to offer, and players put it on their must-have lists again and again.

The game was first released in Japan as a disk for the Famicom Disk System. It was directed and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. The US version was one of the first games to include an internal battery for saving data, and it came on a gold cartridge. On physical copies, the box had a cutout that shows the gold cartridge inside.

It was a critical and commercial success, selling over 6.5 million copies and launching a major franchise. You start with nothing in an open field, and the game trusts you to find your own way, which nobody else was doing on a console. Miyamoto said that Zelda became the inspiration for Animal Crossing. The Legend of Zelda is regarded as one of the most influential and greatest video games of all time, and players recommend it more than any other NES game.