@ kkslider5552000 & abgar
That's right you can continue in Super Mario bros. Hold A and press start as soon as you see GAME OVER.
You'll start right back at the last world you died on.

Super Mario Bros.- An instant classic. I like this one a lot
The Legend Of Zelda-I already own this one twice, lol. But its great
Zelda II-I got a guide, but the difficulty curve is just....plain unfair.
Ice Climber-Like everyone said the jumping is very sloppy, it just ruins the rest of the game.
Yoshi-This game is almost as addicting as tetris and the presentation is awesome.
NES Golf-I don't get how this works.
Metroid-If you have a map/guide, this game is great!
DKJr.-Even when holding two vines, i still think that he climbs slow.
Balloon Fight-Wow i already played this for 6 hours because it's so fun! The best of the bunch, i think
Wrecking Crew-Not as bad as most sites say, but its not really a classic.

I've beaten Zelda II on NES like 5 times.
But this is just impossible. It's hard enough using the D-Pad on the 3DS, but then it's compounded by Start and Select being so hard to press - I just can't cast Shield or Life in time. I see one of those axe-throwers and have to start fleeing to try to gain distance so I have time to select Shield and cast it.

If I don't bust up the D-Pad and Start/Select buttons, I'd probably snap the hinges because the game is so frustrating and I have a habit of shaking the "controller" when I die. So I better just stop playing.

You can press Y to cast a spell too (it works as Select).

I just wish they had mapped Start to X too.

Has anyone else noticed strange graphical glitches where sometimes sprites on the side of the screen suddenly show up on the opposite side of the screen? I'm wondering if the games were always like this and we just never noticed because of overscan on TVs, or if it's some sort of problem with the emulation. The game I've really noticed it on is the enemies in Zelda II, but I also noticed it once in SMB where I had Mario standing on the left side of the screen in a specific spot where whenever I jumped straight up I would see his body suddenly appear on the right side of the screen while he was in the air. I wonder if they will fix this in the updated versions or not.

@iphys
Yeah I know what you mean, Iv'e noticed it when playing SMB as well. No problems with metroid though, I have been playing the crap out of that and Yoshi.

@iphys - Same here, but it's not really that big of a deal, is it?

@iphys - I found several glithes in metroid, sometimes when an enemy explodes they have part of the destroyed body fly through the other part of the screen and sometimes enemies show up as blue health if you froze them off screen and when dethawed will attack, also sometimes enemies stop droping health and missles all together and once an enemy I destroyed kept having bits of them fly into the screen from both edges. Balloon Fight if you go under ballon trip it will sometimes start you off on rank 47 or 48 for example instead of 50 at the start and will correct it's self later and the game will play the wrong music if you do things too quickly. I found the characters on zelda II a bit flashy (not all there) on occasion. Other then that things seem fine, including mario but I will probley see more later when I start playing the other games more, although zelda seems fine for now. ERROR

Those glitches were in the originals if I recall. I can remember Mario appearing on the other side of the screen sometimes.

I recommend blowing on your 3DS.

I got a weird glitch where a koopa troopa kinda looked like it was 2 transparent looking sprites facing the opposite direction on top of each other. It was...interesting.

As it's a glitch from Super Mario Bros, 500,000 people have found that already but ok.

Well I'm officially not going to play any more of Zelda II until we get the update that adds restore points because the expectations for that game are just unreasonable. I simply cannot get through Death Mountain without getting a Game Over, and even if I made it to the other side I'd have to beat a dungeon once I got there! Madness!

In Zelda 2 I find that it's easier to land hits on enemies if you leap towards them as you strike.
If you stay on the ground while alternating high and low attacks you're more likely to take hits.
At least that's my experience.
Also remember the fairy form spell can get you through locked doors in dungeons.
That way you don't risk getting killed searching for keys. Just make sure you have plenty of magic.

This, and for some of the other games I don't have the "retro skills" to be good at.

How do you get that spell, oh oracle of helpfulness?

I got it once on the Wii version, i think you need to high jump to the 2nd story of a church in one of the towns. I think this was the "Heal" spell then.

Read below for the correct answer

@ Kid_A
The fairy spell is found in Mido town as well as the downthrust attack.
to get the fairy spell you'll need the water of life found in a cave in the swamp. it's blocked by a boulder so you'll need the hammer also. The Hammer is in a cave at the very bottom of death mountain on the left right by a boulder.

For the downthrust use the jump spell to jump on the roof of a certain house in Mido town with a chimney.
Go down there and on to a knight who teaches you downthrust.

Btw any new players notice something about the town names? Saria, Ruto, Darunia, Mido etc.
Fans of Ocarina know what I'm talking about.

the NES games werent to great, but i hope their GBA picks are better thought out

Super Mario Bros. One of the most recognized and classic platformers to this day. It hasn't aged a bit over the years. 10/10

Legend of Zelda Truly legendary. Compelling graphics mixed with great dungeon design. A game worth playing as it will set you back anywhere between 5-10 hours. Like Mario this has aged well. 10/10

Legend of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link- Unlike the original, Zelda 2 has aged quite a bit. Unnecessary difficulty, mediocre dungeon design, side scrolling felt a little out of place, and the overall exploring was missing. Though this doesn't mean it wasn't a fun experience. I liked my time with this game on the Collector's Edition, even though I found myself in utter disappointment when I died too many times. 8.25/10

Wrecking Crew- A fine little game for what it is. I didn't really get into this one but the sheer challenge of figuring out the right route to successfully wrecking every room is fun to a certain extent. Not as great as Nintendo's other games. 7/10

Ice Climbers- Falling through a platform you clearly made can get right under your skin, right? I don't see why people diss this game when really there's nothing wrong with it. Other than the obvious "this game has aged drastically" detail, the challenge can get a little frustrating, as can the platforming in general. All in all this game is closer to NES gold than 70% of it's library. 8/10

Balloon Fight- I used to play this all the time on the NES classics portion of Animal Crossing. I find the multiplayer very substantial, maybe even funner than the Co-op multiplayer found in Super Mario Bros. 8/10

Yoshi- I never found puzzlers like this fun. Wario Woods was probably the funnest puzzler I've ever played. Otherwise give me Tetris... 6/10

Metroid- If you looked up "Aged" in a dictionary of some sort, you'd see my grandpa and the original Metroid right beside it. Lack of map, poor balance in health/missile supplying, aged graphics, lack of angling your blaster, and so on and so forth. Definitely the weakest entry in the franchise especially when compared to Zero Mission. 6.5/10

_{I have yet to play DK Jr. and NES Golf so I'll post my comments on those games tomorrow more than likely.}

Yeah I'm really appreciating all the Ocarina of Time references so far (or I suppose I should say the Zelda II references in Ocarina of Time). And thanks for the detailed tips, there! You've definitely got me motivated to get past Death Mountain now

@ Kid_A
Yeah Zelda 2 is a hard game that's for sure. Just keep at it and you'll get better.
It's good to hear about new players getting into the game. I thought the younger crowd would immediately hate it.
Us old guys who grew up in the time when games kicked your butt are used to this sorta thing.
Don't feel discouraged if you have a hard time. I myself still struggle with the later parts of the game.