NES Reviews - Page 5 of 7

Hop on your board and take part in five extreme skate events!

Long before the Tony Hawk’s franchise made skateboarding games mainstream the cool kids got their kicks on Skate or Die for the NES. The action begins in Rodney Recloose’s skateboard shop. He’s a crazy middle-aged dude with a blue Mohawk who organises different event such as freestyle, high jump, downhill jam, downhill race and..

Can Mega Man save the world again?

Surprisingly, the original Mega Man (or Rockman, as the series is known in Japan) did not perform very well. Initially reluctant, Capcom allowed its creator Keiji Inafune to create a sequel as a side-project in his own spare time, however, and with the effort of a few colleagues and a lot of time, he created Mega...

Arthur's first ghostly quest

You thought Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts were hard? The NES original, Ghosts 'n Goblins set the bar. The main focus of the game is pretty much the same as in the sequels. Princess Prin-Prin has been kidnapped by demons and Arthur, the one-man army, sets out to rescue her. He's armed with only a lance and...

Take control of the state-of-the-art fighter, Zanac, with the objective of destroying the bases of the mechanized enemy forces.

When you’ve got shooters of the calibre of Gate of Thunder, Soldier Blade and Super Star Soldier to choose from, it’s not unreasonable to question the sanity of downloading a NES blaster; surely anything available on Nintendo’s crusty old 8-bit couldn’t possibly..

Bubble Bobble is a puzzle-action game featuring the two Bubble Dragons, Bub and Bob.

Bub and Bob are two rosy-cheeked dinosaurs who spit bubbles at their enemies and pop those bubbles for food rewards, all on the quest to save their girlfriends. If you don’t remember this classic arcade game from yesteryear you’ll probably know the two main...

Double Dribble is a 5-on-5 basketball game for the NES, based on the 1986 arcade game of the same name.

This is the first basketball game to come to VC, and unfortunately for us, it's not very good. While Double Dribble was fairly popular back in the day due to the graphics (There are some cutscenes with fairly detailed stuff, like a crowd marching into a stadium or a player making a slam dunk) it..

It's the Mario Brothers and plumbin's their game. Found the secret warp zone while working on the drain.

Back in 1990 when this was released in the USA, Mario fever was at an all time high. A few months earlier, there had even been a movie released called ‘The Wizard’ with that kid from the Wonder Years, which was essentially a commercial for...

Take on the role of Simon Belmont once again and duel to the death with Count Dracula.

Castlevania was a smash hit. Despite the difficulty of the game and its lack of quality in some areas it was loved worldwide and proved very popular. It was a no-brainer for Konami to create a sequel. Borrowing ideas from Nintendo (Super Mario Bros. 2, Zelda II,...

Ryu Hayabusa is back and this time he’s brought his dad! No not really, that was Indiana Jones, wasn’t it? The storyline is largely irrelevant; the point is this series features ninjas and therefore demanded a sequel. Of course what we really want to..

Ryu Hayabusa is back and this time he’s brought his dad! No not really, that was Indiana Jones, wasn’t it? The storyline is largely..

This action game features a ninja called JaJaMaru, who uses his shuriken to defeat monsters and save Princess Sakura from the evil Lord Namazu Dayuu.

Of all the Japan-only games to be given new life on the Virtual Console, Nintendo, oddly enough, picked this one. While on the surface it looks like another not-very-good arcade game, it's actually...

For the first time outside of Japan – experience the original sequel to the best-selling video game of all time!

Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels is a bit of an oddity. "The Lost Levels" isn't even it's real title - This is actually the real version of Super Mario Bros. 2. Japan got this game (As SMB2), but when Nintendo realized...

Ready! Hut hut hut…

Coming quite late in the life of the NES - 1990 to be exact - Play Action Football was Nintendo's attempt at creating a realistic gridiron game for their aging, yet still popular console. The diagonal viewpoint is 'fake 3D' which looks a little pathetic by today's standards but was pretty impressive back then. At least it looks...

The original adventure of everybody's favourite fat man in a grass skirt has finally hit the Virtual Console!

Adventure Island is somewhat of a Mario clone - you guide Master Higgins to the end of every level (8 worlds with 4 levels each, sound familiar?) dodging wildlife, boulders and fire in order to defeat the witch doctor at the end of each world (also familiar?) who has captured your beloved..

Super Charged

After Konami's maddeningly hard Contra/Probotector proved immensely popular, obviously it wasn't going to sit around and not make a sequel. Super C/Probotector II puts you in the role of the same heroes once again as you try to take out alien scum. This time they're possessing humans to attack you. The game's got practically the same...

Wreck, not dreck

Wrecking Crew's a bit of an oddball. Despite starring Mario, it flies under many peoples' radars, partly because it launched simultaneous with the legendary Super Mario Bros. and several other titles, thus meaning it was quickly overshadowed. Wrecking Crew's genre is hard to nail down, but is essentially a mix of a platformer and...

Lunar Pool reinvents the popular game of pool with a unique and futuristic flair.

The humble pool simulator has never made for the most exciting game, so a futuristic version of the classic pub game set on the moon is an intriguing proposition. It is worth noting that Lunar Pool is based on American pool, which is very different game from what the British play. This game is more similar to..

Volleyball is one of the fastest team games around, and this NES classic recreates the speedy sport in a way that anyone can play.

Volleyball represents yet another of Nintendo’s dated sport simulations. Comparing to its early NES stablemates such as Soccer, Baseball, Ice Hockey and Tennis this game is easily the worst of the bunch. Considering it was originally released in 1986 it is..

The standard for vertically scrolling shooters, Star Soldier is the original game that spawned all of the titles in the long-running Soldier series.

We’ve already been blessed with the sublime Super Star Soldier and Soldier Blade but now it’s the turn of the game that started it all as the NES classic Star Soldier hits the Virtual Console. Released on the NES way back in 1986, Hudson’s..

Where it all started

More than 20 years have past since Metroid first blew away NES owners with its clever mixture of platforming, exploration and character upgrades. It went on to become spawn many sequels over the years, becoming a much-loved franchise for Nintendo fans – but nostalgia aside, is Metroid still high-quality by today’s standards?...