Console of the Month (Jan 2023): NES

[Ack]

To take a moment and diverge briefly from the current discussion, the NES is the first console I got. In fact, it's the first console I remember getting, as my Dad buying it is one of my earliest memories. I remember we were at a Sears in Huntsville, AL, when he bought a large box at the counter. I had no idea what it was, or how important it was going to be to my life afterwards.

We came home, and he unpacked a weird looking grey square and an orange gun of some kind. He got it all set up, and suddenly there was a small red man jumping on screen. He played through the first couple of levels, slowly learning them as I would have to do. Once he died, he swapped over to a game about shooting ducks and tried it out, getting annoyed at the dog. He then set the controller down, and I got a turn.

He never got that controller back.

[o.pwuaioc]

I unfortunately had to play the NES only at friends' and neighbors' houses first. I didn't get an NES proper until decades later (2010), but it was still a very formative part of my childhood gaming experience. Even though I grew up at a point where the Genesis and Super Nintendo quickly took over, the system was ever present. Whether it's because that one friend's family could only afford the NES or else had an older sibling who preferred it, it stayed on my radar.

Despite not being my first console (2600) or the most I played during those early years (tied between Genesis and Super Nintendo), I still maintain that the original Nintendo is the best console of all time. It's just powerful enough, thanks to the mapper chips, that the spritework never goes out of style and sounds great to boot. It has fantastic games of all genres (though could definitely use some work in the shooter category), and a lot of the later staples really started there.

Everyone usually says the PS1 or PS2 is the best console, but the 3D on both of those is so ugly and the camera so rudimentary that I find myself almost never returning to them, outside of a handful of games. Meanwhile, I'm well over 100 NES and Famicom games, and I'm sure I could comfortable get a couple dozen more (not including the stupid expensive ones, like Lickle).

When I think of gaming and pure gaming, the NES is immediately what comes to mind. Nothing beats it.

[alienjesus]

I didn't have a NES back in the day (I'm European, I had a Master System ) but I eventually got one when I first started actively buying retro games around the time I was at university. The NES was one of the first systems I bought at the time, along with a Dreamcast and Master System (and a CDi and Virtual Boy for some reason ).

This was back in the 'good days' of eBay as someone has mentioned here before. For less than £30 I picked up an NES with 10 games of varying quality

- Super Mario Bros
- Super Mario Bros 3
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
- Wrath of the Black Manta
- Mission Impossible
- Punch-Out!!
- Chip & Dale: Rescue Rangers
- Double Dragon
- Captain Skyhawk
- Robocop

I only have about half of these nowadays, but it was a nice little start to the library.

Despite liking the NES, it's a console where I haven't got the biggest collection for it. I have some good stuff and a lot of the 'big' games, but perhaps not as many of the cult classics and good hidden gems as I do on other consoles - especially other Nintendo consoles. The rarest and most obscure game I have for it is almost definitely Ufouria: The Saga which is a really great little Metroidvania style game with really weird and funny character designs.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

My favorite part of the NES is how many of its adventure games are bewilderingly esoteric. Nintendo asked developers to steer away from making arcade ports, and that led to them making many of the first adventure games with real-time action in them. This led to a funky friction between "intelligent choices" and using merely a d-pad and two other buttons. Some examples: ducking with a red crystal in Castlevania II, smacking trees with a hammer in Zelda II, sinking into night-time jars in SMB2 to find warps, and finding out how weapons worked in Mega Man. Developers were still figuring out ways to translate these actions into something sensible, and by the time 16-bit was mainstream, a lot of the kinks had been ironed out. (Hence my love for Secret of Evermore, a Super Nintendo game that feels like a Nintendo 8-bit game.)

This made Nintendo Power such an important part of the NES experience.

[Ziggy]

I love that Nintendo Power cover.

Speaking of Castlevania II - I like this game, but hate the nonsense. I made myself a cheat sheet for it. Found here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=53352

I made something similar for Zelda, some years back. Found here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=50550



I never played Zelda II. Should I ?

[Markies]

I will always hold a special place in my heart for the NES.
It is in top contention of being my favorite console of all time.
I still get a rush of excitement when I play, buy or beat a NES Game.
Playing NES Games is one of fondest memories from my Childhood.

What I love the most about the NES is that the library is just stacked. I own 63 NES Games and I have another 83 NES Games on my Wishlist. You could easily go 200 or 300 deep depending on how open minded you are to NES Games. It had a fantastic game for every single genre and probably the greatest Sports Titles ever on a console.

To this day, when I think of Retro Games or Video Games in general, the first image that comes to mind is a NES Games.

My 2nd favorite game of all time and the game that dominated my childhood is the original Legend Of Zelda. I lost count of how many times I beat that game before I turned 15. I used to spend weekends playing through the first and second quests and be ready for school on Monday.

Dr. Mario and Tecmo Super Bowl are also games that I have put hundreds of hours into. I have firm childhood memories and I still go back to those games to this day. Also, Mega Man 2 is up there on my favorites and the best Mega Man game.

Other favorites:
Bad News Baseball
Baseball Simulator 1,000
Castlevania
Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers
Contra
Dragon Warrior IV
DuckTales
Final Fantasy
Kirby's Adventure
Mega Man 3
Metroid
R.B.I. Baseball
Super Mario Brothers 3

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

Dr. Mario and Tecmo Super Bowl are also games that I have put hundreds of hours into.

As far as I know, these were the first games that had a competitive scene at home.
I still think Dr. Mario is the most interesting versus puzzle game.
And Tecmo Super Bowl. Just so good. To all the non-Americans out there, get into it, you'll finally understand why this version of "football" is beloved.

[bmoc]

I incorrectly posted in the SNES thread that I got an NES in '88. Turns out that it was most certainly '89. Back in the before times and the long long ago, we would get a Sears Wishbook in the mail and circle the items that we were interested in. For those not old enough to remember the Sears Wishbook, it was a THICK paper catalog the Sears would mail to your home before the Christmas season. Parents used them to determine what to buy their kids for Christmas if they didn't live near any big toy stores. I now realize that I was off a year in my original estimate because of this page that came from the 1989 Wishbook.

While this page has nothing to do with the NES, it is seared (pun intended) into my memory because the TMNT Party Wagon was the top item on my Christmas list. My family was not well off financially so I always had to keep my expectations in check. I circled a few things on this page and maybe a few others but I didn't think that I would be getting an NES after asking for one for several years.

Christmas morning came and I not only got the Party Wagon but the Pizza Thrower along with several figures. I figured that was pretty much it for me but mom and dad still had a gift for both me and my sister. It was an NES Action Set! Sadly, we only got to play it for a couple of days because my mom got pneumonia and had to be hospitalized for what seemed like an eternity. I want to say it was around 2 weeks but the accuracy of my memory back then is demonstratively questionable. During that "2 weeks", my sister and I stayed with our grandmother and we weren't allowed to bring the NES with us. I very much wanted my mom to be healthy but man that was a long [probably] 2 weeks. She did eventually get better and we were back in Mario Bros/Duck Hunt induced bliss.

Here's the other games that we eventually purchased:
Super Mario Bros 2
Super Mario Bros 3
TMNT II
TMNT III
Jeopardy
Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?

Not a big list by any means but we rented a ton of games. We had to be really sure we wanted something because my parents had an aversion to buying used electronics. Renting was a pretty good idea for us because NES games in general didn't hold our interest for more than a weekend. Only a few games required multiple rentals. Good thing password saves were common back then!

It was a good time to have an NES as Captain N and the Super Mario Bros Super Show were on the air. I was finally able to join in the game related discussions at school without being left out. I was very hyped for the Super Mario Bros movie but we thankfully waited for that to be available at the local video rental store. I would have been extremely disappointed seeing that at the theater. My kids asked when we could watch the Mario Bros movie (the new one coming out in April) but I teased them that they don't have to wait... My son immediately knew what I was planning and shut that down (he's never seen the old Mario movie).

[Limewater]

Y'all are all wrong about the Super Mario Bros. movie from 1993! It's brilliant!

Y'all just have too much faith in the judgement of your twelve-year-old selves to go back and give it another chance. Hoskins and Leguizamo are charming as Mario and Luigi, and the world-building outclasses most children's fantasy films of its time.

I can't imagine a better live-action adaptation of the Mario Bros. games at that point. Keep in mind, at the time of production the only Mario Bros. games were:
Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros.
SMB2
SMB3
Super Mario World
and
Super Mario Land.

Filming was completed before Super Mario Land 2 was released.

[RobertAugustdeMeijer]

I didn't have a NES back in the day (I'm European, I had a Master System ) but I eventually got one when I first started actively buying retro games around the time I was at university. The NES was one of the first systems I bought at the time, along with a Dreamcast and Master System (and a CDi and Virtual Boy for some reason ).

I would love to hear more of how you felt about the NES library as someone who grew up with the Master System! As an American / Dutch person, I later became jealous I didn't grow up with the Spectrum and C64. I never felt much for the Master System, though.