Home Game Poll vol. 1 (1984-1992): Nominate the best NES, Master System, etc console games ever (Nom deadline: September 8th)

So much craft and detail and joy and vastness, and yet not entirely unthinkable as a "sit down and play in one sitting since there's no save" game.

in retrospect, not having a save system was SO important to SMB3 because, counterintuitively, it encouraged wandering and exploration. although of course it was possible to beat it relatively quickly once you knew where the whistles were and which rocks to break in world 8, the first several dozen times you played likely ended in, say, world 3 or 5 or 6, just because you had to go to school or dinner or bed or whatever. so you ended up playing those early worlds over and over and over again, and naturally exploring and looking for secrets as you went. to this day, i'm amazed when i sit down and play SMB3 for the first time in a few years and i still automatically know where tons of secrets are. it's just cemented in the brain, muscle memory style.

Music from SMB2 is a very good point. Love the character selection soundtrack expecially, pops into my head all the time.

It's amazing in hindsight what a huge mascot Mario was, for not having much backstory or dialogue or anything like that. I remember that Mario 3 commercial and it really did feel like that big a deal. Ditto The Wizard, the gigantic unveiling, obviously really heavy-handed promotion there but no kid in the audience would have disputed the game deserving such a massive unveiling. And all that without an "attitude" or anything like that. It was just so fun to play Mario games!

Zelda has actual save files with a battery in the cartridge - that was a big deal at the time, and for years afterwards tbh. Even lots of A-list titles like the Megaman sequels relied on really clunky password systems - graphical in that case, but godawful tedious gibberish input fests in nearly everything else. I guess I see what you mean about getting repetitive if you really played and replayed it; it's not something like Mario 3 where I played through and won many, many times (sometimes warping past less-beloved worlds, sometimes kicking back to savor every single level and get the Hammer Brothers suit). But it's more like a quest game or an RPG anyway, you save and come back to it and gradually progress and when you win you feel satisfied not coming back right away. Beating Zelda II the first time felt like the biggest gaming accomplishment I had ever, or would ever, attain.

That's a fair point about the Castlevania controls; they're just such landmarks of design, music, and scope for a 2D platformer. You compare the first one to Ghosts n Goblins, which has a similar theme and maybe even a similar number of levels, and while both are brutally hard, Castlevania mostly feels "fair" and it's so evidently a leap forward in graphics and enemy/level design and stuff. It's fun to play even just for the clear sense that you're moving through meaningfully different regions of this castle. Passing over the bizarre failed experiments of the second one, III basically takes all that many steps forward while perhaps being less satisfying as a game. It's huge and there are the multiple paths and multiple characters, but only a few of the individual levels come into focus as much. Still just astounding for how much they could get those cartridges to do on that system.

xpost otm

i'm trying to think of the most recently released game that has as much content as SMB3, with no save system.

i think it was SMB3

haha - maybe!

but i wouldn't even want a save system in it, is the thing. you don't miss it at all. i feel sorry for "the kids" who have only played re-releases of the game (through wiiware or emulators) that have save systems, because i doubt they feel as compelled to play it over and over again. when you have a save you don't really revisit old levels nearly as often, if at all. but replaying SMB3 levels is so key to what makes the game legendary.

Agreed. In particular the first two worlds really start to feel like old friends; it's a good thing they're among the stronger in the game I think. Plus it actually increases the novelty factory of the later boards that you might sometimes skip past or just not get to. There's also a certain pace to it, if you really play straight through, where you do get rewards and reprieves every so often; again, not that it's remotely a "hard" game but there's still, for example, that payoff in the water world where you can take a little boat far out to the east (I think after judicious use of the hammer if you didn't use it in the desert world?) and just basically pick up a bunch of little bonus mushroom houses IIRC. That's satisfying as heck.

I do basically agree that the lives are a little too freely given. I don't recall a game of SMB3 ever coming down to a nail-biting "whew!" like, I really needed to win that level on that life. But there are lots of death-defying stunts within the levels, so eh.

Is there a master list with all the noms so far? like a google doc or something?

more noms

Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II (NES)
Pang aka Buster Bros. (I only played it in the Arcade and on my Playstation Buster Bros Collection but it was on earlier stuff. wiki link)

I'll try to remember more later

I loved loved loved first Wizards & Warriors, out of proportion to its actual quality. Rented it many times just to march through the same few levels, relish the treasure chests again, sigh at the tedium of ascending the castle exterior, thank god for the Feather of Feather Fall.

I can't remember if I didn't enjoy the sequels as much or if they were just really rare. They looked great in Nintendo Power, that's for sure. I think the third was supposed to be a little more quasi-RPGish, in a Faxanadu/Zelda II kind of way?

Castlevania mostly feels "fair" and it's so evidently a leap forward in graphics and enemy/level design and stuff

YES in a lot of ways it is like the Souls games are now now. If you master enemy patterns and know how to properly react you should be able to one-life it. It's INSANE that they have NG+ in the original Castlevania, which makes the game harder by manipulating damage. That game is already insane. As for level design, look no further than that room before the Grim Reaper, where you are dodging Medusa heads and axe-throwing knights that take multiple hits to kill.

Highly recommend the Anatomy of Castlevania: http://www.anatomyofgames.com/gamespite-quarterly/gjs13-anatomy-of-castlevania/ it goes into depth at why it's so good, how it may be the first game that really tried to do a linear and cohesive design. IE random platforms sitting in mid-air are connected to brickwork in the background and stuff. It is a masterpiece of impossible architecture. Here the sprite art really shines: what could be rather boring brick walls and archways have weathering and worn paint and moss drawn onto the tiles, one pixel at a time. This details suggests a world beyond what you just see on the CRT. Castlevania tugs at your imagination.

Sorry that links is broken. Try this one. http://www.anatomyofgames.com/anatomy-of-a-game/

Jeremy Parish is a great game writer. He covers a lot of the games in this poll on the site.

I used to read that guy religiously, going back to like, 1999/2000 or so. Evangelion Thumbnail Theater, all that stuff. He must be the king of unfinished or now un-archived projects, so many loose threads. Clearly struggling between the 'blog' and the 'kitchen sink website' as formats. As it is so much of the recent stuff is virtually un-browsable; maybe that's an incentive to buy the books. I do like that he's picked up the print volume as a format, and zeroed in on a few recurring obsessions (the "Metroidvania" genre in particular).

The only thing is, and this is hardly unique to that site, but there's also a real tension between what's brilliant about the insight and what's popular with most of the readers. I feel like a lot of projects like this burn themselves out screencapping everything and basically let's-playing every single step of the game, like a walkthrough but every sentence has to be written snappily and with nerd panache. Sometimes that's fun to read but sometimes it's just flab keeping us from a really taut single medium or long-form essay about, in this case, the anatomy of the particular game. Part of me loves the idea of a 14-article series on Zelda II, or 27 parts on Super Mario Bros., but I suspect some of the strengths of the insights actually get buried in all that coverage... which nonetheless I'm sure is very popular. This is by no means unique to Parish, and he has a way better ratio than some other blogs I could name, but you kinda wish his experience in print journalism would have helped him internalize some checks on excess. OTOH he's writing about what he loves so, y'know, more power to him!

Sticking closer to content, one thing I wonder about is the tendency for most of the games to assume that they're really well-thought-out masterpieces and that every little move is just incredibly amazing, or just brilliantly effective, or just perfectly calibrated. That's another common tendency in this kind of writing and it's exhausting, but I think it also starts to seep into the argument; he has a general predisposition towards games that 'teach' their mechanics through gameplay, and a good eye for ways games do this in subtle ways that also flesh out the story or atmosphere of the world. But I feel like, and I should have examples for this, but sometimes it starts to feel like every single thing you do in a game is a planned little teachable moment; every jump you have to make early on is there to train you for a more complicated jump in World 7. And yeah, sure, in general I buy that but this was also just an era of games being hard as fuck and throwing you in the deep end, and sometimes stuff wasn't really telegraphed all that well but the games were still fun for it. I dunno, I'm not explaining this well and it's not a reason not to read his stuff. Maybe it would be better to say that his essays for their emphasis on this theme have forced me to think for myself about what makes a good difficulty curve or how much of this stuff is necessary for a good game.

BTW: What is the best world of Super Mario 3?

Without knowing Castlevania II's secrets (ie without internet help), you won't be able to win. It's not the game's difficulty but the fact that you need a Nintendo Power or the prodigy kid down the street in order to progress in the game. I mean you would have to be pretty damn lucky to find/solve the secrets on your own.

Nobody I know bothered to play all the way through Link II. I wonder if it had any bitchy secrets as well

the tendency for most of the games to assume that they're really well-thought-out masterpieces and that every little move is just incredibly amazing, or just brilliantly effective, or just perfectly calibrated

Well given memory limitations everything was more or less meticulously thought-out, from level design to song length to character art. The designers themselves have admitted as much, the famous example being Mario's design was due to the limitations of pixel art, his moustache and hat being added to fix animation problems that cropped up with the tiny resolution they had to work with.

Nowadays there really aren't any limitations so less consideration probably goes into it. If you can only include X amount of art/music/gameplay, it is going to be the absolute best you can come up with.

But yes there is probably some projection/fandom in there largely coloring things.

Also I may be confusing this (with DOOM?) but I seem to remember them saying the first stage of Mario was built at the end of development, after they had figured out the tools, and thus were able to use more deliberate planning irt what the player would encounter and how they would likely respond.

Sure, I just think it gets taken to this level of "and here's yet another example of the unfailing inexhaustible genius of the designers" and it just becomes unreadable after a few paragraphs. Definitely talking more about the game design/challenge/information stuff here than the pixel art stuff. Obviously, there's more care at all levels in the classics than the far, far more numerous dudfests... s'what makes them the classics!

Zelda II is profoundly flawed but in the end, basically playable and satisfying in its way. If the first one had never existed it'd probably be pretty well remembered as an ambitious if incompletely-worked-out action RPG. I can think of only two totally baffling points that really scream "Nintendo Power, take me away!" which is basically zero compared to Castlevania II. Will be stunned if anyone ends up voting for that one...

Thanks for responding to that

I never understood the love for Zelda II. All I can remember is getting it and being like WTF, this isn't Zelda. But I was 9, so maybe I'd feel differently now.

Yeah it's pretty fun.

CVII is really fun too when you have a walkthrough. Killer music. The bosses are piss easy but I don't mind that after the nightmare bosses in the first game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfh0ytz8S0k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rsycfDliZU

zelda 2 the first game i ever beat. dark link an all-time end boss. (his cameo in ocarina is kind of misplaced and random.) a genuinely difficult game, probably less forgiving than the first (definitely meaner: ganon's digitized chuckle on game over) and the last zelda game to be hard at all. its dangerous places (the forests, the pitch-black caves, the big mess of rocky maze in the southwest, the town where people are bats) are stressful and frightening in ways no death mountain has ever been, and a combination of nes-memory restrictions on text and a number of NPCs hugely increased from the first game meant even the non-hostile townspeople (health-restoring hookers aside) seemed standoffish and terse. the rare game i remember (vividly) as a hostile place, remote from help, instead of as a beloved playground. it's also weirdly colorless, simultaneously too simple and too fiddly to be a working platformer, and (alone in the series) reliant on dedicated, mindless grinding without any of the monster or spell variety that's supposed to entertain you when you're doing that in FF games. so it probably deserves its reputation in comparison to the likes of zelda 1 and link to the past, but in the post-twilight-princess era of nintendo's long enslavement to ocarina of time it definitely shouldn't be called the series' worst anymore.

I had a great idea for the upcoming Zelda game the other day. You start the game with a sword, shield, bow, boomerang and bombs
http://i44.tinypic.com/2z8ce9u.png

tbf the last Zelda game was in thrall to Link To The Past rather than Ocarina (and was all the better for it)

Myself and a few other guys are using Minecraft to build a working 3D remake of the original Zelda. Not sure how you guys feel about Minecraft, though.

i'm trying to think of the most recently released game that has as much content as SMB3, with no save system.

Kid Chameleon (Genesis, 1992) had over 100 stages and no saves. Stages had multiple exits that lead to many paths through the game.

those videos on graphics were really cool, thanks - somehow got this far in my life without knowing that stuff. wild about the 'color cells,' amazing how well the artists knew how to camouflage the boundaries. super cool.

high-fives to dlh. love this - "the rare game i remember (vividly) as a hostile place, remote from help, instead of as a beloved playground." totally. I AM ERROR. it's a bleak and ugly sort of hyrule you're saving here, not unlike the transylvania of castlevania ii but a lot more playable. i also think it should get credit for the dungeons, which are sometimes really irritating, and are nothing on the high-concept ones from link to the past, but again, legitimately hard, and considerably more varied than CV2's mansions which really all feel like the same place (and don't even have bosses!). and of course, the 'big rocky maze' - which IS death mountain! - thrown at you way too early in the game, super punishing. these mean motherfuckers, man:

http://www.nintendojo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Zelda-Daira.png

I'm on vacation so I don't have the master list handy. But I can post it on Tuesday. If anyone thinks some hang is missing, nominate it I won't get mad if it's a dupe.

Am I missing anything?

Atari Commando
Atari Dark Chambers
Atari Desert Falcon
Atari Donkey Kong Jr.
Atari Food Fight
Atari Galaga
Atari Mario Bros.
Atari Tower Toppler
Atari Xevious
NES 10 Yard Fight
NES 1943: battle of the midway
NES A Boy and His Blob
NES Adventures of Lolo
NES Adventures of Lolo 3
NES Bad Dudes
NES banana prince
NES Base Wars
NES Baseball Simulator 1.000
NES Baseball Stars
NES Bases Loaded
NES Batman
NES Batman: Return of the Joker
NES Battle of Olympus
NES Battletoads
NES Bionic Commando
NES Blades of Steel
NES Blaster Master
NES Bomberman
NES Bubble Bobble
NES California Games
NES Castlevania
NES Castlevania II
NES Castlevania III
NES Cobra Triangle
NES Commando
NES Contra
NES Crisis Force
NES Crystalis
NES Deja Vu
NES demon sword
NES Destiny of an Emperor
NES Double Dragon
NES Double Dragon II
NES Double Dribble
NES Dr. Mario
NES Dragon Warrior
NES Dragon Warrior II
NES Dragon Warrior III
NES Dragon Warrior IV
NES Duck Hunt
NES Ducktales
NES Ducktales 2
NES Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball
NES Earthbound Zero
NES Excitebike
NES fantastic dizzy
NES Faxanadu
NES Fester's Quest
NES Final Fantasy
NES Friday the 13th
NES gargoyle's quest ii
NES Gauntlet
NES Ghosts 'n' Goblins
NES Golf
NES Golgo 13
NES Goonies II
NES Gradius
NES Gradius 2
NES Gumshoe
NES Hogan's Alley
NES holy diver
NES ice climber
NES Ice Hockey
NES Ikari Warriors
NES Impossible Mission
NES Jackal
NES Karnov
NES Kick Master
NES Kid Icarus
NES Kirby's Adventure
NES Kung Fu
NES Legacy of the Wizard
NES Lemmings
NES Life Force
NES Little League Baseball: Championship Series
NES Little Nemo: The Dream Master
NES M.C. Kids
NES Mach Rider
NES Maniac Mansion
NES Marble Madness
NES Mega Man
NES Mega Man II
NES Mega Man III
NES Mega Man IV
NES Metal Gear
NES Metal Gear II
NES Metroid
NES Mike Tyson's Punch Out
NES Mission Impossible
NES NARC
NES Ninja Gaiden
NES Ninja Gaiden II
NES Ninja Gaiden III
NES Nobunaga's Ambition
NES Otocky
NES Over Horizon
NES Parodius Da
NES prince of persia
NES Pro Wrestling
NES Rad Racer
NES Rampage
NES RBI Baseball
NES RC Pro Am
NES RC Pro Am II
NES Recca
NES Rescue Rangers
NES Ring King
NES River City Ransom
NES Rockin' Kats
NES Romance of the Three Kingdoms
NES Rush n Attack
NES Rygar
NES Section Z
NES Shadowgate
NES Smash TV
NES Snake, Rattle & Roll
NES Solar Jetman
NES Spy Hunter
NES StarTropics
NES StarTropics 2
NES Strider
NES Super C
NES super dodge ball
NES Super Mario Bros
NES Super Mario Bros 2
NES Super Mario Bros 3
NES Super Spike V'Ball
NES sweet home
NES Swords and Serpents
NES Tecmo Baseball
NES Tecmo Bowl
NES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I
NES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II
NES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
NES Tetris
NES The Adventures of Rad Gravity
NES The Immortal
NES The Legend of Zelda
NES The Legend of Zelda II
NES Tiger Heli
NES Town & Country Surf Designs: Wood & Water Rage
NES Track and Field
NES Ufouria: The Saga
NES Ultima Exodus
NES Uninvited
NES Urban Champion
NES Wall Street Kid
NES Willow
NES Winter Games
NES Wizards and Warriors
NES Yoshi
NES Yoshi's Cookie
NES Zanac
Sega Action Fighter
Sega Alex Kidd in Miracle World
Sega alex kidd in shinobi world
Sega Altered Beast
Sega Batman Returns
Sega columns
Sega enduro racer
Sega fantasy zone
Sega Ghostbusters
Sega Golden Axe Warrior
Sega golvellius: valley of doom
Sega James "Buster" Douglas Knockout Boxing
Sega Kung Fu Kid
Sega Mickey Mouse Castle Of Illusion
Sega miracle warriors
Sega operation wolf
Sega Phantasy Star
Sega psycho fox
Sega rampage
Sega rampart
Sega Revenge of Shinobi
Sega rocky
Sega r-type
Sega Shadow Dancer
Sega shadow of the beast
Sega Shinobi
Sega smash tv
Sega snail maze
Sega sonic chaos
Sega Space Harrier
Sega Speedball
Sega Speedball 2
Sega Spy vs. Spy
Sega Super Monaco GP
Sega teddy boy
Sega TransBot
Sega ultima iv
Sega Wonder Boy in Monster World
Sega Wonderboy III: The Dragon's Trap
Sega ys
Sega Zillion
Sega Zillion II: The Tri Formation

Nes Balloon Fight
Nes Donkey Kong Jr
Nes Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy
Nes Guerilla War
Nes Wizards and Warriors II: Ironsword

Those are going to be the final nominations unless someone else adds to it in the next ~3 hours, going to start the new thread around 7pm Eastern! (also sorry it took me so long!)