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Japanese Fans Vote On Top 30 NES Games
Thanks to 1UP for their report on a Japanese poll rating the top 30 Famicom (NES) games of all time, as conducted for an upcoming Tokyo museum exhibition. The report comments that this poll is "an interesting look at the titles that were big in the early days of Japanese gaming, as well as what's held up in retrospect", and the Dragon Quest series (Dragon Warrior in the U.S.) is particularly well-represented, since "...all four Famicom games in the series made the top 10, compared to only one Final Fantasy." Also pointed out: "It's also interesting to see what's ahead of Super Mario Brothers 3, the most popular NES game in the United States. In Japan, they'd rather play Ice Climber and Balloon Fight."
It's kind of funny because the Japanese Government actually passed a law that required DQ to be released on either Sundays or holidays because so many people skipped out on their jobs and school to purchase it.
Third section down under "How popular is the Dragon Quest series".
Dragon Warrior IV is probably the most complete game ever developed for the NES. The cart size claimed to be 8 megabytes, but discussion on emulation boards suggested that it was only 4 megs. That's still huge compared to most of the games. There is excellent gameplay, an expansive universe, multiple NPCs, several chapters of gameplay, an interesting storyline, and some beautiful graphics and music. It was the last big NES project that I know of and it still usually sells for $30-$40 online. I would definately rank it as probably the best well-crafted complete game. Enix made some good stuff. * sigh *
indeed..
**Action**
/Uninvited - Really cool games.
SMB I (Spent countless hours exploring secrets), II (At the time it was very weird and III (Pinnacle),
MegaMan 1 (challenging),2 (most popular) & 3 (pinnacle) (The rest are just fillers)
Castlevania 1 (Challenging), 2 (What's up with those weird clues?) 3 (Pinnacle),
Ninja Gaiden I (Cinema Displays!!!!), II(Great Music, action, etc), III (Hmmm.. Paralax scrolling and a Strider-type sword.. kool)
Shadow of the Ninja and S.C.A.T (Great games from Natsume)
Journey To Silius (Sunsoft's masterpiece, after Blaster Master, Fester and Batman - Not counting Return of the Joker
Contra (WOOWWWWW...), Super C (Double Wooow...)
**Adventure**
Zelda I (Dodongo.. what kind of name is that) II (Very challenging, great graphics.. masterpiece)
Metroid & Kid Icarus (VERY Unique games!!)
Crystalis (Much better and Refined than Zelda)
The Inmortal (Wow, american companies can make games!!)
Bionic Commando (Hitler?!?!?!?)
Goonies - Really cool...
**Beat'em up**
Double Dragon I (challenging), II (Fun!! 2 Player action), II (What happened here??)
River City Ramsom (Who can't forget fighting the final stage while listening to the Double Dragon BGM)
Battletoads - Hard and Weird!!!
**Shooters (Not the like of Doom/Quake we're talking THE original shooters)**
Zanac (Wow that's intense!!!)/Guardian Legend (Intensity with great graphics and RPG/Adventure)
Gradius (Hard) / Lifeforce (Cool.. 30 lives, I guess they're making up for the first one)
Gyruss (Really cool)
**Sports**
Baseball Stars (Greatest baseball game on 8 bit.. first to create your own players)
Tecmo Bowl (Just plain fun - Hide your controller from your oponent)
Baseball - Just fun.
Track n'Field - 1st to do In game adverstisement???, Game within a game (gradius).
Excitebike... (track editor??)
Mike Tyson's Punch Out (Remember, dodge Mike for 1:30)
**RPG**
Dragon Warrior I (What's this weird game...), II (Hmmm.. I'm kinda liking this type of games).. III (Masterpiece)
Final Fantasy - (Wow.. cool RPG..with Graphics!)
ShadowGate / DejaVu
Ultima Quest of The Avatar - Really LOONG.
Startropics.. Fun in the islands.
OK, many might be surprised to see these two up there, but it's not surprising at all.
Think about it, what are your favorite games from NES/Genesis to play with your friends? If you're like me and my friends, it was Contra, Streets of Rage, etc.
What do these games all have in common? - 2 players simultaneously! Play Halo on co-op mode, Mario Kart: Double Dash, hell, even the original mario bros was a so-so game that became SO much more fun with 2 players on at once. Ice Climber was simply from an era before NES became really popular (when games were labeled as part of the "Action Series," "Sports Series," etc.)
Dude, when those games came out Excitebike(1986), Goonies II (87/88) they broke a lot of ground.
Excitebike had its own track editor and the animation was off the hook. I remember people crashing on purpose just to laugh at the animation
The Goonies was MASSIVE (It was one of the first games that made you keep track of your location with your own map -I made my own goonies map-). Of course, if you think about newer games (16 bit Super Metroid, PSX Simphony of the Night and the GBA Castlevanias), this game is not long at all.
I don't know your age, but usually situating yourself in that year, and comparing it with what you had seen before does the job to make a good assessment of the impact of the game in its time.
I'm pretty sure that in 2018 people will make comments like this about the innovative games of today, but hey... C'est la vie.