I finished Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt for the NES today. Heck of a game. It'll be in the next batch of Game Badges, and its rating will be 4❤️/5. It's messy and unpolished, but its foundation is a rock-solid platform adventure game.
When I posted about finishing it, I remarked that it's "probably a top 10 or 15 NES game for me". But I wondered how true that was, so I looked at my master list and picked out every NES game. Of my 175 game badges, 24 of them (counting Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt) are for NES games.
Once I had all the games, I arranged them in rough order of preference and got a list:
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- The Guardian Legend
- The Legend of Zelda
- Megaman 2
- Kirby's Adventure
- Super Mario Bros. 2
- Gargoyle's Quest 2
- Pugsley's Scavenger Hunt
- Ducktales
- Contra
- Super Mario Bros.
- Hello Kitty World
- The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle
- Donkey Kong Jr.
- North & South
- Jeopardy
- Arkista's Ring
- Donkey Kong
- Gauntlet 2
- Dizzy the Adventurer
- Spelunker
- Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom
- Dragon Warrior
- Hook
This is kind of a bummer of a list! The NES was the most formative video game console of my life and I haven't even finished enough of its games for a top 25. A shocking number of them I played for the first time in the 2.5 years since the start of Jeff Gerstmann's NES game ranking saga.
There are several more that I've played, enjoyed, and would almost certainly rank high on the list if I was able to finish them. You see, here's the thing: NES games are hard and I have ADHD. I have no doubt that games like Rygar, Little Samson, Crystalis, Faxanadu and The Battle of Olympus would be all-timers if I managed to see them through to the end.
I'm trying! I've started no fewer than three new games of Faxanadu since watching Jeff play, and it undoubtedly kicks ass, but I keep getting stopping because I get lost and scared. Clearly I need to step up my game; I may have given Hook one heart because I'm a freak, but there's no universe in which it should appear on a top 25 list. I have fun stomping the computer in Jeopardy, but #16?? That seems like a little much. A Dizzy game in the top 20? Nothing against Dizzy, he seems like a stand-up egg, but there are so many more deserving games that should be in that spot. I'm sorry, 1980s Uncle Nintendo. I'll try to do better.