Sometimes it feels like the same NES games are released into every console generation, again and again. Some of that is starting to change, however. Sunsoft’s Gimmick! finally received a worldwide release after three decades of obscurity. Boutique publishers are attempting to get a few rarities back into circulation, both for modern platforms and their original ones. And, as far from a best-case scenario as something like Nintendo Switch Online’s NES channel is, being able to fire up Vice: Project Doom or Shadow of the Ninja without forking over $60-100 for an authentic cartridge first is appreciated.
We can ask for more, though. The NES’ library is deeper than its commercial caretaking has let on, and it includes so much more than the usual Nintendo, Capcom, or Konami titles—though, of course, all three of those companies have plenty they should be re-releasing, too, but do not. So let’s roll out 16 games we should want to see get a re-release of some kind, saving us from checking Ebay listings against PriceCharting entries any more than we already have to.
Bump ‘n’ Jump
Developer: Data East
Publisher: Vic Tokai
1988
Data East released Bump ‘n’ Jump in arcades way back in 1982, but this is one of those rare cases where the NES version is actually the superior one. It’s a vehicular combat game where you’re driving along roads full of obstacles and places to fall off of, all while trying to keep the other cars on the road from bumping you off, which you can read as “off the track” or “off this mortal coil.” Either is accurate. In the NES edition, your car (and those of the other racers) feel like they can take a bit more of a beating, and you also have to pick up cans of gas in order to perform the titular jump part of the game, so overall it’s more involved. And arcade vs. NES or no, this did come out quite some time after the original, so it didn’t sacrifice anything on the looks side, either.
Faxanadu
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: Hudson/Nintendo
1989
Hudson Soft licensed Nihon Falcom’s Dragon Slayer series to make a spin-off set in the same world as Xanadu for the Famicom in 1987, and then it was brought to North America by Nintendo two years later. It’s an excellent game, a side-scrolling action RPG with a killer soundtrack by June Chikuma, and it’s also just barely been available after its initial release. Faxanadu—a clever portmanteau of Famicom and Xanadu—was available on the Wii Virtual Console, but not on the Wii U’s version of that shop, and now both are closed down, anyway. Leaving us to wonder if it’s Falcom or Konami, which owns Hudson Soft’s properties, keeping us from legally experiencing the game again.
Crisis Force
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
1991
Speaking of Konami, they released Crisis Force at a time when the Super Famicom had already been on store shelves for nearly a year, and the SNES had just arrived in North America. Crisis Force never did come out in the latter region, though, just in Japan. But it should have, because it’s one of the better 8-bit shoot ‘em ups on a console full of them, thanks to Konami’s familiarity with the system by ‘91. Crisis Force includes two player co-op and the ability to transform your ship into multiple forms, each with their own attacks, with graphics that oftentimes don’t look like they’re from the same NES that everyone else was developing for. Oh, and it’s selling for over $100 for a loose Famicom cartridge right now, never mind one that comes with a box and a manual, so Konami, do us a favor here.
Kickle Cubicle
Developer: Irem
Publisher: Irem
1990
Another NES game where you can argue it’s superior to the arcade edition, and it all has to do with it being a bit more forgiving but without foregoing the difficulty. Kickle Cubicle is a sokoban-style puzzle game where you’re blowing freezing breath to make ice blocks out of foes, which you can then shift around and use to navigate the environment. It has loads of levels, it has boss fights, and it has puzzles that will have you scratching your head—at least on the NES version you have the ability to pause and the ability to keep on continuing after dying, which cuts down on some of the arcade version’s inherent frustration. This one might actually see a re-release soon—though there’s no guarantee of that—through Strictly Limited’s five-volume Irem Collection that’s still unveiling its included titles as of this writing.
Klax
Developer: Atari Games
Publisher: Tengen
1990
Falling block puzzle games were the big thing after the international release of Tetris, with everyone scrambling to find their own massive hit in the genre. Klax was an attempt in arcades and on home platforms for Atari Games to capitalize on the moment, since releasing an unauthorized version of Tetris through the Tengen label for the NES mostly managed to get them sued by Nintendo. Before that all came to its conclusion, though, we got Klax on a black Tengen cartridge. The game, through a nifty graphical trick, makes tiles appear as if they’re coming from the background to the foreground instead of dropping from above. Klax was ported to basically every system in existence at the time and years down the road, too—a trend that allowed Mike Mika, now president of Digital Eclipse, to hide a marriage proposal inside the Game Boy Color edition—but now it’s been awhile, so let’s get that out there again.
The Guardian Legend
Developer: Compile
Publisher: Broderbund
1989
The Guardian Legend is a brilliant game, one of the best on the NES, but not nearly enough people have actually played it to make that a universal truth. It’s an action-adventure outing that’s also a shoot ‘em up, from a developer, Compile, who excelled at making both of those games, and the combination of the two genres worked splendidly here in a way it hasn’t really in titles that tried something similar. It didn’t sell well in spite of its quality, and didn’t get a second chance on the Wii Virtual Console like so many other titles from the era. So we’re left waiting for D4 Enterprises, which owns the rights to so many Compile games, to get this thing… somewhere. As is, remade, whatever, just give people a chance to play The Guardian Legend, because it holds up.
Gun-Nac
Developer: Compile
Publisher: ASCII Corporation
1991
While we’re on the subject of NES games that Compile made that didn’t sell, let’s talk Gun-Nac. Compile developed the game for the 8-bit NES after they had already begun making 16-bit shoot ‘em ups on both the Turbografx-16 and the Genesis. And it plays a lot like the studio wanted to prove that 8-bit hardware still had so much more to give than anyone else knew. Gun-Nac has a ridiculous concept featuring inanimate objects becoming both animated and violent, and is one of Compile’s better shooters despite the hardware limitations, because those people knew what they were doing. Oh, and if you thought Crisis Force sounded expensive, a loose Gun-Nac cart sells for about 3.5 times as much—the last complete (but open) version sold for $767. D4, you know what you have to do.
Metal Slader Glory
Developer: HAL Laboratory
Publisher: HAL Laboratory
1991
If you just looked at Metal Slader Glory, you probably wouldn’t guess that it’s a Famicom game. The level of attention and detail in the art is astounding, and thanks to the efforts of its publisher/designer/artist/writer Yoshimuri Hoshi, looks not dissimilar to what was appearing on more powerful Japanese home computers: as Metal Slader Glory was an adventure game that generally wasn’t focused on action, it could get away with that kind of detail on Nintendo’s nearly decade-old hardware. It also utilized a special cartridge to fit all this extra stuff, and oh, the lengthy development and need for those pricey cartridges nearly bankrupted HAL Laboratory: Metal Slader Glory isn’t the lone reason why, but it played a significant role in Nintendo ending up with a pre-Kirby HAL under its umbrella. Nintendo still hasn’t given the game a worldwide release, so getting an officially translated edition now would be a surprise, but that doesn’t lessen the desire for it.
The Magic of Scheherazade
Developer: Culture Brain
Publisher: Culture Brain
1990
There are plenty of action-adventure games and action RPGs for the NES, but The Magic of Scheherazade is both of these things, and it’s also focused on time travel with an Arabian setting. Developer and publisher Culture Brain (Baseball Simulator, Super Chinese series) made sure it stood out in those regards. Reviews have been a bit mixed over the years, but retrospective ones are more pleased with it than the original run of them, so that should tell you something: The Magic of Scheherazade still has something to offer, if only it’s given the opportunity to show as much.
Puzznic
Developer: Taito
Publisher: Taito
1990
Puzznic wasn’t an NES exclusive—it was a Taito arcade game that was ported to every home computer in existence by Ocean Software, which was the way of things with Taito’s titles at the time. It came about at the same time that puzzle games were blowing up, but instead of being a falling block puzzler, it instead presented you with a set of prearranged blocks. You match them in pairs by picking up a block and moving it elsewhere, attempting to set up combos in the process. When the screen is cleared, you’ve completed that stage, and it’s on to the next. The play area changes shape, with the placement of the walls impacting how easily you can shift pieces around to get clears and combos, and sometimes pieces of the wall are also moving to make things that much tougher. There’s a reason it was ported everywhere, and even got a Playstation release over a decade after its original run, but it’s time to get it out there again.
Archon
Developer: Free Fall Associates
Publisher: Electronic Arts
1990
Archon is a remake/port of Archon: The Light and Dark, a computer game released in 1983. Picture this: you’re playing chess, but when one piece attacks another on the board, instead of automatically knocking them out, you go into a battle to determine the victor. It’s the kind of thing you can’t do with the board game version of things, but can with the videogame edition. The various pieces in Archon have their strengths and weaknesses against the other pieces, but you can still pull out a victory even when overmatched, if you’re skilled enough at the action portion of the game. It’s not chess, or a videogame version of chess, but it is Archon. While the NES version isn’t available anywhere, if you want to check it out in its classic form, both GOG and Steam can help with that.
Silkworm
Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
1988
Silkworm has a fascinating hook: it’s a horizontally scrolling shoot ‘em up, but one that plays completely differently based on which starting vehicle you pick. And not in the “some ships play differently than other ships” way, either. Your choices are a helicopter or an attack jeep: you don’t get much different than that. The jeep has a machine gun that fires forward, while the helicopter can take advantage of its flight and fire downward at an angle. The game, obviously, is going to feel different based on which vehicle you pick, but you could also play co-op and have both chopper and jeep in play at the same time, which once again changes the feel of it all!
Otocky
Developer: SEDIC
Publisher: ASCII Corporation
1987
Before Rez—long before Rez—there was Otocky. An early generative music game, Otocky was designed by Toshio Iwai, who would later create the Nintendo DS music game Electroplankton (as well as a whole bunch of stuff that wasn’t videogames). It’s a Famicom Disk System shoot ‘em up where each shot fired in the eight allowed directions plays a different note, and it plays it along with the beat that’s playing in the background. Which is to say that it’s not exactly like what Hi-Fi Rush did by timing attacks and defensive moves to the beat of the music, but consider that you can even have this conversation about a game that was released 36 years before that one, and you get the idea of how far ahead of the game this one was. Otocky practically lets you generate the game’s soundtrack, beat aside, and that’s something that hasn’t happened much since its release, never mind before.
Over Horizon
Developer: Pixel, Hot B
Publisher: Hot B
1991
Over Horizon is another shooter, and the idea behind it is basically, “What if you could change the design of the ships from R-Type and Gradius so they better fit your playstyle?” This Japan-only (well, Germany, too, but only Germany for some reason) Famicom game is held in high regard to this day by those who have played it, to the point that it was included as the bonus to convince people on the fence to order Strictly Limited’s soon-to-be-released Steel Empire Chronicles, which is otherwise “just” a bunch of different versions of another classic Hot B shooter, Steel Empire. Now, being included in a limited edition release from a boutique shop isn’t the same as a wide release, and Over Horizon, one of the best STG on the Famicom/NES, deserves more. Hopefully it’ll eventually end up with a digital release, but I fear it will instead be yet another goodie reserved for the small number of people who shell out for the physical edition of a collection.
Radia Senki: Reimeihen
Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
1991
There was supposed to be an English-language release of Radia Senki, an action RPG from Tecmo, but it never ended up materializing. Instead, anyone interested in playing has had to settle for an unofficial translation, but the game is worth that effort. It was well ahead of its time, with it showing off some systems that would end up being modified or evolved in later action RPGs (and even turn-based ones), while also having you controlling just the one party member while strategically ordering the others around. The game isn’t perfect, but it was influential and ambitious, and could stand a light touch remaster, if nothing else, to improve the AI a bit, or to avoid some of the issues caused by the hardware limitations, i.e. screen flicker.
The Battle of Olympus
Developer: Infinity
Publisher: Broderbund
1990
If you enjoy Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, then you’d also enjoy its lovely nonlinear ancient Greek variant, The Battle of Olympus. They aren’t exactly the same by any means (The Battle of Olympus has its own quirks and is more of a looker, too), but it’s no secret that the first Zelda sequel influenced Infinity’s first original game, either. It’s a bit surprising that it hasn’t already been released on Nintendo Switch Online, since it’s basically the perfect kind of game for that thing as one that has a little bit of a following and is similar to games people know better, but hey, that service is only like, half-a-decade old now, what’s the rush?
Marc Normandin covers retro videogames at Retro XP, which you can read for free but support through his Patreon, and can be found on Twitter at @Marc_Normandin.