Obscure nes games

Playing this game took hours. You began as a rather relatable teenager in Lisbon, and had to put in time on the short European trade routes amassing wealth before you could enter the world of warships, pirate battles, and sextant-guided exploration. It really took forever. I mean, a trip to the New World literally took minutes of sailing across the same empty blue sea, screen after screen, and you might run into a storm and never make it.

Uncharted Waters was like some kind of beefed-up, intensely detailed Oregon Trail. There were bar wenches to bribe, exotic goods to trade, crew members to recruit, random treasures to discover, foods to be rationed, and even poker games to be played at port. Got the girl a Portuguese princess nonetheless , got the gold, crossed the globe.

To this day, Uncharted Waters is the only game I have ever had the attention span, or maybe ability, to complete. Is that part of why I love it? But there has got to be something more to it. By shooting strange magnetic rays, Darc Seed had turned the helpless nation into zombies and had brought the Stature of Liberty to life to do his dirty work. These rays has also given him control over many deadly weapons, but none more powerful than the legendary samurai sword, Shura.

When the great head of the samurai, Namakubi, heard the sword had fallen into evil hands. He set off immediately for the United States. For only he possessed the strength and knowledge to recapture the magical sword and free the US from the evil clutches of Darc Seed.

Zombie Nation is absolutely one of the most bizarre games for the NES, beginning with your character. Unlike most shooters where you control a ship or presumably you play as a person controlling the ship in this game you play as a severed head of a dead samurai who drops vomit and shoots eyeballs. You make this guy fly around America blowing up rocks and buildings along with numerous enemies all of which are built in front of a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Like most shooters, Zombie Nation is incredibly difficult. You can play the boards on easy or on hard and believe me the easy setting is insanely difficult. The graphics are pretty amazing and the soundtrack is kickass. Plus, it also has the best box art of any NES game ever:. I s that an impaled king cake baby in the background? Happy Zombie-Gras! Developer : Namco Publisher : Bandai. In Kickmaster , you play as Thonolan who looks like a combination of Ryu Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden and Simon Belmont from Castlevania , and those games are pretty clearly the inspiration for Kickmaster.

Unlike those guys, his only weapons are his feet and he wields that one-two combo with a vengeance! The graphics are excellent, the control is great and actually pushed the boundaries of what an NES controller can do, and the music and sounds are pretty good if somewhat unexceptional. Kickmaster has elements of RPGs such as use of magic and experience points leading to leveling up.

Personally I only used one of the many magics you acquire healing , but the leveling up part is very useful. Every time the Kickmaster levels up, he gains a new kick attack ranging from a drop knee attack from above to a sliding kick from below. They are for the most part very awesome and add a dynamic to the gameplay that is both fun and addictive.

I say for the most part because a couple of them can really fuck you over. The flying jump kick for instance will absolutely send you flying uncontrollably into a pit, as will the slide kick. The game has a weird difficulty balance as well. The first 7 levels are pretty easy for an NES game and as you level up and get more magic your guy gets stronger which in turn makes the levels even easier.

On top of that you have infinite continues so eventually you will succeed, that is until the final level. For the first time all game, your character can fall down pits and the level is designed to make you fall down all of them. Otherwise, this is a real gem in a genre that is chock full of them. For being such a big developer with so many popular titles, Capcom actually has a few rare and expensive games.

Taito is definitely king of the hard to find rarities, but Capcom is close behind with titles like DuckTales 2 , Snow Brothers more on that bad boy in the 2-Players section , and Mighty Final Fight. You can play as one of three characters: Guy fast but weak , Cody medium everything , and Haggar slow and strong as all fuck. Each of them has four special moves plus a desperation move and a super move you can learn by advancing levels.

Like the original Double Dragon , your character learns skills by gaining experience points that you get from defeating bad guys. The technique you use to destroy them decides how many points you get for each kill. Personally I like using Haggar because he has the most life-bar and his jumping piledriver not only gets you the most points but is also satisfying as all hell.

The character animation is really well done for 8-bit and the backgrounds and graphics are top notch. Also, for an especially obscure title, MFF has one of the best soundtracks on the NES and certainly some of the best Capcom music out there which is saying plenty.

Without a doubt Rampart is one of the most unique games on the NES in that it mixes two very different styles of gameplay. At the start of the game, you automatically build a small fort wall around a castle and you are given three cannons to place down within that wall. Next, you move a cursor toward your enemy ships in the water in 1-Player, another castle across the river in 2-Player and the cursor tells the cannons where to fire.

You spend a few seconds blasting the shit out of the enemies boats or walls as they likewise do to you, and this continues until time expires. The second part is the real innovative, addictive, and stressful aspect of Rampart.

Everyone ends up yelling like crazy because putting that wall back together against the ticking clock feels like disarming a bomb. Mario , or action puzzle games like Adventures of Lolo or Kickle Cubicle. Puzznic is actually two games in one: Puzznic and Gravnic. Although in this modern age of digital photography, I suppose you could take a picture, pause the game, and then figure out the puzzle before un-pausing.

Here are 10 of the best lesser-known NES games that need more love. Being such a late release, Metal Storm has some outstanding visuals, with the explosion made by your mech upon death being especially noteworthy.

In Metal Storm, you play as a mech with the ability to change gravity, which will allow you to walk on the ceiling. You collect different power-up to give you shield, turn your mech into a deadly fireball while switching from ceiling to floor, and more. The majority of the games level design and bosses are designed around the gravity changing mechanic creating a very cohesive and well-made experience.

The NES game was developed by Konami, who, at the time, was pumping out amazing game after amazing game like the Contra and Castlevania series. Each character has different abilities and can be changed to at any point during the game. After you have beaten the four initial levels, you are presented with even more levels you have to tackle using each member of your team.

Firebrand is tasked with finding out the mystery behind The Black Light which has come across the ghoul realm. Firebrand is capable of hovering for a few seconds before falling, and, as you progress through the game, you find power-ups that will allow you to fly longer and longer before you are able to fly indefinitely. Monster Party started off as a parody of different classic horror movies, but, due to licensing issues, they were forced to take out all of the references.

Monster Party creates a strange world, with some levels drastically shifting to something much more sinister. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Sadly, while this is based off a beloved arcade game, some cuts had to be made. Still, this was a solid port for the times. Usually, these games were nonsensical and not very good, but every now and then, a great team of developers put something together that was surprisingly good.

Gremlins 2 is one of those hidden gems from the era. Further Reading: 25 Underrated N64 Games. You play as Gizmo from a top-down perspective as he travels through a vast building to eliminate the gremlins using a variety of weapons, including a crossbow.

This is a game that looks, sounds, and plays far better than it has any right to. Acclaim released a whopping four Simpsons games during the lifespan of the NES.

By a lot. Rather than focusing on traditional side-scrolling gameplay like the other games, you play as Krusty the Klown. His titular funhouse has become infested with mice and only he can get rid of them. Gameplay is a lot like Lemmings , with Krusty moving around blocks and other objects to guide the mice to their extermination.

And while other characters from the franchise are sparse, they do show up as bosses at the end of each level. Rather than focus the camera behind your boxer, the fighters square off in third-person, like a wrestling game. While the gameplay is fun, Ring King has also become somewhat infamous online in recent years for another reason. There was a time, long ago, when Batman movies got video game adaptations — even great video game adaptations. It also boasts a killer soundtrack and some primitive, but entertaining cutscenes.

Just be warned that this is one difficult game to complete. You might not even make it through the first level, let alone live to see the final showdown with the Joker, but it sure is fun to try.

Despite the title, Street Fighter is only sort of related to the legendary fighting game franchise. So the main character was renamed from Kevin Striker in the Japanese version to Ken, a martial arts master, implying he was the same character from Street Fighter.

Based on an idea by George Lucas, Willow was one of those movies that was a big deal when it was released, but that has fallen into obscurity over the years. It seems rather unavoidable then that the game based on the movie would suffer the same fate. But Willow is actually good! Some might even prefer the required grinding.

The first StarTropics was a top-down adventure game that showed a lot of promise but had some control issues. For the sequel, Nintendo fixed that issue with a much smoother system that allowed movement in eight different directions, then added in some of the best graphics on the console and an awesome story that saw main character Mike Jones travel through time.

And for whatever reasons, Nintendo has completely ignored the series ever since. I guess? Is that something anyone has ever had to do for a birthday party?