Current Events > My top 10 non-mainstream NES games. Which is the best?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Mainstream being Dragon Quest, Zelda, Mario and other big-name franchises. Here's a small summary of each:

Monster Party: A platformer where you are a boy who can turn into a gargoyle after eating pills/drugs. The novelty of the game is the bosses and the fact it was one of, if not, the goriest NES game. Bosses included tempura shrimp, a cat that threw dead kittens, and a well that throws dishes. Despite being made in Japan, he game was never released in Japan for being too weird.

Rygar: A platformer where you are a warrior who uses a chain shield as a weapon. The game left you with quite a bit to explore and find on your own. It granted you new abilities after beating bosses, as well as self-powering options for the diskarmor and more. The bosses would shoot out spicy fishsticks, which was always amusing to me.

Robo Warrior: An overhead progression game where you find items under scrubs and behind mountains to progress the level with. Your robot runs on battery power and his life drains the longer you go without recharging him. Many levels cycle the map endlessly until you find a chalice under the shrubs. Some levels are pitch black and require finding a candle or lantern. Others require rafts to get by rivers.

Yume Penguin Monogatari: You are a fat penguin whose girlfriend left him because he is fat. You have to get through platformer levels before the time runs out at a small weight as enemies don't kill you, they feed you.

Binary Land: A puzzle game with a boy and girl penguin. You control both with the same controls to make them meet for a kiss. Simple, but it was too cute to me. >_>

Sweet Home: A JRPG survival horror game, mixed with an "escape the room" element in a sense. You control 5 people and you have to utilize their abilities to get through obstacles in a manor. One with a camera, another with a vacuum, and more. Battles occur as a standard turnbased RPG.

Star Tropics: This game was practically a really good Zelda clone. You traverse dungeons upon entering from an overworld map. The game was more story-driven however. The second incorporated diagonal movements as well, making it more challenging, but more fun.

The Guardian Legend: This is like Zelda meets Xevious or something. You would explore a dungeon and gain weapons and upgrades. Eventually, you would be thrown into levels where your characters, Alyssa, turns into a fighter jet and does up-facing battles in space. Upon clearing the level, you are returned to the map to explore the next area in the dungeon. (My profile picture is of this game.)

Little Samson: Kind of seems to be based on A Journey To The West. You play as four changable characters who do different abilities to progress you through the levels.

Tiny Toon Adventures: This was a platformer game based on the cartoon. You could switch between Buster, Plunky and I believe Furball. Not much to say other than that it was fun. Loved the levels where you have to evade Elmyra. If nothing else, those parts would stick to my memories the most. Just a nice, fluid platformer.
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How is StarTropics not mainstream?
That game was really good though.
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Caelthus posted...

How is StarTropics not mainstream?
That game was really good though.

It died with the NES. By mainstream, I mean continuing franchises. Star Tropics was more of a cult classic series IMO.
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Caelthus posted...

How is StarTropics not mainstream?
That game was really good though.

Yeah it had commercials too iirc. If I'm thinking non mainstream nes games the first that comes to mind is kickle cubicle.
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Rygar was pretty big back then, and it got a remake on the PS2 and Wii.
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Foppe posted...

Rygar was pretty big back then, and it got a remake on the PS2 and Wii.

Yeah. It was my childhood favorite. Still never really became a "heavy franchise" or anything like that though. They tried. PS2 one was meh sadly.
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Yeah, it was a good game.
The PAL version had a glitch that gave you less health and made you weaker at the end of the game.
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Sayoria posted...

Caelthus posted...

How is StarTropics not mainstream?
That game was really good though.

It died with the NES. By mainstream, I mean continuing franchises. Star Tropics was more of a cult classic series IMO.

Plus, the awful controls and bullshit deathtraps in the first one meant hardly anyone bothered with the second one.

Solid list, makes it hard to pick just one
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HylianFox posted...

Solid list, makes it hard to pick just one

Guardian Legend seems the obvious winner to me.

I don't know any of it except Tiny Toon, which was fine and gets my vote

Questionmarktarius posted...

the awful controls and bullshit deathtraps

only losers who never bothered to finish the game say it has "awful" controls, they just take some getting used to

as for death traps, there's only one in the very first dungeon and it's easy to avoid once you know it's there
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HylianFox posted...

they just take some getting used to

Thus, awful.

Your guy moves in four directions, whole tiles at a time. The guys actively murdering you can go wherever the hell they want.

Startropics is on the NES Classic just an FYI.
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Who said Sweet Home? >_>
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I came very close to buying Little Samson way back in 2010... god, I regret not going through with that now that it's ~10x as much as it was back then.
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Robo Warrior was literally the worst game I played as a child.
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Conception616 posted...

Robo Warrior was literally the worst game I played as a child.

Guess you never beat it, huh?
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Sayoria posted...

Conception616 posted...

Robo Warrior was literally the worst game I played as a child.

Guess you never beat it, huh?

I seem to recall an awesome cheat code that let you pick up items from the status bar or something.

It's looking like Rygar is the runaway winner here.
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The only one I've played is Tiny Toon Adventures. I'm excited for Star Tropics because I finally get to play it on NES Classic.
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Sayoria posted...

Robo Warrior

Fuck, my grandma used to love that game. I believe she even drew maps for every single level. Loved watching her play >_>

Still gotta give it to Rygar, though. Damn fun game. Never could beat the final boss though, because the EU version limited your power to what, a third, of how high you could get in the US one?

Real bullshit right there.
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Azardea posted...

Sayoria posted...

Robo Warrior

Fuck, my grandma used to love that game. I believe she even drew maps for every single level. Loved watching her play >_>

Still gotta give it to Rygar, though. Damn fun game. Never could beat the final boss though, because the EU version limited your power to what, a third, of how high you could get in the US one?

Real bullshit right there.

In Rygar, I don't think there was a limit in the US version. I would farm my ass off early in game and still powering up all game long.
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