Board 8 > Jeff Gerstmann has taken it upon himself to rank every NES game

(+) Yeah! (+)

pjbasis posted...

Punch out is cool but shouldn't be on every nes top 10

yes it should

Just finished the video.

He had some faulty personal tampered science with Punch Out and ranked it criminally low with about 550 games or so to go

Is it a hot take that Rygar sucks? I think Rygar sucks and I have no idea why he likes it so much lol

The top of his list would make sense to me otherwise but hey we've all got our personal faves

I think Rygar is cool but not Top 10 cool

The jumping and attacks are satisfying and the music is really good. Maybe a little bit too much early grinding exp

Paratroopa1 posted...

Is it a hot take that Rygar sucks? I think Rygar sucks and I have no idea why he likes it so much lol

The top of his list would make sense to me otherwise but hey we've all got our personal faves

I haven't played it myself but he definitely played it in a way that made it look like a fucking awful game.

Rygar doesn't suck but it is far worse than Jeff thinks. I'd put Conquest of the Crystal Palace above it

I just don't get what everyone sees in Rygar. It looks bad, it sounds bad, it doesn't play very fun, I just don't get it?? And I'm pretty amenable to NES jank - I play a lot of NES games recreationally to this day, I'm no stranger - but it just has too much NES jank for my tastes. I just don't get Rygar.

well that's fine not everyone has to like the same things

I'd guess Rygar probably belongs in the top half of the NES library and that's about all the credit I'm willing to give it.

SHINE_GET_64 posted...

well that's fine not everyone has to like the same things

Yeah. It's just the only game at the top of his list that confuses me, I think every other game in the top of his list is pretty good lol

I KNEW that Crystal Palace game existed. I kept looking it up in my teens for ROMs and could never find it.

I think Jeffs high ranking for Rygar demonstrates the weakness of judging games by 20-40 minutes of gameplay, without consulting the manual or knowing anything about the game aside from knowledge he already has. If you were to judge Rygar purely based on the gameplay he demonstrated it would probably go significantly lower. But it was a game he grew up with and knows inside and out, so he can rank it with all of that in mind. He cannot do the same when he sees Werewolf: The Last Warrior for the first time in his life and without the manual cant even figure out what hes supposed to do.

As a result, certain types of games are inherently likely to score higher, while others will have a negative bias. (Cant wait for all the Koei simulation games to start popping up.)

It's his list so he can do what he wants, I just think Rygar blows lol

This is science

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OTRnYs1D21k

Tetris (Nintendo version)
Raid on Bungeling Bay
Road Blasters
Kid Klown in Night Mayor World
The Black Bass USA
Yoshi
Pin-Bot
Krazy Kreatures

bit of a rough one! Krazy Kreatures was a nice discovery for me a few years ago, I think its kinda cool.

only caught half of this one live because GB was doing an incredibly good VR stream (definitely check that out if youre into some good Jan action)

came in right when the Klown ended, now I must see the Klown

I think he did the game that has consistently found new way of play and only has very recently been beaten/kill screened, kinda dirty. I get his angle on it though, but still seems a bit low.

Also kinda weird that he didn't talk about any of that stuff. Just said that "It's been on the news"

On one hand, I never want to play NES Tetris because other versions exist and I want to hold a piece

on the other hand, if stuck with just an NES, I think Id much rather play Tetris than all but maybe a dozen games on the list so far. Its still Tetris.

Also kinda weird that he didn't talk about any of that stuff. Just said that "It's been on the news"

this sort of outside context just isnt the sort of thing that factors into his rankings, hes generally looking at the quality of experience for the regular player (or maybe the illiterate player with his refusal to read a dang manual).

That killscreen teen stuff is cool, but very few players are going to experience the game on that sort of level. Scientific results can only come from direct experimentation.

confession: i have never played tetris

never heard of buglebay. didnt look good but boy that is some good audio

road blasters seems familiar but i dont know from where. maybe it just resembles some other game already on the List

is there a good clown/circus game on the nes

black bass is what it is. i played a few snes fish games and i remember liking them but this one doesnt look good

yoshi is another game i played a lot with my mom. i remember really liking it but i played it sorta recently on nso and yeah not great. not worse than festers quest tbh

krazy kreatures hey another maxi 15 game. didnt really care for this one

I feel like he was pretty hard on Tetris. It's fucking Tetris. It's not one of my favorite NES games of all time, but it's one of the easiest games to have a nice time playing on the system. Then again, most of the games above Tetris are pretty decent.

Radix posted...

never heard of buglebay. didnt look good but boy that is some good audio

Raid on Bungeling Bay is mostly only significant as the game will wright made before simcity, that made him want to make simcity. This version was one of the early hits on Famicom though, over a million sold in Japan. (Pre-Super Mario Bros. games on Famicom often sold way higher than they really deserve in hindsight.)

This is maybe outside the true scientific method of this project, but I am also not super high on this version of Tetris because there are at least five other versions I would rather play

Will watch at work tonight

MoogleKupo141 posted...

this sort of outside context just isnt the sort of thing that factors into his rankings

I get that, just found it weird that he talked about the grandmaster tetris being the ultimate form and how people go crazy with it, the vr tetris being super cool, the multiplayer tetris having layers to the games not like single player. But didn't talk about how the game he is playing had that kind of history too.

Lets also talk about Pin-Bot getting done dirty! I used to love that game as a kid.

First, Jeff fails to pay attention and know what to do when the ball is locked in multiball. You have to shoot the solar value by hitting the ramp on the left. He wasn't even trying to trap the ball on the right flipper to do that!

Second, as you progress by advancing the planets, you'll eventually update the board with new color schemes. I think there was also a point where enemies or some sort of gravity/magnet things starts happening. When I played, it wasn't about the score as much as seeing how far you could progress.

The devs actually took advantage of being a video game to tweak and play around with what is otherwise a static board. Jeff seemed entirely uninterested in the game and just wanted to compare it to the mechanical original. It's not a top 50 game but it's certainly better than his passing take.

Pin-Bot did seem pretty cool. It's visually striking for an NES pinball game and it looked creative.

The thing where the bottom of the table is visible at all times while the rest scrolls is a technical feat

Seanchan posted...

Lets also talk about Pin-Bot getting done dirty!

It seemed that he was kind of harsh on a few of the games this week TBH

I sometimes try these games and I thought Kid Klown in Night Mayor World was actually kind of a decent game. Certainly not 72 spots lower then Rockin' Kats, that's for sure. (45 v 118)

I havent tried playing either yet, but seeing Jeff play Rockin Kats kind of made me want to play Rockin Kats, and seeing him play Kid Klown did not make me want to play Kid Klown

i do not want to spend time with this gross child clown and his terrible sound design. Rockin Kats had some fun character design and didnt make my ears upset.

also Night Mayor is clearly a rip off of the beloved character Mr. Magic from Circus Caper, so that is a major strike against Kid Klown

If Kid Klown was zoomed out a bit I think it would instantly be way better than it currently is. The player is both too big on the screen and moves too fast relative to the size of the screen.

I've beaten both. I even beat Kid Klown's poorly thought out hard mode.

Rockin Kats is a reasonably good game. Kid Klown is arguably decent-ish but if you asked whether you should play it, I'd probably tell you to skip it unless you're a die hard fan for 8-bit platformers.

On the other hand, I'd absolutely take Kid Klown over Dragon Warrior or Urban Champion and those are above both. So there's that!

https://youtube.com/shorts/_vnoNdurPeQ?si=IS7LLtPow06jVXBK

Watching the new one live, I think we might have a new #1 on our hands
https://www.twitch.tv/jeffgerstmann

Confession: I have actually never played Bionic Commando

this week's games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO0K85hA9uE

00:05:40 - Gyromite
00:47:14 - Bionic Commando
01:52:47 - Taboo: The Sixth Sense
02:07:10 - Cowboy Kid
02:42:38 - Wizards & Warriors

Hell yes!

Bionic Commando is a Top 5 NES game for me. So glad to see it getting the respect it deserves.

Taboo should have gone beneath the list, it doesnt even deserve to be on the real list.

I hate Wizards & Warriors so much, I hate the annoying 3 second long music loops, I hate the controls, I hate the gameplay mechanics, I hate the level designs, and I hate that fucking two-inch sword swing. Can't understand why that game is loved as much as it is. It was too early for Nintendo Power so it's not because it got a bunch of coverage there or anything, though the sequels showed up there of course.

It was fun in concept but I remember it being often frustrating.

Good job, Bionic Commando.

having not played bionic commando ill assume its something that needs to be played because it didnt look that good at all tbh

taboo is uh wow. imagine paying full price for that. or any price really

Bionic Commando has one of the most incredible moments in any 8-bit video game that I have no idea how it got past Nintendos compliance checks before release, especially considering all the other things they -did- have to change in the game

Also the grapple really does feel good and cool when you use it well

you could tell within 30 seconds that Bionic Commando was going to the top with how Jeff handled the grappling hook. that game has a flow state to it once you fully grasp the mechanics and if you can feel it, it's one of the very best.

24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-VYak4joYY

00:00:00 - Intro
00:05:07 - Mario Bros.
00:22:38 - 10-Yard Fight
00:48:30 - Break Time: The National Pool Tour
01:08:00 - R.C. Pro-Am II
01:30:25 - Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble
02:02:05 - Base Wars
02:29:10 - Defenders of Dynatron City

im a base wars enjoyer but yeah its jank. the fielding i remember being not great not so much batting but its been way too long. the fights were great but i remember the flybot being able to basically get an infinite with its slam or whatever. jeff got hit by it after the fight but i think you could do that whenever. granted i was a dumm kid so who knows

skate or die 2 what happened there. looks like there was an ok idea in there but yuck

and also yuck dynatron. thats no dynowarz destruction of spondylous. ended up higher on The List than i was expecting

I ultimately agree with Jeff that original RC Pro-Am is better, but some of his criticisms of 2 made no sense. Like he kept talking about item distribution on the track, but its not any different from the first game in that regard.

Dynatron is a real drag

Radix posted...

00:05:07 - Mario Bros.

Cool

Oooh I wanna go on rant about his opinion on RC Pro Am II so so bad lol
I grew up with RC Pro Am II and not 1 (Not entirely, my cousins had it. I did play both back in the day), so my science is a bit different then his science...

Ooh missed a few weeks. I have "fond" memories of Wizards & Warriors (Brave Sir Kiros Ran Away) and Skate or Die 2 (it's obvious when a sound designer for a game used to primarily work on the C64.) Checking those out especially - and I hope he hated the fucking mall as much as I did.

Also I kinda put Taboo completely out of my mind because what the fuck?

I am tattooed with tarot at this point and researched meanings before it and they watered down the ambiguity of things even further.

Isquen posted...

Skate or Die 2 (it's obvious when a sound designer for a game used to primarily work on the C64.)

It's Rob Hubbard, one of THE C64 composers

#25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3Y7_lJi52U

00:00:00 - Intro
00:05:02 - Blaster Master
01:07:29 - Bomber Man
01:33:40 - Star Trek 25th Anniversary
02:10:40 - Double Dribble
02:30:04 - Code Name: Viper
02:48:35 - Paperboy

Jeff's opinion of "I remember this game being harder than I showed here" mimics my exact thoughts. I loved that game as a kid but I don't think I ever got past that 3rd boss. Then again, I don't think that game had passwords so that probably makes some sense that I didn't get that far.