In retrospect, was the NES really a good system?

When i got serious about collecting for NES I made a list of all the games I just HAD to have and then a list of games i thought were fun or interesting enough to have in my collection. I am sitting at over 140 carts and all of them are "good" games. The NES is an amazing system because of all the great titles released for it. I'm not sure I could name 30 "must have" games for PS3, but I could rattle off awesome titles for the NES that would number over 100.
 
There's always a lot of "games are shit today" comments. But compared to the games of old - our modern games are far more fun for plenty of reasons other than eye candy and whatnot. So, in that regard - the NES sucked.

However, it's not really fair to compare the two. The NES was so amazing because it delivered the real arcade experience to your home. Not atari 2600 experience - where it was like Donkey Kong, but it's really not. The NES brought the arcade into your house - and that alone was cool as hell. And video games were different then - they weren't designed for the experience. They were designed to be a challenge, something that you were supposed to eventually fail at, and then put in another quarter.

I would argue the consoles of the NES era are what provided the fundamental shift in games. Away from the quarter plunking titles toward the games of today where they are intended to be entertainment mediums.

I wouldn't want that experience today - but I'm glad I had it 20+ years ago.


The NES was the best at the time and still a classic system. So no I guess I disagree , I have many fond memories of it and all the games that I know consider timeless examples of near perfect gaming.

If it wasn't for the NES , the video gaming industry would have never risen from the ashes of the Atari crash/depression era. So we all , in some small way (at least I believe) owe Nintendo for that. They really came to the rescue of gaming without question.

PC games would have continued on , true but considering a "low" end PC at the time cost $3-5k it would have been considered purely a niche hobby for enthusiasts.
 
thats horrible. my dad was a electronics repair guy and from day one tought us never to do that shit and our stuff always worked we used proper cleaning technics.

and you bet the nes was awsome still play mine all the time.
posted from the Wii U

while some people had that issue, another issue was the spring loaded mechanism would actually wear out and cause the game not to contact. Which is why they went with top loading on the New Nes and super nes. my nes had both issues!
 
There were some titles on the NES that were just weep and gnashing of teeth inducing, painful, Hall of Fame level difficulty.

Remember when you would get past one of those spots and you would get so excited that you'd loose your conecentration, die, and have to do it all over again...
 
Is this a real question? Gaming has evolved in every way. Of course games from the 80's don't hold up to modern games. The NES was good for it's time. Just like in 20 years your nvidia 680 windorce gtx was good for its time. Times change and and the people with it.
 
Yes, the NES was a great system. Every time I lost a game I would throw the controller at it or punch it off the TV and it survived. Can't say the same to what is out these past few gens. :)
 
The NES sucks. It only has an 8 bit CPU and 256 kilobytes of RAM. No HDMI, no wireless ethernet and no online. It can only display a few colors onscreen at a time, and the graphics are all shitty. All you people who think it's a good system have obviously never played the XBOX 360 :rolleyes:
 
any system is as good or bad as the games

and nes had some very amazing games, even today some are fun as hell to play :)
 
The NES sucks. It only has an 8 bit CPU and 256 kilobytes of RAM. No HDMI, no wireless ethernet and no online. It can only display a few colors onscreen at a time, and the graphics are all shitty. All you people who think it's a good system have obviously never played the XBOX 360 :rolleyes:

Except my 30 year old NES still works and that POS XBOX I bought 2 years ago has long since died from a heat stroke. :rolleyes:
 
I doubt most kids these days would have the patience or intelligence to play the games we played. God forbid using your imagination and figuring stuff out on your own every now and then.

Yes, completing Mario is one of the entrance requirements to Mensa. :p
 
The NES sucks. It only has an 8 bit CPU and 256 kilobytes of RAM. No HDMI, no wireless ethernet and no online. It can only display a few colors onscreen at a time, and the graphics are all shitty. All you people who think it's a good system have obviously never played the XBOX 360 :rolleyes:

This is a joke right? It has to be.
 
The NES sucks. It only has an 8 bit CPU and 256 kilobytes of RAM. No HDMI, no wireless ethernet and no online. It can only display a few colors onscreen at a time, and the graphics are all shitty. All you people who think it's a good system have obviously never played the XBOX 360 :rolleyes:


I know you're joking, but I thought I'd point out -- some of the NES emulators actually have two player online modes that you can play across the internet.
 
Oh absolutely it was a great system, it pretty much rescued the domestic home console market from purgatory after Atari flamed out.

Ironically Nintendo had come to Atari with the NES (as Famicon, which they had been selling in Japan quite successfully to that point) to help them market it in the US, but the deal fell through, so Nintendo decided to do it themselves... and the rest is history.

It's one of the most important consoles ever since it convinced the likes of Sega, and Sony, and Microsoft that maybe it could be a profitable industry. Plus, it was pretty fun to play. Super Mario Bros. 3 was an amazing game for the time.
 
Oh absolutely it was a great system, it pretty much rescued the domestic home console market from purgatory after Atari flamed out.

Ironically Nintendo had come to Atari with the NES (as Famicon, which they had been selling in Japan quite successfully to that point) to help them market it in the US, but the deal fell through, so Nintendo decided to do it themselves... and the rest is history.

It's one of the most important consoles ever since it convinced the likes of Sega, and Sony, and Microsoft that maybe it could be a profitable industry. Plus, it was pretty fun to play. Super Mario Bros. 3 was an amazing game for the time.

If you ask me, it is the most important console in history.
 
It's one of the most important consoles ever since it convinced the likes of Sega, and Sony, and Microsoft that maybe it could be a profitable industry. Plus, it was pretty fun to play. Super Mario Bros. 3 was an amazing game for the time.

Sega's first console, the SG-1000 was released the same day as the Famicon.

Nintendo did cause Sony to make a console, but it wasn't because of the NES, it was by making a deal with them to produce disk drives for the SNES. Then they screwed Sony over by going to Phillips (who they also screwed over). Which pissed off the Sony president who with Kutaragi helped convince the board who didn't want to make a console. Pretty much as a big fuck you to Nintendo for their dishonesty. The disk drive allowed more people to mass produce games for much cheaper.

Microsoft (apparently) made the Xbox because of how many developers were leaving PC development to produce titles for the hugely popular PS2. :p
 
it also didn't have a lot of competition back then either which made sure almost everyone had one.

Really all it had was the Sega Master System adn that got pushed back in the USA by poor advertising and the deals Nintendo made with third party companies.

Though, the SMS doesn't really hold up as well against the NES but it oculd have been awesome.

The NES had it all though for the time and 've gotten back into getting games for it and they are still fun today and hold up quite well.
 
The NES was my first gaming love.

Great games like Mario 1 & 3, Zelda 1, Castlevania 1 & 3, Tengen's Tetris, Dragon Warrior, A Boy and his Blob, Contra etc etc.

Those are just some of my ole favs that come to mind.

And for the record, SNES is still the greatest console of all time.
 
The best part about those days were that our standards were so much lower. Presently, in my opinion, we've hit diminishing returns in gaming advances. Games need to either present something vastly different (like Portal), or vastly addicting (like CoD or WoW) in order to be very entertaining. Think back to the first rpg you played with a skillup system, or the first fps with the ability to customize loadouts, or racing game in which you could purchase upgrades for your car - today we demand those features. Not only that but they need to be well implemented, balanced and have a clean gui. Graphics are certainly making incredible headway, but I can honestly say it's been a LONG time since I've legitimately felt completely immersed in a game. This could be partially due to a diminished sense of imagination, but usually I just feel like a jaded, desensitized gamer. The last truly enthralling game I played was Warcraft III.. DX:Human Revolution came pretty close too, actually.

The NES wasn't perfect, but it made some huge strides in graphics and home entertainment. More importantly - It was affordable, and the games provided dozens if not hundreds of hours of play time.

So - remembering back, yes I think the NES was a great system! Not as great as the N64 though ;)
 
Gaming was still in its infancy when the NES came out. Tons of crappy games but some really great ones were made including original IP's we known and love today. Zelda, Final Fantasy, etc.

Gaming today has obviously matured into a mainstream where anybody can pick up a quick game and kill some time. My son plays on my IPhone. Most mobile phones have more processing power than we used to put man on the moon. Imagine what we will be gaming on in 20 years? Today's games will look prehistoric :)
 
As other people have already stated, yes, it really was a good system. Technologically it hasn't aged well, but I don't think that takes away from its accomplishments nor does it mean that all games are bad now.

What makes a good game when you strip away technology is extremely subjective. Some people find Xbox 360/PS3 games awesome, some don't. The same can be said for any console.

Now, I disagree that games were in their infancy with the NES. I'd say the NES was more of a teenager for 2D games whereas the PSX & N64 (sorry Sega fans, never really played the Saturn) where children of the 3D era. That's why in my opinion, the NES games can still be played if you can forgive a few sins whereas I just can't tolerate most PSX & N64 games today.
 
The NES was the light at the end of the tunnel that was the great video game crash. The tightening of approval for selling games was what ensured that Nintendo wouldn't suffer the fate of Atari. And it worked. At the same time though it is partly due to the ever tighter grip of publishers and console manufacturers that has ushered in some of the most draconian anti-piracy techniques and technologies. Still, the NES itself offered some of the best gaming at its time even if some of it was maddeningly frustrating. The NES gave us some of the most important changes in gaming like continuous sidescrolling, battery-backed saves, the D-pad, and many series that are still played and enjoyed today. Certainly, without the NES gaming would look very different today and I'd say that overall where we are with gaming is in a fantastic place.
 
FF1 on NES was GOD.
you had to buy one HP potion at a time and you would burn through them in combat. To go from no potions to 99 would take 8 minutes. (ive done it sooo many times)
That and the battery in the cartage would go bad so if you could not turn off the game or lose your progress.
You would protect the NES from all outside bumps like a raptor protecting its young after 30 hours of game-play... (only to have your little sister jump from the couch the floor and make the NES go FUBAR)...

i still have my NES, along with the running track, the bazooka, the orange and brown pistol and a huge box of games. The NES was, and still is a great system.
Have some friends over, drink some beer and play hogans ally or turtles...
good times..
 
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This is whats left of my Nintendo games.
 
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It wasnt good, but at the end of the day what do you do? What was its competition? Being an early player in any field nets you a wonderful position of being the thing that people look back on with nostalgia and forget all the flaws. Now days most of that wont fly because in consoles alone you have 3 BIG competitors, then you have PCs which are very far ahead and pioneering and phones as well.

I like to say if you could erase everyones mind and make them do something over again you would have a very different outcome. And that is essentially what happens with kids, they dont know anything about the old games, music, sports etc... So they just see things with virgin eyes and make decisions based on that.

Back then alot of game "studios" were a couple guys screwing around. And the same goes for alot of the classic PC games, people always get mad when a company cannot replicate its success with a title, fact is the company only made the title a success by accident. They dont know what made it successful and sometimes the times changed which changed the entire context of the competitive landscape.

Simple things like quake with its devil worshiping thing, who knows why but that was like cool or something back in those days, no it just looks like old has been fat motorcycle gang crap. Kids dont get it or like it and quake can never replicate its success.
 
Back then alot of game "studios" were a couple guys screwing around.

Call it nostalgia or whatever you like, but this is exactly part of the reason why I still love older games. It's easy to tell when someone has put their love in the game. This can be felt with many indie games too, which is probably why I play more indie games than I do mainstream games.

It's the same type of feeling when you work at a company where the boss started it because that's exactly what he wanted to do, and the people are there because that's what they wanted to do, and not just because it offered a paycheck.

I just don't know how else to describe it.

*EDIT*

? What was its competition?

Honestly, it wasn't until the PSX era when arcades were finally able to authentically be brought home. And even during the NES era, there were PC's with far more power. The Amiga was so far ahead in technology, it's a shame it went down in obscurity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ga41edXw3A

This was Jan. 1984, which, while after the NES in Japan, was still almost 2 years ahead of the NES in the USA.
 
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Great system, many a fond memory play this.

There were, as have been mentioned, some horribly frustrating games.

For example, Zelda 2: Link's Adventure.

I only ever got to the end once, died at the 2nd last boss (Thunderbird) having run out of mana and not being able to cast the mana consuming thunder spell :(

Died, and was booted back to the entrance of the dungeon. It broke my heart, I turned it off and had to think about it. To this day it may be the one of the more challenging games I've ever played...too bad I never got to finish it, as one of my brothers decided to pop it into the NES and hit reset when it wouldn't boot up the first time...whoops, there goes my save on the battery pack...

This and the original TMNT...that game is just...I don't even know.

Castlevania 2 is one of my all time favourite games!

Besides, what other console had people making moving motions with their hands as Mario jumped in an effort to get him to jump 'further' ? hahaha
 
great system. but even at a young age when i knew nothing about game saves or that whole idea in general. i still had complaints about starting over and wanting to start back where i died.

so while it was a great system, it had a major flaw.
 
Zelda 2: Link's Adventure... This and the original TMNT... Castlevania 2
I loved Zelda 2 (I never beat it back then, but did a few years back), the original TMNT, Castlevania 2 and Super Mario Brothers 2 (except the ending sucked, being it was all just a dream... so lame)

Also, my friend had this imported cart from japan (i think) that had over 200 games on it... the true super mario brothers 2 (lost levels) and all sorts of smaller games like mappy land and karate... man that cart was amazing, it was actually two carts that plugged together and hung out of the NES...you had to hold "reset" for 11 seconds for it to boot up correctly :p
 
Megaman
'nuff said.

THAT said, I think I agree with the 2nd post, it's not a fair comparison, but for a different reason: game design has come a long way since then, not just in terms of graphics etc, but in terms of game theory and story design. Back then, games came with a giant booklet to tell you the story before you started playing. These days, there are games (many of them) where the story IS the game. You learn about the characters by playing and experiencing their stories.

Not only that, but games are MUCH more self-aware these days. Exhibit A- SpecOps: The line.

The NES was great because of what it could do, affordably, in a small package, IN YOUR HOME. The games were ports, initially, and then became so much more after the devs figured out what they had, and what it meant to have a system in the customer's home.
 
The NES itself was a great platform. Many great titles which have spawned sequel after sequel. Graphically it hasn't aged well, but the gameplay and sound are where it stood out. The SNES was the pinnacle of Nintendo IMO, but the NES was great also.
 
Yes, it was probably the greatest gaming system of all time.

There were probably more truly excellent games for the NES than every other system combined.

And for the record, I fucking LOVED Castlevania 2.

You must have never played on a TurboGrafx/TurboDuo if you think that.

The NES was a great system, but the TurboGrafx (which came out between the NES and SNES), blew the NES away in sheer number of great games.

They also made games for it up until 1995 or 1996 although the newer games were only released in Japan as far as i know.

I still have one, with about 100 games. Only about 3-5 of those games would I not consider to be good games, with the majority of them being quite excellent.
 
absolutely.

In contrast to what's availble today, no... but compared to anything else available at the time, the NES was pretty amazing.
 
I remember when games were tough. It increased the sense of accomplishment.

But they also had something else going on too. You had a shallow learning curve. Getting better wasn't only a matter of getting better toys and leveling up. You actually got better on learning how to play it. It was actually overcoming a tough game by getting better at it that gave that increased satisfaction.

You can make the game tougher by spawning more bad guys and giving them more hit points which helps to a small degree but it really isn't that same.

I blame the lack of save-games. Because no save game means checkpoint saves. Checkpoint saves mean easy mode most of the time so you don't have to repeat so much. So that basically means taking away your ability to fail.
 
I loved Zelda 2 (I never beat it back then, but did a few years back), the original TMNT, Castlevania 2 and Super Mario Brothers 2 (except the ending sucked, being it was all just a dream... so lame)

Also, my friend had this imported cart from japan (i think) that had over 200 games on it... the true super mario brothers 2 (lost levels) and all sorts of smaller games like mappy land and karate... man that cart was amazing, it was actually two carts that plugged together and hung out of the NES...you had to hold "reset" for 11 seconds for it to boot up correctly :p

I had one of those cars back in the day. It was like a 100 in 1 type deal and had a bunch of duplicates under different names...

Another game that stirs up nightmares is Bionic Commando. So hard...
 
Difficult to answer that question now as we are all so jaded. I'll tell you this though, I had a ton of fun playing on that system.
 
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