The Worst of NES 1985-87: NES Works Recap No. 2
1,125We live in a time of polarization and extremes. And I'm not helping matters much by grouping NES games into "best" and "worst," but here we are anyway. That said, this exploration of the most unpleasant and least satisfying games of the NES's early days is not just me bagging on bad games. Without droning on TOO long, I've attempted not only to outline the specifics of these games' failings but also how they might have been redeemed.
Truth be told, Nintendo of America did a pretty good job of screening U.S. releases through their third-party licensing system, and most of these games fall short of the NES's best simply because the available NES tech (memory mappers and ROM sizes) didn't allow the programmers or designers to realize their ambitions.
On the other hand, some ARE just kinda bad, and there's no redeeming that. But let us at least try to recognize the... well, I wouldn't say good, but at least the not-entirely-horrible here.
Production notes:
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NES footage captured from Analogue Nt Mini. Video upscaled to 4K with RetroTink 4X and 720p with xRGB Mini Framemeister.