Enix

October 1992

Role-Playing

1 Player

Enix puts a stronger focus on the storyline in the final NES installment of the Dragon Warrior series.  You're ordered by the king to investigate the sudden disappearance of the kingdom's children, and it will take several plot twists and about a million slain monsters before you get to the bottom of the mystery.  The gameplay is exactly what you'd expect from the series.

Sony/MotiveTime

December 1990

Action

1-2 Players (alt)

If ever there was an arcade game that SHOULDN'T have been translated to the NES, it was this one.  The one and only thing that made Dragon's Lair special was the fantastic full-screen animation provided by Sullivan Bluth Studios.  Take that away, and you're left with a monumentally frustrating action game that demands absolute precision from your every move.

Nintendo

October 1985

Light Gun

1-2 Players (alt)

The name pretty much says it all.  You're in a forest glen, waiting for your trusty dog to flush out ducks hiding in some nearby bushes.  You'll need to blast the frightened waterfowl with your Zapper when they try to make their escape.  Get enough of them and you'll move on to the next stage.  Mess up and your wet-nosed hunting partner will never let you forget it!

FAST FACT:  The dog that earned so much of the video game community's contempt can actually be fired upon in the arcade version of Duck Hunt.  If you nick him during an arcade-exclusive bonus round, he hobbles toward the center of the screen wearing a leg cast and angrily warns you, "Shoot the ducks, not ME!"

Capcom

September 1989

Action

1 Player

Capcom put some of their best work into this NES game based on the popular Disney cartoon.  It's got all the clever cartoon artwork you'd expect from the creators of Mega Man, along with a fresh new play mechanic... Scrooge's cane acts as both a pogo stick and a golf club, allowing him to cross gaping chasms and fling boulders at his enemies.

Capcom

June 1993

Action

1 Player

Scrooge is off on another treasure hunt, but this time, he's found some new uses for his favorite cane.  He can now drag blocks to different locations, helping him reach items perched on high ledges, and launch rafts, letting him drift to the other side of rivers.  The rest of the gameplay is the same, although just a touch easier than it was in the first Ducktales.

Taito/Natsume

July 1990

Role-Playing

1 Player

Dungeon Magic takes your average role-playing game, then adds a choppy first-person perspective that frustrates and confuses the player.  Because you have almost no peripheral vision or any idea of your current location, even the simplest tasks are made infuriatingly difficult.  It's a neverending quest just to find the nearest inn, let alone the villain threatening the world.

Broderbund/Tonkin House

July 1990

Sports

1-2 Players

I'm a big kid, look what I can do!  I can play some softball, too!  Er, sorry... the game's suspiciously familiar theme music got to me for a minute there.  Anyway, this sports title for younger players has an enormous number of characters you can select.  The graphics aren't fantastic and the fielding is pretty slow, but there have been far worse baseball games on the NES.

OTAKU ALERT!  When this game was first released in Japan, it had a much different cast of characters, ranging from mummies to teddy bears to thinly disguised Japanese cartoon heroes.  It also had a different title, Softball Heaven.

Bandai

April 1990

Action

1 Player

Go, go, Power Rangers?  Not quite, but I can certainly understand your confusion.  Dynowarz is split between two styles of gameplay... at first, you play a soldier, picking off flying robots and wall-mounted cannons with your laser pistol.  Then, you jump in your dinosaur mech and duke it out with other iron lizards.  No matter how you play it, Dynowarz is pretty unspectacular.