NES Works Recap #2: The Worst NES Games of 1985-87
Added 2025-04-09 11:48:45 +0000 UTCSo here's the thing: The early NES library has a lot more good than bad in it. Where I struggled pretty hard to whittle down the best-of list a few weeks back to a mere 10 (-ish) titles, the lower (errr, upper?) ranks of this list drift very nearly into "ehhh it's OK, I guess" territory. I also tried to avoid bagging too hard on any one studio (coughmicronicscough) and give credit where it's due to even the folks responsible for games I hate. It's a kinder, gentler sort of worst-of list. I'm single-handedly keeping civil society alive in these terrible times.
Comments
Being a game developer myself I tend to get kinder toward Micronics because, as I understand it, they were a one person studio who probably invested a lot of effort in those games. Them being a lone dev studio did not set them up in a good negotiating position when dealing with big studios so it seems likely they were semi forced into possibly unrealistic schedules and budgets which were not conducive to the production of good games. However, looking at their production from a purely technical standpoint (which many hackers have done over the years) it is clear that they were not particularly technically competent: they demonstrate clearly flawed understanding of the NES chips peculiarities. It's clear that they read the technical documents but their implementation was botched and deeply flawed in ways that guaranteed sub par performance (such as 1942 use of alternate frames to update sprites, but there are worst examples in their subsequent games). I marvel at the fact that they managed to get those contracts and executed them alone but I cry at the shoddy result that they dumped onto the market and which is now part of history. I want to think that they did their best, and that alas, they did not set themselves up for success so their best - under those self defeating circumstances - wasn't so great in the end. However, if we talked about Tiertex, it would be a different story. Their output was the result of calculated decisions and as such they deserve no mercy. (Same goes for US Gold.)
Laurent Giroud
2025-04-12 17:22:14 +0000 UTCAh, Visionaries
John Learned
2025-04-09 18:55:19 +0000 UTC
