Games should be reviewed within the context of their eras. An NES game can still be great even if it isn’t that fun nowadays, and the console’s masterpieces deserve all the respect in the world for what they accomplished and influenced. That said, historical significance means little when revisiting a game or playing it for the first time. After a while, “it was brilliant in 1989” stops mattering.
“Unplayable” goes beyond archaic mechanics, hard-as-hell difficulty spikes, convoluted level design, or frustrating controls; no, you must find a reason to play one of these retro classics. Due to how industry-changing these NES releases were, they spawned hundreds of titles that iterated and improved their formula, rendering the original somewhat obsolete. Also, in some cases, these masterpieces just aren’t worth playing today.
1
EarthBound Beginnings Inspired Timeless Masterpieces Without Becoming One
One Of The NES’s Best RPGs, And One Of Its Most Unplayable
- One of the most culturally important RPGs of all time, not just the NES era.
- Shigesato Itoi’s vision and ambition are on full display, but they push the NES beyond its limits.
- Mother 2 and 3 have aged gloriously, though! While really not enjoyable in its original form, EarthBound Beginnings is tolerable with a 4x speed boost.
Famously, Mother wasn’t released outside of Japan until 2015, when Nintendo finally brought EarthBound Beginnings to Western shores for the Wii U Virtual Console. Consequently, most people didn’t get to experience this masterpiece during its peak, and this is not a game you wanted to experience for the first time in the mid-2010s.
By 1989, Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy had codified JRPGs, and the foundation involved archetype heroes, medieval kingdoms, traditional weapons, turn-based combat, and fantastical creatures. Mother rejected all of that, instead teleporting the genre to contemporary times and featuring weapons like frying pans and baseball bats. Even now, the game’s setting, narrative, ending, and characters still feel fresh, and all of these elements wrote the playbook that continues to define modern indie RPGs.
Mother is easy to admire… from a distance. As timeless as Itoi’s dialogue and Keiichi Suzuki’s soundtrack are, they are the only part of the campaign that can be described as such. You spend most of your time traveling across repetitive overworld maps that are fairly expansive for a NES RPG, and you cannot sprint. The encounter rate is tuned way too high, with a new fight triggering after a couple of steps and making even short journeys feel like a slog.
Unlike the SNES’s EarthBound (aka Mother 2), the original game’s combat lacks any real psychedelic and wacky touches, instead just playing out like a Dragon Quest clone. If you somehow stick around long enough to reach Mt. Itoi, you’ll have to climb one of the most unfair difficulty spikes in gaming history, and there’s no philosophical point to the suffering. It’s just poorly balanced.
2
Dragon Quest 2’s Ambition Makes It Legendary And Unplayable
Development Crunch Is Not A Modern Phenomenon
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Image via GameRant; Source: Enix -
Image via GameRant; Source: Enix -
Image via GameRant; Source: Enix
- Dragon Quest wrote the foreword, while DQ 2 was the book that defined JRPGs. This game turned the series into a religion in Japan.
- Released as Dragon Warrior 2 outside of Japan, where it wasn’t a huge deal.
- With the SNES remake, the GBC upgrade, and the HD-2D version, the NES original is comfortably the worst way to experience Dragon Quest 2. Heck, you are better off playing the 2005 mobile remake that was only released in Japan.
I almost went with the original Dragon Quest, but the sequel’s status as a bona fide masterpiece is far more secure, even if it’s not held to as high esteem as DQ3. In 1987, Dragon Quest 2‘s Torland was the most expansive world in gaming, with Chunsoft taking the first game’s minimalist approach and turning the dial to “maximum.” 20 hours might not seem that long for a JRPG, but that’s only by modern standards; at the time of its release, DQ2 took players on an adventure more epic than anything they had ever seen.
Scale wasn’t the only thing amplified, as the sequel ditched the solo hero blueprint and invented party dynamics that would come to be a pillar of the entire RPG genre. DQ2‘s impact on gaming and Japan specifically cannot be understated or revoked, and everybody should experience this story at one point or another. Just don’t go with the NES original.
With a very tight development cycle, DQ2 was rushed out of the door, resulting in an endgame that completes the campaign on an extremely low note. While the early hours are pretty close to perfect (for the era), that all disappears in the final stretch, as the party system falls apart, dungeons become brutally unfair (The Cave of Rhone), and the RNG gods unleash hell. It’s just not worth it.
3
Metroid Is An Excruciating Slog Nowadays
Still A Wildly Impressive NES Game
- A modern playthrough is downright painful.
- The game was remade as Metroid: Zero Mission for the GBA, and that’s the one you want to play.
For the most part, the important Metroid games aged gracefully, and I would recommend Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Zero Mission, and the Prime trilogy to anybody. However, there are two big exceptions: Metroid and Metroid 2: Return of Samus. Both of these are foundational releases not only for the franchise but also for Metroidvanias in general, acting as prototypes for what that genre would become.
“Prototypes” is the most apt word, as that’s exactly what the original Metroid feels like. From its atmosphere to its ability-based progression, mechanical depth, open-ended level design, and Samus Aran, Nintendo broke free from the NES’s side-scrolling platformer obsession and birthed a new style of game in the process.
Stripped of its historical context, Metroid is an exercise in mind-numbing repetition, both in terms of gameplay and presentation. As everything looks the same and isn’t supported by an automap, you get lost quickly and disoriented easily, turning the whole experience into an exhausting maze.
4
Final Fantasy Barely Holds Itself Together
A True JRPG Innovator That Occasionally Functions As Intended
- Even more so than DQ, Final Fantasy is the game that most JRPGs copied.
- Everything is here, but it’s not quite right.
In many ways, Final Fantasy suffers the same fate as Dragon Quest 2. Both games pushed the RPG genre and the NES to new heights, delivering a sense of scale that was unlike anything else on the market (for JRPGs, anyway). Final Fantasy was even more impressive than DQ2, as it brought a cinematic quality and a level of customization that the latter didn’t offer.
Final Fantasy introduced distinct jobs and advanced classes, allowing players to dynamically construct their 4-character party to suit their preferences. Shifting to a side view, the battle system featured fully animated character sprites, setting the standard that 95% of JRPGs would follow. All this stuff was groundbreaking and instantly established Final Fantasy as a genre leader, along with helping Square survive to develop another day.
Without the QOL adjustments found in later versions, Final Fantasy is just kind of broken, and not in a particularly fun way. Certain spells either didn’t work or didn’t work as intended, and armor with elemental resistance often failed to apply that protection. Running from fights is way harder than it should be, and the weapon critical hit system doesn’t work properly. Also, the Intelligence stat basically does nothing.
Find the odd one out before the timer hits zero.
5
Maniac Mansion Is A Masterpiece (On PC)
The NES Version Is An Echo Of A Masterpiece
- The last image is the PC version, just to show the difference in visuals.
- Just play the PC release.
Maniac Mansion marked a substantial leap forward in video game storytelling, shifting the industry away from text commands and towards point-and-click interfaces. Although not the first to use them, Ron Gilbert, the game’s co-developer, coined the term “cutscene” to describe moments when players get to see a scene play out without having direct control. Maniac Mansion included multiple companion routes, endings, intelligent non-linear puzzles, and awesome audio.
While the PC version is still worth playing, the NES port uses a controller for a game clearly designed for a mouse. You have to keep dragging an unwieldy cursor around the screen, repeating the same action over and over and over again. This wouldn’t be too bad if you didn’t have to act fast, but you occasionally must pull off a quick escape that can feel impossible on a gamepad.
Don’t get me wrong, the fact Lucasfilm Games got this running at all on the NES was an achievement, but it is ultimately a compromised version of a great game.
