30+ NES Games You Were Playing in 1988

some of the most iconic games for the NES came out in 1988 we're going to cover a ton of them in this video and if you love NES as much as this guy you got to make sure you're subscribed at the beginning of the year we saw karnov and who wouldn't want to play as a bald buff fire spitting dude now I mentioned 87 had a lot of NES games based on Arcade ports and this will you'll see a ton of those in this video too when I first played karnov in the arcade the NES Port I thought was a very good Port though yeah you're breathing fire and suit not these things and you're picking up all these items too that you can use sometimes even reuse this game super super super super hard super difficult game but man I still loved playing this game played it whenever I could Renegade was fun to see I was such a big fan of Double Dragon and then I saw this and it was like a like a double dragon um but instead of it being like side scrolling like like reaching a destination it's almost like more room based environment base like you go into a room and you defeat all the enemies and you go in the next room and then you defeat all those enemies interesting as a Nintendo controller game that one button attacks to the left and one button attacks to the right it was confusing for me at first but I actually kind of got the hang of it so never mind which direction you are facing you can hit the right button and attack the person behind you or in front of you it actually worked out really well the more time lasts on the more I do appreciate Renegade you ever heard of Contra well I'm sure you have yeah it came out in 1988. one of the original just two player run and Gun still fun today there are speedrunners with this game there are people who can do like the no hit challenge of this game I can't even make it past the first round without dying at least once it seems like I mean Nintendo was like bringing friends together you know a couch call all we had was couch Co-op back then didn't have any other options everyone's all about the spread gun the spread gun's fine it's great you will impress me see if you can get through this game with the laser that's what I'm saying Gunsmoke on NES and it was fun to see Capcom do this so many great arcade ports came to the NES but sometimes they had a little bit of a Twist to them Gunsmoke not exactly the same as the arcade version close very close and if you play the arcade version you're like oh this is gun smoke perfect but a couple of different well one of the first differences you'll hear is it's a different soundtrack they used a different soundtrack on the NES than the arcade and I prefer the songs on the NES version you know sometimes you can find these people and you know upgrade your weaponry and stuff like that too I do like Gunsmoke and um in fun to see on the NES a little confusing for the Weaponry because your b and a buttons either shot diagonally left or right and you have to hit both buttons to shoot in front of you I wish you could have changed it so like one of the buttons shot in front of you and then maybe the other one shot you know left and right at the same time or something I don't know either way still a fun game today like this one good old RC Pro Am another great game here I mean it was just a lap track racing game has the rare charm because it is made by a rare and even features things like missiles that you can pick up later in the game too shoot at the other enemies this could have been the original Mario Kart had they had stuff come out for like if they made a super RC program that we had RC Pro M2 later but if we had a super RC Pro-Am yeah maybe we could have seen something there I still like RC program today TNC surf design was the game well you had to have it now I back in my day um wore almost exclusively TNC surf design t-shirts even though I'm from the Pacific Northwest and we had to support it because there is a skateboarding feature in it so of course during the skating days uh you know anytime there's a skateboarding anything it's like oh skateboarding's in the media wow yeah let's let's take advantage of that and a skateboarding isn't great in this game but it's that means the only thing we had really there was also a surfing mode and the more I played this game the more I appreciated the surfing mode it's been a while it's been a while I used to be pretty good at it I gotta re-remember how I played the surfing part but yeah you got both it's like two games in one skateboarding and surfing cool now ice hockey was the game that everyone else was playing me personally I'm not the big sports fan so I kind of passed this but I had friends who liked playing it because they liked beating each other up this game basically uh I've never been great at this game well okay let's try again I've never been great at this game so it's fun to see well okay well you know what I'm getting at there we go ice hockey good for you now City Connection that's a game I can get behind I didn't even know this was based on an arcade game but didn't matter to me loved playing this game I liked city connection because it reminded me of minor 2049er on the coleco vision that I played of all things yeah car racing and you can shoot the oil cans and you know whatever but you have to fill in the tracks the paths and that's how you move on to the next stage has a catchy tune I think it was fun Rambo another great game I remember I had some friends who didn't care for it because it was so common well maybe not when it first came out but when game trading started to come about they're like I remember seeing this one pretty regularly simple graphics and everything but this was one of the first you know this came out before is all the two at least in the United States but it is that what we call today metroidvania style where it's not just level one level two level three it's not linear you have um items you can use you can build up your your character you know when you get through these experience levels you'll have a stronger knife to uh you know stab enemies with so you're not using your projectile things which you do have for some projectiles here there's little spots little Compass maps on the floor that you can you know go north or south or whatever and you're gonna eventually run into a dead end or find where you need to go huge fan of Rambo love this game Double Dragon did eventually come out for the NES not exactly like the arcade game but we'll take it we have I have no idea what Greg gur is but okay um it's another game where you build experience points in a way like when you reach a certain level then you can do different moves like you don't just start with a drop kick or jump kick rather you have to kind of build up those levels I mean it's still pretty much Double Dragon but it has a little different twist to it just to make it interesting I mean it's not the Sega Master System version but for the NES version I thought it was pretty cool and there was a one-on-one fighting uh element in this game too that you could play as which I thought was kind of fun Metal Gear oh my God I remember when Metal Gear came out when I first well that when it came out but I do remember when I first played Metal Gear here and I was blown away by how large the map was the fact that there was like a deep story involved with this you're contacting you know home base with your transmitter and all that stealth Action at the time I didn't even think that was a thing because usually on any other game as soon as you show up on screen they'll just charge at you and you've got to get them before they get you but this game taught you that if you just sneak past the guys you don't have to kill him and I thought that was a wonderful thing I mean full of all the quotes you could possibly use you know the truck have started to move I feel asleep I mean in this game you are attempt to contact missing our gray fox so you know anything's possible legendary Wings is a Legendary game from Capcom again another game from the arcade I believe I never saw in the arcade though but um I did like this NES game a couple of different gameplay Styles too got that overhead shooter I did like this style of game I like this overhead shooter style and then I liked when you can get stuck to these now you don't have to do this I chose to because that was my favorite part of the game when you go through the site scrolling modes I thought that was kind of finally it's like oh you can do overhead and it also has got side scrolling yeah it looks like two games in one again come on now oh my God life force I am more nostalgic for life force that I am gradius by a country mile I played so much life force I was aware of gradius and it was fine but this this was it this was the game to have I remember thinking to myself too like oh they just they ripped off you know they ripped off gradius and made it better it's like I didn't realize it was like part of the same universe or whatever you know just shoot around and you know build up your ship and all that too you get super annoyed when you're all built up and then all sudden you die and you like you know lose all your items and all that and you just contemplate just hitting a reset just to start over again yeah I hear you Hudson's Adventure Island another hot take Adventure Island is better than Wonderboy buy a country mile kind sir now this is just me talking but this is you know and I I did play a little bit of the of the Wonder Boy Monster World those style of games those are fine but man this was the game for me especially when the adventure Island two and three of them came out too but very similar you pick up the fruit you move on from there uh you know it's it's it's just a fun game and difficult you can have your ghosts and goblins you can have your battle toads in my book Hudson's Adventure Island the most difficult NES game you don't believe me try beating it come on now especially when it gets to like h283 when you're doing like those weird jumps through the spiders and the fire Death I can't do it I can't do not even with a Game Genie I can't do it GoGo 13 was a cool one I wasn't familiar with the character at the time but I remember knowing for some reason in the back of my mind that this was based on a Japanese comic manga before I knew what a manga was graphic novel before I knew what a graphic novel was I remember playing this game thinking to myself this is like a game for adults I think you know first impression was this game will never win Graphics of the year that's for damn sure a little confusing sometimes the enemies look like the people who are trying to help you you don't know if you want to just shoot them or not but then the more I got into this game the more I really really kind of fell deep into this game too where there's not just the storyline too but the different gameplay modes there's like the maze walking the underwater part uh the part where you go into the first person view to um you know shoot the other people and stuff like that too a lot going on with golgo 13. I'm a big fan Jackal is another one of those men you got two players you already got Contra so you're good to go there but then Jackal came around ooh come on now great two player but also an extremely extremely fun one player game as well overhead shooter you also got your grenades your bombs your you know save the people and all that too uh so you have that element to consider as well makes you not want to die more than you need to at least try not to because now you're carrying Precious Cargo and the name of these people you're trying to rescue jackal's a great time uh not the longest uh Nintendo game by any stretch of the imagination but it's super super fun great music Jackal is is way at the top of the list and it came out in 1988. Milan secret Castle was more of my style of NES game that is this it looked cute it looked fun it was a little confusing okay let's be honest it was a lot of confusing but when I saw games like this I was like oh this is my kind of game this is the kind of game that I gravitated towards these kind of kid cartoony looking games that have a lot going on with them and there's a lot of exploration and there's money involved so you can buy upgrades and items and stuff like that and it was a little quirky you know um I loved it I loved this game I've never beaten it um not even with a Game Genie I've never even gone through it I really should one of these days but I loved games like this it's a little rough for me to come back to today even capturing this footage here I was like man I used to love this game why it's you know your buttons are your bubbles are going up and down the jumping's a little off the jumping is a little weird I don't know I just I just liked this game I thought it was a lot of fun 1943 I played this a bunch at the Red Robin in Yakima Washington I did like 1942 and let's hold on got two buttons here is the first button I'm going to shoot is going to be a bullet or is it going to be the uh crash bomb here oh oh my God I actually got it right this time perfect I I usually hit the bomb almost every time uh this game's interesting because this game instead of having your loop-de-loop that 1942 had you have your crash which kills all the enemies on screen this game was interesting because it would drop items and you can kind of choose the item by keep on shooting it it could give you a different um a different weapon maybe you want to upgrade a certain thing or you turn into the like what they call the shotgun I think it's what that one is no I mean I'm a big fan of the uh the 1940 games you know 42 43 there's a 41 there's a 44x I don't know there's there's a few of them out there 42 43 you know pretty much the main ones for me and 1943 is the best of those as far as I'm concerned the title screen may say Mickey Mouse but you know this game as Mickey Mouse capades that's right uh fun to see a Mickey Mouse game the Mickey Mouse games as I've said in several videos are generally pretty good anything that stars Mickey Mouse as a lead character you know the game is going to be pretty good sometimes very good and sometimes like in this case yeah pretty good pretty good um it was fun to see a Disney license in a Nintendo game because everyone was very familiar at this at least at this point um you know Disney was so shoved down our throats by being the coolest magical thing ever some people still believe that but you knew the characters and so it wasn't like you're trying to you know discover a new storyline or anything it's like oh you're waiting for the cameos you're waiting for someone to pop up and you can say oh I know that guy very very cool and that happens a few times in this game and it's actually a pretty decent game it's a little confusing sometimes but it's a pretty decent game psycross I remember seeing advertised more than it probably should have like in magazines and I remember being the thing in the Nintendo power and it just looked cool when I saw the photos when I saw the pictures and then when I played the game I wasn't that impressed but it was a game that came out in 1988 and it was a game I did at least play I don't think I ever I don't think I ever owned it I think I had a friend who did that I borrowed his or web played it at his house or something like that and I was like oh okay I get it you know and now that I saw the pictures and now they actually controlled the game now I get it and uh it's not for me spy versus spy this game was for me I loved this game two player uh versus the computer was fine and fun um I would play it two players sometimes with my brothers and um it's just an awkward weird game I was a huge fan of Mad Magazine especially during this time I had a subscription to bad magazine for several years in my youngest Youth and the idea that you can play as my favorite part or one of my favorite Parts I I should say there's a few of my favorite parts of Mad Magazine but one of the ones I would always look forward to one of the highlights for me was spy versus spy I was such a big fan and in this game a little bit like the at least the comic strip you're setting booby traps and everything like that to get all the items so you can move through and escape with all the stuff and if you're having to be on the same screen you duke it out or shank it out depending and you can also set up these booby traps behind doors behind things so when they're trying to find these items then they might get it as well which will uh you know buy you a little bit of time to you know do some more exploration on your end I would have loved it if they would have made a spy versus spy versus spy because there is a third one that pops up later on yeah the girl the gray one but yeah pretty fun Super Mario Brothers 2 came out in 1988 and it took the World by storm Super Mario Brothers 2 for me was the second round of system seller when you saw this game I like this game more than Mario 3. I'll say it out loud when you saw this game in commercials when you saw this game in magazines you're like holy only this looks like an experience and it was I don't need to talk a whole lot about Super Mario 2 you're already very familiar with it I don't need to tell you about that whole Doki Doki Panic nonsense but since you're here anyway I'll share with you something a little trick that you can do that maybe you didn't know you could do you grabbed the potion you get five cherries the star pops up get the star drop your potion go inside the door go back through the door as it's running out and you'll hear that alternate version of the Mario one theme until you move on through another door or something like that just so you can hear the whole version of the song yeah the version goes on at least a little bit longer no just for you there you go [Music] patient is the name of this game I love this game this probably maybe next to silent service maybe next to Major League Baseball it could be the cheapest the least expensive NES game in the entire library and I love it I unironically love anticipation played it a bunch I played it I still pop it out every once in a while just for fun and if you're not super familiar it's a board game style game it looks like Trivial Pursuit it's not it's a board game style game where the different tiles represent a different category and then sometimes there are connected dots sometimes it'll tell you how many letters are in the word you guessed the word as it's coming up there based on where the die is whatever you land on if you get it right you'll move that many spaces or spaces to get to the next thing you fill in those and you move on to the you know the upper stages and all that it's just kind of fun and interesting to see and I did not plan this I would not have said this you can blame Nintendo for calling a woman a thing leaving it at that moving on to an awesome game in Blaster Master that's never never let's let's forget about what just happened there and this game is the game to have if you have a small set of NES games you're just getting into Nintendo collecting and you just want to have a few games on the Shelf this is one of those must-have must own games absolutely love it still absolutely love it today it was some of the best graphics on an NES game back in these days some of the best sound very important in my opinion the fact that you can get out of your of your tank and go inside these smaller rooms and then it turns into a different style of game completely I thought was absolutely wonderful a huge fan of blaster Master Bubble Bobble those arcade games coming home and keeping it all with a hundred levels 100 plus levels because to get the true ending you have to go through that door in level what 99 to um was it what 99 or 100 it was one of those levels it maybe it was 100 um but you have to have two players to do it to get there to it on time it's insane but what a fun game and again another great two-player couch Co-op we didn't call it couch Co-op back then we just called the two player because that's again what all there was lapco up there let's not say that we have Bubble bobble's great still great Cobra command was a game I was a big fan of a little bit of a Hidden Gem by today's standards 1988. it did come out in the arcade the NES version is different as this one is a little bit more adventurous um this one you're a helicopter um as you you know you can shoot bullets as well as missiles you're rescuing people along the way you are finding the enemy bases which I thought was the coolest thing ever as you drop down you can um again now you're in this Underground areas a whole new stage for you you can land on these enemy Depots to steal their weaponry and then find these little mini bosses along the way to save more people and rescue more people too unlike Jackal once you rescue them they're rescued so you don't have to like rescue them and then drop them off somewhere like you would with a chopper command or something like that very very fun game love this game Bionic Commando another instance great arcade game and then the NES version completely different the only similarity is you play as the same character instead of having a jump button you have that grapple arm button and you can use that to pull yourself up on the ledges to swing across things I like that we can go inside these little bases and like you know communicate with at home or even wiretap to you know get enemy intel stuff like that I do like Bionic Commando the arcade version is fun I prefer the NES version just because I love the you know the kind of the exploration Style game very very fun Castlevania 2 Simon's Quest this one took the World by storm a little bit like other games like Mario to Mario 2 Zelda to Zelda 2. we have Castlevania 2 Castlevania 2 where it's like you played the first one and the second one is going to be completely different but still enough of the similarities to keep you interested and I prefer this one believe it or not I like Castlevania 2 more than the first one now when you mentioned Castlevania or not sorry when you mention metroidvania this is the reason why because you're like metroidvania Castlevania because it's like there's no exploration like with Metroid you can and you know Castlevania won a little bit with three not as much but Castlevania 2 Harkens back or forward or way into the future when it starts doing games like you know like uh knocked her to the Moonlight or what's the the castle of the moon what Symphony of the Night that's what I'm sorry to think of good Lord think of the Japanese version and all the other Castlevania games pretty much um with that 2D style the DS game is really great too but just the fact that you could explore and it was a little cryptic because you know I remember playing this game and thinking to myself you'll talk to someone like oh uh sit on the edge of the Deborah Cliff I was like how would you even possibly think I would have a clue where the Deborah Cliff is or you know or the lead whatever it is he's like oh we got to go to the you know the Blood Lake he's like what I don't have a map I don't there's no sign I mean sometimes there's a sign for the towns and stuff like that but I don't know I had a lot of fun with this game it's been a long time since I played all the way through it I might have to do that on Twitch sometime soon Paperboy is a fantastic game love me some paper boy loved it in the arcade but better on the NES not graphically or anything like that it just I just The Handlebar controllers were too much of a gimmick for me I just need a Gamepad I didn't care about delivering papers to the houses that needed it I just wanted to shoot newspapers through the windows that was good enough for me I know you're supposed to deliver houses or deliver papers to the houses that need it if you get a perfect row a perfect you know round you'll get more and more houses that don't have are that aren't subscribers into subscribers I learned that by playing through this game with a Game Genie still such difficult game but it still has a charm to it and it was this one of those cool ideas I'm glad somebody came up with an idea like this to make a paperboy game I had a paper out when I was 12. I could relive the magic of waking up at 4 35 A.M you know wrapping newspapers on a Sunday morning I don't know and at this point can we all agree that Paperboy crashing on the NES is the worst NES graphic of all time like what is this this is me testing what paintbrush palettes look like on Mario page I have no idea this is a tingled mess of anyway rampage now this is a fantastic game Rampage is a whole lot of fun two player you can play one player just fine they left out the wolf man which is unfortunate but it's fine because I always played as George anyway so it didn't matter to me crashing through the buildings you knock them down and move on to the next stage tons of levels I forgot how many levels is 100 of them or something like that uh Yakima I believe my hometown is a level on this game like way later in the game but super fun I mean I don't know it's great it's Rampage and fun to see from the arcade to the NES and have it be a very good Port skater Die Another Game you have to support because it was a game where you play as a skater so this is a skateboarding game with a few different skateboarding options that's right you have a few things you can choose from they actually play the game the controls aren't great at all but you do have to kind of get used to them because again this is all you got yeah like one of those we're gonna play TNC surf design again we need we need a skateboarding game I always liked uh landing on the cop car to make the siren grow off you know they got like all the half pipe thing that's always kind of fun I was never good at it the joust was probably the most popular part of this game I would think but you know skate or die came out 1988 late in the year we mentioned it briefly just a little bit ago Zelda 2. now my go-to answer because I get asked this at conventions and stuff um this game here is Zelda 2 The Adventure of link is my favorite game of all time I say that like is it the best game in the world no but I say that because when this game came out and the first time I played this game I was blown away about how massively huge the world was that there was palaces that had different items that you needed to find which items worked where and on what um this was an epic adventure and a game that took me a long time to get all the way through now there are speed Runners today that can go through it but it was just kind of me going through it back when I knew the maps and stuff like that too you know I didn't have any of the tricks or anything like that back then but it was just fun to like just walk into town and talk to people and hang out hang out with this lady for a little while you know because I mean you know especially with your teenage years you can come up with your own imagination what's going on there you know leave the door open huh all right that's cool and you thought 1988 was fantastic just wait till you see the games that came out in 1989. now we didn't cover all of them in this video but there were like 53 games that came out in 1988 there was over a hundred licensed games that came out in 1989. the next video that we do of this series is gonna be insane make sure you're subscribed well uh check out these other videos along the way too

Channel: JohnRiggs

Views: 42,476

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Id: XR-HfGd2X7Y

Length: 23min 28sec (1408 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2023