GoNintendo and GameDaily's Top 10 NES Games

Of course, the list is causing controversy, but I’m very happy to see you guys discussing it! Please, feel free to side with us, or let us have it in the comments!

Ah, the good-old days of the Nintendo Entertainment System. You remember those times, right? Actually, some of you may not have a clue about the 8-bit days, simply because you weren’t around during them! That’s why GoNintendo and GameDaily have teamed up to bring you guys our top 10 picks for the best software that the NES had to offer. Now remember, these are our choices, and ours alone! If you were one of those old-school NES games, we don’t want you getting upset because your favorite game didn’t make the cut! Let’s just hope that our picks fall nicely in-line with what you guys know, love and remember fondly.

A light gun game that gets packed in with your NES? How much better can you get!? Talk about bringing the arcade experience home. Duck Hunt was one of the most amazing experiences on the NES, for its time. Being able to point and shoot at your TV screen to play a game…there was nothing else quite like it. On top of all that, we got the iconic character of the laughing dog out of this one. It’s hard not to get the warm-fuzzies when you stop and think about Duck Hunt. If we could only get a true sequel…

Capcom completely reimagined Bionic Commando for the NES, and it couldn’t have come out any better. The arcade version of Bionic Commando wasn’t very fun at all, but the NES version did almost everything right. At a time when most NES games were about running and jumping on enemies, Bionic Command completely flipped gameplay around. Rad Spencer couldn’t even jump, and if you tried to fall onto an enemy’s head, you were done for! There’s still nothing quite like swinging about the game’s various locations, kicking enemies in the head, and grabbing power-ups with your bionic arm. One of the toughest games on the NES, but a classic nonetheless.

Talk about Nintendo really capitalizing on a well-known personality. Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is one of the most infamous games from the NES library. For whatever reasons, it seems like everyone that had an NES either owned this game, or borrowed it from a friend. It had Mike Tyson in it, how could you not be interested?! He was absolutely huge at the time, and anything with his name on it was going to fly off shelves. Little did we know that Nintendo’s arcade-to-NES adaptation would prove to be one of the most unique and addictive fighting games on the market. Almost everyone has a classic story about taking down one of the game’s many opponents. Plus, who didn’t put some of the old secrets to use for the Wii update? The original Punch-Out!! will forever live on, thanks to a cast of fantastic characters.

This was one of the last titles to come out on the NES, and it also happens to be one of the sweetest. Nintendo really stretched the barriers of what the NES could do with this one. While the gameplay was top-notch, Kirby’s Adventure is most important because of how it changed Kirby’s life forever. Now, instead of just sucking up and spitting out enemies, Kirby could copy the fighting abilities that his enemies had. This was a game-changer that has stayed with Kirby to this very day. Without Kirby’s Adventure, who knows where Kirby would be today!

Mega Man II is, and will probably forever be the best entry in the classic Mega Man series. It’s hard to find anything wrong with this game. We went from having 6 robot masters to 8, which would become the series’ staple from there on out. Mega Man now had much better control than in the first game. Level design, while easier this time around, felt much more sensible. Best of all, Mega Man 2 has one of the most memorable soundtracks of any NES game. If you can play Mega Man 2 without humming along to these outstanding compositions, then something is wrong with you!