NES Works covers two arcade-to-NES conversions, Q*Bert & Gyruss

Jeremy Parish is back with the latest installment in his NES Works franchise, and this one takes a deep look at two arcade games that made the jump to the NES.

QBert and Gyruss only have one thing in common: Both arcade machines used control schemes that don’t really map well to the NES D-pad. Otherwise, they don’t have a lot of overlap—and that includes here on NES. “Ultra” poured its heart into this port of Gyruss, turning a fairly simplistic arcade shooter into a game on par aesthetically with their big 1988 hits. As for QBert… well, it plays fine. But it doesn’t have the Konami spit ’n polish you’d expect (for some weird reason) from a game from Ultra.