8-Bit Obituaries

 The age of the NES was transformative for video gaming. The console, and its Japanese predecessor, the Famicom, were extraordinarily popular in that time. When a console is that popular, it attracts a lot of people to make games for it. Many of these games are good. Many of them, to put it bluntly, are not.

But it isn’t always easy to decide which are which. Some games present many of the warning signs of a bad game, but there’s something there, waiting, some might say lurking, for a persistent player to come along, to make them say, if just for a moment, “maybe this isn’t so bad after all.” And a few games were popular at the time but their stature has fallen, recently, as they get proclaimed the “black sheep” of their series.

Come with us on a journey through the Other Half of the NES library. The games that could have been, if they had a better developer, if they had put in just a bit more effort, if someone had cared about their license a little more, if there had been more marketing money to spare, or even if they had been released a little earlier. To find the grime-covered treasures, ignored or even derided by others. And once we’ve found them, we’ll give you a few tips, just enough to get you started seeing the fun hidden beneath all the mud and gunk.

It’s not that they’re all great games. Some of them aren’t even good. But they all have something there, some thing that can be enjoyed, even celebrated. At least you aren’t stuck with only one to play until your next birthday.