Summary
In the history of gaming consoles, few have been as influential as theNintendo Entertainment System (NES). Nintendo’s greatest break into the mainstream of the gaming world was a breeding ground for beloved franchises that still exist today and laid the foundations for entire genres without which modern games would be unthinkable.
From absolute classic games regularly regarded as the best of all time to underappreciated classics that laid the foundations of modern genres, there are plenty ofinfluential games that defined the NES.
Capcom emerged early as one of the main competitors to Nintendo development studios, making its own cadre of characters to try and compete for market share both in Japan and the English-speaking world. While many Capcom titles didn’t quite capture the imagination,Mega Man 2certainly did and is regarded as one of the best games ever made to this day.
Famous for its unforgiving difficulty and flexible level-select screen that allows players to chart their own way through the game’s insidious stages, the game rewards patience and skill and has clear influence over the brutal difficulty design that would come to define Japanese-focused platformers in the 1990s, and it’s still agreat entry point into the franchise to this day.
Very few expectedMetroidto be considered canon as a broadly experimental game that bucked the trends of video game design at the time. Far from plug-and-play,Metroidrewarded players for consistent exploration, mapping, and dungeoneering. Most importantly, it also introduced the idea of semi-open worlds where new abilities can unlock previously shut-off pathways.
Needless to say,Metroidbecame one of the key parts of the nascent Metroidvania genre that would dominate the indie game world of the 2010s, even spreading into the AAA gaming world too. It’s an incredibly satisfying playstyle, makingMetroidone of the most influential games on the NES, even if it remainsone of the most difficult entries in the franchise.
Western audiences, to this day, may still considerFinal Fantasyto be the biggest JRPG franchise, but in actuality,Dragon Questis so massive in Japan that it far outweighs the cultural impact ofFinal Fantasy. The game was one of the earliest attempts to translate theD&Dgame system into video games for Japanese audiences, and it was a massive hit.
What resulted was a franchise that is still going strong to this day, pioneeringthe silent RPG protagonist,the number crunching, the light-hearted adventuring, and the distinct style of JPRG that stretches for hundreds of hours. It’s hard to imagine what JRPGs today would look like withoutDragon Questto inspire them.
As the popular story goes, in the late 1980s, Square was in big financial trouble, andFinal Fantasywas, as the name indicates, their final attempt to revive the company and keep it healthy. Regardless of how true that story is, Square still exists today (now known as Square Enix), as does the indelible influence ofFinal Fantasy.
WhereDragon Questbroadly popularized the JRPG in Japan,Final Fantasyis almost certainly the first JPRG played by decades worth of gamers dipping their toes into a whole new side of one of gaming’s greatest genres, helped along bythe game’s relatively humble playtime. To this day,Final Fantasyevolves further, inspiring more, and becoming the de facto entry point for newcomers to the JRPG genre.
For a game defined by its simplicity, it’s no wonder that mountains of ink have been spilt trying to encapsulate its totemic nature. The simple game of dropping blocks from a height into interlocking patterns has delighted gamers for decades because of its literal game design perfection.
There is no superfluous design inTetris. Every pixel is perfectly placed, every block is considered, and every speed is measured within an inch of its life.Tetrisis a game design icon because it demonstrates how simplicity in game design doesn’t mean boring, but instead, can make a game immortal.
Horror games were not popular in the nascent days of the video game industry for many reasons, butCastlevanianot only partially pioneered the subgenre of Metroidvania games, but it also showed the immense influence horror would have over the video games of the future.
Paired with genuinely impressive visuals and atmosphere for the time, as well as satisfyingly crunchy combat,Castlevaniashowed that platformers of the day could branch out further than sci-fi and military settings, setting the groundwork for many horror games to come.
The Legend of Zeldais undoubtedly one of the greatest video game franchises ever made, and it all started here with the original, released in 1986, with the specific intention of trying to replicate the experience of exploring the countryside as a kid.
Though its gameplay has aged considerably since its release, its game design tenets of relatively open exploration, dungeon crawling, and item acquisition throughout an epic adventure were key in defining where most games would go in the future. It’s hard to imagine what action-adventure games would look like today withoutThe Legend of Zelda,and it’s pretty short, too, making it a great game to try today.
What is there to say that hasn’t already been said aboutSuper Mario Bros.?It’squite possibly the most famous game of all time and likely the most famous game there will ever be. It’s a game that launched Nintendo into superstardom and continues to pull in millions of fans every year, even ifit’s not the bestMariogame on the NES.
Though the game might not seem impressive to modern gamers, the simplicity of the momentum-based movement, the side-scrolling platforming, the interconnected levels, the speed of traversal, the engaging enemy design, and countless other choices can be seen in almost any game released today. Video games are impossible to imagine without the influence ofSuper Mario Bros., making it not just one of the most influential games on the NES but one of the most influential games of all time.
