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10 NES Games You Don't Need to Play Pt. 2

A Retro Review

By Aaron DennisPublished 6 years ago 11 min read
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I already released a series of 10 NES games you don’t need to play. You can find that here but with such a vast library of both great and terrible games, I decided to present to you 10 more NES games you should avoid.

8 Eye’s

This was a game that looked promising. I guess it belongs to 8 Eye…. You play as this gaunt dude with a bird on his shoulder. His name is Orin, and the bird is called Cutrus. You can launch the bird off, and it’ll go around collecting items. The graphics and animation are good, and the music is pretty cool. There’s a lot of variety in the stages, too, but I have one complaint; it’s too damned hard!

Your piddly little dagger won’t hit anyone before they clobber you with their massive weapons. What’s worse is that when you collect sub weapons, you think you can just hurl them at your enemies, but no; often times, the baddies are immune to them, and sometimes they’re immune to your standard attack! Evidently, the sub weapons’ main focus is to hit switches, which open doors.

The over-all game play just isn’t that great; it’s a worse Castlevania is what it is. Try as you might, one life just isn’t enough to so much as reach a boss, much less complete the game. I’ve never beaten a single stage. I don’t even know why it’s called 8 Eye’s. It should be called 1 Shot, ‘cause that’s all you get.

One cool thing, I guess, is that you can play with another player. The second player can “control” Cutrus, but control is a strong word. The damned thing just flappy-flaps all over the place, and if you’re lucky, you can get him to dive at a bad guy or a switch or something.

Abodox, the Deadly Inner Ear, I mean, War. Whatever.

It’s a cool premise; there’s like this living planet or whatever, so you pop into a robot, space suit, and you go flying around like classic 2D, side-scrolling, shooting action. I like that you’re a person instead of a ship.

The graphics are all right. The enemies are somewhat unique. The music is tolerable, so what’s the problem? Too damned hard!

You get 2 shots at putzing all the way through an interminable stage rife with enemies. Just wave after wave of alien ass holes come barreling at you from every direction, and you guessed it; one hit, and you’re toast.

You can collect a few power ups before the first boss, or maybe it’s just the boss’s mutt; it’s like an alien, dog skeleton with an eye growing out of its back. You cream it, and then the stage continues. Fortunately, if you die after that, you pick up from just beyond the dog. Unfortunately, you’ll have no power ups, which means you’re dead.

Why's it say Namcot at the top? Idk....

The Adventures of Valecule

This is one weird ass action adventure game. On first glance, it’s kind of like Hydlide or even the over world of Zelda 2. You “make” your character by choosing your zodiac sign and blood type. Why blood type? I have no idea, but your sign basically influences your stats; how much life you have, damage you can take, magic, whatever.

Then, poof, you’re smack in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods and mountains. Where do you go? What do you do? I don’t know, but you take a step in any direction, and dudes come out of the woodworks to slaughter you.

yeah, that's me as a ghost

If you can manage to survive for more than 45 seconds, you might be lucky enough to stumble across a house. It’s an inn…I guess. I mean, there’s no one there, but if you walk into the bed, you lose some money and regain your life. It’s how you level up, too.

My biggest problem with this game is that I just have no clue where to go or what to do, and I get creamed long before I can figure much of anything out. Obviously, I can peek at a walkthrough, but I shouldn’t have to do that just to figure out the very beginning of the game.

Remember in the first Zelda; you walk into the cave, and the old dude is all: It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this. You get the sword, and start moving from screen to screen. To be honest, Valecule is a lot like that, but somehow it’s less intuitive, and what’s worse is how quickly you can die by just traveling in the “wrong” direction for too long a period, and “too long a period” is like seven seconds, and the enemies change from blue barbarians with clubs to black barbarians with clubs and fire balls.

I’ve tried this one numerous times. Once I got up to level three by just fighting the weakest enemies for about ten minutes, but then I still didn’t know where to go or what to do, and life is just too short to spend it on shitty games.

Or is it…?

Bayou Billy

The creme de la creme of NES garbage.

This game is the crowning glory of sorry sacks of shit. Some fat, nasty guy shows up and holds your girlfriend at knife point. He tells you that if you want her back, you have to come to his estate, but that you probably won’t make it through the obstacles….

Enter Crocodile Dundee, oh wait, I mean Bayou Billy.

I mean, what the Hell; wouldn’t anyone else at this point call the cops? It’s a game. Fine. The obstacles? An endless stream of dudes willing to beat some guy to death. How do you get through the obstacles? Just beat these swamp ass holes to death with your bare hands or a whip or a gun, I guess. Swamp ass holes not enough? How about alligators and crazy dudes with road rage trying to run you off the dirt roads?

look, my head is missing

Again, it’s a game; it’s fine. Forget the story line. The problem is the graphics, controls, sounds, music, and the fact that it’s just too damned hard for a long ass beat ‘em up. Compared to Double Dragon, or even Mighty Final Fight, which is really hard, this game just sucks, like, it just isn’t fun.

Honestly, I almost always give up at the second screen of the game. Yeah, the second screen. First, you fight one swamp sucker. Then, you gotta’ fight two scum bags at once. Forget about it; they beat the shit out of you, and that lame ass tune that plays--man, I hate it.

Okay, movin’ on….

The Adventures of Dino Ricky

You’re some cave boy who mysteriously shoots fireballs at aliens…I guess. It’s an overhead, 2D shooter. You can’t help but jog onwards while trying to dodge an array of indecipherable baddies.

The game is so mediocre it isn’t really worth anybody’s time. The graphics are okay. The controls are okay. The music is okay. The difficulty is okay. Everything is so blah that it’s even worse than terrible games; at least they give us some emotion—anger!

You can get this weird power up that makes you a caveman, I guess. I’m guessing a lot, and I’m guessing that as an attack, you throw copies of yourself at the enemies…what?

???

I just…moving on….

Dragon Slayer Jr

This is another one of those games that I just want to enjoy, but it’s too damned hard. The first time I tried playing it, I got to this wall, and for whatever mysteriously mystifying reason, I could not go through it. Then, I tried playing it again, and though nothing had changed, I marched right on past it.

Now, I have to admit that I like giving this game a chance because it’s a Nihon Falcom game, and they’re a great company, but Dragon Slayer Jr blows. You gotta’ press up to jump, and there are too many platforms. You’ve also got shit flying in from above, fish suckers come in from below, and when you get to the first boss, he just craps horns all over the place like a hippo in heat.

Yeah, male hippos muck spread and make out with each other in order to establish dominance. That's gross.

Dragon Scroll

This is one of the weirdest games I’ve ever seen. The first thing you see is the noid racing back and forth. You throw some magical cyclones from your fists while running about, talking to yourself, like it’s no big deal. Where do you go? What do you do?

I have no fracking clue. You go one way, and a homosexual caveman appears out from nowhere. You go another way, kill a dingo-man, walk into a cave, and before figuring out much of anything, the scorpions will have drained the rest of your meager hit points.

It’s strange because the graphics and animation are quite good. The music is alright. The premise is…creative, to say the least, but what really matters is game play, and a hold of interest.

Dragon Scroll is a big miss. If you want an overhead, action-adventure game either go with Zelda 2 or even Crystalis. Both of those games are waaay better. At least, in those games, you pretty much always know where to go. In Dragon Scroll, I often walk through a door of sorts and come out from the place I entered about a screen’s distance ago.

Then I run into Sampul. They call him Samp, the Miser…who? Who calls him that, and why should I care that he wants to know where he can make some money?

Overall, this game is just baffling, which sucks because it looks pretty cool.

Deathbots

I love the name of this one.

DEATHBOOOTS!!!

You’re a crappy looking robot in a crappy looking cell. You run around, shooting balls at other robots.

DEATHBOOOTS!!!

You can pick up some different weapons, but the weapon select screen is defunct.

DEATHBOOOTS!!!

No matter what you do or where you go, you’re gonna’ take some serious hits because you’re a massive tub of steel and lard, but you get a ton of hit points and lives and continues.

DEATHBOOOTS!!!

I just don’t know about this one. I mean, I’ve tried playing it on numerous occasions, but I never get very far—maybe the 3rd or 4th stage?

DEATHBOOOTS!!!

Stay tuned for Deathbots 2, the death of Deathbot. (Not an actual game.)

S.C.A.T.

So, I probably don’t need to poke fun at the name, right? It's actually an acronym for Special Cybernetic Attack Team. Basically, this is a 2D shooter. You can play as one or two players, and then you float around the stage, shooting baddies. Simple enough.

One difference in the controls is that you can actually turn around and face the opposite direction—something you can’t normally accomplish in 2D shooters, and you can set your options to roam as you move or let them be fixed in one position. None of that is helpful.

You get three hits before you’re toast. Zooming robots come flying from all angles, and all too often, they’re protected by the scenery, or they appear and shoot you long before you can line yourself up to hit them.

Apart from the fact that enemies appear too abruptly, the frustrating thing about this game is that it’s just really mediocre. I mean, it’s difficult; I’ve never made it past the first stage, but the game is so boring, I’ve never really tried to make it beyond the first stage.

At least when I play Deathbots, I get to say Deathbooots in a booming, tremulous voice. I don’t really feel like saying scat…know what I mean?

Jackal

Okay…I actually love to hate this game. Every once in a while I like to pop this piece of scat into the NES and let my piss rise to a boil.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Jackal; it’s actually kind of a fun 2 player game, but I do have some issues. For one, it just sucks. The graphics, music, and game play are all inherently sub par.

I can never get past the fact that you can only shoot your machine gun straight up, but the grenades you fire off in which ever direction you’re facing, so you end up fidgeting around in order to line up your shots. You can get some upgrades, but of course, if you get hit once, you die, and your upgrade is forever gone. Worse yet, the upgrade eliminates your grenade, which flies over obstacles, but the rockets do not.

Next, you have mindless enemies, like statues that shoot balls at you, and where the Hell do you end up? Ancient Rome? What am I fighting, anyway?

The best way to play Jackal is to have a few beers and a selection of even worse games. Then, you pop in Jackal, and try to let your friend do all the work while you ride around in circles.

My final analysis of these 10 shitty games is that they suck. Play at your own risk. Most of them simply aren’t going to be worth your time, while others are just lesser versions of popular games.

I mean, I get it; off brand stuff can get you by, but generally, the off brand stuff is cheaper than the name brand, so it’s okay that the quality sucks, but it’s not like these games were cheaper than, say, Life Force, Contra, Zelda, or anything else, so you bought a game because of the cover, or someone got you a birthday gift, or you rented it from Block Buster, and kablamo, you were stuck with a shitty game.

Bt dubz, if you like any of these games, you’re a prick. No, I’m kidding. Thanks for reading.

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About the Creator

Aaron Dennis

Creator of the Lokians SciFi series, The Adventures of Larson and Garrett, The Dragon of Time series, and more.

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