Let's Play 58: IGN's Best NES Games Ever: 30-21 Quiz

Answer: Thunder Beam

"Mega Man" came out in 1987, with one of the most infamous box art debauchles of all time. The box art has absolutely nothing to do with the game. I wanted to have a question on who actually designed the box art to the original "Mega Man" title for the NES release but couldn't find it. If anyone knows please send me a message with that information.

There are two weapons available for use to obtain the Magnet Beam. Mostly commonly used is Gutsman's weapon, Strong Arm. You can also use the Thunder Beam as well. To use the Thunder Beam, however, you must play through Elec Man's stage a second time.

Answer: Super Mario Bros.

Miyamoto first came up with the concept of Mario riding a dinosaur during the development of the original "Super Mario Bros.". Nintendo even developed concept art for the then unnamed dinosaur, but due to the NES's technical limitations they could not incorporate the idea into the NES titles. However, "Adventure Island II" shows that the concept was certainly viable and could be accomplished, though to be fair to Miyamoto "Adventure Island II" was developed several years after the original "Super Mario Bros.", and game developers had a lot more experience with what the NES could handle and do by the time "Adventure Island II" came along.

"Adventure Island II" is a much better title than the rather dull, ugly platformer the original "Adventure Island" is.

Answer: 10

"Baseball Stars" is the first game to feature the abilities to create teams, configure baseball leagues and play full seasons, and also store ongoing statistics, which was revolutionary for its time, much like "Tecmo Super Bowl".

The game also introduces the concept of money. The more a team wins the more money they can win, which results in luring better players to the team. For baseball fans or sports fans this is an essential NES title. "Baseball Stars" is to baseball games what "Tecmo Super Bowl" is to football games, yet even more so.

Answer: Dragon Warrior IV

"Dragon Warrior IV" is the largest NES title ever published, at a full megabyte. The first Kirby game was on the Gameboy. Kirby only appeared on the NES in this one title, but hwat a title it is! The final stage of "Kirby's Adventure" is based on the last stage of the first Gameboy title, and is even in black and white.

The game was remade on the Game Boy Advance as "Kirby Nightmare in Dream Land". Masahiro Sakurai designed the original game. Kirby's image and character was actually a placeholder until the developers could come up with a better character. However they grew to like Kirby so much they abandoned the idea of developing a new protagonist for the title and stuck with the earlier primitive design of Kirby. Kirby' signature sucking ability debuted in the NES title rather than the original Game Boy release. It is one of the highest selling Game Boy titles ever released.

Answer: With an underwater segment

Like the "Final Fantasy" series, "Metal Gear" has a rather tangled history with its early titles. In 1987 Hideo Kojima produced "Metal Gear" for the MSX2 in Japan. In 1988, Ultra, a division of Konami, was given access to the source code of "Metal Gear" without Kojima's knowledge. Ultra then developed an NES port of the game and released the title on the American markets. However, this is not a straight port. There are numerous differences between the NES version and MSX2 version, including extensive level redesigns and story inconsistencies. The changes are to the NES's title's detriment. The game manual for the NES version also introduced extensive story revisions that do not appear in the NES game or the original version.

Due to the success of the original "Metal Gear", Konami greenlit a sequel, released in 1990 as "Snake's Revenge". Like the previous port, Hideo Kojima knew nothing about this sequel until he happened to talk to one of the development team members who said they were producing a sequel to "Metal Gear" for the North American markets. Kojima, who was not going to do a sequel at that time to "Metal Gear", got permission from his bosses to do his own sequel, which was called "Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake". The rest of the "Metal Gear" series only acknowledges this sequel, relegating "Snake's Revenge" to non-canon in the "Metal Gear" game universe.

"Metal Gear 2", which has become highly acclaimed, would never be released Stateside in its original version, although Konami did release updated versions of both MSX2 versions of "Metal Gear 2" and "Metal Gear" in the 2005 "Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence", fifteen years after it was first released in Japan.

Answer: Vampire Killer

"Castlevania II: Simon's Quest" has become quite notorious due to a rather famous online video game reviewer who specializes in retro-game reviews. The game introduces a day/night cycle with experience points and upgradeable weapons and plays much more like an action/adventure RPG such as "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link" or "Faxanadu" than a traditional sequel to the regular platforming of the original "Castlevania". Many of the roots of the "Metroidvania" style of gameplay that characterizes the "Castlevania" series since the critically acclaimed "Symphony of Night" can be found right here in this title.

The second "Castlevania" game released was the MSX title "Vampire Killer", a title never released outside of Japan. "Vampire Killer" features platforming and also the collection of skeleton keys.

Another interesting fact about "Simon's Quest" is of the five mansions there are only two bosses, much like "Metroid" with its Ridley and Kraig minions, and Dracula's mansion is completely empty save for Dracula himself.

Answer: Two

Although well loved as a hockey game, "Blades of Steel" rather streamlines the official rules of the NHL from the 1980s. There is no offside rule. The officials only call two types of penalties. Memorably, if a fight breaks out, the game goes into a beat 'em up mode, and the LOSING fighter is penalized the two minutes, rather than the actual person who initiated the fight. The game also has icing penalties

The game is also one of those very rare NES titles that features actual vice sampling. The arcade version had more voiceover work due to better speech software and additional memory to play with for the programmers that were unavailable for utilization in the NES version.

Answer: Bubble Bobble

"Bubble Bobble" stars two humans who wandered into the Cave of Monsters and have been transformed into dragons. They must go through one hundred rooms in order to escape the cave and be returned to their human forms. The game would be followed by several sequels, including the very rare NES title "Bubble Bobble Part 2" and several Game Boy iterations.

In 1996, apparently Taito discovered they lost the original source code to the arcade game, which is what they used for all their home console ports. Taito sent an arcade cabinet to Probe Entertainment, who was in charge of the console ports, so that Probe could replicate and reprogram the title.

Answer: Fester's Quest

After "Blaster Master", Sunsoft reused several of the sound effect from the game in latter NES titles, most notably "Fester's Quest", which also features the same type of overhead gameplay so heavily featured in "Blaster Master". In the NES version, Jason the protagonist most go down into a hole in the earth to rescue his pet frog Fred.

The Japenese version of the game is entitled "Chô Wakusei Senki Metafight" and as far as gameplay goes is largely the same as the Western version. However, in the Japanese version, the plot is completely different and dare I say it a lot less memorable. The game occurs on the planet Sophia the 3rd (which is the name of the tank in the NES version). The emperor Goez who has conquered the galaxy declares himself a god and tries to capture Sophia the 3rd. It is up to a boy named Kane Gardner is is selected by the only surviving rebel from Goez's initial raid named Nora Satellite who is from the Science Academy to do battle with the emperor. Nora built the Metal Attacker (which is Sophia in the NES version).

There have been several sequels to the game, though no official NES sequel was ever developed. The game is known for its difficulty and insidiously difficult boss fights (especially the fifth boss level who is a crab). Clawgrip of "Super Mario Bros. 2" is a pushover compared to that waiting crustacean horror. Also, like "Rygar", there are no save points nor passwords, a flaw which would never pass in more recent games. The sequel "Blaster Master 2" is a North American exclusive and released on the Sega Genesis. There was also a "Blaster Master Jr." for the Game Boy.

A lost sequel was purportedly discovered and was going to be released on the Wii's Virtual Console under the title "Blaster Master: Destination Fred", though it later proved to be a simple April Fool's Hoax.

There are two unreleased NES titles by Sunsoft. One is "Pescatore" and the other is "Sunman". "Sunman" was nearly finished but never released.

Answer: Best Character

"Zelda II" picked up two awards on the first annual Nintendo Power Awards, originally named the Nestor Awards. The game won best overall title of 1988 and also won in the "Best Character" category. The winners were determined by voters.

Here are the categories and winners:

Best Graphics and Sound: "Castlevania II: Simon's Curse"
Best Challenge: "The Legend of Zelda"
Best Theme.Fun: "Super Mario Bros. 2"
Best Play Control: "Super Mario Bros. 2"
Best Character: "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link"
Best Ending: "Super Mario Bros. 2"
Best Player Vs Player: "Blades of Steel"
Best Overall: "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link"

Interestingly enough, in 2009 "Nintendo Power" published their list of "Zelda" games from best to worst, and "Zelda II" was the worst "Zelda" game. Here is their list.

13. "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link" - NES
12. "The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures" - Gamecube
11. "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" - Nintendo 64
10/9. "The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons" - Game Boy Color
8. "The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap" - Game Boy Advance
7. "The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass" - Nintendo DS
6. "The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker" - Gamecube
5. "The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening/DX" - Game Boy/Game Boy Color
4. "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess" - Wii/Gamecube
3. "The Legend of Zelda" - NES
2. "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" - Super NES
1. "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" - Nintendo 64

What many players do not realize about the "Zelda" games is Japan had both "The Legend of Zelda" and "The Legend of Zelda 2: Rinku No Bouken" before the original game was ever released internationally. "The Legend of Zelda" was a launch title from the Famicom Disk System, released on February 21, 1986. In January 1987 Nintendo released the sequel: "The Legend of Zelda 2: Rinku No Bouken". This earlier version of "Zelda II" had several minor cosmetic differences with graphics and sound and one major difference: how the leveling up worked.

Several months later, Nintendo released "The Legend of Zelda" internationally in August 1987, over half a year AFTER the second game was released in Japan.

Nintendo released "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link" in early 1987, nearly two years before it was released in America and six months even before "The Legend of Zelda" was released.

Nintendo ran into a shortage of computer chips, delaying the North American release date of "Zelda II" according to early issues of "Nintendo Power" and also appears in the June/July issue of Nintendo Fun Club on page 11. The Nintendo Fun Club was the predecessor to "Nintendo Power". This is the quote:

"Where's Link? All the fun of "The Legend of Zelda" continues in "Zelda II - The Adventure of Link", right? Right! But When? As soon as we can get more computer chips! There has been a shortage. But we have used the waiting time well by making "Zelda II - The Adventure of Link" and even more exacting, more challenging game - coming this fall!"

Nintendo used the town names in "Zelda II" as names for the Sages in "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". According to internal game chronology, "Zelda II" takes place after "Ocarina of Time", and the towns are named after the sages.

"Zelda II: The Adventure of Link" is the only game famed composer Koji Kondo, who has provided music for all Zelda games produced between 1986 and 2009, did not score. The Overworld Theme to "Zelda II" is based off the original "Legend of Zelda" Overworld theme.

Akito Nakatsuka also composed the music for "Ice Climbers".

Nintendo first released "Zelda II" in January 1987 for the Famicom Disk System. They released the title in December 1988 internationally as a gold cartridge. In 1992, they released the game a second time on the NES as part of the "Classic Series", this time on a grey cartridge rather than a golden cartridge. In 2003, The game was next included on the the Gamecube promotional disk that featured "The Legend of Zelda", "Zelda II: The Adventure of Link", "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time", and "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask". In 2004, Nintendo released the game on the Gameboy Advance as part of the Nintendo Classic series as well. The sixth and final time was on the Wii's Virtual Console.

The Famicom Disk System version of "Zelda II", entitled "The Legend of Zelda 2: Rinku no Bouken" features numerous differences from the international release. There are numerous changes in sound, sprites, temples, enemy placement, etc. Most of these changes are cosmetic. All the temples are either grey or green, rather than the different colors of the international release. The biggest change is the way leveling works, which is totally different from the international release.

The second biggest change can be found in the Palace Five. One of the Blue Iron Knuckles, who is a pretty intimidating enemy by themselves, was originally Horsehead. The final boss of the palace was originally Helmethead for a rematch, but, like the third Mouser in "Doki Doki Panic", Nintendo replaced Helmethead with a new enemy boss by the name of Gooma.

There is a ball and chain throwing enemy in "Zelda II" that is not named in the international version, but is named Guma in the Japanese version.

As early as the second game, Nintendo began the multiple Link-Zelda characters that have long haunted the series. While the Link from "Zelda II" is explicitly the Link from the original title, Princess Zelda in "Zelda II" is NOT the same Princess Zelda from "The Legend of Zelda". Princess Zelda from "Zelda II" was the daughter of the king and she was cursed, to sleep forever in the North Palace. Afterward, the royal family decreed in the following generations that the daughters be named Zelda after the sleeping princess.