I never had an NES. I had a SNES, but I too sold it to get an N64.
I borrowed my friend's NES last year. I got Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, the gun, Zelda, Hunt for Red October, and Battletoads. SMB and DH worked great. HFRO was annoying. Battletoads was cool. But Zelda, Oh, my sweet Zelda....it didn't work. Why GOD, do you hate me? It actually worked for like an hour, and I saved it, and it had that familiar theme (the piano song that the lead Zora plays in his room in Majora's Mask), but after I wanted tpo go back to it the next day, the screen was just grey. Nothing.
I read the blurb on back. Oh hpow things have changed. If I recall, the blurb was really a brag about how advanced the game was:
"This is the biggest game we have made to date! It features large environments, great graphics, and great action!"
Something like that. Made me smirk for a while.