1. Super Mario Bros. 3

This game also belongs on a broader “Top 5 Video Games” list, of course, but the NES version will always be the real one for me. SMB3 offers so much variety, tons of surprises, and such a wide array of powers for Mario & Luigi that it’s just hard to beat. It’s where the current Mario game philosophy of “something new in every stage” originated, and there were plenty of them—ideas and stages. SMB3 also becomes surprisingly challenging in the last few worlds, culminating in an epic trek through Bowser’s Castle and a very fun (and different) battle with the Koopa King himself.

2. Kirby’s Adventure

I’ve written about Kirby’s Adventure many times. It’s one of the system’s best platformers, designed by people who love level design and know the hardware. Kirby’s Adventure introduced the concept of stealing powers from enemies which completely changes the focus and makes you want to experiment with all of them (the most useful for secret-finding are Stone and Hammer). Mini-games break up the platforming. The boss battles can be surprisingly challenging given the easy-going nature of the game, especially the vampiric final boss!

3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Project

Like Andy, I love and treasure TMNT 2: The Arcade Game. It was as close to a home port of that excellent 4-player brawler that we’d ever seen (well, until the XBLA port), and it even had exclusive content to make up for the loss in graphical fidelity. TMNT 3, however, is where things went nuts. The Turtles all got unique special moves, there were more environments to traverse, and it seems like every TMNT villain from the cartoons and movies were brought in (even Tokka & Rahzar!). The only unfortunate oversight is that while a Triceraton—one of the most iconic TMNT enemies—is prominently displayed on the box cover, none appear in the game.

4. Ducktales

If you were a kid in the 80’s with an NES, you played Ducktales and you loved every goddamn second of it. This was absolutely at the top of the gold-encrusted heap of Disney games that Capcom produced, including Chip & Dale’s Rescue Rangers, The Little Mermaid, and the next game on my list. Ducktales had Scrooge McDuck pogo-sticking his way, non-linearly, through such exotic locales as The Amazon or The African Mines. Heck, he even made it to The Moon—which features what is considered by many (including myself) to have the greatest chiptune ever recorded and produced for a video game. The whole point of this adventure is to find seven treasures by beating bosses, but there are plenty of HIDDEN treasures in each stage, as well as cameos from familiar characters. Oh, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie have gone missing. I found ALL this stuff as a kid, and I can’t wait to see how much memory my muscles have retained when WayForward launches Ducktales Remastered next month.

5. Darkwing Duck

“Let’s get dangerous!” I was Darkwing Duck for Halloween one year. At that age, I didn’t realize that Darkwing Duck was a clever parody of Batman, and I didn’t care. The show was funny, had a broad cast of characters (great villains), and lots of action. It’s hard to watch today—it’s one of those shows that is 110% puns and sight gags but you don’t catch that when you’re 11. Anyway, the Darkwing Duck video game is basically a Mega Man game. You choose one of eight stages and run through it with your pea shooter, blasting enemies (including a duck-themed variation on Sniper Joe) and hanging onto grapple points in an effort to reach Darkwing’s ultimate nemesis: Steelbeak! Like Ducktales, this NES game features multiple cameos, but the gameplay is less exploration based and more of a straight side-scroller. But it’s great, and I hope it gets remade or re-released someday.