Really fun strategy game that is not too complicated but has fantastically addictive gameplay, best played in two-player of course.

More in depth with more options than your average American Football game, this game set the bench mark for all sports games that followed it.

Everything that was best about the original was built upon in this, surely the greatest iteration of the Castlevania series on the N.E.S. Bigger and better than before, with a much more fleshed out storyline, and the ability to choose to play as different characters throughout the game made sure it never got boring.

Amazing levels of presentation in this fantastic, very slick and fast paced NES RPG made by SNK.

Great action game, very well designed with a cool premise (guy with steel hands punches the crap outta' everything, what more do you want from an action game?) as well as some pretty interesting power-ups.

Sadly underrated classic for the NES, the game is an amalgamation of every good platformer around from the time, but it's so much more than the sum of it's parts.

Very cool, well thought out puzzle game. When you first play a puzzle game of high caliber you immediately feel as though everything clicks perfectly into place, this is how I felt when I played this game originally.

Probably the best traditional style RPG on the N.E.S, also unfortunately rare and hard to find now.

The arcade Salamander was a refined and perfected version of Gradius, everything that made the game good was kept and the bad dropped. The NES version however is very little like the arcade original, with the power-up system changed back to being more in line with Gradius, but this doesn't stop it from being an amazing game in it's own right, with a stellar co-op mode.

Built on the original game in every way (which is no mean feat) with fantastic new power-ups.

One of the best shooters ever made (and even more impressive when taking into account when it came out) the system of having three different ships to change into with different strengths was implemented perfectly.

Quite possibly, graphically the best NES game in existence, Nintendo really went to town with the visuals in this game, and the ability to absorb enemies was an amazingly well implemented hook, and added a lot to the overall fun of the game.

What more can be said about Tetris that hasn't been already? the pinnacle of design for a puzzle game.

fantastically inventive 3d platformer, with a brilliantly realised 3D world, these types of games had been around for a while, but this was one of the first to travel outside of Europe, and had a lot of improvements, not the easiest game for newcomers, check my tips section here to help you get started.

One of those games which is fun if you want to play it casually, but really rewards people who enjoy spending the time to really master a game.

Originally a massive hit on the C64, Maniac mansion converted very nicely to the N.E.S. which simplified the game a bit but still kept what made the original so great.

Still holds up as one of the greatest action games of all time, when I first played this game I was amazed at how much control you have over the character, ducking, jumping and dodging perfectly, with freedom to shoot in every direction. Will always be a classic.

The first Zelda game was big in scope and ideas as well as general size (for the time) this game had many a person hooked in the 80's, and spawned countless classic sequels as time went by.

Easily one of my favourite games ever made, the action and style were perfectly thought out, everything was bigger and better than the original, great set pieces (the dragon towards the end of the game was amazing at the time) and much more balanced than the original, still not an easy game by any means though.

There was no doubt in my mind when I started this list what would be #1, this game was an absolute tour-de-force of design and playability, the presentation was amazing for the time and the whole game shined with originality and new ideas, loved the Racoon suits, loved the Koopa Kid bosses, in fact I would say the game is pretty faultless on all levels. I still play this game on a relatively regular basis now.