One of the best shooters ever made (and even more impressive when taking into account when it came out) Crisis Force really shines in every area. Allowing you to switch between three different ships on the fly each with different firing types was a great idea which was implemented perfectly, the graphics were clean, crisp and impressive, even going as far as to include some impressive effects such as parallax scrolling, and the whole thing ran at a great speed and with a 2-player co-op to boot. Amazingly this even manages to make most SNES shmups look bad!

Bionic Commando is a very unique platformer which actually removes the feature of jumping, it forces you to instead use a grappling hook to swing and climb. As such its one of those games which is fun if you want to play it casually, but really starts to reward people who spend the time to really master its controls.

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 the freedom to shoot in every direction, all features pretty much required to survive all the frenetic oncoming dangers.

What more can be said about Tetris that hasn't been already? made by some guy in Russia, Tetris basically has you slotting different shapes together to try to create lines. It is in my opinion one of the absolute pinnacle designs for a puzzle game.

Probably the best traditional style Japanese RPG on the NES, Dragon Warrior III was much improved over its earlier brethren with a much more expanded class system and storyline, the night and day aspect was also a very cool addition to the game.

Everything that was good about the original game was built upon and improved here, in surely what must be the greatest iteration of the Castlevania series on the NES. The level designs themselves were far better designed and more interesting this time around, you could now pick up friends throughout the game each with varying abilities and play as them, and the story was much more fleshed out than before.

Most definitely the most impressive graphics on the system, HAL Laboratory really went to town with the visuals in this game, and created a game play experience where fun and accessibility were obviously the main focuses, the difficulty curve is much more forgiving than most other NES games mainly owing to the fairness and length afforded by its battery backed up save (a rarity with NES platformers). Also experienced players need not worry about the game being breezed through as finding all the secrets adds to the longevity.

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 it was much more balanced and playable too, still not an easy game by any means though.

Another milestone release for the time from Nintendo. Taking the non-linear adventure game and infusing it with RPG elements such as an extendable health bar and weapons upgrades was a stroke of genius, and the core level design here was obviously created carefully and in a far more focused and cohesive manner than ever before, leading to make the adventure far more forgiving, rewarding and immersive than those that came before.

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.