I dunno, I kinda miss when boss deaths didn't need their own cutscenes and everything exploded, even things that had no right exploding.

As someone who never grew up with an NES and only really started getting into the library this year: Sure it did. Great platform, great games.

Actually, one of my favorite things about 8-bit boss deaths is how explodey they are. I miss the days when stabbing a dragon enough times meant his body would inexplicably be consumed in dozens of identical explosions. Nowadays video game dragons just bleed and scream. Big deal. I can do that.

Good NES combat was the most satisfying, all the ragdoll physics in the world can't measure up to that perfect combination of timing and a really good noise-channel THWACK.

Part of what makes Doom so great is that it still has one foot in that world, as far as satisfying, explodey boss deaths go.

Not NES, but my favorite part of "Secret of Mana" was how bosses would suddenly turn an almost seizure-inducing orange and then explode.

It's a worthy accomplishment. I only got around to beating a few before snes came out, but most of them I did beat were a group accomplishment. Day care and all that.

Contra is great but I've never gotten the whole "one of the hardest games on the NES" thing because there were so many harder games.

Not to belittle your achievement, of course.

Contra (without codes) was one of the toughest NES games that was still fun and approachable. Sure there were tougher, but only hardcore masochists like us played them. Most mainstream players rightfully told Battletoads and Ghosts n' Goblins to fuck off.

The only other super tough approachable game that almost nobody could beat I can think of is Mike Tyson's Punch Out.

I might also say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but that's putting a lot of stress on "fun and approachable."

TMNT was brutal, I never quite beat it back in the day. Really close, but that long narrow hall in the Technodrome with the jet pack guys in it always got the best of me.

I'm not sure which side of the line Cobra Triangle falls on but that game was really hard, too.

I think the hardest games I was in to back then were TMNT, Snake Rattle n Roll, and Solar Jetman. I liked Battletoads but after about a week we mostly used my friend's Game Genie to warp to the last level and then beat each other up on those rotating platforms like it was low-rent Street Fighter.

For me, Contra's difficulty was a little harder than TMNT 2, but not quite as hard as Blaster Master (which also ruled).

Blaster Master would be so much better with a password function.

Blaster Master would be so much better if you didn't have to run in and out of dungeons powering up your dude's gun forever. Then every time you get your gun's power goes down and it's back to the grind.

I used to think that. I thought that right up until the bullets stopped flying. But then I saw what Fidel did to the country after he and I beat Guerilla War, and I grew up fast.

All that killing, and for what?

I think the fact that he even got to a boss in Silver Surfer is evidence of cheating!

Dodongo is sXe

How the fuck did I mistake an 'a' for an 'o'? (Bonus answer: Crown Royal.)

Oh my God. I have vague memories of those break-away bridges, and they *were* oddly terrifying.