Renting games is a Friday ritual that is hard to describe to younger people. It was by far the best part of the week, the light at the end of the long week of tedious schoolwork.
Dr Mario was the only game I could get my parents into back then. I even caught them playing it a few times on their own. But basically every other game back then was completely lost on them. So for that reason alone Dr Mario will always hold a special place in my heart.
That's how my friend beat it... The Tip Line! That wasn't that simple of a task either. Their line was always busy. So, he would hit redial for like an hour until he finally got through to somebody.
Mine too! What's with all the hate? It holds up after all these years and I really miss that when I was a kid I didn't know the story or how to complete it. It had a mystery to it that no game then or since has had. Glad a few of us love it.
Fun fact given the content of the video: due to Nintendo policy, games often had their difficulty dialed up when localized for the North American market. This was to "discourage" (we would say "troll" today) people from renting games. Nintendo actually sued Blockbuster for the practice but lost, so they decided to punish the consumer instead.
@@chucksucks8640 The idea was that it increases the learning curve. If you rent a game for a weekend and beat it in two hours, you've gotten everything from it and don't need to buy it. If you make the game insanely difficult, most people will have to spend more than a weekend practicing at the game to complete it. Barring that it's at least a passive/aggressive middle finger. There were other tricks like this employed to inflate game time or punish people for renting, like the infamous letter you dip in water for Star Tropics.
@@chucksucks8640 The idea was that then they couldn't finish the game within the time window of a rental. I think Disney, of all companies, used to have the same policy for their own videogames, which is why Disney kids' games often have an insane difficulty spike somewhere in them.
It seems like devs didn't understand how great renting was, people were paying just to try out their game, with the possibility of buying it if they liked it enough. Sure, it's possible that you could trick more people into buying a game they otherwise wouldn't if they were able to check it out first by renting it, but it wouldn't be worth the resulting industry-wide loss of games sales when people can't find any good games to buy so they give up.
@@pentelegomenon1175It's mostly just that Japan as a gaming industry is ironically so far behind on the times. Renting as a practice would've been genuinely beneficial for them but they didn't see the value in it and just thought it was people getting access to a game they don't own. We still see this behind on the times mindset with their copyright policies online.
Yeah - how does that happen lol?! You see it there on the shelf and it's like, well I'll give this a try again and within a minute after you get home you realize how got hosed again.
I rented that one a lot too lol. I think I did it thinking I would get further in the game and it would somehow get better lol. I also rented Maniac Mansion a lot but didn't even really know how to play it (or really even read at the time lol because I was like 5) but now that I'm pushing 40 (oh God) it's actually pretty fun.
@@FridayNightArcade It must've been that our options were so limited. I remember seeing only a few rental games at the store in the small town I lived in. Nowadays we can simply download any game we want, so kinda spoiled for choice ;)
It's too bad the US version of Bayou Billy was tweaked to be significantly harder. I feel like it could have been one of those Konami classics had they left it alone.
@@FridayNightArcade The US version of Bayou Billy had driving and shooting, which could also use the zapper, stages as well, If you completed them, in "practice mode" you got an extra life to use in the main game.
@@jyoder1 Congrats, that's a big achievement in my book. Everyone likes to complain about how hard G 'n G and Battletoads are but this game is definitely up there.
That thing you were talking about with Castlevania 2, where you kept on renting it, because you forgot you had already played it... same thing happened to me with Hydlide.
Ohh bro you moved a lot of thoughts and feelings. I miss my grandparents too. The best presents was for my grandparents, they all give me a lot toys and games for my birthdays and Christmas.
I suppose you've got a point about Dr. Mario, but I'll still vouch for the likes of Mario Kart and Mario Party, as those feature many more staples of the Mario series besides just Mario himself. On the other hand, though, Dr. Mario is undeniably the superior version of Mario in Super Smash Bros.
Gas station story: a friend of mine had a dad who had tried doing business with a gas station to rent out NES games. Unfortunately it didn't last long as the gas station never got people's proper info when they rented so they would pay the rental fee, take the game home, and, well you can guess the rest.
I'm in the minority because I love CV2. Was my birthday present when I was in kindergarten. Have fond memories of playing it before and after school. Really enjoyed it, and luckily I had the Nintendo Power issue that helped with the poor translation. It's a really fun speedrun to watch, especially Jay_Cee's world record. There's also a CV2 randomizer now.
You need the book. I seriously think it was meant to be sold as a set . the worlds of power book has all the hints in it. Its no Tolstoy novel but its as good as a goosbumps or robert asprin myth book. The manual too people forget these games actually had booklets you were supposed to read or look for clues too.
There was a game called dark rift for the N64 that I tried to return about an hour after renting it. The Blockbuster just gave us a $1 credit toward renting another game for bringing it back so early. Who's laughing now, blockbuster?
The original NES Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the first game I bought with my own money. I thought I was getting a port of the arcade game...but that wouldn't come out until the following year. So I was pretty damned disappointed.
Hello there! I just stumbled across your channel and thank you very much for doing this video. I also grew up in a small down and have to go to small local video stores to rent games for my NES. I'll never forget the smell of Nancy's Videos. Anyway, as time went on, I started renting from a small gas station near my house. The selection was very limited but I was happy with whatever I could get my hands on. Our stories of renting games were part of a larger narrative that kids of our generation shared. I'm glad you had that experience and I'm glad I did too.
I had a Atari growing up. The worst purchase was Donkey Kong. I was so mad that I had been duped. I think that is when I was done with consoles. I rediscovered consoles about the time the SNES was released.
The gameplay in the 2600 Donkey Kong is actually not that bad (aside from only having two levels), but the graphics look terrible, like Mario's girlfriend has been captured by the Gingerbread Man. I remember abandoning it when I got my hands on the Atari 8-bit computer version, which looks much better. I pretty much stopped with consoles after the 2600 and stuck to computer games until the Wii came out! So I missed several whole generations of console gaming and there's this big hole in my videogame nostalgia.
@@ZachuratedPhat They really aren't. My grandparents got me the game. But never got past the first month (could never make enough money in the stock market to buy the million dollar house).
@Turd Ferguson I don't know a single 11-year-old who cares about the stock market, honestly (I know I didn't when I was 11). But my father and grandfather were big into it (my dad still follows it, as he owns plenty of stock, but doesn't check it all the time). Still though, WSK was a really confusing game. Even if you understood the stock market.
I had a similar experience with Simon's Quest in not knowing what the hell to do, but I did the game forgiveness thing for other ones, that I don't remember right now. Remember learning that game renting was a thing, though? They must've started that in like 1986-87 where I lived. I remember being bummed out that games were so damned expensive -- after just before not having video games at all, keep in mind -- and then going to our video store and finding a section of NES games. Younger folks didn't have that.
Athena was the bane of my game-renting existence, and it's still imo the worst platformer on the system (at least among official carts.) And I even got a chance to replay it recently, thanks to the SNK 40th Anniversary set. And... yeah, it's still awful on every level. Although I did learn that the arcade original was much better!
I think Top Gun has a 30+ year learning curve for me! I have the same memory of Deadly Towers. After playing and LOVING The Guardian Legend I had tremendous expectations of this one. Turned out to be a clunky mishmash of everything that makes a perfectly *bad* game. Infiltrator is one that always conjures up disgust for me. It was packaged to sound like another Metal Gear but sorely missed the mark. Faria is another one that I thought would be another Zelda; again it seemed to take everything great about Zelda and tweak it just enough to be a bitter disappointment. It falls under my personal category of “If It Only Had a Map.” After playing and finishing Faria about a year ago I actually intend to revisit the other games as a challenge... But not today.
One time my mom tried to console me (pun intended) with my needing glasses, by taking me into a KB Toys and buying me 2 NES games. I chose Back to the Future by LJN, and my mom surprised me with Castlequest. I still hate both of those games. And I switched to contact lenses.
Oh hell no! lol... I can NOT forget Castlequest. I remember seeing the previews for that in Nintendo Power and some other game magazine. I thought it looked and sounded so cool. I even called Nintendo's customer service a couple times asking when it would be out. When the game finally released and was available in the video store, I rented it... feeling so excited...........boy was I soooooo disappointed! All that hype for a shitty game (as AVGN would say lol). Luckily I never bought the dumb thing.
@@brucewrigleysgumchewz4667 CastleQuest was bad at first playthrough, and it only got worse when you progressed. Renting the game gives you zero clue about which keys, or what path you needed to take, to reach the princess at the center of the tower. Buying the game gave you a foldout map of the entire castle as well as a highly descriptive instructional manual clearly describing all the game mechanics. But the map was so tiny and pixelated, you needed a magnifying glass to see everything. Turns out, and I only found this out years later through the magic of RU-vid, that at least one of the intended paths - because there are actually several possible options - requires dying to reset the room, which is why they give you 50 lives to complete the game. Bad hitboxes? Check. No indication of enemy invulnerability before they kill you? Check. Mystery paths with infinite softlock possibilities? Check. Required deaths? Check. Oh boy.. that game.
I remember renting Nobunaga's Ambition and returned it almost immediately. Not because it was bad, quite the opposite in fact, but because it was just too slow and dense for little eight year old me to handle.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I grew up watching old monster movies, and I LOVED anything and everything to do with them, so I rented this the moment I saw the cover. It was...disappointing to say the least. I was a little older when it actually came out (mid teens), so the hatred I had was more focused and less confused than when I was younger. Looking up a review of the game was what first introduced me to the AVGN. Oh, I also HATED Top Gun with a passion.
Have to agree with you 100% on Deadly Towers. Looked so cool and played so bad! I guess I was a lucky kid, although I was older than you when Zelda came out, I got it for my birthday as soon as it hit the stores. That's one thing I've got to continually pat my mother on the back for. LOL!
I must reject your "Simon's quest" notion that it's a bad game. I have rose-tinted glasses and loved RPG games so playing this game gave me an action-RPG that I really liked. and YES i figured out the kneeling part all on my own ^_^
Interesting since the ICEE is fact the first. Slurpee its cousin. Slush Puppies is more like a distant relative. The ICEE was invented by WWII veteran, Omar Knedlik in 1958 when he served semi frozen soda at his Dairy Queen franchise. He worked with a company to make the machines to slush the drinks to the correct consistency and created The ICEE Company. Mid-1960s, 7-11 got interested in purchasing machines from ICEE but under their own branding Slurpee as it said in their contract terms.
They should of just ported the game everyone was familiar with , imagine playing strider and double dragon in the arcade and then getting the NES versions . Sega at least tried with double dragon on the master system
When I was 11 my Mom took me to Wal Mart to buy a new video game. I was one of those kids that didn't get new games very often, so whatever I got I was stuck with for the next few years. The selection at our Wal Mart was pitiful, and I remember picking Dr. Mario for N64 because it was the best looking title on face value. I took it home and was immediately disappointed when I found out it was a puzzle game... We actually took it back and refunded it. I ended up getting The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror for Game Boy Color, which was not a good game. But still much better than Dr. Mario 😓
Aww man, I got Dr. Mario as an un-asked-for gift as a kid too but I actually liked it! Well, maybe not as much as I'd have liked a new action/adventure but I did enjoy it, and I distinctly remember it being the one game my great uncle (who got it for me) loved watching me play for whatever reason. I was like, REALLY young though, any new game was a COOL game in my eyes at the time. And what's even better, and tells me I was a lucky kid, was probably my best christmas EVER when my grandma got me BOTH zelda 1 and 2, at once. We'd rented them and gotten a taste of how good they were but to OWN not one but BOTH of them, two of the biggest and best games on NES... no other Christmas was ever so surprising and exciting! The funny thing though about my ability to enjoy the Zeldas as a little kid, is also the reason that unlike you I was able to fully enjoy Castlevania 2 and never had any problems with it, and you brought up yourself -- my older brother's subscription to Nintendo Power! He had it from near the beginning, and what we DIDN'T have from the earlier NES days he had this... big mega-guide-book thing for, with maps and strategies. Again, I was lucky!
Hydlide. It's the only game that gets worse every time you even think about it. I bought my NES back in '88 or '89 and bought Xevious and Hydlide to go with it. Talk about going from the sublime to the ridiculous. Xevious was damn near arcade perfect (or as perfect as I could imagine on a home system) and Hydlide...well it was hot garbage from the get go. I'd rather play E.T. than Hydlide. I'd rather have a doberman sharpen it's claws in my eyeballs than play Hydlide.
Finally a new episode. Thanks a lot. I'll see it at night, relaxed at my sofa with a glass of wine. I want to enjoy every minute of it. Thanks again 😊👍
You probably already know which game I’m gonna say: The Lion King on SNES!! Haha I swear that dreaded Just Can’t Wait To Be King level 🤦🏾♂️ As a kid, I couldn’t beat it; 28 years old and I STILL can’t beat it. The worst game I ever rented was probably Superman 64..... I was like is this all we do is fly around rings?
Excellent job backing up Dr. Mario. You're 100% correct, and on the shoulders of Dr. Mario, the practice of slapping licenses onto generic puzzlers became a big moneymaker for Nintendo in years to come. Yoshi's Cookie, Pokemon Puzzle League and Kirby's Avalanche are some that jump to mind. Also, my rental store return was Captain Skyhawk. As you said, the box gameplay thumbnails blew my friend and I away with the shaded surfaces. Our BS excuse to return it was that it didn't have the instructions, and we "couldn't figure it out." :)
Deadly Towers. God I remember that first level. Same issue with Milon's Secret Castle - apparently there was a game there, and I had no idea how to play it.
My grandpa was a beast at this game and this was before the internet. He played it all out. I later dubbed him an OG - Original Gamer. I’d sit and watch him play for hours.
I remember Nintendo Power shilling hard for Dr. Mario. Back when the hype could last for months, rather than days. The color pallet was lifeless, and it didn’t hook you, like Tetris did.
I remember renting Total Recall for the NES from the local grocery store (I also grew up in a small town in the middle of the nowhere), got home, played it for literally 15 minutes and was already done with it. Played it many years later, still don't care for it.
I love the irony that you mention Nintendo's "shady" marketing in slappin' Mario on a puzzle game as the reason you hated the great game that is Dr. Mario (a game I still play daily) and then use Dr. Mario in the thumbnail for a video titled "NES Games I Hated" knowing people's love for Dr. Mario would get them to click on it. Well played sir. Well played.
I have a confession. I only recently discovered the NES. I had an Atari, but was more into arcade games in my jr high/high school years. I didn't get back into consoles until I joined the military and bought a Sega Game gear during Tech School. I then got hooked and bought an SNES a year later. I only recently discovered NES games and am enjoying playing them.
I remember asking for Dr Mario for my birthday because Mario as a doctor sounded interesting, my mom tried to explain that she pretty sure it wasn't what I thought it was, but I didn't care. I wanted it. I hated it. It was so bad and I only had myself to blame.
That is a lot of held in angst for Konami games in this list. I'm glad you were finally able to let it out. A game of Virus Panic should be able to cheer you up.
Despite of having many innovations at the time, like having the day/night cycle, a hub world, a huge map to explore. Which inspired the metroidvania we know nowadays. But, due to bugs, clunky and dull gameplay and horrible translation. Castlevania II is considered as a "black sheep" to the fans of castlevania.
Well, despite of being innovated at the time, like having a day/night cycle, a hub world and a huge map to explore, which inspired metroidvanias we have nowadays, since the Symphony of the Night, considered by many as a magnum-opus of the franchise. But, due to the rushed development, inumerous bugs, clunky and dull gameplays, also the terrible translations, it's considered by many fans of Castlevania, as a "black sheep" of the franchise. Also, I prefered that they add Castlevania III, instead of the II, on the NES Classic Edtion.
damn top gun and dr mario? lol. those are beloved games. Problem was the popular games like Zelda, Metroid, castlevania, tecmo bowl etc were ALWAYS sold out. I owned tons of crappy games because the toy stores never had the good ones in stock, they sold like hotcakes. I thoroughly enjoyed Simons Quest and Bayou Billy though
I love Dr. Mario never got it tho but like you wanted Legend of Zelda every year I wanted Zelda II The Adventures of Link my first Zelda experience as a kid and my second favorite Zelda for aforementioned reasons I was always waiting Christmas to open the present to pull out that beautiful gold cartridge but it never happened tho I own it I bout it used years later but still want the brand new one for Christmas to this day but for around $400 I guess it ain't nothing but a dream. 😔
Thank you for sharing. I completely empathize! It's hard to justify buying a Switch and the game for $400 just to play that one game. But BOTW looks so amazing. I know it's blaspehmy but situations like that are why it wouldn't hurt my feelings if Nintendo just went the way of Sega... Give up on trying to have a console and just release awesome Mario, Zelda and Metroid games for PS4 and PC.
Can we have a moment of silence for Aaron's childhood cause that's rough. I do enjoy Simon's Quest however I understand where you're coming from. I gotta say that these were bad but no where near as bad as games like Ghosts and Goblins, Ghostbusters, Wayne's World, Rocky and Bullwinkle...omg I can continue on. We never had a rental place near by so my parents had to drive us there. So, whatever game I had I was stuck with for the week....thanks for the hard work on these videos Aaron. Always a pleasure coming to your channel and watch them.
MIKEcade_ Classic I can't believe Ghosts 'N Goblins gets as bad a rap as it does on the Nintendo. It was one of the first games I got when I got my Nintendo from my dad for Christmas. I thought it was awesome as far as comparing the gameplay and graphics to the arcade. Of course it was difficult, but even back in the day I beat the whole darned game including the second run through that you have to do to really win the game. It took me a long long time, but besides having to learn patterns, it was nowhere near one of my most-hated Nintendo games.
I loved Ghosts n Goblins. Super hard as hell! Took me so many tries just to get past the town part. Oh man that was brutal. The "Big Men" and the dumb birds constantly flying from the left..oh I hate hate HATED those stupid birds! Ghostbusters on the other hand..SUCKED. I also hated the game Operation Wolf. Played for 15 minutes and shut it off for good.
*grumbles non-sense & grits teeth simply from the memory of playing* Marble 'Oh my, holy hell!' Madness! That game,....it,......ahh!,.....it was just so.........,..Gaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!
I beat the European version of Bayou Billy three years ago, no trouble at all. You just need to jump kick all the time, at least in the first beat'em up stages, so that enemies won't have the time to hit you. In later stages you get a whip, which makes everything easier. The racing stages are certainly harder than the Japanese version, but still beatable with some practice. The shooting stages (I used the Zapper) are a joke, I never died once. Overall I think Bayou Billy is one of the most unique NES games and it deserves more love
Those games was boring to me : Ghost busters 1 Friday 13 Pack Man Super Mario 1 Sky destroyer Galaxian Mappy Milk and nuts Fist of the northern star 1 Zippy race Formula 1 Load runner Bomber man 1 I loved those: Battle city Felix The Cat Rockman 1 Contra 1 Chip n Dale 1 Chip n Dale 2 Flintstones 2 Mario Bros Mighty bomb jack Tiny Toons 1 Darkwing Duck
