The Nintendo Lineage: NES

Part 1 of my new review series

I’ve been looking for a reason to review Nintendo consoles since I started this Substack and since the Switch 2 launches in 8 weeks, I thought this would be the perfect time.

From now on, once a week, I will post a new episode of this series, so stay tuned!

I’ll be ranking each Nintendo console, from 0 to 5 stars in 4 different categories:

Hardware: The console’s power, aesthetic, controller, gimmicks and reliability.

Software: The video games, operating system and apps available for the system.

Impact: The console’s impact on future generations, popular media and the wider gaming community.

Sentiment: This is my Substack. Whether subconsciously or not my personal biases will always weigh on my reviews so I’m going to include a section where I rate the console based on my memories, enjoyment and general attitude towards it.

With that out of the way, let’s take a trip back to the 80’s and have a look at the Nintendo Entertainment System: the ancestor of modern console gaming.

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HARDWARE: **** 4 Stars

The NES originally launched in 1983 in Japan (under the Famicom name) and compared to the earlier Atari 2600 and 5200 is much more graphically capable and able to run much more complex games. The Sega Master System launched 2 years later than the NES and in my opinion, doesn’t match the graphical quality of Nintendo’s big grey box; some of the later games for this console don’t look too far away from the SNES. The NES also supported component video output as opposed to the Atari’s absolutely hideous RF only capability which hijacked the aerial slot on your TV. The NES isn’t anything special looks-wise but I do like the red lettering and those weird trenches that run across it and the NES gamepad still looks cool today.

The only reason the NES gets 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the infamous video thumb and reliability issues. The controller is infamously unergonomic, its sharp corners fit poorly in the hand and the hard plastic d-pad, no joke, has given me a permanent little dot of hard skin on my thumb and can even cause a bit of pain in long gaming sessions, this is also a console that frequently has breakdown issues, however, it is also quite easy to repair with most issues boiling down to dirty pin connectors.
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SOFTWARE: *** 3 Stars

The NES has some of the most beloved and iconic titles in video game history and I would argue that Super Mario Bros. is the most important video game ever released… but the console also has mounds of steaming hot shovelware and even among the good games, there are titles here that just aren’t that fun to revisit. I own all of the Nintendo consoles myself, including the NES but I find it to be a hard sell to those who don’t simply because almost all of its best games are available for free on the Switch.

At the very least, where I’m from anyway, the NES is a cheap console to buy games for and I love the designs for the cartridges and the little sleeves they come with.
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IMPACT: ***** 5 Stars

The Nintendo Entertainment System is the most iconic and important console ever created. Full stop. The Atari still has its loyal fans and consoles like the Sega Master System have cult followings but everything from Family Guy to Hollywood has referenced the NES and its library. About 80% of retro gaming merch and tat you will find hearkens back to the NES, 8-bit music is often based on the specific sound profile of this console too.

More than the above, the NES is likely the only reason this industry still exists. When the console launched, the industry had virtually died out in the West off the back of the video game crash and video games were seen as nothing more than kids’ toys, the NES changed all that and proved the home console could do more than just play compromised arcade games.
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SENTIMENT: *** 3 Stars

I have massive respect for the NES and its library and I think any gamer can find an NES game they really love but I have to admit, this is a console I only hook up a few times a year when I feel like replaying Metroid or a few tries at Gradius and Super Mario Bros.

I was born in 2000 and didn’t own my NES until I was 22, a lot of the nostalgia that comes with the system is lost on me so a lot of the library feels a bit painful for me to play, as well as that, there seemed to be a couple of years in the late-2010’s where NES nostalgia was everywhere, to the point where it became a little bit grating; I’m still sick of pixel art indie games now, the games didn’t look like that! CRT’s smooth the image.

Even among the best games on this system, most of them retrospectively feel like Alpha versions of their SNES counterparts for me. But I will say, and I don’t know why, but I hate playing NES games on the Switch or other methods, there’s something about that monochrome, uncomfortable, piece of shit controller that was perfect for its purpose, it controls the games like a dream and nothing since has quite matched it.
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FINAL SCORE: 15/20 Stars

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