I beat Adventure Island for the 1st time just a couple of years ago. It's a MONUMENTAL undertaking, and I do NOT recommend it, but when I actually made "the jump" on 8-3 it was one of the best feelings of my life. I hate Adventure Island.
I grew up playing Wonder Boy on the SMS. I dunno if that game controls better or if it's just what I got used to, but Adventure Island always felt like "we have Wonder Boy at home" to me.
I did that a few years ago with the original Mega Man...I beat it as a kid and I have no clue how my ~10 year old self did that when it took a lot of effort and patience from me now.
Dude, same. I spent like six or seven hours playing it a couple years ago to beat it. Unlimited continues were a curse in Adventure Island. At least if they were limited I could’ve just given up and moved on with my life. 😅
this is such a great series - jeff's baseline skill at video games, his insights into the industry and his broadcast talent along with the honest attempt to rank and place everything correctly is just such an amazing combination.
I haven't watched every episode of this but I remember seeing Zanac a few weeks ago and was sad it was so low...mistaking it for Gun-Nac. Happy to see one of the top shooters of all time in a good spot!
Playing Super Spike was so much damn fun 4 player. My cousin had this game and a 4 score, was fun playing this, World Cup and Gauntlet with it. Also Adventure Island you're never supposed to stop running, they were the first auto runners really, always forward never slow down and only jump and shoot.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Willow. I’ve never beaten it, but I love the movie, and the game is an interesting mish-mash of the movie and more stuff to pad it out to adventure game lengths. I remember getting my copy as a kid as well, because it was the first time I ever owned a used game. My Dad and I were at one of the couple video rental shops in the small-ish town we were living in at the time, and they were selling some VHS tapes and games, one of which was Willow on NES, and my Dad bought it for me. I still have the cartridge with the massive sticker on the front of the store’s name and phone number, plus the “manual” provided if you rented a game there which is just photocopies of the actual manual stapled together in a similar size and fashion. With a stamped message on it warning of an extra fee if you don’t return the “manual” 😂
...being turned into a pig in Willow was terrifying as a kid. I have some fondness for it (maybe primarily due to the film), but the game has one of the most bull end-fights, where you have only - and exactly - as much juice in your wand to defeat the boss, so if you miss a single projectile-attack you're screwed. I don't remember if you have to start from the beginning again, or just at a substantial distance from the boss fight, but I remember it being such a "...guys, what are you doing?" decision from the developers. The game is perfectly charming up to that point (you can throw magic acorns! Like from the movie!), and it's so unnecessarily dickish. ...looking at the game now, I can see a surprising amount of Secret of Mana in it (primarily the winding paths through the first forest, but also the big sprites, enemy behavior, etc). //EDIT: I suspect the film is still pretty solid. If you wait a few years, I bet your daughter will really like it. The daughter of the ultimate villain comes across as a bad-ass without empathizing her gender in her role as bad-guy-leader, and she has a cool, serrated sword and dark armor. She basically plays the Darth Vader role to Bavmorda's The Emperor (though she does a heel-turn and becomes "good" after some love potion-shenanigans with Val Kilmer's character, but what do you want? It was the 80's. Still, I remember her as really cool and beautiful, though I was a gay kid when I saw it, so you get different readings from it depending on who you are. Not very scary, maybe 7+ age.)
Every time Jeff says "spondy-loose" it reminds me of a radio ad where a guy with a gruff voice says "ankylosing spondylitis." And also that it's probably supposed to be "spon-dil-us."
Lot of all-time bangers in this one. I played a ton of Super Spike V'Ball with my friend as a kid. It was fun to play competitively even with AI partners, but teaming up for the world cup was the best. We're from a state that's not represented in a lot of sports games, so it was cool that all 50 states were in there. Ed and Michael from West Virginia were an unstoppable force. I've never played Willow or Gun-Nac but I'm seriously impressed with both of them. Excite Bike isn't without its charms. Adventure Island had to exist for us to get Super Adventure Island 2, so that's cool
Yeah I saw that list and was like "holy shit these are all good I think" (I even like Galaxy 5000 but I haven't played it since I rented it like 30+ years ago so it may suck). Even Adventure Island is a classic...albeit one that doesn't really hold up well.
Super Spike V Ball is too low!!!! :) Damn I love that game. Also, Gun-Nac is, imo, better than even where he put it. That is, by far, the best pure shooter. It's also stupid expensive IRL :(
Compile is my favorite shooter developer, they also made blazing lazers on turbo graphixs, musha on sega genesis and space megaforce on snes, all great games
Glad to see my suggestion of Galaxy 5000 got ranked, I played it on emulator for like three days, eventually beating the game through pluto and then I never touched it again lol. It does have the ability to fire backwards, I think by hitting fire while not pressing a direction on the d-pad, which makes it very possible to blow up other racers by getting in first and firing backwards. You can also swap between weapons with select once you pick up the secondary.
Excitebike is a cool little game, but it gets old fast. Same with Super Spike V'Ball. Gun-Nac is a hidden gem for sure, and Galaxy 5000 is...a video game. The star of this episode is Willow. One of my favorite games of all-time. Highly recommended playing through that. I made hand-drawn maps of the world as I played along with it last time and I think I still have them in a notebook somewhere. On the other hand, the first Adventure Island is terrible. If you thought those first few level are bad, you should see the last ones. I played through it years ago and the only way I could legitimately get past its FUBAR level design was with the Hudson Bee hidden at the end of the first level. Stages 8-2 and 8-3 still give me PTSD. As was stated, the sequels are *waaaaaaaay* better. Adventure Island IV never made it stateside to us, but a translated ROM exists, and it's a cool open-world take on the game.
The Wiiware version of Excitebike was so good more than it should have been. I know some people love Excite Truck or Excite Bots but GD the wiiware version was so good. Maybe Vs. Excitebike tops that but we need a proper Excitebike game in 2023.
I never spent much time with the OG Adventure Island but Super Adventure Island is a lot of fun and Super Adventure Island 2 is a fantastic Zelda 2 style action adventure game worth checking out
If we're doing science it is hard to fathom how Adventure Island is any lower than Kid Nikki. I can see how you don't like it but there's nothing really wrong with it as a game. You could complain about no continues, but it's there and the instruction manual tells you how to do it ,too.
Thankfully Adventure Island 2 and 3 are more refined. Willow is a legit ARPG. It and Crystalis are probably the best on the system. Rambo is pretty decent, all things considered. I wouldn't call it great, but it's a lot better than its reputation.
I have to comment just because Game Players. Their did cram a lot of 90s wackiness into their magazine and I was there for it! But their reviews were mostly informative, they kept the jokes in the headlines or as captions under vignettes. But they had decent info and they wrote like they did care about games. Mike Salmon went on to XBOX magazine and Chris Slater went on to Playstation Magazine and eventually Nintendo Power so it's not like they were outsiders looking in
Zanac was part of the Aleste series, so there's a ton of cool shmups on different platforms that share Zanac DNA. Though Gun-Nac is probably the most direct sequel.
You never watched Willow, growing up?! Some killer content here lol! I remember buying Willow with some chore money. Despite me liking the movie, I wasn’t prepared for the fear the dogs that would overtake me after leaving the village. Also, the arcade Willow is legit!
Excitebike was the second NES game I ever owned after the Mario/duck hunt pack in. I wanted Kid Icarus but it was out of stock due to the chip shortage at the time, excitebike was much more fun in hindsight.
Adventure Island III was one of the few games I rented and returned early to swap for another game. I thought the game was broken because your health kept draining non-stop.
Jeff, I can't believe you haven't seen willow. I'm the same age as you, I actually saw it in the theater as a kid. Surely you'll be seeing it now, after playing the delightful video game?
I similarly have fond memories of fucking around with Excitebike, but looking back on it, that overheat sound is appalling, the lack of a battery back up making some options useless… it’s a very strange product. I do credit it with training me to play the Trials games well eventually by getting angles of the wheels right. Middle of the list does feel right for it.
Are the retro achievements for Gun-Nac busted? They all seemed to be a level ahead of the one Jeff just cleared, unless the idea's that you're getting the achievement for getting to the next level.
Huh. I wonder if Deku Nuts are inspired by Willows acorns? They do the same thing and there are Capcom folk who went on to the Zelda team. No idea if that timeline lines up at all. Also; Wonder Boy doesn't get good until like 3 or 4 where it's basically a whole different thing than this. Which yes, means Adventure Island is also bad. But Dragon's Trap, Monster World, etc, all goated.
I'm here to stick up for Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular. That was one of my favorite games as a kid, I'd rent it all the time. You were just bad at it.
I wanna tell Jeff he should watch Willow because it's amazing, but I also feel like the more I hype it up the less he would like it. Viewed in the context of the year in came out though, it is some good shit.
I did not own a NES, but back in 1992 my cousin did. We used to play Excitebike when we went to our grandpa's house. We spent hours on that shit, we loved it. Keep on ranking! Can't wait for you to get to the tremendously horrible game 'Hook', from the Peter Pan movie of questionable quality with Robin Williams in it!
Adventure Island... definitely one of those games I remember seeing A LOT in Nintendo Power and assumed it must have been some amazingly good classic game... then going back with an emulator later realizing oh.. no this was actual garbage. I played the hell out of Willow for the week or so I was able to rent it though, A+ janky old adventure game
I figured the British 'trying to be funny for a gaming magazine' energy came from teenage writers desperate to pad out their reviews but Charlie Brooker seemed to take that energy with him into his early television stuff.
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I will never tire of hearing Jeff say “Low G Man: The Low Gravity Man.”
Come here for my weekly dose of spondylus
SPONDYLOUSSS!!!
Jeff Gerstmann playing NES games is the drug I need to make it through my day. Thank you, sir, for continuing to be a threat.
Whatcha gonna do with all that Yunk;
all that Yunk inside your can?
I'ma get, get, get, get that Yunk;
get that Yunk inside Gerstmann
Aw, thank you, Jeff, I also called it "excite-a-bike"!
I beat Adventure Island for the 1st time just a couple of years ago. It's a MONUMENTAL undertaking, and I do NOT recommend it, but when I actually made "the jump" on 8-3 it was one of the best feelings of my life.
I hate Adventure Island.
I grew up playing Wonder Boy on the SMS. I dunno if that game controls better or if it's just what I got used to, but Adventure Island always felt like "we have Wonder Boy at home" to me.
I did that a few years ago with the original Mega Man...I beat it as a kid and I have no clue how my ~10 year old self did that when it took a lot of effort and patience from me now.
It's wild, and it's a great Game Center CX watch because of it too.
Dude, same. I spent like six or seven hours playing it a couple years ago to beat it. Unlimited continues were a curse in Adventure Island. At least if they were limited I could’ve just given up and moved on with my life. 😅
The pursuit has science has not only discovered Gun Nac, but also proven, turns out, it rules
this is such a great series - jeff's baseline skill at video games, his insights into the industry and his broadcast talent along with the honest attempt to rank and place everything correctly is just such an amazing combination.
I haven't watched every episode of this but I remember seeing Zanac a few weeks ago and was sad it was so low...mistaking it for Gun-Nac.
Happy to see one of the top shooters of all time in a good spot!
Playing Super Spike was so much damn fun 4 player. My cousin had this game and a 4 score, was fun playing this, World Cup and Gauntlet with it. Also Adventure Island you're never supposed to stop running, they were the first auto runners really, always forward never slow down and only jump and shoot.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Willow. I’ve never beaten it, but I love the movie, and the game is an interesting mish-mash of the movie and more stuff to pad it out to adventure game lengths. I remember getting my copy as a kid as well, because it was the first time I ever owned a used game. My Dad and I were at one of the couple video rental shops in the small-ish town we were living in at the time, and they were selling some VHS tapes and games, one of which was Willow on NES, and my Dad bought it for me. I still have the cartridge with the massive sticker on the front of the store’s name and phone number, plus the “manual” provided if you rented a game there which is just photocopies of the actual manual stapled together in a similar size and fashion. With a stamped message on it warning of an extra fee if you don’t return the “manual” 😂
...being turned into a pig in Willow was terrifying as a kid. I have some fondness for it (maybe primarily due to the film), but the game has one of the most bull end-fights, where you have only - and exactly - as much juice in your wand to defeat the boss, so if you miss a single projectile-attack you're screwed.
I don't remember if you have to start from the beginning again, or just at a substantial distance from the boss fight, but I remember it being such a "...guys, what are you doing?" decision from the developers. The game is perfectly charming up to that point (you can throw magic acorns! Like from the movie!), and it's so unnecessarily dickish.
...looking at the game now, I can see a surprising amount of Secret of Mana in it (primarily the winding paths through the first forest, but also the big sprites, enemy behavior, etc).
//EDIT: I suspect the film is still pretty solid. If you wait a few years, I bet your daughter will really like it. The daughter of the ultimate villain comes across as a bad-ass without empathizing her gender in her role as bad-guy-leader, and she has a cool, serrated sword and dark armor. She basically plays the Darth Vader role to Bavmorda's The Emperor (though she does a heel-turn and becomes "good" after some love potion-shenanigans with Val Kilmer's character, but what do you want? It was the 80's. Still, I remember her as really cool and beautiful, though I was a gay kid when I saw it, so you get different readings from it depending on who you are. Not very scary, maybe 7+ age.)
It's been about 36 years since I've enjoyed watching someone get mad at Excitebike so much.
"Turns out Compile knew what they were doing" Yep they're one of the most beloved Shmup developers for a reason.
Love me some Super Spike V'Ball!
I've always had a soft spot for Super Spike V'Ball. The music and visuals give each stage so much character.
It's my favorite weekly stream currently! Embarrassment of riches this week, including the midnight drop of the Atari 2600+ stream.
Every time Jeff says "spondy-loose" it reminds me of a radio ad where a guy with a gruff voice says "ankylosing spondylitis." And also that it's probably supposed to be "spon-dil-us."
Lot of all-time bangers in this one. I played a ton of Super Spike V'Ball with my friend as a kid. It was fun to play competitively even with AI partners, but teaming up for the world cup was the best. We're from a state that's not represented in a lot of sports games, so it was cool that all 50 states were in there. Ed and Michael from West Virginia were an unstoppable force. I've never played Willow or Gun-Nac but I'm seriously impressed with both of them. Excite Bike isn't without its charms. Adventure Island had to exist for us to get Super Adventure Island 2, so that's cool
Yeah I saw that list and was like "holy shit these are all good I think" (I even like Galaxy 5000 but I haven't played it since I rented it like 30+ years ago so it may suck). Even Adventure Island is a classic...albeit one that doesn't really hold up well.
Super Spike V Ball is too low!!!! :) Damn I love that game. Also, Gun-Nac is, imo, better than even where he put it. That is, by far, the best pure shooter. It's also stupid expensive IRL :(
@@morsdraconis Scientifically speaking, I think SSVB could only rank higher if you factored in the 2-player experience. Different discipline, sadly
Seeing Gun-Nac and Adventure Island back to back was hell of a contrast, that was hilarious. Thanks for the science!
Compile is my favorite shooter developer, they also made blazing lazers on turbo graphixs, musha on sega genesis and space megaforce on snes, all great games
When I was a little kid, it scared the shit out of me when the background would go berserk in Willow when enemies appeared.
It STILL kinda scares me 😂
seeing this Willow game makes me excited to see where Dragon Warrior will end up according to the Science
I have returned to defend Captain Skyhawks honor. It’s a good video game.
You've got good ears, Jeff. As a composer for video game music I can tell you that the music for Galaxy 5000 is completely hosed.
Glad to see my suggestion of Galaxy 5000 got ranked, I played it on emulator for like three days, eventually beating the game through pluto and then I never touched it again lol. It does have the ability to fire backwards, I think by hitting fire while not pressing a direction on the d-pad, which makes it very possible to blow up other racers by getting in first and firing backwards. You can also swap between weapons with select once you pick up the secondary.
Is Gun-Nac the first console game to ever include framerate/graphics performance modes?
The High Aldwin bit made me laugh a lot, thanks Jeff.
Excitebike is a cool little game, but it gets old fast. Same with Super Spike V'Ball. Gun-Nac is a hidden gem for sure, and Galaxy 5000 is...a video game.
The star of this episode is Willow. One of my favorite games of all-time. Highly recommended playing through that. I made hand-drawn maps of the world as I played along with it last time and I think I still have them in a notebook somewhere.
On the other hand, the first Adventure Island is terrible. If you thought those first few level are bad, you should see the last ones. I played through it years ago and the only way I could legitimately get past its FUBAR level design was with the Hudson Bee hidden at the end of the first level. Stages 8-2 and 8-3 still give me PTSD. As was stated, the sequels are *waaaaaaaay* better. Adventure Island IV never made it stateside to us, but a translated ROM exists, and it's a cool open-world take on the game.
With how much Jeff loved Gun-Nac and Zanac, I am so excited for him to play The Guardian Legend.
The Wiiware version of Excitebike was so good more than it should have been. I know some people love Excite Truck or Excite Bots but GD the wiiware version was so good. Maybe Vs. Excitebike tops that but we need a proper Excitebike game in 2023.
I never spent much time with the OG Adventure Island but Super Adventure Island is a lot of fun and Super Adventure Island 2 is a fantastic Zelda 2 style action adventure game worth checking out
Incredible that Galaxy 5000 has credits for 3 composers listed on Wikipedia.
Total! was my favourite Nintendo magazine growing up! But I was about 8 years old around this time, so the humour was intended for me.
Adventure Island finally gets the respect it deserves, which is none.
If we're doing science it is hard to fathom how Adventure Island is any lower than Kid Nikki. I can see how you don't like it but there's nothing really wrong with it as a game. You could complain about no continues, but it's there and the instruction manual tells you how to do it ,too.
Willow reminds me a lot of Crusader of Centy on the Genesis, which is to say it looks rad in screenshots but is kinda a chore to play.
It is time! Thanks Jeff!
Thankfully Adventure Island 2 and 3 are more refined.
Willow is a legit ARPG. It and Crystalis are probably the best on the system.
Rambo is pretty decent, all things considered. I wouldn't call it great, but it's a lot better than its reputation.
I have to comment just because Game Players. Their did cram a lot of 90s wackiness into their magazine and I was there for it! But their reviews were mostly informative, they kept the jokes in the headlines or as captions under vignettes. But they had decent info and they wrote
like they did care about games. Mike Salmon went on to XBOX magazine and Chris Slater went on to Playstation Magazine and eventually Nintendo Power so
it's not like they were outsiders looking in
oh shit love me some sparkling yunk, pineapple pairs well with that funky energy taste. I'll take a yunk to the dome any day.
Zanac was part of the Aleste series, so there's a ton of cool shmups on different platforms that share Zanac DNA. Though Gun-Nac is probably the most direct sequel.
Willow is one of the few NES games I have CIB. At the time I picked it up from eBay it was only a couple bucks more.
I would upgrade my patreon subscription for more Jeff Plays Willow.
GUN NAC, ZAN-NAC, the answer was right in front of us the entire time
Galaxy 5000: Isometric 8-Bit F-Zero
You never watched Willow, growing up?! Some killer content here lol! I remember buying Willow with some chore money. Despite me liking the movie, I wasn’t prepared for the fear the dogs that would overtake me after leaving the village. Also, the arcade Willow is legit!
Gun-Nac was a welcome surprise.
Excitebike was the second NES game I ever owned after the Mario/duck hunt pack in. I wanted Kid Icarus but it was out of stock due to the chip shortage at the time, excitebike was much more fun in hindsight.
Adventure Island III was one of the few games I rented and returned early to swap for another game. I thought the game was broken because your health kept draining non-stop.
Willow got way higher than I was expecting.
Jeff, I can't believe you haven't seen willow. I'm the same age as you, I actually saw it in the theater as a kid. Surely you'll be seeing it now, after playing the delightful video game?
I similarly have fond memories of fucking around with Excitebike, but looking back on it, that overheat sound is appalling, the lack of a battery back up making some options useless… it’s a very strange product. I do credit it with training me to play the Trials games well eventually by getting angles of the wheels right. Middle of the list does feel right for it.
Has anyone tried to make a supercut of Jeff's drink reactions? They need to make a sugar-free energy drink just called Destruction of Spondylous. 🙂
get hunked, get yunked
Some of the effects in Gun-Nac are so sharp that its actually hurts our ears
Jeff that is a sick Mr. Do shirt
Are the retro achievements for Gun-Nac busted? They all seemed to be a level ahead of the one Jeff just cleared, unless the idea's that you're getting the achievement for getting to the next level.
Huh. I wonder if Deku Nuts are inspired by Willows acorns?
They do the same thing and there are Capcom folk who went on to the Zelda team. No idea if that timeline lines up at all.
Also; Wonder Boy doesn't get good until like 3 or 4 where it's basically a whole different thing than this. Which yes, means Adventure Island is also bad.
But Dragon's Trap, Monster World, etc, all goated.
I'm here to stick up for Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular. That was one of my favorite games as a kid, I'd rent it all the time. You were just bad at it.
Excite bike is another game that drove my parents crazy. 😅...brrrrrrr.....bhaaaaaaaa......brrrrr
I wanna tell Jeff he should watch Willow because it's amazing, but I also feel like the more I hype it up the less he would like it. Viewed in the context of the year in came out though, it is some good shit.
I did not own a NES, but back in 1992 my cousin did. We used to play Excitebike when we went to our grandpa's house. We spent hours on that shit, we loved it.
Keep on ranking! Can't wait for you to get to the tremendously horrible game 'Hook', from the Peter Pan movie of questionable quality with Robin Williams in it!
The 3d classics excite bike on 3ds was pretty fun.
They should make gun knack. Knack but with guns.
Well damn. You already made that joke.
2:10 don't write out the word dot as well.
**tips sunglasses** v'ball
*Excalibur voice* IIIIIITS FRIDAY YOU KNOW WHAT MEANS!!!!
What are you playing these games on? I noticed the achievement like awards
Oh shit, Daiso just opened!
Adventure Island... definitely one of those games I remember seeing A LOT in Nintendo Power and assumed it must have been some amazingly good classic game... then going back with an emulator later realizing oh.. no this was actual garbage. I played the hell out of Willow for the week or so I was able to rent it though, A+ janky old adventure game
Hell, pretty soon this list will be discussed frequently within the scientific community.
Oh god excitebikes sound is grating. But how has the science put it below Urban Champion in terms of depth?
Wonder Boy just lets you continue... as many times as you want.
The question I have is Excitebike better or worse than Kikstart?
Worse!
I figured the British 'trying to be funny for a gaming magazine' energy came from teenage writers desperate to pad out their reviews but Charlie Brooker seemed to take that energy with him into his early television stuff.
You should be arrested for putting Toobin so low on the list
He couldn't help comparing it to the arcade version.
Super Spike is so good
Is this a fucking v-sync setting in an NES game holy shit
It's no Excitebike, but Konami's Motorcross Champion for the NES is pretty ok.
I Race Alone Inside.
I think jumpman jr had a level editor?
It didn't. However, Ultimate Wizard (which is very similar in style) did have an editor.
Super Spike V-Ball was the absolute shit
finllay someone says adventure island sucks
bad tape bad experience
What's up with NES games and eggplants.
He put a shmup way above a solid RPG. 😥