20. Metroid (Side-Scroller) – rented it
A moody sci-fi exploration game where bounty hunter Samus Aran searches the labyrinth planet Zebes for the dangerous Metroid organisms, which sounds heroic until you realize most of your time is actually spent wandering around lost and shooting walls hoping one of them randomly opens.
19. Mega Man 2 (Side-Scroller) – rented it
A beloved action platformer where players defeat Robot Masters in any order and steal their weapons to take down the evil Dr. Wily; I first learned about it in Nintendo Power magazine, which in the late ’80s basically functioned as the gaming equivalent of ancient prophecy.
18. Tetris (Puzzle) – owned it
The endlessly addictive puzzle game where falling blocks must be rotated and stacked perfectly to clear lines before the screen fills—proof that the human brain will happily spend hours organizing shapes if you add catchy Nutcracker Suite Russian music.
17. Renegade (Side-Scroller) – owned it
A gritty beat-’em-up where a street brawler fights subway punks, bikers, and assorted thugs using punches, kicks, and the occasional satisfying toss across the screen—basically what every kid imagined middle school hallway disputes should look like.
16. Jackal (Top-Down) – owned it
A top-down military shooter where players drive heavily armed jeeps behind enemy lines, blasting through bases and rescuing POWs while creating enough explosions to make an eight-bit Michael Bay proud.
15. Dr. Mario (Puzzle) – borrowed from a friend
A fast-paced puzzle game where Mario apparently put down plumbing for a medical degree and now cures viruses by hurling giant color-coded pills at them, which somehow works.
14. Bill Elliott’s NASCAR Challenge (Sports) – rented it multiple times
An early NASCAR racing game that let players compete on real tracks while managing pit stops, fuel, and tire wear—teaching kids valuable lessons about race strategy long before we could legally drive anything faster than a bicycle.
13. Tecmo Bowl (Sports) – borrowed from a friend
A legendary arcade-style football game famous for big plays, simple controls, and the discovery that if you were playing as Bo Jackson you were basically an unstoppable football demigod.
12. Heavy Barrel (Top-Down Shooter) – owned it
A run-and-gun shooter where players collect parts of a powerful super weapon while blasting through enemy bases, which felt like assembling the world’s most aggressive jigsaw puzzle.
11. Baseball Stars (Sports) – borrowed from a friend
A groundbreaking baseball game that let players create teams, manage money, and build a dynasty—basically introducing franchise mode years before sports games realized that was their entire business model.
10. Tiger-Heli (Top-Down Shooter) – owned it
A vertical-scrolling helicopter shooter where players dodge overwhelming enemy fire while blasting tanks and aircraft, which mostly involved heroic flying for about thirty seconds before getting instantly obliterated.
9. Kirby’s Adventure (Side-Scroller) – owned it
A colorful platformer where Kirby inhales enemies to copy their powers while saving Dream Land, proving that the most dangerous hero in gaming history is a pink puffball with an unlimited appetite.
8. Punch-Out!! (Sports) – rented it
A timing-based boxing game where Little Mac climbs the ranks by studying opponents’ patterns and dodging wildly exaggerated fighters who looked like they escaped from a cartoon fever dream.
7. Excitebike (Sports) – rented it many times, should have bought it
A dirt-bike racing game famous for its ramp-filled tracks and overheating engines, but for me the real draw was the track editor where I spent far too much time designing courses that were basically the same every time.
6. Double Dragon (Side-Scrolling Fighting) – owned it
A classic beat-’em-up where martial arts brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee punch their way through entire gangs to rescue Marian, who frankly must have had the worst luck in kidnapping situations.
5. Cruis’n USA (Racing) – rented it
Not an NES game, I played this at the local arcade a lot during the NES years. An over-the-top arcade racer where players speed across stylized American highways filled with jumps, shortcuts, and scenery that made the entire country look like one long amusement park ride.
4. Super Mario Bros. 2 (Side-Scroller) – owned it
A quirky Mario adventure where players yank vegetables out of the ground and throw them at enemies in a dream world that felt like Nintendo collectively decided to get weird for a while.
3. The Legend of Zelda (Top-Down) – owned it
An open-ended fantasy quest that sent Link exploring Hyrule to collect Triforce pieces and defeat Ganon, while also teaching an entire generation the life skill of bombing every suspicious wall.
2. Super Mario Bros. 3 (Side-Scroller) – owned it
Widely considered one of the greatest games ever made, it expanded Mario with world maps, creative power-ups, and enough secrets that playground rumors about hidden tricks lasted for years.
1. Super Mario Bros. (Side-Scroller) – owned it
The game that defined the NES era, introducing millions to side-scrolling platforming as Mario journeyed through the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Princess Toadstool; I especially love the upgraded graphics in the Super Mario All-Stars version, which is now my go-to way to revisit what I still think is the best video game of the entire 1980s.
Take my list with a grain of salt. I didn’t grow up in a household where we had a towering wall of games or anything—our “library” was more like one or two new cartridges a year if the stars aligned, plus the occasional rental if a parent was feeling generous or I had managed to save enough allowance to justify it. So my gaming experience back then wasn’t built from some deep collector’s catalog—it was mostly a handful of popular titles that I played the absolute hell out of, because when you only have a few games, you really learn those games.
And honestly, that was part of the magic. When you only had a small rotation, every new cartridge felt like a major cultural event. You’d read the manual cover to cover in the car ride home like it was sacred literature. You’d discover weird tricks by accident. You’d play the same levels so many times you could probably do them blindfolded… which is good, because sometimes the screen practically required it.
One thing I really miss about the old cartridge era is how social games were by default. Physical games meant you could rent them from the video store, borrow them from a friend, or trade for a weekend like kids swapping baseball cards. Half the games I played back then were only in my house temporarily—Blockbuster specials, friend-to-friend loans, or that one kid down the street whose parents somehow bought him every game that existed and instantly became the most popular house on the block.
It wasn’t a massive collection, but between rentals, trades, and repeat play sessions, those few games ended up becoming pretty legendary in my memory. And frankly, if you played the same cartridge enough times in 1989, you didn’t just beat the game—you developed a lifelong relationship with it.
Let me know if there was anything incredible that I missed that I should check out!