NES Games No One Played: Letter G

Can’t stop won’t stop, let’s take it all the way to the end!

I’ve got a pretty extensive NES collection and have for years been writing about the best games for the system while also trying to collect every title. As such, I feel like I’ve spent tons of time playing all the great games while the lesser known titles usually come in the mail and go straight onto the shelf. I wanted to make more of an effort to explore the entire library of the NES, not just the classics, and so I’m trying out some buddies I either popped in and immediately out or never played in the first place. Since I’ve got them organized alphabetically, let’s continue on with the Letter G.

• Letter A can be found here
• Letter B can be found here
• Letter C can be found here
• Letter D can be found here
• Letter E can be found here
• Letter F can be found here

GALAXY 5000: RACING IN THE 51ST CENTURY | 1991

By coincidence, there aren’t a ton of obscure NES titles that begin with G. Most of the games here are either classics (Ghosts N Goblins, Gun Nac), well known but unremarkable (Ghostbusters 1 & 2, Godzilla 1 & 2), or they’re golf games (Golf, Golf Challenge Pebble Beach, Golf Grand Slam, Greg Norman’s Golf Power). So while I would normally consider Galaxy 5000 well known enough as to merit exclusion from these reviews, fuck it, this can’t just be about pointing out how games you probably haven’t heard of are just as bad as you expect them to be. Some of them actually are great!

Quite simply, Galaxy 5000 is the best racing game on the system not named R.C. Pro Am and even then it’s pretty close (yeah I’ve played Micro Machines and while I agree that it’s the best unlicensed game out there, I wouldn’t take it over those two aforementioned gems). Galaxy 5000 is basically a precursor to Rock and Roll Racing on the Super Nintendo: radical space racing with weapons, wild human sound bites, and the tubular isometric perspective all the kids love. The overall presentation is incredible and it’s truly one of the most impressive NES titles out there.

Like R.C. Pro Am, you can upgrade your ship several times throughout the game. There’s even this great mechanic where if you take damage during the previous level you can repair your ship using the money you’ve won from the races. Your ship initially looks totally fucked up, but as you spend money little parts of it get cleaned up until it’s looking good as new. I know it sounds super simple by today’s standards, but this was a huge little feature back in the day.

There is only one downside to Galaxy 5000, and it is the unexpected pain that it creates in your thumb. It’s like full on carpal tunnel within a few races. I have no idea why this happens here and not in other racing games for the system, but it does and like the Virtual Boy after it I don’t think you should physically be allowed to play Galaxy 5000 for more than 30 minutes at a time. When Golden Eye came out for the N64 I used to play it with my friends and something about the graphics or the perspective made it so I wouldn’t blink while playing. Even when I tried to be mindful about it I just couldn’t consistently blink. I wear contacts, so when I didn’t blink my eyes would start to water. Unfortunately since you’re in the middle of intense multiplayer action you can’t just pause the game and wipe your tears away every 15 seconds, you’ve gotta just continue despite the waterfalls gushing down your cheeks. Point being, to love the great hidden gem that is Galaxy 5000, you’re gonna have to sacrifice some joints…and then smoke some to cope with the arthritis.

Similar Games: R.C. Pro Am, Micro Machines, Cobra Triangle

GHOST LION | 1993

I’ve seen this called “Legend of Ghost Lion” in some places, which would place it under the Letter L, but the cover just says Ghost Lion so let’s go with that. Also, let’s talk about that amazing, AMAZING, cover art. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a portrait of the most early 90’s babe ever (complete with giant hair, side cut shirt, and bright green leggings) holding a Zelda sword next to a Siegfried and Roy white tiger. It’s like a snapshot of a music video for one of the lamer hair metal bands like Winger or Stryper, just with less wind machines: GHOST LYONZ! Except wait, that’s not a white tiger it’s a white lion, a <gasp> g-g-g-g-ghost lion!

Ghost Lion was made by Kemco, who apart from the two Bugs Bunny games also made some obscure titles like Kid Klown and Snoopy’s Sports Spectacular, which for sure we’ll be covering later on in depth. Ghost Lion is an RPG where you play as Maria, who’s on a search to find her missing parents or something. You’d think because the box art of NES games never lie that in the game she’d be the tough metal babe you first fell in love with at the Kaybee Toys, but instead she’s kinda like this little orphan Annie at boarding school looking girl. It makes things pretty hilarious to be playing as this tiny schoolgirl only to encounter a skeleton or a werewolf and when she attacks the screen reads “You swung the club down in a giant swath”. Either the enemies you’re fighting are the size of action figures, or Maria is secretly tiny-buff.

At first you think it’s going to be a solitary grindfest like the OG Dragon Warrior, but instead not only is the combat and leveling a bit more fair and less demanding than most 8-bit (and even 16-bit) rpgs, but you actually do have party members. They’re kind of like summons in that Maria uses a turn to bring them each out, but once they’re out you can command them to do various things and they have they’re own HP (called “courage” in this game). Eventually you’ll recruit eleven of this companions and they’ve all got different abilities and can level up like Maria.

The graphics on the overworld are simple but pretty effective, and the in-battle graphics are pretty great. I love the expression on Maria’s face when she gets hit, not necessarily a look of pain, but more like someone told her chocolate muffins are only for good girls. The music is pretty darn catchy and makes good use of the multiple sound channels at the NES’s disposal, but holy cow go to the castle or some of the other towns and peep that music (6:50 here). Sound familiar? Maybe I’m crazy but I’d swear that’s the Water Level from Super Mario Bros 3.

Of all the obscurish NES games I’ve played so far, I have to say that Ghost Lion is probably the best. It’s got the mechanics and charm of the original Final Fantasy with the easiness of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for the Super Nintendo. Since I would describe almost all the 8-bit rpgs as obtusely inaccessible because of their difficulty, I would for sure recommend Ghost Lion as a jump off point for those of you who didn’t waste your childhoods punishing yourselves with titles like Hydlide or Destiny of an Emperor.

Similar Games: Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy

GHOUL SCHOOL | 1991

There have been many moments in my life where I realized I was taking my NES collecting to an irreparably dorky new level. One such occasion was finding a guy on Ebay who was selling a bunch of rarish games, in different lots, separated by developer. So this dude was selling all the Kemco games, all the Dungeons and Dragons titles, all the Koei games, and a bunch of other stuff. I had a whole excel spreadsheet of prices so I could monitor the cost of each auction. So while I’d never heard of the publisher Electro Brain, I knew that games like Stanley, Best of the Best, and Puss N’ Boots were not very common, especially being sold altogether. And that my friends, is how I ended up owning Ghoul School. Yet another fascinating anecdote from my future autobiography “Collector Boy: The Mundane Tale of an Early Mid-Life Crisis”.

Anyway, Ghoul School. Well, it does take place in a school that’s, wait for it, filled with ghouls. Surprise! Ghoul School is an adventure game so the fun part about it is that you need to explore and obtain new items to help you get to new places. You play as this cool Bill and Ted era Keanu Reeves with a mohawk looking guy who I think has to rid the school of all the monsters. I say I think because there’s absolutely no story or introduction other than a pretty rad animation of the school looking ominous at night. Wikipedia says “While taking the usual shortcut home through the cemetery from Cool School High, Senior Spike O’Hara found a strange, glowing skull. He put it in his backpack to show to his anatomy teacher the next day which happened to be Halloween Eve.” Maybe that’s from the manual? I mean how hard would it have been to just pop an introductory paragraph at the beginning of the game? And even then I’m still not sure what the objective is exactly. I’ve swatted some monsters, collected some items, and smashed some tvs? I think that was the main thing I was supposed to do but honestly I have no idea.

For sure, for being a lower tier title, Ghoul School has a lot of charm. The music is great and the enemies are pretty awesome looking: kinda like a cross between the aliens in Bart Vs The Space Mutants and the Boglin toys from the 80’s. There’s one point where you get to the workout room of the gym and there’s one of the one eye’d tentacled monsters hanging out there except now he’s doing curls with a little barbell he tosses at you. How awesome is that?! I also love the detail of the posters in the classrooms, the portraits of Washington and Lincoln are surprisingly well rendered. And while for sure not the best adventure title on the NES (that’d probably be Maniac Mansion or Nightshade) I’ll take even the worst item based adventure titles over 90% of the action platformer garbage piles made for the system.

The downsides? Well aside from the lack of story (essential to the adventure genre) and the unclear objective, the game has two major faults: the controls and the hit detection. While not as clunky as other platformer style games, your character definitely lacks a decent jumping mechanic and a reliable attack. Because you cannot duck and your guy leaps like he’s playing hopscotch, there are tons of times where you’re trying to jump over or toward an enemy but inadvertently get hit repeatedly by enemies you can’t avoid. And try as you might to attack the enemies, there’s a solid 70% chance you will not touch them while you yourself get knocked back and are forced to pathetically try again and again. To make matters worse, your initial weapon is this rolled up newspaper that you wield like a tomahawk and can only hit things that are close enough to kiss (I later realized that the newspaper was in fact a white baseball bat. OKAY). Later when you reach the showers you get a wet towel as a weapon and while it does have superior range to the bat, the idea of ass snapping a bunch of killer mutants (who can’t run because they’re full of chocolate) made me laugh so much I just gave up entirely.

Similar Games: Nightshade, Adventures of Rad Gravity

GOTCHA! THE SPORT! | 1987

Hey look at that, another light gun game! There were only 13 official Light Gun games for the NES (plus bootlegs: the abysmal Baby Boomer and the disgustingly gory Chiller), and I truly believe there should’ve been way more. To all my homebrew homeboys out there, I think an awesome game would be a two player co-op where one of you drives and the other uses the light gun to shoot, kind of like Jackal meets Cabal. You could even mix it with contemporary settings and go full Grand Theft Auto! IMAGINE ALL THE MONEYS $$$!!!

Man if the paintball colors on the cover were changed to white, this would be a pretty homoerotic adventure! Gotcha! is actually a licensed game based on the 1985 film Gotcha!, a goofy Meatballs style spy comedy that I have never fucking heard of. Come on, seriously? This is officially the most obscure media property that got an NES title based on it, and damned if I can figure out what this guy on guy paintball sexplosion has to do with that movie.

When I first played this I could not figure out what was going on. You’re on a static jungle screen and every 15 seconds or so one enemy pops out who you can shoot. You’ve got limited ammo, there’s a timer that’s counting down, and this 5 second shitty music loop plays over and over and over. I was thinking “my god, this is not only the worst Light Gun game for the system but maybe even the worst game ever made period”. Then I realized that you can use the other controller to move back and forth on the map which changes not only the enemy movements, but also the backgrounds, AND THANK GOD the music as well. Ah ok, maybe this won’t be so bad then!

So basically with one hand you move the D-pad right until you reach the right side of the screen which contains the enemy’s flag, all the while shooting the shit out of everyone you see. Once you shoot their flag you’ll press left until you’re all the way back to the beginning at which point the level will end. Sometimes the enemy will grab you’re flag, but they’re slow as shit and easy targets. You start off in the jungle which looks like a straight up paintball course with crappy forts and dudes in camo (albeit mutlicolored camo so I’m really not sure if I’m playing multiple teams or just a really loud and proud crew of paintballahs). Then you head to the streets and shoot a bunch of mohawked biker boys amidst broken windows and tire fires. Then there’s an ice board with the same camo dudes from the first level. And then the game repeats those same three levels forever.

Utilizing the second controller is a pretty cool idea, but it’s totally wasted on this joke of a game. Freedom Force does the exact same scrolling technique automatically and it doesn’t force you to shoot the gun one handed. I know I’m about to sound like the wimpiest guy on the beach here, but after a few levels my arm was really starting to get tired. In case you’re wondering, I did not sit back 10 feet and shoot from the appropriate distance in order to give the game a sporting chance, I sat right the fuck up next to the screen and side aimed all those 8-bit bad guys back to hell. Cool guy right here!

Similar Games: Freedom Force, Mechanized Attack

OTHER LETTER G GAMES (CLASSICS)

Gargoyle’s Quest 2, Ghosts N’ Goblins, Gun Nac, Gradius, Gremlins 2, Guardian Legend, Goonies II

OTHER LETTER G GAMES WORTH TRYING

Golgo 13, G.I. Joe, G.I Joe: The Atlantis Factor, Guerrilla War

OTHER LETTER G GAMES WORTH AVOIDING

Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters II, Great Waldo Search, Gyromite