NES Games No One Played: Letter T

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 T.

• 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
• Letter G can be found here
• Letter H can be found here
• Letter I can be found here
• Letter J can be found here
• Letter K can be found here
• Letter L can be found here
• Letter M can be found here
• Letter N can be found here
• Letter O can be found here
• Letter P can be found here
• Letter Q can be found here
• Letter R can be found here
• Letter S can be found here

TECMO CUP SOCCER GAME | 1992

I’m a big soccer dork. Like many Americans I grew up playing the sport but never watching it on TV. MLS didn’t come into existence until the mid 90s and even my beloved Atlanta United is only 3 years old. Turns out Japan’s J-League also wasn’t a thing before the 90s, so despite the sport’s huge popularity everywhere else in the world soccer wasn’t on everyone’s minds in the two biggest markets for the Nintendo. As such, it shouldn’t be a big surprise that there are only a handful of soccer games released for the system: the “black-box” Soccer, Goal 1 & 2, and NES World Cup (which rules). In Europe they got the excellent Konami Hyper Soccer which is basically Blades of Steel on a pitch. Oh, and also there was the game I’m about to discuss: Tecmo Cup Soccer Game. Get hyped!

Tecmo is NES famous for creating the greatest sports game of all time: Tecmo Super Bowl. However, they pretty much made a title for every sport including Tecmo World Wrestling, Tecmo NBA Basketball, and Tecmo Baseball. All of those titles are decent if fairly conventional sports games, all with varying levels of depth and gameplay, but none were quite as innovative or as influential as Tecmo Super Bowl. Maybe for that reason, by the time they got to soccer they were probably thinking “bah, it’s all been done. Let’s throw everything out and make an entirely new sports game that’s <wait for it> NOT A SPORTS GAME! It’ll blow the little kid’s minds!” Judging by how rare and expensive this game is, I’m gonna go ahead and say no, no it didn’t.

What’s so different about Tecmo Cup Soccer Game you ask? Well, would you have assumed from the cover that it was a role playing game? No? Yeah why the fuck would you? Well, it is. There’s even a story! The main character is named “Robin Field” a real aryan master race looking dude who “was born to play soccer”. His father was a famous soccer player but “I’m better than my father” says Robin. That’s the whole plot right there, blond jock boy with daddy issues takes to the skies to fly around playing against other insecure man babies! Truly an inspirational tale!

When you start the game, you go straight into a “career mode” of sorts by playing in a national tournament. In the locker room you have three option “Advice”, “Memo, and “Start”. Memo is a password system and Advice is the coach telling you a strategy. His “advice” for the first game is “You can beat this team easily”. Thanks Billy! Once you start the game you’re immediately in control of one player. The only visuals on screen are a nice animation of your guy running toward you, the score/time, and a map of the field with a ball on it to indicate where the play is happening. Unfortunately, you have no idea where anyone else on your team is, where the opposing players are, or even which direction you’re supposed to be going. You can stop running to pass, shoot, or keep dribbling, but either way eventually the opposing team will surround you and force the decision for you. Your stats will then appear on the screen and depending on what your pass skill is vs the defenders mark/cut skill you should be able to successfully pass the ball. I’m not sure though, because I can never get it to work. I always, always get surrounded and immediately dispossessed no matter what strategy I try. The computer on the other hand will always run the ball THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF THE FIELD and shoot. You can press every button on the controller in whatever combination you can think of, but you will not interact with the opposing player at all until the keeper gets to try and save the goal. It makes no sense in any way shape or form.

I love the look and sprite design Tecmo Cup Soccer Game. I love the music and sound, classic Tecmo. I love the fact that they added “game” to the end of the title so you wouldn’t get confused about whether it was a cup or not. I do not however love the random encounters system here. I really respect that they tried something completely unique with the mechanics, but exactly how that stat based system works is awfully confusing. Most of all I especially don’t love the blind map system. You can’t play a sports game without seeing the opposing team OR YOUR OWN FUCKING PLAYERS. I could survive the rpg elements if I at least knew where I was going, but this extra layer of mysteriousness makes the game borderline unplayable.

Similar Games: Final Fantasy, Legend of Ghost Lion

TIME LORD | 1990

So Time Lord eh? Hmmmm, I wish I had something witty to say about it, but I remember it not at all and the cover art / title are pretty darn generic. I mean, I do wish I’d named my middle school band Time Lord instead of “Homework Sux”. Also, there’s an entirely different and unrelated NES game called Times of Lore that I confuse for Time Lord all the time. Annnnnndddd what else? Sorry I’m tapped out! Practically populating a Wikipedia page with all these useful nuggets of information.

Time Lord is a side scrolling almost adventure style action game. The basic premise is that aliens are traveling through time fucking with earth history and as Time Lord it’s your job to travel back and take it to em’. In order to pass each level you’ll have to find five orbs and then you’ll be able to “beam” your way to a different time and place. I mean I say beam, but it looks more like a Sailor Moon transformation than a space age teleportation. There’s a medieval castle, an old west ghost town, an ol’ timey ship, etc. On the screen is a calendar that counts down a day every six seconds. Once it hits the year 3000, you’re boned!

As a platformer, Time Lord is in the “eh, it’s ok” category. The controls and hit detection are fairly decent, the music is pretty great (made by David Wise of Wizards and Warriors fame), and the graphics are…well they’re better than Ghoul School! The action takes place in one of those faux 3-D environments similar to Double Dragon or even Defenders of Dynatron City where you have to move up and down the plane in order to hit enemies. If the aforementioned games are the polar extremes of how this design concept can work, then Time Lord probably falls somewhere in the middle. Something about the constant holding of down and right/left is really tiring after a while on the NES controller. I mentioned this in my review of Galaxy 5000, but certain 2.5D style games really would’ve been more fun with a more comfortable, ergonomic controller.

The main issue I have with Time Lord is the format. Plenty of other NES games had the “find these objects in a level before the door to the next stage opens” objectives. What sets Time Lord apart is that the orbs you need to progress aren’t on a tough to reach ledge or down a specific pipe or something, they’re just not on the screen….until they just suddenly are. So you’ll be walking all the way to the right, punching midgets and swinging baseball bats at knights until you reach a dead end. Hmmm. Sooooo…ummmm…what now? I didn’t see any orbs, so maybe I’ll got back to the beginning. Nothing. Then I jump on a ledge, walk back and forth ten times out of boredom, and then suddenly an orb appears. WTF. How on earth was I supposed to know that was there? There’s no clues or any visual sign posts to give any indication where an invisible orb will suddenly become visible. Mostly they’re just hiding at the top of the screen but the colors just fade them into the background.

It’s certainly not the worst game of the genre, but since there’s hundreds or platformers on the NES, I can surely recommend 100 better ones than Time Lord. I mean I’m not going to, but I could! It’s on my resume and everything.

Similar Games: Battletoads vs Double Dragon, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventures

TOTALLY RAD| 1991

Let’s not mince words here, there are games whose titles promise one thing and deliver another, and then…there’s Totally Rad. That cover, with the mohawk lizard and the Saved by the Bell font, is the pinnacle of 90’s design. In the opening cutscenes you’ve got this total Keanu Reeves rip off kid spouting out 90’s buzz phrases like “most, excellent dude!” and “He thinks I have gnarly potential” but his magic mentor is this terrifying ventriloquist looking doll straight out of Kid Klown in Night Mayor World. The famicom version was called Magic John and follows more of a carnival theme which makes way more sense, but the NES version wanted to up the attitude a bit which in turn makes all the dialogue feel oddly forced and out of place. The intro to the action is that Jake is being forced to exercise (which is no totes bueno weeeeeeeeasel) and after complaining a bunch, an enemy attacks “by surprise”. Then you’re fighting robots in a futuristic landscape. Makes sense to me!

This game was released by Jaleco and developed by Aicom who made other NES gems like Vice: Project Doom, Astyanax, and Amagon (yeah, I said it!) Totally Rad is essentially a Mega Man clone, following in the footsteps of other good but not great games like Krion Conquest, Whomp Em’, and Journey to Silius. He’s even got a move that charges up exactly like the Mega Buster! The biggest difference between Totally Rad and Mega Man is the difficulty, and that’s saying a lot because MM is no walk in the park. The enemies you kill drop absolutely nothing, no health or points or anything, the first time I’ve ever seen that in an action game. So you’ve got to be extra perfect in how you attack and avoid enemies otherwise you’ll be dead in five hits. Seriously, get used to playing that first level over and over and over.

Wait a second, what the hell are all these things on the start screen? HOLY SHIT. This surfer dude starts the game with ten magic spells including half or full health recovery, a few screen clearing actions corresponding to each element, and a sneaker which…I can’t tell what that one does. There’s also this bear claw that turns you into a robot unicorn who becomes invincible when it jumps, the wing which turns you into Kid Icarus and now you can fly across the entire screen, and the fish that turns you into the Creature from the Black Lagoon who can…shoot? Not sure how that one is an upgrade. Doesn’t matter, because all of these spells require no magic to transform into. I take it back, this game is too easy and Jake is waaaaaaayyyyy too overpowered here, especially the wing which basically lets you skip the entire stage. I mean there’s temporary upgrades in games like Monster Party or Dragon Fighter that make those games super easy…for a brief period until the time runs out. The time never runs out on the wing and it’s way too cheap. I suppose you could choose to play with limited or even no magic to make things more fair, but why would you want to deny yourself such AWESOME POWAH?!

All that being said, not only is Totally Rad so much better than I was expecting, I’d even go so far as to say it’s a major hidden gem for the system. I’d honestly say it’s the best NES Mega Man clone…not named Power Blade.

Similar Games: Krion Conquest, Whomp Em’, Journey to Silius

TROG! | 1992

Time for something different for a change! I find that most of the games I’ve played in this series have been action platformers because they’re often silly or broken and thus more fun to review. Sports games no one wants to read about, RPG’s take way to long to get into and thus completely review, and other genres like racing, light gun, etc. often feel more like I’m writing a book report explaining how the game works than what the experience of playing it is like. I was expecting Trog! to be just another Joe and Mac or Bonk’s Adventure style caveman run and gun and was instead happily surprised to find out that it’s a Pacman style arcade game. Neat!

I say caveman, but you actually play as a triceratops. The cavemen (called Trogs) that pursue you all only have one eye, so maybe they’re mythological cyclopses? That would explain why they’re the same size as the dinosaurs that they’re trying to catch. Speaking of catching, when you get caught by a Trog you don’t just die quickly and respawn, no no no, the Trog VERY SLOWLY eats you alive piece by piece. It’s actually pretty fucked up and I’m not kidding the entire horrific animation takes eight seconds. EIGHT SECONDS. Good lord!

So anyway, each stage is setup like a Pacman or Bomberman style grid. You’ve gotta pick up all the eggs and walk into the “Home” section of the screen to pass each level. Aside from the marauding Trogs, there’s various obstacles on the screen like fire and tarpits, but also power-ups like a pineapple which makes you gigantic and an ice cube which freezes all the bad dudes. There’s also a cocoa looking plant that speeds you up and a mushroom which slows you down, just like in real life! My favorite thing about this game is the screen between levels that says “BLOOP! CONGRATULATIONS” The whole thing lights up and then your dinosaur starts dancing back and forth, eyes bugged out and tongue splayed like he’s pogoing on ecstasy. The 2nd Player gets a different animation for “Spike” which is way less psychotic looking, so don’t let your friends join in on this one.

My least favorite thing about the game is the controls. They’re not the worst, but your dino does move like you’re handling a shopping cart. 1 in 5 times when you press down you’ll go left instead and just as often you’ll try to turn right near the edge and instead lemmings your way off the cliff and into the sea. I never use the NES Advantage because, well, it’s pretty clunky, but I will say that in the case of Trog! the arcade style stick made the gameplay a lot smoother.

Overall, it’s a pretty fun game. I mean I’d still rather play Ms. Pacman any day of the week, but the power ups / obstacles make Trog! just different enough to be compelling. The closest comparison would be that it’s to Pacman what Snow Bros is to Bubble Bobble. Basically the same game, but with a enough new ideas to not make you feel like you’ve been there and done that.

Similar Games: Pacman, Mendel Palace

OTHER LETTER T GAMES (CLASSICS)

Tetris 1 & 2, TMNT 1 2 & 3, Tennis, Track and Field 1&2, Tecmo Super Bowl, Tiny Toons Adventures 1&2, Taboo the Sixth Sense

OTHER LETTER T GAMES WORTH TRYING

TMNT Tournament Fighters, Terra Cresta, Tombs & Treasure, T & C Surf Designs, Trojan, Treasure Master, Toki, To the Earth, Tag Team Wrestling

OTHER LETTER T GAMES WORTH AVOIDING

Thunderbirds, Three Stooges, Tale Spin, Toxic Crusaders, Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Tom and Jerry, Times of Lore, Top Gun 1&2