Jackal: The Must-Play Konami Classic for the NES
Jackal for the NES
When I was growing up in the ‘80s there was one game that I played consistently just about every week: Jackal for the NES. Not only was it a amazingly fun game…it was one of the best ports of the 1985 hit arcade game, and remains one of my all-time favorite to this day!
What Made It So Great?
The NES version of Jackal brings back many wonderful memories, and was one of the games in my collection that I played repeatedly over and over again. The colors were amazing, the sound design was energetic, the music was catchy, the level design was creative, and the gameplay was a solid example of easy-to-learn/difficult-to-master.
You play a “Jeep” driver who is tasked to enter into enemy territory and rescue P.O.W.s who are captured in buildings. Along the way you encounter enemy troops, turrets, tanks, planes, ships, trains, and more. The game plays out across six full-length stages that gradually increase in difficulty, and is chock full of surprises and visual variation. Plus…every level features an epic boss battle at the end, with the final game boss being over-the-top amazing. For a game that was released in 1988 (in North America) this was quite a remarkable game in its time!
Another thing that stands out to me is that the gameplay feels pretty balanced. I honestly never found myself getting tired of this game, and it is a game I continue to play to this day. It’s seriously that good!
What’s Interesting About It?
Something that I think stands out above everything else is that this game is that it featured a co-op mode that allowed you to play with a friend on the same screen. Amazingly, this rarely resulted in performance issues or the annoying “flickering” problems that so prominently plagued the NES. We were blind to these issues back then, but today it’s almost impossible not to see the flickering. (NOTE: If you are the proud owner of an Analogue NT, Kevin’s firmware offers a patch you can use to correct this by allowing for multiple sprites to display simultaneously).
Something else that I find interesting about this game is that it has never been made available in the North America as a digital re-release — at least not through legitimate means. Had this been released on the Wii’s Virtual Console I would have been all over it, but interestingly this was one overlooked (along with the original Contra for that matter). We live in a day where we’re beginning to see more of our favorites games resurrected digitally, but Jackal for the NES remains elusive and only available on physical hardware…which is a real shame!
What Would Have Been Better?
Looking back on this today the only thing I would really suggest as a change would be to add a feature that wasn’t commonplace back in the 1980s: dynamic enemy spawning. The fact is once you master the levels the challenge is reduced because you sort of know what to expect.
This is not to say that the game isn’t fun as-it-is, but when you know that the tank is sitting behind those trees, or that the building is a booby-trap, or that there was a hidden mine underneath that section of grass…some of the excitement goes away.
Conclusion
To this day, Jackal is one of my top-10 games for the NES, and I still pick it up for a play-through at least once a year. What games do you still like to play from your childhood? Leave a comment below, and we may feature your favorite game in one of our upcoming posts. Cheers!
About the Author
RedmondGAMER is the Founder/CEO of GAMACY.com — a discovery engine for video games. These posts are written purely for entertainment, and reflect the personal opinion of RedmondGAMER. Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think might enjoy it, and be sure to leave a comment or a clap if you liked it!
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