To start of the weekly Retro features here are the top 5 best NES RPGs to be released.
5. Faxanadu
“Daggers and wingboots, mantras and monsters await you.” – Official Cover art
The hero leaves his town for a short adventure and returns to the city to find it’s infested with monsters from outer space. It’s up to you in this fantasy action role-playing game to save the city, a large tree and ultimately the world.
Faxanadu is one the few NES side-scrolling games with role-playing elements (the ability to level up), the colour palette used in Faxanadu has a very earthy atmosphere and hence is based heavily on browns and reds.
Along the adventure you can collect new weapons, spells and armor with the ultimate goal of becoming a fully plate-armored knight with the legendary Dragon Slayer Sword.
Faxanadu’s legacy? Faxanadu was the 4th game released in the Dragon Slayer series and was followed by more than 14 games and a spin off series; The Legend of Heroes. The Legend of Heroes has been recently re-released for the PSP but received mediocre to poor reviews…
4. Bard’s Tale
“…
The song I sing will tell the tale
of a cold and wintery day.
Of castle walls and torchlit halls
And a price men had to pay.
When evil fled and brave men bled
The Dark One came to stay
Till men of old for blood and gold
Hath rescued Skara Brae.”
- Bard’s Tale Intro
The evil wizard Mangar the Dark and his minions has captured your town, and it’s up to you to guide a group heroes to save it. The Bard’s Tale is essentially a text-based dungeon crawl RPG, you gain experience and levels through random combat, solve puzzles and buy new equipment with any gold you can find.
The Bard’s Tale is a very nostalgic game for me as I originally played it on the PC during my childhood, even with the quirks of having to map each dungeon out using a pen and paper (otherwise you’ll easily get lost), limited graphics and insane amount of text, it still made for an interesting adventure.
The Bard’s Tale legacy? Three official sequels were made, and a series of novels loosely based around the game were published. In 2004 Bard’s Tale for the Xbox was released, although the game had no official connection (due to rights/trademarks ownerships issues) with the original series it was developed as a spiritual successor and did contain a few allusions to the first game.
3. Ultima: Quest of the Avatar
No princess to rescue, no kingdom to save, no evil arch-nemesis, just follow the path to enlightenment and become the Avatar. Ultima IV is by far the best Ultima released on the NES and its story was quite unique among RPGs. You didn’t have to become a Hero and overcome the ultimate evil villain, instead you have to prove that you understood Eight Virtues and become a spiritual leader.
Ultima’s Legacy? 6 more sequels were released carrying on the storyline, and the MMORPG Ultima Onlne was released in 1997 in which players could live in and explore the world of Britannia, Ultima Online is still running today.
2. Final Fantasy
“Enter a whole new realm of challenge and adventure” - Official Cover art
Four young warriors called the ‘Light Warriors’, each carrying a darkened elemental orb must quest to defeat the evil forces and restore light to their orbs… or else the world will die.
Ultimately a genre defining game, although not original in its gameplay. FF refined and streamlined the adventure RPG to near perfection for its time, and in doing so easily became the most successful role-playing game released on the NES.
Final Fantasy’s legacy? I’m not sure if should state the obvious but its legacy is by far the best of any of the other RPGs listed here, Final Fantasy has been remade/re-released 6 times had movies and animes sharing it’s name released and eleven sequels(and that’s not including numerous spin-offs), I suggest reading Wikipedia for more information.
1. Dragon Warrior IV
The Dragon Warrior IV (aka Dragon Quest) story is quite hard to summarize as its very character centric, each of the 4 main characters have their own dedicated chapter, with a fifth chapter where they all gather along with the hero to siege the Zenithian Castle. Dragon Warrior is very similar in design and play to Final Fantasy although to its credit Dragon Warrior 1 was released before Final Fantasy 1.
Although not the most original RPG on the NES, it’s the one that uses all the previously developed conventions to their maximum potential.
Dragon Warrior IV’s legacy? Dragon Warrior(Quest) IV has been critically acclaimed as a ‘classic’ game, it has been remade and released for the Playstation in 2001, there is a third remake coming out this year (August) for the Nintendo DS with the game remade in 3D.
The merchant Taloon (Torneko) also got his own spin-off series Torneko’s Great Adventure in which Taloon quests to expand his store.
-Read the follow up article, Top SNES RPGs!
All Time Best SNES RPGS | Casualty Gamer
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[...] done the NES RPGs, the SNES RPGs.. the next logical retro step would be the Genesis(aka Mega Drive), thus these are [...]
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July 11th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
crazeman
i’m glad dragon warrior IV was first on the list. it was the first rpg i’ve ever played and it bring back lots of memory. i remember that i got stuck when the game told me that the secret dungeon in the forest is 4 steps west and then 4 steps south… i didn’t know what west and south was back then!
i also remember i restarted the game a dozen times because the crappy save system would delete my save pretty often. note to self: when asked if you want to continue the game, always say yes and then power the nes off, not the stupid “hold the reset button and then hit the power button” instruction.
July 25th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
asdf
wow, faxanadu and ultima 4! Two of my favorite NES games, but sometimes I feel like nobody else in the universe knows they exist.
Also I liked FF1 and Dragon Warriors 1 and 3. Don’t remember much about 4. I never played a Bard’s Tale, but I suppose if author is into Faxanadu and Ultima 4, then I’ll probably like that one too. I wandered through here looking for a new old rpg to play, so thank you!
btw, Ultima 4 is the best. My reason is that the game was educational in a moral sense. As a kid I got completely obsessed with it, and tried hard to live by those virtues. (and still do)
December 5th, 2008 at 9:10 am
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August 14th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Duffman
I think that’s a pretty fair list. I’ve never had the patience to play Bard’s Tale or any other PC style Rpg on the Nes, but they seem cool to me. I always get bogged down early on though. Ultima 4 is probably my fave. I too learned morality from that game. One of my faves that no one ever mentions is Magic of Scherezade. That game is incredibly good.
September 11th, 2009 at 6:06 am
PSI Wolf
EarthBound Zero is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY
better than ANY of those games!
September 19th, 2009 at 4:20 am
walakaluza
wow im surprised Cyrstalis isnt on this list
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February 28th, 2010 at 1:14 am
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Now that I look back on Final Fantasy, it really wasn’t that good. I’m glad they remade it for the GBA cause it a lot easier on the eyes and there’s no more “attacking the darkness.”
April 3rd, 2010 at 9:46 am