Introduction Blaster Master was developed and published by Sunsoft, a studio better known during the 8- and 16-bit era for licensed tie-in games, with directors Hiroaki Higashiya and Koichi Kitazumi, designer Kenji Sada, and composer Naoki Kodaka leading a small team of around five people on what became the company’s one original flagship franchise. It…
Introduction Wrecking Crew was developed by Nintendo R&D1, directed by Satoru Okada and produced by Gunpei Yokoi, with designer Yoshio Sakamoto building his first game after a stint as a pixel artist around a simple idea: a puzzle-action game about demolishing walls. It debuted as an arcade cabinet on the Nintendo VS. System in 1984…
Introduction Kid Icarus was developed by Nintendo R&D1 with outside assistance from Tose, directed by Satoru Okada with Yoshio Sakamoto co-directing and streamlining much of the design, and produced by Gunpei Yokoi, arriving on the Famicom Disk System in Japan in December 1986 before an NES cartridge release the following July. The team picked up…
Introduction Bomberman traces back to a 1983 original created by programmer Yuji Tanaka for Hudson Soft, a Sapporo-based company that had started out selling art supplies and telecommunications gear before moving into home computers and eventually games. This 1985 Famicom/NES version, reportedly ported single-handedly by Shinichi Nakamoto over a marathon 72-hour stretch, is widely considered…
Introduction Duck Hunt was developed by Nintendo R&D1, the mostly hardware-focused team also behind the NES Zapper light gun itself, with Shigeru Miyamoto directing, Gunpei Yokoi producing, and Hiroji Kiyotake handling the game’s graphics and character designs. It first appeared in Japan in April 1984 for the Famicom and as an arcade cabinet, before becoming…
Introduction Gradius began as a 1985 arcade shoot ’em up from Konami, developed under the working title Scramble 2 as a spiritual successor to the studio’s earlier Scramble, and it became one of the biggest arcade hits of the following year. Konami ported it to the Famicom in April 1986 and brought it to the…
Introduction Excitebike was developed by Nintendo, directed and designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, and released in Japan in November 1984, with a North American NES release following in October 1985 as one of the console’s early best-selling titles. It introduced a handful of mechanics that were unusually sophisticated for the time, including a motorcycle engine-heat gauge…
Introduction Mega Man 2 was developed and published by Capcom for the NES in 1988, directed by Akira Kitamura and produced by Tokuro Fujiwara, with Keiji Inafune stepping up from artist on the first game into a more central production role alongside fellow artists Yasuaki Kishimoto and Naoya Tomita and composer Takashi Tateishi. The sequel…
Introduction Final Fantasy was developed and published by Square for the NES in 1987, created by designer Hironobu Sakaguchi after Square’s leadership, initially hesitant to greenlight an RPG, changed course following the breakout success of Dragon Quest in 1986. Sakaguchi assembled a small team that would go on to define the genre for decades: Hiroyuki…
Introduction Battletoads was developed by Rare and published by Tradewest, designed by Tim and Chris Stamper with a soundtrack by David Wise, and built with the explicit goal of giving Rare its own answer to the era’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles craze. It released on the NES in North America and Japan in June 1991,…
Introduction Double Dragon began as a 1987 arcade beat ’em up developed by Technos Japan and distributed by Taito, a spiritual successor to Technos’s earlier Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun that added two-player co-op and the ability to pick up and use a disarmed enemy’s own weapon, quickly becoming one of the genre’s foundational hits. Technos ported…
Introduction Ninja Gaiden was developed and published by Tecmo for the NES, directed by Hideo Yoshizawa with art by Masato Kato, released in Japan in December 1988 and in North America the following March. It ran in parallel with an unrelated arcade beat ’em up of the same name built by a different team, sharing…