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Nathan Blades covers some console and industry-defining titles for the Sony PlayStation
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The games choices made here aren't necessarily the best games that the system has to offer (nor are they the only games worth mentioning in their respective categories), but we feel they have some significance in making the system what it was, or shaping the direction other games took in the future.
Most Influential Title: Super Mario Bros. - This was something of a given, and as such I won't elaborate too much on who the Mario Bros. are, and why they're a pillar of digital culture. While video games, and to a lesser extent Mario himself, existed long before his initial adventure to rescue Peach, this title was a spark that ignited the interest in video games for many people, and codified both aspects of game design and cultural references.
While many fans know the game inside and out, Super Mario Bros. isn't a particularly easy game. Level designs and enemy placement become cruel and devious rather quickly - but in an era where gaming was a very expensive hobby, challenge was needed to get bang for your buck. Still, watching masters of the game show off their stuff will never get old.
Obscure Gem: Sweet Home - Horror video games these days require very high graphical and audio fidelity to be percieved as scary. Dead Space and Amnesia: The Dark Descent would be lacking with blocker graphics - but Sweet Home manages to send chills down your spine with its limited colours and chiptunes.
Based on a Japanese horror film of the same title, it follows a documentary crew exploring an abandoned house to seek out paintings done by the now deceased owner. However, malevolent forces trap them inside and try to kill them off before the paintings can be retrieved. What this results in is a slow and suspenseful RPG, where you're forced to split up the interred - and your ability to plan ahead is the difference between success and failure. This is coupled up with monster designs that really push the boundaries of what the NES could do. Sweet Home was never released in English, but a Fan Translation thankfully exists!
Marvel of Game Design: Castlevania - A series that has changed a lot throughout the generations of gaming, Castlevania was a tightly-made wonder of game design. None of the games in the series had a detailed plot, the protagonist (In this case, the whip-wielding Simon Belmont) storms a castle full of mythological monsters and references to beat seven bells out of Count Dracula. And believe me, Konami did not make achieving that goal a cakewalk.
The NES Castlevania was a game that relished the restrictions the console had. Your limited movement abilities meant that every enemy and trap was placed carefully to make you think twice on how to proceed. Later stages ramped up the number of enemies you had to deal with, but every encounter had a solution. Aesthetically, they managed to do something that even modern games struggle with - using bright colour schemes, even in a dilapidated gothic setting. The music, while not as iconic as musical cues from Mario, are still catchy and atmospheric. The game is so good, fans still rave about its quality.
Pushes The Hardware: Batman: Return of the Joker - Released in 1991, at the tail end of the NES' lifespan, this scrolling shooter (that only really uses Batman for licensing power over any kind of faithfulness to the franchise - he shoots all of his enemies in this game!) has an incredibly complex soundtrack, and some of the best graphics the console could muster, with some surprisingly smooth animations, a great use of colour, and actual cutscenes! The gameplay itself is nothing revolutionary, and actually rather derivative of more accomplished run-n-gun games at the time (Contra being a well-known example); but the difference in visual flair between this title and the early NES releases is very much worthy of attention.
Honourable Mentions
The Legend of Zelda - The original open-world adventure game.
Nintendo World Cup - Because when you tackle the other players enough, they die. Seriously.
Contra - So difficult they had to create the Konami code so it could be play-tested.
Super Mario Bros. 3 - SMB defined the genre, SMB3 perfected it.
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