Excitebike is one of Nintendo’s much older games, older even than Super Mario Bros. so if you’re someone who struggles to get into retro games, this probably isn’t going to be for you. In fact, when I first played it when I was a child, I thought to myself “Wow, this old game is rubbish.” But although my initial reaction was a rather negative one, I have slowly developed a small level of fondness for it.

So what is it? Essentially, it’s just a single player motorbike racing game. The race tracks are all “2.5D” I suppose, with a side on view of the Excitebiker riding along on their motorcycle, with the ability to move upwards and downwards across the various different lanes on the track. It’s useful to change between these lanes in order to avoid patches of grass, bumps on the track or to intentionally head towards ramps. The race tracks all look pretty similar (a fairly basic stadium set up, just in different colours) but you do get a fair bit of variety in terms of the different ramps and jumps spread out across them.

There are two modes, Selection A and Selection B. In the first of these, you go around the track on your own. This is intended for time trials, but I found it most useful to play for training purposes. Getting the jumps just right isn’t easy, because you have to position your rider so that the wheels are angled in the right way to land safely. If you fail to do this, you fall off the bike and have to watch them very slowly getting back on. Then in Selection B, you are racing against lots of other racers. You can ram into the other motorcyclists in order to knock them off their bikes, which is kind of fun, but they can do the same to you too. Beating them isn’t easy, so you’ll need to practise a lot in order to get good at these levels. There’s also a level designer… but you can’t save the levels, so it’s kind of pointless.

I think what made me think this game was rubbish initially is that its controls aren’t easy to grasp, it’s visually not very appealing and its premise is a very basic one. You have to hold down a button in order to make your bike go faster in order to properly compete with the other racers, but if you do it for too long, your bike overheats and you have to stop, but then you can also go over these strips on the track to cool it down. This can get annoying and positioning your bike just right for jumps and bumps on the track is really difficult as well. You’ll probably find yourself falling off the bike a lot. A lot of people will, fairly, decide that it’s not worth putting in the effort to get the hang of.

I guess for me, this is an acquired taste. Over time, I’ve grown kind of fond of its music (even though there’s only about one track) and the 8-bit sound of the motorbikes’ engines. Since Nintendo like to include Excitebike cameos in games (like Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl) I found myself encouraged to revisit it and over time, I slowly got used to it. Now I’m at the point where I can happily play and enjoy it for half an hour if I’m bored. But even I still struggle with it sometimes. I’m sure it seemed amazing to a child of the 80s, but today I’d only recommend it to dedicated Nintendo fans.

Rating: 5/10

This was only the second Zelda game that I ever played – as you can imagine, I feel a great deal of nostalgia for it and I am very fond of it. However, I don’t think my fondness is entirely rooted in nostalgia. I think this is genuinely one of the best instalments in the series.

Something I really like about this game is that its story is very different from the others. Link is onboard a ship which sinks in a storm and he then wakes up on Koholint Island. He then gets caught up in the mysteries of this island and finds himself on a quest to awaken the Wind Fish, who sleeps within a giant egg on top of the mountain. It’s much smaller scale than a heroic quest to save a kingdom from a dark lord, but I find this quirky little tale rather charming.

The original Game Boy wasn’t a particularly powerful console and Koholint Island is broken up into a large number of screens which you tranisition between. Despite this the island comprises of beaches, mountains, forests, swamps, caves, rivers, graveyards and more. At the time, it felt amazing to have this miniature world contained within a Game Boy cartridge and to this day, it’s something which remains appealing to me. It’s really satisfying to explore every nook and cranny of the island as there are a lot of secrets to discover.

A part of what makes Koholint Island so charming, is the people who inhabit it. First there’s Marin, a kind hearted girl who helps you out when you first wash up on the beach. There’s her Mario-lookalike father, Tarin, who loves hunting for mushrooms. There’s a talking alligator who loves eating dog food. Syrup, a witch who lives in a crooked tree who can make magic powders for you. There’s also a whole village of talking animals, including a hippo who’s a model. It’s beautiful.

And guess what else? This island is full of Nintendo cameos. Shy Guys, Goombas and Piranha Plants all appear as enemies. An evil version of Kirby, named the Anti-Kirby, is another one. There’s also Mr. Write, an introverted man who loves writing letters, who is also quite literally just Dr. Wright from Sim City. There’s a lady who keeps pet Chain Chomps and part of the game (a really good bit) involves taking one for a walk. Wart the villain of Super Mario Bros. 2 and Doki Doki Panic is an NPC. I love this kind of stuff.

Besides all this, you have a solid Zelda adventure, which involves exploring various different dungeons in order to collect ancient instruments. Despite being in black and white and working with 8-bit graphics, the game succeeds in making each of the eight dungeons feel unique and distinct. A part of this comes down to the fact that each one has its own musical theme. Speaking of which, the game as a whole greatly benefits from its soundtrack – though 8-bit, it helps set a mysterious tone (sometimes veering on creepy), helping to intrigue you about the dark secrets of the island.

Overall, I think this is a great game. It’s also a little melancholy, for reasons I won’t get into just now to avoid spoiling it, but it’s only really comparable to Majora’s Mask in this regard. If you’re in the mood for a classic Zelda adventure, but one which also goes against the mould in some regards, then this may be your best choice. I heavily recommend it to any fan of the series.

Rating: 9.3/10

Buy it here.

Wario’s games come in many different shapes and sizes. From platformers which aren’t too different from Mario games, all the way through to really bizzare mini-game collections. Wario’s Woods was one of the first Wario games and it’s very different to everything which came before or after.

Player’s may be a little disappointed to find that they don’t play as Wario, but instead Toad. Wario has invaded the Peaceful Woods and filled it with monsters, so Toad heads into the trees and has to stack bombs on different coloured enemies to make rows of fours to destroy them, eventually making your way to Wario.

This is, in my opinion, one of the best puzzle games Nintendo ever created and one of the best games on the NES. For a while, I played a level of this game every day after work and it was the perfect way to relax an unwind. It was pretty addictive actually and I often couldn’t stop after only one level. I was sad when it came to an end.

In some ways, it feels like it’s building on some of the ideas of Super Mario Bros. 2 and then implementing them in a puzzle game. Toad has never been a character I’ve been hugely invested in, but this is probably my favourite of his playable appearances because this is a fun and unique game and it’s all ‘his’. It’s also nice that it has some kind of a story (the end is pretty funny) and Birdo is there too – which is kind of random, but interesting early use of the character.

So if you like puzzle games, you should definitely try this because it plays really well and hasn’t really aged too badly at all (despite being a NES game). I think it’s a shame that this game is so overlooked because I consider it a real classic.

Rating: 9/10

Buy it here.