Donkey Kong Country 3

Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!

There's a lot of love for Donkey Kong and there was little doubt that it wouldn't make the 1001 list. The Donkey Kong Country series was the game series to show the world that sprites didn't have to be constructed from scratch - that pre-rendered animations could be cut up, frame by frame, spritified, and stuck into a 2D platformer in order to be replayed back through direct interaction from the player.

It's not the original Donkey Kong Country that makes the list, though, nor Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest, but the final entry, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, with your favourite characters nowhere to be seen.

The 1001 list calls this the biggest and most fully featured, but does that mean it's better?

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Down the pipes and up the levels.

So here it is, Super Mario RPG. I'd heard of it before but usually cast it off to one side due to lack of interest. "Sure, the Mario franchise might work as an RPG, but I can't quite see how and I don't have time to find out", kind of thing. And yet it's apparently highly regarded and well worth playing - not just in the sense of padding out a 1001 list, but of reaching for various top 100 and even top 10 spots.

If it's that good, then I must have been very wrong to keep making assumptions about how it couldn't possibly be worth my time and should get round to playing it. To Bowser's castle!

Harvest Moon

I want a combine harvester.

Not gonna lie,  Harvest Moon looks so dull that I've been doing all in my power to put off playing it for as long as possible. It is a pleasant looking little 16-bit farm simulator, complete with chubby cows, adorable chickens, mans best friend and some villagers and lots of farm antics and changes of seasons and work and ugh, just end it already.

It's like an empty Zelda. It's got that look, but where are the clear and visible threats to my wellbeing? What do I do? Why am I doing it? Let's attempt to find out.

Yoshi's Island

Waaah. Waaaah!

You might know by now that I'm not terribly fussed about the Mario franchise. Very good games, don't get me wrong, but I'm never in a rush to get round to playing them, let alone playing them for any length of time, or with the intent of finishing them.

I'm not saying that that opinion has changed, but I will say that Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island has got the biggest reaction a Mario game has got from me for a while now.

All I knew about it was that Yoshi was heavily featured and that the art style was a little different. That's it. That's all I've got to go with as I dive back into the world of 2D platformers to see why this one needs to be played by gamers.

Let's get comfy and settle in for some fun.

These hills are so goddamn happy!

Super Metroid

That's how I roll...

My name's Frank, and I've never played Super Metroid.

I think I might have dabbled with one of the many games in the genre, but even then, it's best to assume I haven't touched the series, largely due to the fact that, besides the Game Boy, I just haven't owned Nintendo consoles, and that's where all those Metroids are.

It is the future, I guess, and Samus was just about to do something, when - what do you know - a distress call! We better get on it right away.

Super Punch-Out!!

Knnnnockout!

Boxing has never really interested me. Maybe it's because it's just not as real as Professional Wrestling, I don't know. Boxing video games, therefore, are also low on the list of games I want to play, but there are a couple of them on this 1001 list and they're on it for a reason.

Nintendo's Super Punch-Out!! seems to be the gold standard for both simplicity and challenge. It won't take much to know that button mashing won't work here, but it will take some practice to make progress on your way through the circuits.

Let's glove up (if that's a thing) and fist someone.

Punch them.

Definitely punch them.

Uniracers

Go, Uniracer, go!

"We need a racing game."
"Yeah!"
"Like, a fast racing game."
"Definitely!"
"And it'll be based on anthropomorphic unicycles speeding along floating tubes."
"Yeee...uhh... Sorry, what?"

And that's how Uniracers was born. Probably. I wasn't there, I don't know.

What can be said about a game where you race unicycles along floating tracks, pulling off tricks to get necessary boosts of speed?

EarthBound

This Game Stinks.

For the longest time, I avoided playing EarthBound largely because I knew it was the English version of Japanese title Mother 2, and knowing that it was a translated sequel somehow meant that it's safe to ignore.

What a dumb thing to think.

For starters, a great many games are English versions of Japanese titles, and still, I play them. Then there are games whose sequels don't rely on prior knowledge of the series in order to play. There are also games with confusing title differences between regions - Final Fantasy VI for example - yet you still play them because of what they are as a single entity.

Yet I had never given EarthBound a second thought, and for that, I'd like to apologise, because it's pretty funky, isn't it?

Secret of Mana

You Idiots!

The problem with embarking on a challenge like this is that the sheer scope of some games means I'll never get to really know what they're about, because I'll never have the time in the world to sit down with them for hours and hours and hours on end, especially if they're Role Playing Games like Secret of Mana.

The world is in peril, an epic quest is thrust upon you, how will you manage to vanquish evil and save the day? I'll never know...

Plok

I've been diddled again!

Words are hard to come by when Plok is on the screen. The 1001 entry for this title mentions how everyone and their dog wanted their own mascot, a la Sega and Sonic, but Plok came to that particular party too late. So late that he might as well have been lost to history, but here he is, walloping fleas with his giant cartoon fists...

Just what is going on here?

Axelay

Good luck.

For the longest time now, I've always gotten Axelay confused with ActRaiser. They're nothing like each other, by any measure you can think of, but their names would always blur together in my mind and I'd then fail to remember what they were each about.

I can't fail anymore - I hope - having played both very clearly distinct and not at all related games, with Axelay taking the form of a visually and technically impressive space shoo-ugh, blimey, you just can't get away from these space shooters, can you?

Super Mario Kart

Suck it, DK.

Along with the (often) previously mentioned Super Mario All-Stars, my cousin's SNES was home to another Mario classic - one that was probably played more than All-Stars - Super Mario Kart.

There is no point in reading any further.

You know how good Super Mario Kart is. You want to play it right now. Go on. You should.

If you want a little bit more to read, though, do continue.

Cybernator

After penetration, deploy the Assault suits.

Cybernator surprised me. I had no ideas going into it what it would be about, and it turns out that you're piloting mechs. In space. And not the stupid, overly designed, dazzlingly coloured mechs that I'm frankly put off by, but grungy, militaristic, 'realistic' designs.

It was - on the premise alone - something I absolutely had to get stuck into, and I hoped that the gameplay was just as inspiring.

Contra III: The Alien Wars

Let's attack aggressively.

Contra has quite the reputation for being really rather difficult, and so seeing Contra III: The Alien Wars creep up the 1001 list as more and more games before it got played was somewhat daunting. Thankfully, though, I had no reason to worry, because it looks great and has options for adjusting the difficulty.

The planet is - as is often the case in video games - under attack from aliens, so we better single handedly see to that with all manner of weaponry and plenty of skill.

Sorry, Earth. Once again, this won't end well for us...

Final Fantasy V

Kweh!

I had to skip back through the 1001 list to double check I hadn't missed any, but no, it turns out that the first Final Fantasy title worth playing in the series is Final Fantasy V, and I know absolutely nothing about it.

I know about the series, but I've watched far, far more than I've played, and no matter what my views are playing them now, that's probably not going to change - but who knows?

Let's crack on with Final Fantasy V, where we're going to gather up a load of crystals, get real life jobs and kick anything that doesn't belong in this world out of it.

Simple.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Da daa daaa daaaaaa.

Gah, this game is bloody good, isn't it? I mean, like... just, wow.

These were not my first impressions of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. I can't really remember my first impressions, or when they were, though I suspect the SNES was yesterday's news when I first heard of A Link to the Past. I just wasn't into that kind of game back then, and as gaming developed I aligned myself towards Sony, away from Nintendo.

That meant away from the Mario games, away from the Metroids and away from all of the Zelda titles. While I've seen a whole bunch of these series and know a fair bit about them, I've never sat down to play them myself until now, really, and all I can say is... wow.

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja

No Close Ups!

Had it not been for this 1001 list, I probably wouldn't have ever come across The Legend of the Mystical Ninja. I don't rate ninja's too highly, and when it comes to SNES titles beginning with 'The Legend of', there tends to only be one name mentioned, and it's not the Mystical Ninja.

Kid Ying and Dr Yang are having a bit of trouble with a ghost lady, and that trouble can only be solved by wandering around town looking for grey cats to turn your measly stick into a much more useful yo-yo, hurling it into the townsfolk until they drop enough coins for you to gamble them away on mini-games to distract you from having to find and deal with a ghost lady.

In other words,

Super Castlevania IV

On a dark and eerie night...

There are a fair few series' of games that I've hardly ever touched over the years, and the Castlevania series is one of them. If I have played one, it would have been an early and/or portable one, but I just can't remember.

I know I'm in for a platformer where my main weapon is a whip, where I'll be whipping monsters from classic horror films, as well as some bloke called Dracula, but apart from all that I'll have to consider Super Castlevania IV an unknown game to me.

Let's hope it whips up a storm in my favour, rather than make me whip the controller across the room.

Super Tennis

Double Fault.

There are a few tennis games on this 1001 list. I don't really like tennis. I've played a few games down the years, more on consoles than in person (much more, really), and they always tend to go the same way - Fault, Double Fault, Fault, Double Fault, Fault, Double Fault...

Where is the fun in tennis games if that's your first experience with them? That or 00-15, 00-30, 00-40. There isn't any. Pong can't be the greatest tennis title in history, can it?

Let's see what Super Tennis can serve up for us.

Pilotwings

LANDING OK

Two flight games in a row? And both of them are wildly different from each other? Alright then, how does Pilotwings handle?

In contrast to most, if not all games set in the skies until now, Pilotwings doesn't have you soaring over military bases shooting down other planes but has you floating over a flight training school, learning the basics of flying a biplane, parachuting, controlling jetpacks and more.

You're not trying to down a certain number of foes but to score enough points to get your pilots license and progress to more challenging challenges, putting your flight skills to the test.

It sounds like a nice and simple, relaxing little game.