Best NES Platformers of All Time

The Platformer’s Birthplace

If the SNES was the golden age of platformers, the NES was their origin. Every design pattern the SNES would later refine — level design, power-up systems, boss fights, hidden secrets — was invented or codified on the Nintendo Entertainment System between 1985 and 1993.

The NES platformer library spans simple entry points (Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight) to punishing mastery tests (Battletoads, Contra), with the greatest games landing at the perfect intersection of accessible and deep.

Super Mario Bros.: The Game That Saved an Industry

Super Mario Bros. didn’t just launch a franchise — it revived a dying industry. The 1983 video game crash had left retailers unwilling to stock games. Nintendo’s solution was to rebrand the Famicom as a toy robot system and bundle it with Super Mario Bros. in North America (1985). The game was so compelling that it pulled the industry back from the brink and established the platform game as the dominant genre of the 8-bit era.

Mega Man 2: Fair Challenge, Unforgettable Bosses

Mega Man 2 (1988) is the most frequently cited contender for “best NES game ever made.” The eight Robot Masters — Wood Man, Bubble Man, Heat Man, and the rest — are memorably designed, each with a thematic level and a readable weakness. The game teaches through death without feeling punishing because every death is learnable. The legendary Quick Man laser section remains the NES’s most infamous obstacle.

Ninja Gaiden: Cinema Arrives on NES

Ninja Gaiden (1988) introduced cinematic storytelling to the NES platformer. Its between-stage cutscenes, told through scrolling text and sprite art, gave it a narrative ambition that Mario and Mega Man explicitly avoided. Combined with Ryu Hayabusa’s wall-climbing acrobatics (a mechanic five years ahead of Mega Man X), Ninja Gaiden showed what the NES could do when a developer committed fully to its vision.