My Top 100 NES/Famicom game Interview with JewWario!

Retro gaming enthusiast and all-round swell guy JewWario contacted me about my top 100 NES/Famicom games list and expressed interest in interviewing me about my giant effort!

Learn the secrets behind the construction of my list, my personal history with the NES/Famicom, and my outlook on retro gaming in general. Come listen, won’t you?

Interview can be found by clicking this shiny orange text.

Full version of the interview will be coming soon.

Once again many thanks to Justin for making this happen. You rock.

Anime North 2012 Cosplay Highlights

Hey guys! After attending Anime North again this year, I once again want to share with you the best cosplay I saw. If I took your photo, or know the identify of a character or source I have a question mark for, please by all means let me know! I met some pretty cool people this year and would love to chat more with you guys.

For those who are interested, here is last year’s Anime North photos.

Without further ado, enjoy!

Top 100 NES/Famicom Games List – All in One!

Over the past several months, I’ve been publishing segments in an overarching top 100 NES games list. Now that I’ve finally finished, I figured I should give to you guys an unabridged complete listing to find every game in one post. This allows you to Control/Command+F search through this whole list. Let it load for a few minutes though -it’s long. I hope you enjoy!

Arguably the most beloved console of all time, the Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly abbreviated as NES, is now well over 25 years old. With over two thousand games produced worldwide for the legendary hardware, the NES, despite its age, has an eternal staying power. As retro gaming continues to grow in popularity, more and more gamers flock to Nintendo’s first home console to get their gaming fix.

To help these gamers out, I’ve decided to focus my energy to create a comprehensive top 100 NES and Famicom game list. Yes, there are already plenty of NES top 10’s, top 25’s and even top 100 lists all over the net. So why should you care about my top 100 list?

My aim here was to make a unique list that goes beyond simply my picks and my thoughts about them. This list was carefully crafted based on my experience of well over seven hundred individual titles for both the NES and Famicom. My criteria for this list was based on three factors – Overall appeal, uniqueness, and how well each have aged.

This list will include every kind of software ever written for the hardware, whether it be NES, Famicom, unlicensed, prototype, homebrew or Hong Kong original pirate – if it was sold in some forum, it’s fair game for this list. The only type of games I have excluded are hacks of existing games. While many of these are incredible, I may at some point in the future write a separate list for these alone.

Of course, with a system like the NES which saw well over 700 titles in North America alone, there can never be a true definitive top 100 that will be universally true for all players. The bottom line is this list is merely a collection of my opinions, so feel free to disagree and tell me what you’d add in your list instead. For those who may be interested in tracking down copies of the games I mention, I am including a general price range for loose carts and what I am calling the NES difficulty meter.

Since many NES games can be a real test of player’s patience and skill, I am ranking every game on its overall difficulty using a simple scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is brain dead easy and 10 is….well,  Battletoads. A 5 on this scale means it’s average difficulty with perhaps some challenging elements, but nothing the average gamer should get stuck on for too long.

I’m also including many links to videos and other online information sources. Links are indicated by orange words. Please open these links in a new tap/window so you don’t have to navigate away from this article.

So without further ado, I hope you will enjoy the Top 100 NES/Famicom Games List!

Anime North 2011 Cosplay highlights

This past Sunday I was able to attend the big Ontario Anime convention called Anime North. I saw a lot of merch and a lot more cosplayers. I was able to take pictures of nearly everyone I saw, and here are the best of the best. I apologize if you aren’t in this list – I saw some exteroniary cosplayers but the photos didn’t turn out well.

Enjoy!

Misty – Pokémon

?

R.O.B – Nintendo Entertainment System

Jade – Mortal Kombat 3 onwards

Pokéball Bra Girl – Pokémon

Random NPC (nonplayable character) – Any RPG ever

Adult Rydia – Final Fantasy IV

Another Misty – Pokémon

A female Ash (Ashley?) – Pokémon

Yukari Takeba – Shin Megannmi Tensei – Persona 3

Li Syaoran and Sakura Kinomoto – Cardcaptor Sakura

Miles Edgeworth – Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney

Me posing in front of awesome speedlines background – Epic win

Bakura & Okami – Yu-Gi-Oh! & Okami

female Goku – Dragonball Z

Li, Sakura, TomoyoLi, Sakura, Tomoyo – Cardcaptor Sakura

Missingno. – Pokémon Red/Blue

One of the Prince’ many cousins – Katamari Damacy

Solid Snake – Metal Gear series

Wall of Awesome – Dragonaball Z

This guy plays the Song of Storms! – Zelda Ocarina of Time

Slowpoke – Pokémon

Asuka Langley Soryu –Neon Genesis Evangelion

Bad Girl – No More Heroes

Elesa –  Pokémon Black/White

White – Pokémon Black/White

Ash and Misty – Pokémon

White Mage – Final Fantasy 1

Nagisa – Clannad

Rakka – Haibane Renmei

Litchi Faye-Ling – BlazBlue

Ash – Tales of the Abyss

I don’t know who this is, but the picture was pretty funny

Reimu, a Miko – Tohou Project

Dawn – Pokémon Diamond/Pearl

Protoman – The Protomen

I don’t know if this was cosplay or just a cute Japanese girl wearing a Sailor Fuku!

Marta Luald – Tales of Symphonia 2

White – Pokémon Black/White

Missingno. – Pokémon Red/Blue

Scorpion – Mortal Combat

This plushy cost $75! I just wanted to take a photo of this big spender

Dawn – Pokémon Diamond/Pearl

Takeru “T.K.” Takaishi – Digimon Adventure

Malon – Zelda Ocarina of Time

Tsukasa – Lucky☆Star

Shaymin – Pokémon Diamond/Pearl

Red – Pokémon Red/Blue

Meiling – Cardcaptor Sakura

Links – The Legend of Zelda

Leaf Green – Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen

Nurse Joy – Pokémon

Black Mage – Final Fantasy 1

Ciel Phantomhive – Kuroshitsuji.

Vocloaids, Poison

? JAPAN

Onion Knight – Final Fantasy III

This girl is damn creepy, but awesome

Lil’ Link – Dwaaaaaaaaa

Haruhi Suzumiya – The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Samus Aran [dancing to the Caramelldansen] – Metroid

Felco – Star Fox

Marik and Ishizu – Yu-Gi-Oh

Hatsune Miku – Vocaloid

Yet Another Misty – Pokémon

N – Pokémon Black/White

Sheik – Zelda Ocarina of Time

Clover – Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

Headcrab Zombie – Half-Life 2

So there you have it. The best cosplay I came across. I’ll definitively be coming back next year, and cosplaying myself. I’m thinking a certain blue robot with a strong sense of justice…