Published Sep 14, 2026, 8:01 PM EDT
Austin King is the Senior Editor of Gaming at ScreenRant and has been with the site since 2020 with a focus on RPGs and tabletop games. He previously managed content for Geek to Geek Media, and has served as a writer for sites like Nintendad, Geek Fitness, and more.
In addition to his work at ScreenRant, he also hosts the Dragon Quest FM podcast and is the author of several books, including co-writing Nimbus (a #1 bestseller in 2013). His latest is the nonfiction The Dragon Quest Book, available now.
He’s written about pop culture, video games, and genre studies over the course of his career. You can find him on BlueSky, X, and at Dragonquestaustin.com
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The Nintendo Entertainment System revolutionized gaming by giving us a home console with an iconic library of games. Thanks to the NES, we’ve got classics like Super Mario Bros., Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and so much more. The first entries in many series, including *Dragon Quest *and Final Fantasy, also started here, as did titles like Castlevania and Kid Icarus. Tie-ins of ’80s movies like Ghostbusters and Last Action Hero were also common. In short, the NES was awesome.
However, not every Nintendo game was a 10/10 experience. Titles like *E.T. *have been famously bad, but there are more than a few NES games that were good in the ’80s that just haven’t aged especially well. Are they still groundbreaking? For the most part, yes. Are they still fun? Well, that’s debatable. Here are three NES games that are actually way worse than we all remember.
Like any kid in the ’80s and ’90s, I have fond memories of going to the local video store and renting games. Also, like kids from that era, I loved Ghostbusters. So a tie-in video game based on the classic movie sounds like a no-brainer. The problem is that the Ghostbusters video game on NES isn’t all that fun. I don’t remember it being terrible, but I do remember being annoyed about always running out of gas in the Ecto-1.
Trying it now, Ghostbusters feels almost unplayable. Everything about the game is grueling and arduous, and it doesn’t hold up nearly as well as the movie. Going up the stairs to confront Gozer will make you feel like Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill. You can also expect to replay a lot of sections because the timer keeps running out. Ghostbusters the game was cool because the movie was cool, but all these decades after the movie’s hype has settled, it’s apparent what a flawed NES game it is.
I absolutely adore* Dragon Quest*, so it pains me a bit to put this one on the list, but the sad truth is that the first *Dragon Quest *game (called Dragon Warrior in the U.S.) feels very dated on the NES. It was a groundbreaking RPG that pretty much supplied DNA to all the RPGs that followed it, but it’s not nearly as fun playing this version of the game in the 21st century.
Never mind the incredibly high enemy spawn rates, or that you can only save at the castle, Dragon Quest’s gameplay is also super clunky. You’ll need buttons for even the smallest tasks, like opening doors and going down any stairs. While the turn-based combat still holds up, almost everything about the original game feels slow and tedious. It may be the shortest Dragon Quest game to beat, but you may not know it, considering how much everything seems like a chore.
Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt was the first video game I ever played. And while I preferred Mario, there was still something fun about plugging in the Zapper Gun and playing Duck Hunt when my cousins were over. There’s no disputing it’s a classic NES game, but* Duck Hunt* isn’t nearly as fun at a party as it was in the ’80s. The gameplay is pretty laggy, and it’s pretty limited compared to games on the Wii and Switch that use motion controls today.
If you got outraged by the dog laughing at you 30+ years ago (and I certainly did), then it’s even more obnoxious now. There’s something about a tedious game that’s followed by a dog snickering at your failure that just hasn’t aged all that well. You will get annoyed. You will get angry. Duck Hunt may be one of the most iconic games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, but it really hasn’t aged well at all.
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