best nes sports games

Top 10 Best NES Sports Games

The NES popularized a number of video game genres, and NES sports games were no exception. This system boasts many of the best pick up and play video sports games every made. These are the top 10 best NES sports games of all time.

10 – Super Dodge Ball

A great soundtrack paired with as perfect a migration of a sport to a video game console as you’ll find, we begin our list at number 10 with Super Dodge Ball.

The main modes of the game are plain and simple 6 vs. 6 dodgeball with three active and three support players rounding out each nation’s team. You can play either single player as the American team, fighting through the designated random assortment of the world’s nations (inexplicably starting with the All-Star team who somehow are the easiest) all the way up to the championship, or you can play against a friend and choose your respective teams.

There’s also a fun “beanball” mode where it just seems like a bunch of the team America guys got together in a parking lot after work one day and beat the hell out of each other with dodgeballs. This mode proves just as fun as the main campaign and is available in two players, so it’s a nice alternative to taking each other on in standard dodgeball mode.

Each player has their own unique special move throw (both on the ground and when throwing from the air) which makes the ball react in various and sometimes unpredictable ways. And while you can’t go wrong with Sam’s pure speed ball, it’s fun to try playing as each team and test out each character’s special move set as they put at least a couple dozen in.

Technos is the developer and it has that trademark Technos character animation with huge heads and small bodies that we see in Nintendo World Cup and River City Ransom. The individual level themes for each country do a nice job at matching each one musically and there are some great tracks on this soundtrack (the All-Star team being my favorite).

The addition of a co-op campaign mode would have really made this game great, but it stands as a unique and memorable NES title regardless and one which I would love to see on a modern-gen console in some capacity.

9 – Tag Team Wrestling

A lot of people overlook Tag Team Wrestling when it comes to the wrestling titles for the NES, but it gets my vote as the best. I think it might be the oldest wrestling game for the console but its charm comes in its simplicity.

I assume this is where the whole “Strong Bad” thing came from, the name of the titular character in those internet videos from back in the day. The “Strong Bads” and the “Ricky Fighters” were the two randomly and seemingly poorly translated names for the good and bad wrestling teams you could choose from.

It’s a pretty simple game, but a lot of its fun came from its simplicity. The goal is to beat up the other guy to get their health as close to zero as possible before pinning them, not to mention before they escape to the corner to tag their partner.

That’s what made the game unique, the ability to tag your teammate (whether that was player 2 or you playing as a fresh dude) to get them in with a fresh set of health, ready to flip the tables on your hopefully weakened opponent before they get to their partner to tag.

The neat thing was that your teammate slowly regained health when they weren’t being used, so you could outlast your opponent that way if you did it effectively enough.

Different moves were easy enough to toggle through and select once you had someone in a grab, and the more spectacular and damaging moves required faster reflexes to get to, but they were very satisfying if you were able to get them off.

If you hit a guy too close to the side of the ring, you’d both be flung out where you could generally smack them in the head with a waiting chair or even better pull the wonderfully satisfying cheap move of knocking them down just before the 10 second out of the ring time limit was up, returning to the ring safely yourself before time expired for an instant win. This was a nice move to heavily lean on in the later matches when your opponents became more and more difficult to pin though conventional means.

The further you went through the game, the bigger the digital trophies you got as you got closer and closer to the final championship, which always provided a ton of incentive for me to keep playing and see how far I could get. Good times.

8 – Tecmo Super Bowl

With respect to 10 Yard Fight, when you want some basic pick up and play football, look no further than Tecmo Super Bowl for the NES. Note that I’m putting Techmo Super Bowl over Tecmo Bowl as it’s basically the same game, just a slightly updated and superior version with twice the amount of plays to choose from (that’s right… 8!), the ability to call time outs, and twice the amount of images and short cut scenes that the original had.

The game was a big deal at the time because it was one of the first games to have accurate and up to date NFL rosters for every team and even used the 1991 NFL schedule. Going one step further, the game was realistic in its treatment of each player in that the most skilled players at the time had the best stats. A lot of kids have either fond or terrible memories of watching Bo Jackson leave his defenders in the dust as he went for 6 time and time again. This is a good time to mention that Tecmo Super Bowl was also a great multiplayer game and the source of a lot of broken friendships.

And despite all of the feature updates, as I mentioned in opening, the game is still incredibly simple to pick up and play. There were just a handful of plays, either run or pass (plus special teams), and switching between players to pass to as the quarterback was quick and responsive.

What’s also notable about Tecmo Super Bowl is that it remains one fo the few NES era games which enjoys relevance today for new generations of gaming fans. The game is the target of a lot of modding in order to update rosters to match those of current teams, and the game has a strong online gaming following with modded Tecmo Super Bowl tournaments being commonplace.

7 – NES Open Tournament Golf

Many of the NES made “sports” themed games from the salad days were well made and had tons of reply value, and NES Open Tournament Golf is our first Nintendo developed offering on this list.

Mario has dabbled in a lot of sports over the years with varying levels of success. And while I’d argue that Tennis might be his best sport, golf is certainly up there and this was his first outing with the sport.

I acknowledge that golf games aren’t for everyone (think Lee Trevino’s Putting Challenge.. “Your ball is in… parking lot”) but I’ve known a few good ones over the years. Mean 18 when I was a toddler, playing with my grandpa, some random games my brother had in the 90’s for the PC, and later the Tiger Woods craze in the early to mid 2000’s when all my friends were playing TW05’.

But this is a fun yet simple golf game which is pretty straightforward and approachable. There are only three courses between US, Europe, and Japan, there are only a certain number of clubs to take with you, and the mechanics couldn’t be simpler. Too much lag on a swing and you hook, too little and you slice.

It’s the simplicity which made the game fun and slightly addictive I admit. Plus you won prize money in their tournament mode, and it was tons of fun walking a huge stack of cash into the bank and depositing it with the gorilla teller (just like real life!), cos why not trust your winnings to a gorilla?

Was that a nod to DK, btw? Was that meant to be obvious? Because he didn’t look like DK to me…

6 – Ice Hockey

Another Nintendo entry on this top 10 NES sports games list, Ice Hockey is another straightforward offering of a popular sport.

Unlike Tecmo Super Bowl, there aren’t a lot of customization options and you won’t find up to date rosters. And (with the inclusion of USSR), you won’t even find up to date teams.

Instead, you make your team of 4 players up using three types of players: fat, medium, and skinny. Each type has their own obvious strengths and weaknesses. Fat guys have a huge, Happy Gilmore like shot and can throw their weight around to win skirmishes on the ice and claim the puck but they’re super slow. Medium guys are balanced and have a decent shot in terms of velocity and decent weight to throw around in a fight and are a bit faster than the heavy guys, and the skinny guys as you’d expect are super quick but don’t put a lot of mustard (to use a hockey term) on the puck.

Everything in this game is fun and cartoony from the players to the music to everyone’s favorite part the cute little zamboni which comes out after the second period. The game play isn’t really precise, in fact it’s a miracle if anyone on the team ever tallies an assist (not that the game would keep track of it). There isn’t much strategy involved, instead it’s more just drive the puck ahead with one player and try not to get mobbed on the way.

Plus when tensions boil over there is the occasional brawl which was always fun. It’s always fun to side challenge yourself to get as many of your players in the box at once as possible.

The one common point which anyone who doesn’t appreciate this game complains about is that the d-pad controls both your current skater as well as the goalie at the same time. You can give up some bad goals simply by forgeting to turn your attention to the goalie when the other team is near, but really that juggling just adds to the challenge of the game.

It’s great 1 vs. 1 or against the computer and the games are so short that you can fit one in whenever you have some downtime and the premise rarely gets stale.

The AI is even pretty good for an early NES game, making it difficult to run up the score or even dominate your computer opponent. You can keep your NHL 1X’ whatever year it is; I’ll take NES Ice Hockey every damn time.

5 – Skate or Die

Skate or Die always had an especially kind of “cool” rep as a kid. Released just as skateboarding was really taking on in popular culture, Skate or Die plays on the extreme and ridiculous nature of extreme sports, even if it’s just skateboarding.

In it, you and a friend (and as an aside this is another game which is infinitely more fun with at least another player) compete in five different skateboarding themed events: pipe freestyle, vertical height challenge, inner city obstacle dodging/enemy kicking, downhill skating, and finally everyone’s favorite in the pool joust.

You can take on events inidividually or you can enter to compete in all 5. Through registering a player by their name, you could add inifinite friends to compete against to see who could get the best score in each event.

The freestyle, jam, and pool joust were the highlights. The latter involved just that; two skaters trying to knock each other off of their skateboards and onto the hard concrete of an empty swimming pool via jousting sticks ala American Gladiators. It was as ridiculous and awesome as it sounds.

The developers put out a vastly different and underwhelming sequel under the game name, trying to introduce a lame narrative while keeping a couple of the familiar characters from the first game, but it was pretty bad. Why they decided to fix what was never broken, I’ll never know, but the original stands as one of the NES’ more memorable titles, sports or otherwise.

4 – Baseball Simulator 1000

In what is likely the most controversial entry on this list, Baseball Simulator 1000 comes in at number 4 on the list of the 10 best NES games of all time.

For my money it’s easily the best baseball game because it offers players two ways to enjoy video game baseball. For the purists, it’s a straight ahead and well designed baseball game. The pitcher pitches from the top of the screen down to the batter in the conventional batter box positioning. The controls are tight and responsive and it features MLB teams.

For the thrill seekers out there, Baseball Simulator 1000 offers a novel tweak on the standard baseball video game model by offering dozens of point consuming super moves. These moves exist in all phases of the game: batting, pitching, and fielding, and it’s ridiculously fun.

On offense you can dial up a tremor hit which freezes all players in the field for a few seconds. There are special hits which make it near impossible for the fielder to catch the ball even with perfect positioning. Of course the move is only good if you make solid contact, otherwise it’s a waste of points.

Pitchers have a number of interesting pitches which are near impossible to hit, from balls which stop and freeze for a second on command to fireballs which break the batter’s bat.

The outfield moves are the most difficult to pull off and effectively use, but potentially are the most amazing. If you could pull off a rocket jump in the outfield at the wall to come down with what would otherwise be a home run, you were a made man among your friends.

And because the points are finite, each player has to be economical with their points and use them sparingly when they need them most either on offensve or defense. This adds an additional layer of strategy to an already incredibly competitive game.

And best of all, the customization options are all there, so you can edit an existing team from scratch, changing players’ names, stats, and special moves on both sides of the ball.

When it comes down to it, I see this as a basic baseball game which would already be the equal to any of the roughly dozen baseball games available on the system with MLB teams, season and pennant race modes, but with the added bonus of a completely different and superior way to play if you want it.

In what is likely the most controversial entry on this list, Baseball Simulator 1000 comes in at number 4 on the list of the 10 best NES games of all time.

For my money it’s easily the best baseball game because it offers players two ways to enjoy video game baseball. For the purists, it’s a straight ahead and well designed baseball game. The pitcher pitches from the top of the screen down to the batter in the conventional batter box positioning. The controls are tight and responsive and it features MLB teams.

For the thrill seekers out there, Baseball Simulator 1000 offers a novel tweak on the standard baseball video game model by offering dozens of point consuming super moves. These moves exist in all phases of the game: batting, pitching, and fielding, and it’s ridiculously fun.

On offense you can dial up a tremor hit which freezes all players in the field for a few seconds. There are special hits which make it near impossible for the fielder to catch the ball even with perfect positioning. Of course the move is only good if you make solid contact, otherwise it’s a waste of points.

Pitchers have a number of interesting pitches which are near impossible to hit, from balls which stop and freeze for a second on command to fireballs which break the batter’s bat.

The outfield moves are the most difficult to pull off and effectively use, but potentially are the most amazing. If you could pull off a rocket jump in the outfield at the wall to come down with what would otherwise be a home run, you were a made man among your friends.

And because the points are finite, each player has to be economical with their points and use them sparingly when they need them most either on offensve or defense. This adds an additional layer of strategy to an already incredibly competitive game.

And best of all, the customization options are all there, so you can edit an existing team from scratch, changing players’ names, stats, and special moves on both sides of the ball.

When it comes down to it, I see this as a basic baseball game which would already be the equal to any of the roughly dozen baseball games available on the system with MLB teams, season and pennant race modes, but with the added bonus of a completely different and superior way to play if you want it.

3 – Rad Racer

With just Nintendo made sports games from here on out, at number 3 we have Rad Racer, Nintendo’s answer to Outrun (or was it the other way around)?

Rad Racer is a wonderfully straightforward racing game with everything it needs to lodge number 3 overall: an excellent soundtrack (note that it’s only 3 tracks, but at least two of them are that good), tight yet simple controls and handling, and sleek (for their time) graphics.

The player races against a counting down clock in 8 exotic locales, needing to hit checkpoints before time expires to reach the end. To make things difficult are increasingly twisty roads and obstacles on the sides which will flip your ride and drop your speed to zero as well as a variety of other motorists who increasingly seem to exist solely to move you to curse out your television and toss your controller.

There’s a ton of replay value in this game, and while it’s easy to pick up and play and beat the first couple of levels, later on you need to have near flawless runs to complete this game.

They released a sequel to Rad Racer a few years later which didn’t really improve on anything, (really there was nothing to pick apart in the first place). The original stands on its own as being one of the best straightforward racers ever made.

Now before I move on let me end this by giving a big #@@ you to Lucas for even suggesting that the barely operational Power Glove can be used effectively for Rad Racer (or any other game for that matter).

2 – Excitebike

Motocross doesn’t seem to me the most obvious sport to base an NES launch title around, but nothing was obvious in the relatively unmolded world of game development at the time. As I just alluded to, Excitebike was one of the launch titles for the NES and it’s one of those games which everyone has fond memories of.

From the tight controls to that classic intro theme music, this game was a lot of fun to pick up and play. You could choose between five different levels (which had slight variations depending on how you placed) and could choose to race alone or against CPU riders.

There were a dozen or so obstacles in each course, from ramps to give you a speed boost and send you soaring through the air to rough patches, speed bumps, and hills you had to navigate carefully around or through. There was a decent amount of skill involved, managing your engine temperature and navigating through the different obstacles and riders to beat the posted necessary time to place first and advance.

In addition to the basic racing modes, the game boasted a very impressive course creation and editer feature where players could design their own course by using as many of the existing obstacles in the game as they liked. This allowed players to create the equivalent of a school zone within a shopping center within a residential area with nothing but speed bumps and rough patches or conversely design their own autobahn with nothing but zip strips.

The only thing missing was the inclusion of a two player mode to race against a friend either on your own course or the existing courses, but either way this game stands as one of the most fun sports games on the NES which still holds up today.

1 – Punch Out

Topping this list of the 10 best NES sports games of all time, Punch Out created a feeling that honestly no other game on the NES could match.

You play as the ultimate, REALLY shouldn’t be allowed to box against 99% of his competition underdog, Little Mac. Like seriously, some of his opponents have 300 pounds on him… how the hell did referee Mario allow that?

Like most of the games on this list, the controls were simple yet effective. “B” was left jab, “A” was right jab. Holding up while you did it aimed for the face instead of the gut and you could dodge with left and right. If you hit your opponent at just the right time you’d earn an uppercut which you could use on demand, sometimes to knock down an opponent when used at key moments. The uppercut could be used effectively to sometimes even knock out an opponent altogether.

The only aspect of the controls which was a bit rough and they fixed in the follow up for the SNES was ducking. You had to double tap down on the d-pad to duck which was difficult enough when you didn’t need to deliver it at just the right time. Thankfully you only had to pull it out to defend against one or two moves and otherwise you likely never used it unless you just wanted to show an utter and palpable disdain for your opponent’s abilities.

Thirty plus years after its release, hooking this game up to your 60” television with surround sound still has the capacity to deliver an arcade like jolt of excitement within you every time you knock out your opponent or pull out a dramatic finish, knocking down your opponent the third time after they’ve had you against the ropes.

It’s one of the few games for the NES which made you feel like you were in that ring opposite your opponent, and it stands as one of the best games for the NES, sports or otherwise.

Welp, there you have it. The 10 best NES sports games of all time. Let me know how wrong I am in the comments section below!

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