The 3 best NES games
Ranked by the scores that magazines gave these games when they came out. The list draws on 2,505 review scores of 983 NES games; 273 of them have enough reviews to be ranked.
| # | Game | Platform | Year | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Super Mario Bros. 3 | NES | 1988 | 97.4 |
| 2 | Mega Man 2 | NES | 1988 | 93 |
| 3 | Blaster Master | NES | 1988 | 90.2 |
Highly rated, with fewer than 3 reviews
7 NES games have a score of 90 or more, but from only one or two reviews, and no Metacritic score.
| # | Game | Platform | Year | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miracle Piano Teaching System | NES | 1990 | 96 | |
| Dragon Quest III: Soshite Densetsu e... | NES | 1988 | 95 | |
| Dragon Quest IV: Michibikareshi Monotachi | NES | 1990 | 92 | |
| Super Sprint | NES | 1989 | 92 | |
| Prince of Persia | NES | 1992 | 91 | |
| Final Fantasy II | NES | 1988 | 90 | |
| Final Fantasy III | NES | 1990 | 90 |
How the ranking works
- The scores are the ones magazines gave when the games came out, all converted to a 0–100 scale. Only one review per magazine counts for a game: the most recent.
- A game's score is half the average, half the median of its magazine reviews. A title opens the game's page on uvlist.net; a score opens the report with every review behind it.
- A game needs at least 3 magazine reviews to be ranked. With equal scores, the game with more reviews comes first.
- Metacritic already sums up many reviews, so it is never mixed with the magazines: it is used only for games with fewer than 3 magazine reviews, as their only score.
- Each list shows every game with a score of 90 or more. Games with fewer than 3 reviews and no Metacritic score are shown apart: their score is promising, but rests on one or two opinions.
The lists are rebuilt each time reviews are added. To filter by genre, year, magazine or publisher, explore all the scores in the report.
More lists
Best 3rd generation (8-bit) console games Master System All the lists