Gadgetory

the year is 1987 and Nintendo continues to dominate the home console market despite now getting some competition from the Sega Master System which does offer more powerful hardware but nowhere near as strong of a game library this year we also saw sequels to some of 86's best games that just didn't live up to the originals and we saw a few more of today's biggest franchises get their start so here are the best games of 1987 first up is the original Double Dragon natchez R if you grew up in the 80s you probably spend a lot of time in arcades busting heads open left and right with baseball bats in this classic side-scrolling beat'em up which is exactly what makes this game so important Double Dragon introduced us to the side-scrolling beat-em-up genre as we know it today bringing us a style of game where you're not just simply punching and kicking bad guys but you're using their own weapons against them you're listening to an awesome soundtrack and you get so caught up and gratuitous violence that you're not even sure when you're supposed to move on until the game tells you to well you could do this all by yourself the game was at its absolute best when tackling it in two-player co-op especially when you've survived four stages of random mooks throwing themselves at you to die only to find out that the final boss is each other next up is the original Metal Gear now I sense some of you are pulling back and you might be saying to yourselves middle gear on the NES sucked which is true Metal Gear on the NES was terrible because it was a stripped-down weaker version of the original game on the msx2 which only came out in Japan and Europe see the original game made stealth matter because if you got caught you'd be swarmed by enemies pouring in from off screen and the only way to end it would be to kill everybody or go to a whole new area meanwhile the NES version didn't do this at all and only had the game's lighter alert mode which wasn't nearly as challenging it also screwed up by butchering the game's level design and replacing the final boss of badass mech called Metal Gear the very thing the game's named after and replaces it with four dudes with guns guarding a super computer this version was so bad that the creator Hideo Kojima disowned it himself sadly we weren't able to experience the real version of this game when it was originally least but it was made available as a side game in Metal Gear Solid 3 subsistence and part of the HD collection now number three is this upstanding gentleman right here how Bob Canada the mother okay Mike Tyson's punch-out put you in the shoes of Little Mac the scrappy underdog working his way up the ranks to be the best boxer in the world now this is based on the arcade series that did have a very different visual style but the NES version gained a lot of popularity thanks to an endorsement by Mike Tyson what's really cool about this game is that it's really a puzzle game cleverly disguised as a fighting game requiring players to memorize moves and recognize patterns to beat their opponents which the game pushes to the limit with its bullshit of a final boss fight we're blocking isn't even really an option because you get tired immediately and you're just gonna get rekt three years after its original release they dropped Mike Tyson's name from the title and replaced him as the final boss with mr. dream nowadays you'll hear some people say that oh it's because he had criminal allegations but that was actually two years later the real reason for the change was because he lost the heavyweight title and Nintendo's contract for three years went up and didn't see the need to renew it next up is Wonder Boy in monster land this was a sequel to the original Wonder Boy in arcades which was a pretty traditional side-scrolling action platformer Monsterland changed this up though by taking influence from recent RPG successes like Dragon Quest adding very simple RPG mechanics to the formula players would now start off as a near-naked wonderboy who over the course of his adventure could save up money to buy and build up all kinds of useful equipment like armor shield's boots and useful consumables like bombs and potions this game is a terrific example of taking a very simple core gameplay mechanic adding just a little depth and creating a wonderfully replayable adventure giving players plenty of hidden runes shops and side quests to complete that could increase their chances against the game's final boss mecha dragon and would help to make all the simplicity more difficult and an Adam Moore arcade vibe is that the whole thing is timed you're slowly losing health as time passes so you can never just hang around grinding for items instead you have to get through the whole game as efficiently as possible especially in arcades if you don't want to end up pouring tons of quarters in this game's success in the arcade led to it being ported to the master system a year later becoming one of the few truly standout titles on the system now last but far from released is the original Final Fantasy putting you in control of a party of four heroes who you can name and pick classes for as you wish funny enough though the game was actually at its absolute easiest if you just ran through it with a party of four fighters giving zero fucks now obviously Final Fantasy is one of today's biggest franchises but what's really interesting about that is how this series started the reason why the first game was called Final Fantasy is because Squaresoft thought it was going to be the last game they ever made because they assumed they were going to go bankrupt but the game sold so incredibly well that it launched them into a new level of success where over time they not only became one of the largest companies but they also bought out most of their major competition such as Enix who was responsible for Dragon Quest what's really interesting to note too is how the original Final Fantasy was very much based on traditional Western fantasy tropes containing things like elves dwarves fighting the undead all kind of stuff that you would see from something like Lord of the Rings but as time went on and more games were released the series started to adopt more of its own new tropes and ideas that turned it into something that's very unrecognizable from the original game so those were the best games of 1987 if there's any you loved that didn't get mentioned make sure to let me know down in the comments below as always guys if you enjoyed the video hit that thumbs up button to let me know as well as subscribe so you don't miss out on the next video talking about 1988 and I'll see you guys later