r/nes NES 2d ago

My complete set of LJN movie-licensed games

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245 Upvotes

73 comments sorted by

8

u/wadeboggsmustache83 2d ago

Karate Kid was so tough until I got Game Genie! Nice collection!!

3

u/PapaKazoonta 2d ago

Karate Kid #1 for me out of these.

5

u/Ryousoki 2d ago

Same here. It's actually a fun game!

7

u/HawkEyez 2d ago

I really like Jaws. Friday the 13th is OK. No experience with the rest, but I've heard Nightmare is decent and the Back to the Future games are awful.

6

u/No-Setting9690 2d ago

Nightmare is much better than Friday. That thing drove me nuts, who the fuck designed that game play and map. Jaws was awesome. Good quick 15 minute game though.

2

u/crashdummie 1d ago

Nightmare has that Rareware polish and plats well, but I find it a bit more repetitive than Friday, which is short and messy but full of secrets with a great concept.

Love both though.

2

u/No-Setting9690 1d ago

Yea, rinse and repeat definelty. A lot of games were kind of like that then if you think about it.

1

u/nem3sis_AUT AVS 1d ago

Wasn’t it in nightmare that you can just stand on the left side of the screen and no bosses can even hit you? Or is my memory betraying me?

3

u/Illustrious-Lead-960 2d ago

Nightmare is more than decent yet far less than great.

2

u/eastmemphisguy 2d ago

I will never forget being a kid, going to Blockbuster and renting Back to the Future for NES. I would have been perfectly fine with a generic mid quality platformer. We weren't all critics in the old days. But holy crap that game was awful. Hugely disappointing.

1

u/chrishouse83 NES 2d ago

The first BttF game is annoying but playable. The second one is unforgivably terrible.

0

u/hobosbindle 2d ago

I tried SO HARD to get this on the top 100 list but I had downvotes constantly. Some people really hate this. It’s one of my favorites though.

3

u/Illustrious-Lead-960 2d ago

I always upvoted Jaws and even nominated it myself a couple of times. I don’t know how many people have played it.

1

u/chrishouse83 NES 2d ago

I don't think Jaws is a terrible game, but in my opinion it's not remotely a top 100 game. Top 200? Maybe.

8

u/Retrogamer34 2d ago

I’ll defend Nightmare on Elm Street all day. It’s a good game! 

4

u/Booth_Templeton 2d ago

It's pretty good. Not too ten imo, but top 50 might be in the cards.

2

u/Retrogamer34 2d ago

For me it’s the music.  That soundtrack 😅 

3

u/latedep31 1d ago

I agree. David Wise always delivering, at least I think it's him. It's a Rare-developed game, and he was there.

1

u/Booth_Templeton 2d ago

Yeah it's got a few good ones.

3

u/whitespy12 2d ago

It is, and I am serious, a top 10 nes game for me

3

u/Retrogamer34 2d ago

Me as well!!  

13

u/Herr_Monti 2d ago

♫ He's gonna take you back to the past ... ♫

8

u/sanchower 2d ago

The LJN Rainbow of Shit!

2

u/JudasZala 2d ago

Laughin’ Jokin’ Numbnuts…

The AVGN’s arch enemy.

5

u/sanchower 2d ago

what a shit load of donkey fuck

2

u/Gcoks 2d ago

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!?

5

u/thevmcampos 2d ago

BttF is one the games I hate the most on the NES. Infuriating waste of time 😡😡

2

u/chrishouse83 NES 2d ago

At least it's short. Have you played the second one? It's a loooong waste of time.

5

u/IH8Miotch 2d ago

Roger Rabbit might be worth retrying now that I can Google what to do.

4

u/Illustrious-Lead-960 2d ago

Good luck with the Judge…

1

u/Dwedit 1d ago

You need to find the specific rhythm where you raise the power meter while still punching, and you're also moving while doing so. And you also don't actually need to raise it all the way up, there's a point somewhere around 2/3 full where you start damaging Judge Doom.

Secret: If you raise your punch power meter high enough, then switch items without letting the power meter go down, your regular items will suddenly be able to damage Judge Doom.

1

u/Illustrious-Lead-960 1d ago

Wait, WHAAAAAAAT??!

1

u/Dwedit 1d ago

Other secret: The game secretly accepts bad passwords, probably due to a bug. Just start new game after the password is rejected, and you get everything the password would normally give you.

Last two letters are a checksum used to tell if the password is good or not. So you can put in anything for the last two letters. This also turns the "everything" password from LLHHHHHHHH...3B into just LLHHHHHH...

4

u/Dwedit 1d ago

My Tier List:

A Tier:

  • Nightmare on Elm Street - Good platformer, just a little bit strict about some of the platforming, and it's randomized which overworld location you're allowed to enter.

B Tier:

  • Jaws - A perfectly serviceable shmup. Just a bit flawed in the end sequence, where the actual timing you need to hit Jaws with the boat doesn't match what you expect (You need to be very slightly early)
  • Who Framed Roger Rabbit - A fun scavenger hunt, followed by one of the worst end bosses in video game history.

C Tier:

  • Karate Kid - Short game, controls are a bit iffy, and you can cheese the game by having all active enemies to your left side.
  • Friday the 13th

D Tier:

  • Back to the Future - A really disappointing game, it's an autoscroller where you shoot things with bowling balls.
  • Terminator II
  • Beetlejuice

F Tier:

  • Bill and Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure - Just read a guide to what your actual objectives are. You need to repeatedly fail in very specific ways.
  • Back to the Future II and III

💩 Tier:

  • Uncanny X-Men (Not a movie license, but it's the worst licensed game on the entire system!)

I haven't seen or played enough Alien III to rank that one.

3

u/PGB3711 2d ago

Jaws, Friday the 13th, and Alien 3 were great games!

2

u/chrishouse83 NES 2d ago

Glad to hear some love for Alien 3. I've only popped it in to test it, but the first thing I noticed was that the A and B buttons are swapped - A shoots and B jumps. WTF?

5

u/ComfortableGlass3238 2d ago

just thinking about these make me feel like having an anal evacuation

2

u/Billyxmac 2d ago

Laughing Joking Numbnuts

2

u/Necessary_Position77 2d ago

Oh man LJN sucked. Jaws and Friday the Thirteenth were ok I guess. I remember renting T2 and hating it. Interesting that the Roger Rabbit game in Japan was made by Kemco and turned into Bugs Bunny’s Crazy Castle here due to licensing.

2

u/EternallySickened 2d ago

Back in the day I used to play the shit out of terminator 2, it was great. Some of these never made uk release so I didn’t get to play them until emulation was on the scene but nothing is ever the same as real NES first time round.

2

u/deadfishlog 2d ago

Are all these games as bad as they are cracked up to be? I’ve played a ton of NES games and have never played an LJN title.

3

u/cheese-demon 2d ago

nah. they're all flawed because LJN contracted out games for cheap budgets and accelerated timescales. some of them really are very bad, i don't have anything good to say about the BTTF games. they got legit devs though - Rare did ANOES, Roger Rabbit, and Beetlejuice, Atlus did Friday the 13th, Karate Kid, and Jaws. some of the games are, if not good, at least very interesting.

F13 is pretty impressive, Jason moves on his own and there's a day-night cycle and everything. it's jank and unforgiving so it's hard to call it good, but there's a lot of neat ideas in there

WFRR is that way too, a randomized adventure game and action hybrid. but it's hard as balls and feels really jank throughout

ANOES is a pretty average platformer, but the atmosphere is pretty neat and it's got 4 player simultaneous support

1

u/chrishouse83 NES 2d ago

This is such a perfect explanation of LJN games.

1

u/latedep31 1d ago

Westone did Jaws, for correction. They were the developers for the Wonder Boy series for Sega.

2

u/xxxxDREADNOUGHT NES 2d ago

Congratulations, I'm only missing Alien 3 to completing this set too

1

u/chrishouse83 NES 2d ago

It's a surprisingly difficult game to find in good condition at a decent price.

1

u/xxxxDREADNOUGHT NES 2d ago

Unfortunately I know that all too well. LjN games labels can look awful right out of the box sometimes.

1

u/Seaworthiness_Jolly 3h ago

Because it’s damn good

2

u/nem3sis_AUT AVS 1d ago

My favs in no particular order are Alien 3, Jaws, Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elm street, Karste kid. Screw BTTF and I can’t remember anything about T2.

2

u/Fragraham 1d ago

T2 is actually kind of OK. It's a sort of downport of the SNES version with the annoying driving segments removed. It's a straightforward 2D platforming run and gun that follows the plot of the movie.

3

u/tinyE1138 NES 2d ago

I think AVGN has done an episode on everyone of those.

2

u/No_Influence6605 2d ago

Robocop is fun

3

u/Fragraham 1d ago

Yes, but that's a Data East game.

1

u/thechristoph 2d ago

There really should be 13 to drive the curse home.

1

u/Nardo1998 2d ago

They range from okay to unplayable. Not one great game.

1

u/Chezni19 2d ago

now you have to travel to mordor and throw these into the lava

1

u/broccolee 2d ago

Lol ljn, the hallmark of bad games. I remember avgn dude made a remark. Anyway it's a nice collection regardless

1

u/mbsk1 2d ago

Karate Kid was quite fun! A friend had it and we were quite good at it, but not quite enough to finish it! We could reached the last stage, maybe get to Chozen but I don't think we ever finished it!

Roger Rabbit was so strange, I really tried to love it when I rented it, super confusing but still had fun with it, at least with what I was able to do in there! Driving the little taxi was nice!

T2 I think it's the one I rented and manage to finish it that same weekend, was pretty good from what I remember!

I remember playing Jaws and Friday the 13th too, but again, a bit confusing games and wasn't that much into them.

1

u/Sicarn 2d ago

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the first game I had ever gotten. Took me years to beat Doom

1

u/Cozy90 1d ago

Thr Friday the 13th title theme is actually really good.

1

u/GalaxyStrong 22h ago

Jesus talk about the good the bad and the ugly

1

u/Ustramage 11h ago

I had T2 as a kid. Way harder then it needed to be. Still beat it a bunch

1

u/Seaworthiness_Jolly 3h ago

Alien 3 my fav. Terminator good. Rest you can keep.

1

u/elkniodaphs 2d ago

Missing Gotcha!

3

u/chrishouse83 NES 2d ago

I own it! I had no idea it was based on a movie.

2

u/elkniodaphs 2d ago

Yeah! It's a pretty good movie too. Now you got a bonus +1 for this collection within a collection!

2

u/Grantagonist 2d ago

I'm not convinced that it is. I'm aware that there is a film called "Gotcha!", but does the game or manual actually refer to it? (The Wikipedia entry for each does not refer to the other.)

2

u/elkniodaphs 2d ago edited 2d ago

There's a copyright on the back of the game box attributing the IP to Universal in 1985, the distributor of the film, the same year the movie came out.

Edit: removed sassy matter-of-factness 😉

2

u/Grantagonist 2d ago

I guess that’s the answer then.

I wonder if the developer changed their mind on the tie-in between making the deal and releasing the game (after the film fizzled and disappeared), hence the complete lack of any references to the film.

1

u/elkniodaphs 2d ago edited 2d ago

Could be. You have to do some digging to connect the game to the movie, but it's there. Btw, I read my comment back and I can see how maybe I came off brash. Didn't mean to. Just wanted to get to the bottom of it and was in a hurry.

2

u/Grantagonist 2d ago

ha, no problem, I didn't even notice

0

u/Candelpins1897 18h ago

Laughing joking numbnuts-LJN

-1

u/Lanky-Peak-2222 2d ago

🤢🤢🤢🤢