gdgt

Ninja Gaiden I and River City Ransom are my favorites.

Super Tecmo Bowl!

Like the 1st NFL Game with a real season, stats, injuries, etc.

Probably one of the most revolutionary sports games of all time.

Also gotta love the orignal Tecmo Bowl with Bo Jackson and Walter Payton!

Duck Hunt Mario combo = lots of fun trying to shoot that laughing dog

River City Ransom, Castlevania and Legend of Zelda were my top three. All of them still hold up as excellent games, regardless of the lack of current gen graphics and sound.

There are way too many games for this system to pick a best one. With no relation to this topic whatsoever, I do play Super Mario Bros. 3 the most on this system even to this day.....

The Legend of Zelda

Contra

Castlevania

Super Mario Brothers

These are in no particular order. Any one of these games could be an all time favorite, depending on the day I'm asked.

The funniest game was the Olympic one, so long i don't even remember, but it had the pad that two people could play on. It was funnier then anything watching my dad and uncle, both over 200lbs, doing the hurdle event. The whole house was shaking. anyway i would say duck hunt and dr mario were my favorites.

Definitely Contra! Tetris brings me a lot of good memories, but I think it was more awesome on the Gameboy.

while the original final fantasy or crystalis games might be considered my actual favorite games... if i went purely by actual time spent i would have to go with tecmo bowl as well as some of you posting before me. we would settle disputes over anything and everything by popping that game in. Heck, if someone beats me bad on Madden 08 on the Wii, I pop over to tecmo bowl still and give them a pounding.

Yo noid, Battletoads, Bubble Bobble and Marble Madness. I still have many more but i always go back to these games.

I'd say Super Mario Bros. 3 then Zelda 1 then Dr.Mario then Super Mario Bros. They are my favorites.

I'm going to go with the original Final Fantasy. Awesome game. Between it and Mario, I killed a lot of hours in my youth.

castlevainia hands down my favorite game

Battletoads, and the subsequent Battletoads: Double Dragon (which I argue to be superior to the original), hands down.

For me it will always be Super Mario Brothers. Being able to play at home the same game I was playing in the arcade was a HUGE plus in my young eyes.

Battletoads or Super Mario 3.

Really hard decision, so I am going to go with a 5 way tie. Zelda / Punch Out / Super Mario 3 / Contra / Castlevana

All good games posted so far. I have to point out, though, that naming the BEST game for a system isn't exactly the same as naming your FAVORITE game for the system. Sometimes we might even hate the game that we can honestly admit, all things considered, was the best in terms of being the best use of the system's resources.

Having said that, I must admit that, while Contra is my absolute favorite, I would vote Bionic Commando as the BEST game on the system. It is also in my top 5 favorites, but I can recognize it as being BETTER than some of my other favorites for the following reasons:

- one of the most innovative games of its time (a platformer with NO JUMP?!)
- good graphics (superb use of the limitations of the NES color palette)
- good music and sound effects
- clever boss designs
- good balance of difficulty (you could actually beat it without cheats if you played it enough, unlike MANY other NES games of this time)
- mixed in top-down view for variety
- puzzle-solving elements (choosing right items for stages)
- one of the best NES endings to date (managed to get through NES censorship!)
- none of Capcom's attempts at remakes or sequels has ever matched the original

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but that's my take.