Back to the Future

Based off the successful late 1980s film franchise, this game is one of the only two NES games to be considered some of the worst games of all time, with Friday the 13th being the other one. Once you get the hang of the controls, the game can actually be quite fun.

So the plot is this: Marty McFly ends up in 1955 and must ensure that his parents get together, or else he will cease to exist. The main focus involves Marty walking nonstop a road to collect clocks to prevent a picture of him fading away from existence that would symbolize his own erase from existence. There are obstacles in the game that can trip him up and cost him a life but there are power-ups such as a skateboard for increased speed and bowling balls to destroy some obstacles. But, despite being able to increase the player's speed, the skateboard power-up is dangerous because it makes it harder to dodge obstacles.

Every normal stage is identical, despite it being palette-swaps. The walking levels are the bulk of the game, 15 stages total. There are no checkpoints during the levels, or continues.

The game is barely faithful to the movie by any means necessary. Marty looks nothing like he did in the film, as he wears a black sleeveless shirt (walking stages) and a blue suit (guitar stage) in the game instead of the blue denim jacket below an orange vest he wears in the movie. This might have been caused by a limitation of the NES system (the NES was limited to three colors for a sprite), but couldn't they have made it so that he at least wore an orange shirt, hair, and shoes, as well as his blue jacket, to make him look more like he has his famous vest? At least the Guitar stage is the most loyal scene to the movie, it even features George and Lorraine kissing at the end. After beating the guitar stage, you don't need to worry about the picture fading anymore, though you can still collect clocks for a better score.

The only songs that play through the majority of the game are an incredibly sped-up and warped remix of "The Power of Love" that gets very annoying real fast, as well as a similarly butchered cover of "Johnny B. Goode" in the second-to-last stage. It is possible those songs were deliberately twisted so as to avoid paying royalties to their use. In reality, a programming error resulted in the music's tempo playing faster than intended, which implies that the game was fricken rushed!

There are mini-games that occur in the game that must be completed to progress and follow the movie. These minigames provide a nice break from the main game. Ironically enough, the mini-games are more faithful to the movie than the rest of the game but are just horrendous. Except for the final, if you fail any of these mentioned mini-games, you have to redo the stage before the mini-game and then you are able to try the mini-game again.

• The first mini-game is throwing milkshakes at Biff's goons but the aiming is quite bad. You move up and down between eight or so planes and the milkshakes do throw straight, but the isometric perspective makes it very difficult to aim perfectly at each goon. To complete the stage you must defeat 50 of the goons before they reach the counter. If you know to aim for the heads of the bullies in the café, it will be less frustrating than before.
• The second mini-game involves blocking Lorraine (Marty's mom)'s kisses in the shape of hearts, by getting them to hit a beaker or book. If you miss just one, you must restart.
• The third mini-game involves catching musical notes with a guitar to a very sped up rendition of Johnny B. Goode. In AVGN's words: Johnny B. Goode on crack.
• The final mini-game involves getting the DeLorean to reach 88 miles per hour at the end of the stage while dodging lightning. That is the complete opposite of the movie scene in which Marty drives into a lightning bolt to reach 88 miles per hour in the DeLorean and generate the 1.21 gigawatts to travel back to the future to 1985 (which, by the way, is the climax of the movie). They managed to mess up the most iconic moment of the movie. Not only that, but if you fail this mini-game, you lose the entire game regardless of how many lives you had at the end of the game. Even though it doesn't make sense that you have to avoid lightning in the final stage, it provides a Great challenge, and the atmosphere is incredible. As for the ending, it consists of a single screen of text which teases the sequel.

This is one of those rare instances that a game is considered so bad it's good, or so bad it's horrendous. But wait till the next two parts...