Jeff Gerstmann has finally finished his marathon mission to play and rank the entire NES library, a project that ran for roughly three years and produced more than 350 hours of archived video.
The veteran games journalist and Giant Bomb co-founder wrapped up the effort through his independent outlet, The Jeff Gerstmann Show, before capping it off with a friendly morning TV segment on Canadian broadcaster CTV.
The whole quest reportedly started from a single viewer mail question asking whether the NES library was actually any good. Gerstmann answered it the hard way.
Gerstmann played and ranked hundreds of original-era North American NES releases from roughly 1985-1994, including licensed classics, arcade ports, sports games, RPGs, obscure shovelware, and unlicensed oddities like Wisdom Tree’s Bible Adventures.
The top of the list
In first place, Gerstmann placed Mega Man 2, a defensible pick praised for its tight controls and legendary soundtrack.
Bionic Commando landed in second, recognized for its grappling-arm traversal and Capcom polish.
The biggest talking point sits in sixth: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The often-divisive Zelda black sheep got serious love from Gerstmann, far higher than its usual reputation suggests.
Rygar rounded out a surprise top 10 entry in eighth.
Further down the list, things get spicy. Super Mario Bros. 3 reportedly placed below the original Super Mario Bros. The original Final Fantasy sits in the 170s. Bubble Bobble landed at 208, Dr. Mario at 394, and the infamously broken Harlem Globetrotters game somehow ended up beneath Bible Adventures.
Gerstmann is reportedly moving on to the Nintendo 64 library next. That one hits closer to home for him: He was one of the first major reviewers to give Ocarina of Time a perfect score at GameSpot. The N64 catalog is smaller, but Superman 64 is still out there waiting.
