My Dadgum Top 100 Games of All Time (100-98)

And Why I Like'em

Hey you cool person.

This is my attempt at creating a fun Substack newsletter. It’s mostly an excuse for me to have some sort of creative writing output. So, whatever tickles the ol’ fancy will head your way if you sign up! Instead of a big “get to know me” post, I’m going to share my top 100 video games of all time with you, a few at a time for as long as it takes to finish. I’ll try to spice it up a bit with historical anecdotes and the like, and hopefully you’ll enjoy reading the write-ups as much as I enjoy making them.

First up!

100. Mickey Mousecapade (NES)

Released in 1987 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Mickey Mousecapade is a decent little platformer starring Mickey and Minnie. They’re on a quest to save Alice (from Alice in Wonderland, obviously) from… well, we’ll get there. The US version of the game doesn’t have time for details, as you’re only rescuing “a friend” according to the manual. And, from the box art, the main villain appears to be Peg-leg Pete. But guess what? He ain’t the guy.

Mechanically, the game is a fairly straightforward early platformer. You control Mickey (Minnie follows along and copies your movements) as you dodge enemies, shoot stars at sometimes-familiar Disney foes — such as the mops Fantasia Mickey brought to life — and travel through stereotypical game worlds to get to the boss and save Alice. There are five levels: the Fun House, the Ocean, the Forest, the Pirate Ship, and the Castle. Outside of the Forest’s gimmick (you have to enter the correct doors in the right order or the game spits you out at the beginning of the level), there’s not much to it.

Sometimes an owl creature will swoop by and steal Minnie, in which case you have to play a “find the thing” style mini-game to rescue her. And it’s really important to keep her with you at all times. She’s invulnerable to damage and, when you have the star weapon, SHE gets it too. You can jankily maneuver her around levels to keep Mickey out of danger while she wails on the bad guy without getting a scratch on her. Honestly, she’s up there with Kefka and Kirby as the most powerful characters in all of video games. She does have one glaring flaw in that, if she falls into a pit, it kills her AND Mickey. Try not to do that.

So, the big tease earlier about who the main villain is. Who would you think is the most likely character to have it in for either Mickey/Minnie Mouse or Alice in Wonderland? Well, whoever you’re thinking of is wrong, because it’s Maleficent for some reason. In the US version. In the Japanese version, which seems to have actually tried to make a little sense, it’s the Queen of Hearts.

Once you beat her you walk through the doorway and rescue Alice, who is chilling out under a tree, in the middle of an open field. I like to think she could have easily walked away at any moment, but she knew you were busy fighting pirate cats, so she stayed put and giggled to herself. Real cool, Alice.

I have a strange fondness for this game. It’s one of the earliest games I remember playing, and it took me years to finally finish it. Yes, it’s not great. But it is good. With the pedigree of Hudson Soft (who were contracted out by Capcom), it’s a charming little time waster. Nostalgia is doing a lot of heavy lifting, but that’s going to be the case for many games on this list.

Popular media released around the same time:

• GAMES: Contra, Bionic Commando

• MOVIES: Good Morning, Vietnam, The Naked Gun

• TV: The Wonder Years, The Simpsons

• MUSIC: Father Figure by George Michael, Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson

99. Tecmo’s Secret of the Stars (SNES)

PLEASE DON’T DISCREDIT MY ENTIRE LIST BECAUSE OF THIS. Remember how Mickey Mousecapade was a good game released by a good developer? Tecmo’s Secret of the Stars is a bad game released by a good developer. Tecmo were known for sharp platforming in Ninja Gaiden, classic puzzling in Solomon’s Key, and American football action in Tecmo Bowl, so naturally they'd try their hand at another genre - JRPGs. I’m ultimately glad they did, because for as rough as Secret of the Stars is, I kinda love it.

The incidental charm is off the charts for me. The graphics are basically NES-tier. I seem to remember reading that it was intended to be an NES game but would have released so far along in the NES’s life cycle that it was ported over to the Super Nintendo. I can’t find that source, so don’t quote me on it. The characters have bland names like Ray. Tina. Dan. AND CODY. A JRPG protagonist named Cody. What in the world?

Everything about the structure of the game is boilerplate Dragon Quest. You fight a ton of enemies (and late-game I do mean a TON) to gain levels so you can beat the next boss. Rinse and repeat. It does add a neat, slightly annoying party switching mechanic, though. Besides your main crew — known as Aqutallion (note: Aqutallion is also the Japanese title of the game) — there is a secondary crew called Kustera whose members you collect throughout the journey. Certain passageways and chests can only be accessed with Kustera characters, so you unfortunately have to keep them leveled up along with your main party.

Your Aqutallion and Kustera heroes embark on a journey to stop the evil HOMNCRUSE. Which brings me to one of the best and worst aspects of the game… the English translation. Homncruse is Homunculus in the Japanese release. Many other words are misspelled throughout the text. Sentences sometimes make zero sense. And it’s all wonderful.

I do legitimately enjoy some aspects of the game. The music is simple-yet-pleasant, and the side quests and characters are weird in a great way. Like, in one town you fight a giant named Golan who is unkillable unless you use a graviton beam on him that shrinks him down into a little teddy bear. Then you proceed to destroy the poor guy. There’s a bad guy whose name is just Badbad. There’s a boxing sidequest. You literally do everything you can to avoid chasing after Homncruse. As someone who often veers off of the main quest and gets sucked into the petty squabbles of small towns named Beegees whose residents were turned into dogs by Mafia gangsters and the only way to save them is to find a pill that a priest tosses onto the ground, instantly turning the dogs back into humans… I appreciate it.

That’s Tecmo’s Secret of the Stars in a nutshell. A weird, kinda ugly, so-weirdly-bad-its-good RPG that will no-doubt frustrate you to the point of quitting after an hour. But I dug it.

Popular media released around the same time:

• GAMES: Secret of Mana released in the same year! And Doom! Come on, Tecmo.

• MOVIES: 1993 was the year of Jurassic Park and Mrs. Doubtfire

• TV: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

• MUSIC: In Utero by Nirvana, I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston

98. Paperboy (NES)

Paperboy is hilarious. And very difficult to a 5-year-old kid. I don’t think I ever played the game the way it was meant to be played. I just wanted to see the weird people doing weird things on their lawns.

Backing up, Paperboy on NES is a port of the Atari arcade game of the same name. You play as the titular Paperboy and must toss newspapers to the subscribers on your paper route while avoiding old people who chase you down the street, dogs that break away from their leashes, guys doing strange leg exercises in their driveways, and, naturally, Death himself. You can also terrorize non-subscribers by smashing out their windows, or by smacking them directly in the face with a paper when they chase after you for smashing out their windows.

At the end of each level there’s an obstacle course that tests your bike riding and paper throwing skills. I was never good at this and only saw the finish line a few times. And I don’t think I ever gained subscribers. No, I was content to keep destroying private property on levels 1 and 2. It never really got old. There are maybe two musical tracks in the entire game and you’re listening to the main theme over and over for the majority of the gameplay. But, like with the theme from Bubble Bobble, I never tired of it. I still find myself humming the tune when I’m working on a project. Heck, I may even be humming it right now.

Is Paperboy a great game? Probably. There are a ton of sequels that improve upon the core gameplay of the original and those are super fun, but none of them ever captured the magic of the first installment. My cousins and I would play for hours, laughing hysterically when the Little Old Lady from Pasadena would crash her gokart into Paperboy. Or when we’d knock over the inexplicable gravestones some non-subscribers had in their yards. It’s pure, shallow fun and I urge you to check it out.

Popular media released around the same time:

• GAMES: Super Mario Bros. 2 and Mega Man 2 released in 1988!

• MOVIES: Willow and a bunch of stuff I never saw

• TV: Dino-Riders premiered in the same month. Did it last more than a season?

• MUSIC: Uhh… Sweet Child of Mine maybe? I forgot to look this up!

THAT’S ALL FOR NOW!

Thank you so much for reading! I truly hope you enjoyed this, because it is a joy for me to do these write-ups. I’ll get cracking on the next installment and (fingers crossed) I’ll get that posted up soon. If I receive any feedback, comments, or questions about the games I’ll absolutely post and answer them in the next newsletter.

Until next time…