If you could only own & play 1 single Famicom/NES game...

[Phosphora]

Which title would it be and why? Can be any region, any format. Doesn't matter if it's official, pirate, hack or homebrew. The only exclusion would be a multi-cart!  (But you may choose a title only available on a multi-cart)
No runner-ups or honorable mentions, try your very best to boil down your choice to a single unique title.


For me it's an easy choice, Summer Carnival '92 RECCA. It's the true granddaddy of the modern bullet-hell shmup genre, and I'm still amazed to this very day that such a fast-paced chaotic shmup game is actually running on stock Famicom hardware.

[wholesalewatch648]

gimmick for sure. why? its endless fun."well seemingly endless"

[L___E___T]

I would have to say Super Mario Bros. 3 

It's got most of what I'd want long term - solid gameplay, mixed difficulty, lots of variety between levels and power ups, single player, two player, competitive, cooperative, great music and visuals to boot.  Perhaps the best replay ability on the system?

[Cheetahmen]

Probably the Tengen version of Ms. Pac-Man. It has a lot of options for a NES game which gives it a lot of replayability and early arcade games are generally my favourites. I could probably say the same for the Mega Drive and SNES in spite of some of the great games on those systems as well.

[Nightstar699]

Hoshi No Kirby. My favorite game, tons of content, replayability, extras, and terrific graphics and sound... that being said, I'd miss all my other games so badly.

[Phosphora]

Some interesting games mentioned so far.

I have never played or seen gameplay of Mr. Gimmick before. I always assumed it was just in demand because of rarity. After watching a video I also look forward to playing this game.

Tengen Ms.Pacman: Lots of diverse options, seems like a really cool plus to an already classic game.

Hoshi no Kirby: A really fun game that I hope we all played as a kid.

[BonBon]

Splatter house famicom

[Phosphora]

Splatter house famicom

This shall be your grave.
I wonder why this wasn't released in the US?

[nerdynebraskan]

Damn. I honestly don't think I could ever narrow my collection to one game. I like too many styles of games: platformers, puzzles, shooters, arcade-style action.

It's definitely a damn shame that we didn't get Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti for the NES. There's a few likely reasons, though:

1) Namco didn't have a great presence on the NES to begin with. Virtually all of their games that did get imported were picked up by third-parties. For instance, we only got Galaga because Bandai published it here. I read something about Namco and Nintendo not having a great business relationship recently, but I don't know a lot about that.

2) The game has many overt parodies, such as the Zombie Michael Jackson as the first boss. He even dances to an 8-bit Midi rendition of "Thriller." As I understand it, Japanese copyright law is far less strict compared to the US. It's possible no one wanted to publish the game here, and risk copyright infringement lawsuits from the respective American media corporations (like Jackson's record label, to stick with the example already given).

[Mo-hd]

Hmmmm ... 

I think Captain Tsubasa Vol. II Super Striker.
the game is unique, from the characters and the story line to the gameplay and the cinematic clips. 

[80sFREAK]

Tweaked Family Basic.

[manuel]

Tetris (NES, not Famicom version)

Always good for a round of fun.

[Protoman]

Definately Super Mario Bros 3. Possibly Tetris, but I'll settle on Mario 3.

[UglyJoe]

Tetris 2 + Bombliss

Tetris is pretty much the best game every made, so I have to go with Tetris.

[jpx72]

Rockman 1!

I can play this game over and over again. And why? Don't really know, I loved this game all my life, and it is quite a while. I know all the levels so good so I think I can draw them from memory And I love the music so I play it sometime just to listen to it for a while.
It's the legend that started the whole Rockman/Megaman madness!

I just downloaded it to my 3DS to play on my journeys, so yes, when I will be given the choice to keep only one of my carts, I have a clear winner. I also love the colour and artwork of the famicom cart!