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How NEStalgia Works: The Essential Games List, Verdicts and Voting Rules

October 6, 2026 · Michael Esposito

NEStalgia is a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. We play one game per episode, in order of release, and a new episode comes out every Friday. If you've ever wondered what the badges on this site mean, who decides what is "essential," or why a game you love is marked Skip it, this page is for you.

One game per episode, in release order

Each episode digs into one game: where it came from, who made it, what the manual says, how it plays, and what we think of it today. The episode ends with a vote. On each episode page you'll find the show notes, the transcript, a Links tab for many episodes and, on a growing number of them, a written Review that sums up the episode's opinions and how the vote went.

The Essential Games List

The vote at the end of every episode asks one question: is this game still worth playing today? It is not "was it good in 1987?" History has already decided that. It is "if you have a modern console, a PC and a backlog a mile long, is it worth going back to the NES for this?"

Each host gives a final verdict. If enough of us say Essential, the game goes on the Essential Games List. Fewer than one game in ten that we've rated has made it, and it is the list we point to when someone asks where to start.

What the badges mean

  • Essential: the game cleared the vote and is on the list. It is worth playing today, full stop.
  • Play it: we'd tell you to give it a try, but it did not clear the vote for the list. Some Play it games were on the list at one point and came off at a year-end re-vote.
  • Skip it: we wouldn't send you back to it. The reasons vary, from "it's just bad" to "it's a fine game that another game does better."

The badge shows where a game stands today, which can differ from what happened on air, because the list gets revisited every year. The written Review on each episode explains the vote as it happened.

How the vote works today

A game needs more than half of the hosts voting on that episode to say Essential. With four of us that means three votes, with three of us it means two, and with only two of us on the episode both have to say yes. If a host can't make the recording, they sometimes send in a vote, and we count it. When the vote splits evenly between two hosts, the game stays off the list for now.

How the rule has changed

We didn't start here. The rule has changed once on purpose and been clarified a few times since:

  • 2018, from the start: a game needed at least 50 percent of the vote, as we explained on the Clu Clu Land episode (Episode 3, February 2018). With four hosts that worked out to two votes. On the Slalom episode we laid out the math: two votes gets a game on the list, three is gravy, and four means it's Super Mario Bros. level.
  • October 2019, after the Best of 1987: we realized that two votes out of four wasn't a majority, so we switched to majority rule starting with the 1988 games. When Contra came up in November 2019, we reminded everyone of the new rule: with four hosts, three had to vote it in. A game like R.C. Pro-Am, which would have made it under the old rules, no longer did.
  • Smaller panels: because the rule is a majority of whoever is voting, three hosts need two votes (as on Life Force, Episode 111), and with two hosts it is all or nothing, as we worked out on Double Dragon (Episode 103) when only Mike and Sean were there.
  • Recent years: the rule is the same, but with fewer of us on some episodes, ties happen. When Qix split Mike and Joe in May 2026 (Episode 428), it stayed off the list, and the Best of 1991 is the next chance to settle it.

The year-end "Best of" specials

When we finish a year of games, we record a special: our top games of the year (a top 5 for 1985 and 1986, and a top 10 starting with 1987 and 1988), and we revisit the Essential Games List. Games can be added, and games can come off. So far:

  • Removed: Excitebike (Best of 1985), Mach Rider and Slalom (Best of 1987), Stinger (Best of 1988), Kid Icarus, Bionic Commando, Operation Wolf and Baseball Stars (Best of 1989), and Terra Cresta and Dragon Spirit (Best of 1990).
  • Added at a year-end vote: Gun.Smoke and DuckTales (Best of 1989), and Ninja Gaiden II and Maniac Mansion (Best of 1990).

You don't have to agree

We've said it on the show: our Essential games are not mandatory for you to agree with, and we love hearing whether you do or don't. Tell us on the contact page or on social media. Our Patreon community has also built its own ranking, which you can read in the NES Essential Games List Community Vote.

Where the verdicts come from

The verdicts, genres, developers and release dates on this site come from our own spreadsheet. The site rereads it every few hours, so when we change a verdict, the badge updates by itself.