The Big N's amazing 1980s home console reinvigorated the videogame market with classic, genre-defining games including Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. These powerhouse efforts were complemented by a robust library of third-party titles. For all of these reasons and more, NES was recently named the best console of all time. We celebrate 100 of our favorites in the pages that follow with our list of the best games for Nintendo's killer system.

How did we pick the games? We had two conditions: they had to be released in the U.S. and they had to be fun. Whether or not the game was a blast to play is how we decided the order of our beloved NES carts - so don't be surprised if you see an important or influential title below something we loved to play over and over and over again.