It is a brilliant, well crafted, and unique game that is incredibly hard and makes me give up very quickly.
I basically killed my wrist on Joust for the 2600. I spent a lot of quarters in the arcades as well. For its era, at least, Joust was top form. And very portable due to its simplicity.
Joust was an extreme form of frustration and victory for me as a kid
I know people are split on this, but from my perspective, Joust is and will always be better than Balloon Fight.
Notably, the NES port of Joust was programmed by future Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. The game was developed in two months, for release in September 1983, but was ultimately shelved. With his Joust seemingly not happening, Iwata developed Balloon Fight instead, which saw release in 1985. Eventually, his Joust was also released, in 1987. For what it's worth, I love them both.
Man, loved Balloon Fight. I remember many Saturday nights where me and my sis were allowed on the Micro Genius (bootleg NES with lots of games) for an hour.
That's so cool. It's crazy how many bootleg NES/Famicoms there were targeting all the markets Nintendo couldn't or wouldn't sell them. Did you know they were NES games as a kid, or were they just Micro Genius games to you?
Not remotely the same genre, but my vote for perfect arcade game is Time Crisis 2.
I played Glypha, a Joust clone on the Mac.
Apparently now one can emulate a classic Mac in one's Web browser and run it directly.
https://archive.org/details/GlyphaMacintosh
Lots of friendships ended because of Joust. Worth it.
@enbee
It is a brilliant, well crafted, and unique game that is incredibly hard and makes me give up very quickly.
I basically killed my wrist on Joust for the 2600. I spent a lot of quarters in the arcades as well. For its era, at least, Joust was top form. And very portable due to its simplicity.
Joust was an extreme form of frustration and victory for me as a kid
I know people are split on this, but from my perspective, Joust is and will always be better than Balloon Fight.
Notably, the NES port of Joust was programmed by future Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. The game was developed in two months, for release in September 1983, but was ultimately shelved. With his Joust seemingly not happening, Iwata developed Balloon Fight instead, which saw release in 1985. Eventually, his Joust was also released, in 1987. For what it's worth, I love them both.
Man, loved Balloon Fight. I remember many Saturday nights where me and my sis were allowed on the Micro Genius (bootleg NES with lots of games) for an hour.
That's so cool. It's crazy how many bootleg NES/Famicoms there were targeting all the markets Nintendo couldn't or wouldn't sell them. Did you know they were NES games as a kid, or were they just Micro Genius games to you?
First video game to have a “Flap” button?