Gaming off the Beaten Path

  "This game was soooooo ahead of its time." How many times have we heard that before? Hell, how many times have I said it on here myself? Probably a million or so, give or take. While it's always had its reliance on certain genres, from 2D fighters to mascot platformers to open world adventures, the video game industry has never been afraid of a little innovation. It may not seem like it now, but it's true. And it was especially true during the 3rd console generation: make no mistake about it, the late 80's and early 90's were still very much the wild, wild west. It's not that developers didn't try their best to innovate in the first two generations, but their hands were often tied by extremely limited technology. It's not that they didn't try (and succeed) on the 4th, 5th or even 6th generation consoles, but by that point people were starting to figure out what worked and what didn't in a video game. The NES (and Master System, etc.) were

 Just realized I forgot to post these here, will get started with part 1: And here's part 2:

In our last "Was it Really?" we took a look at the Virtual Boy, widely considered a complete bust of a console and one of the worst stains on the gaming industry. In the end, I determined that it wasn't nearly as bad as it's reputation, though it's still pretty bad. This time, I'm going to pivot from a console to an individual game, one that many gamers know and one I'm intimately familiar with. Silver Surfer, a shoot em' up for the NES, is widely considered one of the most difficult video games in history, so much so that it's become legendary amongst the internet gaming community. It was one of popular YouTuber "The Angry Video Game Nerd"'s first targets and if you go back and watch the video he made today, you'll see that his anger and frustration with the game, normally embellished, are as real as it gets. I can't say I blame him. This was one of the earliest NES games I ever played, my cousin had it and we spent HOURS try