Licensed games on the NES were a coin flip — and which side it landed on usually came down to who made it, not whose face was on the box.

The notorious LJN shelf. LJN's "rainbow" cartridges built a reputation for cashing in on big names with rough results. My collection has Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th (legendarily cryptic), Jaws, Back to the Future, Terminator 2, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Karate Kid, and Uncanny X-Men. Famous now for being hard, broken, or baffling — and weirdly beloved for it.

The Capcom Disney gold. On the other end, Capcom's Disney license produced some of the system's best games. Beyond DuckTales I've got Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, The Little Mermaid, Adventures in the Magic Kingdom, and Mickey Mousecapade.

And the genuine surprises. Sunsoft's Batman: The Video Game is an all-time NES action game. Konami's Tiny Toon Adventures and Goonies II shine. The Simpsons trilogy (Bart vs. the Space Mutants, Bart vs. the World, Bartman) is pure 1991 Bartmania. RoboCop and Willow round it out. The lesson the NES taught a generation: read the developer, not the franchise.