Iconic Ending Screens to NES Games

Video game stories and their endings have come a long way since the third console generation. But even back on the NES, there were quite a few titles that gave players a nice reward for completing the gargantuan challenge they presented. The phrase “Nintendo hard” exists for a reason, with many of the best and most iconic games in the NES library also being some of the console’s most difficult and demanding. But with a little bit of persistence (and maybe a tip or two from an issue of Nintendo Power), most players would end up pushing through to the end of many of the more classic games on the NES and get to see some iconic and impactful ending screens that communicate the significance of a journey coming to its end.

*MAJOR* Spoilers for several different NES games follow!

Compared to several other JRPGs that made their way to the West during the third and fourth console generations, the subgenre’s progenitor, Dragon Quest, is relatively short. But for those of us who Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior was our first real RPG experience, learning the ropes of the genre and successfully making it to the end of the adventure was easier said than done. Thankfully, Dragon Warrior becomes a lot easier by spending lots of time grinding random encounters and knowing where the game’s best equipment is, making you more than prepared for the final battle against the Dragonlord.

After landing the final blow, the hero returns to the starting castle to relay the news of the Dragonlord’s defeat, fulfilling the ancient prophecy and returning peace to the land. In a short ending sequence, you declare your intentions to continue adventuring, with the kingdom’s princess requesting to join you on your journey. The hero takes the princess in her arms, and the kingdom celebrates, with the guards in the throne room blowing trumpets before the screen cuts to the game’s credits. While we didn’t know it at the time, the hero and his princess would start a lineage of heroes that you get to control in the second game, Dragon Quest II/Dragon Warrior II.

The challenge of Punch-Out!! mostly comes from needing to learn each of the different fighters’ quirks and special moves, responding accordingly and making sure to stay nimble on your feet. In that sense, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! is more akin to a puzzle game than a modern fighter. Still, that final battle against Iron Mike is one of the most notoriously challenging boss battles in video game history, and beating it gives you an equally iconic reward.

After finally clearing each of the game’s combatants, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! ends with a newspaper clipping of player character Little Mac being declared the “New Champ!” of the W.V.B.A. circuit, along with some funny bylines for other articles underneath. After, you get a short vignette of each fighter’s headshots, followed by a final shot of Little Mac with your win/loss record that you could’ve shown off to a sibling or friend.

Along with Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy is one of the titles responsible for establishing the genre conventions of the JRPG, and its arrival in the West in 1990 was a big deal for those of us who had recently discovered a love for role-playing games. But in comparison to Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy is both a little more difficult and a good bit longer in length, making the act of beating the game a bit more challenging.

After making your way to the Chaos Shrine once again and traveling back in time 2,000 years, the four Warriors of Light face off against Chaos, defeating him and breaking the time loop destroying the Crystals. If any of the game’s story had been lost on you up until that point, the game basically lays all of its big plot points out in a series of text boxes over a scenic shot of Corneria, before finally displaying a triumphant “The End” to indicate the conclusion of a grand adventure.

The first Metal Gear is important for a lot of reasons, but principal among them are its creation of the stealth genre and its incredibly cinematic presentation, ultimately pushing the envelope for video game storytelling. After infiltrating Outer Heaven and successfully making your way through the complex, Snake comes face to face with the titular bipedal nuclear tank and goes head-to-head with it in battle.

Dealing the final blow to Metal Gear sees the scene change to the same shot from the opening sequence, only it’s dawn instead of dusk and the destruction of Metal Gear sets off a massive explosion (indicated by the background flashing a myriad of colors). After this sequence, Snake makes one last transmission to headquarters on his Codec to indicate his mission is complete, then declares he’s heading home. Unfortunately for Snake, nothing in the world of Metal Gear is ever truly over.

Capcom’s DuckTales is one of a small handful of NES games that has not one ending screen, but multiple different endings players can unlock based on a certain in-game metric. In DuckTales‘ case, players need to collect a certain amount of gems and gold throughout each stage to accumulate a total of $100,000 for Scrooge McDuck to get the best ending, which shows the DuckTales star swimming in a pile of gold and moneybags a la the cartoon. If you get less than $100,000, DuckTales ends the same way but with a much smaller (and sadder) pile of money that no one could possibly swim in. Bummer.

Konami must have put some serious resources into coding and animating Contra‘s blockbuster ending, enough to warrant the game’s inclusion of the “Konami Code” that grants 30 lives. Otherwise, very few people would have ever even seen the game’s ending screen. After the climactic battle against the alien queen at the end of stage 8, the screen fades and then shifts to a view of the Galuga archipelago as Bill and Lance’s helicopter flies into view and the Red Falcon base explodes. Just like its iconic cover art, the NES version of Contra‘s ending is a total rip-off of Predator, but that’s why we love it.

Nintendo’s Kid Icarus is another NES game with multiple endings for players to unlock. Depending on your in-game stats when you clear the final battle against Medusa, Pit’s reward while meeting with the goddess Palutena will change, from a simple “congrats” to a full-blown transformation. Managing to clear Medusa with a max life bar, max strength, and full health/hearts unlocks the best ending, where Palutena transforms Pit from a cherub into a full-grown angel, congratulating him with a kiss on the cheek as other cherubs rain hearts from the top of the screen.

When Faxandu begins, our hero is returning home from a long journey only to find that his hometown is on the brink of ruin. We spend the entire game restoring the kingdom to its former glory and ridding the land of evil before eventually deciding to head out in search of adventure once again. We’re greeted with the same opening sequence from the beginning of the game, only this time, instead of a brown and lifeless landscape, we see a beautiful verdant shot of the castle and the surrounding kingdom, with the Tree of Life once again in full bloom. It’s a nice full-circle moment for one of the NES’ best and most underrated action RPGs.

Considering how hard the first Mega Man is in comparison to the rest of the 6 NES entries, it’s likely that Mega Man 2 was the first game that most fans of the franchise ever beat, and its ending is appropriately epic. After defeating Dr. Wily inside his castle, the scene shifts to a credits sequence in which Mega Man is walking toward the camera alongside a peaceful green landscape far removed from the futuristic levels of the 8 Robot Masters. When the sequence ends, we see Mega Man’s helmet resting on a peaceful hillside, indicating that peace has returned to the planet, for now.

Along with Metal Gear, Ninja Gaiden is one of the earliest games to incorporate cinematic-style storytelling in its narrative, using impressively rendered and animated cutscenes well before they were the norm and conveying a lot of great story details for an 8-bit game. If you manage to actually beat Jacquio and clear Ninja Gaiden, you’re treated to a series of vignettes detailing Ryu’s rescue of Irene, with the game’s final shot a gorgeous and iconic scene of the two watching the sunrise on the cliffside ruins where Ryu just saved the world.

Even with a fair bit of censorship in its Western localization, the NES version of Bionic Commando has one of the most out-there endings of any NES game. The final boss is, for all intents and purposes, a robot version of Adolf Hitler, which Nathan “Rad” Spencer destroys. After a pretty gruesome sequence in which we see the robot Hitler’s head explode, the scene shifts to show Spencer escaping with the rescued Super Joe before a cutaway to show the pair being airlifted to safety as the Empire’s base explodes.

In the original Super Mario Bros., players clear a total of 7 different castles only to be met with Toad delivering the message that “our princess is in another castle”. In a hilarious self-aware joke on the player, Super Mario Bros. 3 ends with Mario coming face to face with Princess Peach, only for her to give the same exact message before ultimately dropping a “Just Kidding!”. It’s not all that special in terms of how it looks, but Super Mario Bros. 3‘s ending screen is one of the earliest examples of a company openly trolling the player, and for that, it deserves some recognition as one of the console’s most iconic endings.

Like Ninja Gaiden, if you can manage to get to the end of Castlevania without the use of save states or cheats, good on you. If you do, landing the final blow against Dracula will see the screen fade to reveal an exterior shot of Dracula’s castle, which you get to watch crumble as the sun rises in the distance. Getting to witness the destruction of the devious lair you just explored, combined with the knowledge of a job well done and the safety of daylight returning, makes the ending of Castlevania a massive relief, considering the hardships you had to endure to get there.

Out of all the ending screens in the NES era, sometimes it’s the simplest ones that stick with you the most, which is the case with The Legend of Zelda‘s ending. After defeating Ganon, Link reunites with Princess Zelda, the two of them triumphantly holding two pieces of the Triforce up in the air as she congratulates him on being the Hero of Hyrule and declares that peace has returned to the land. In an era before we knew about the Zelda series’ multiple branching timelines of Link’s eternal reincarnation as the Hero of Time, the original Legend of Zelda told a simple story of good vs. evil and ended it the only way it could — by giving players a pat on the back for a job well done.

Along with being one of the best games on the NES and one of the first games to incorporate non-linear exploration and ability-gating (eventually paving the way for the “Metroidvania” genre that contains its namesake), Metroid‘s ending screen is a doozy. Depending on how fast you manage to clear Planet Zebes and defeat Mother Brain, Metroid ends with main character Samus waving at the player from the planet’s surface. But in a day and age where most video game protagonists were men, the reveal that Samus is actually a woman was a huge bombshell. Best of all, if you manage to clear the game in less than 3 hours (or less than 1 hour, even), you get to see Samus in a bikini — something that would become a bit of a tradition throughout the rest of the series.