For whatever reason, people seem to be shocked when they find out that I still buy and play NES games on a regular basis. Perhaps I really am just stuck in the past, or maybe I just like the simple pick up and play nature of most NES titles. Or maybe I just enjoy damn good games.

Back in the day, a company called Sunsoft made some of the best licensed and original titles for the NES. If you grew up in the NES era chances are you loved Blaster Master and Batman, and were frustrated by the likes of Festers’ Quest. Sunsoft released a game called Journey to Silius sometime in 1990. Somehow this one flew under my radar, and of all the great (and terrible) NES games I played during that time, I never played this one.

Knowing this one will likely never see a Virtual Console release, I sought to own it and nabbed it off eBay for a couple of dollars. Well it arrived a few days ago and I’ve had a chance to play it a handful of times, and each time has been met with a smile on my face.

At first I was kind of upset that I missed out on this one. Then I thought about it, and once in a while I find myself saying “I wish developers still made awesome NES games.” Being that I never played this game, I kind of felt like that wish had come true.

Journey to Silius has Sunsoft written all over it. It sounds like it could be Blaster Master, it has the HUD of Batman, it has that extra layer of polish most NES games lacked, it has music that would make Anamaguchi proud, hell, it even has the token Sunsoft “growl” on the Game Over screen. For me personally, it’s like a slice of nostalgia that I never experienced before.

The game has a lot in common with the Mega Man series. Your character can shoot from right to left, and as the game progresses you earn new weapons that you can use on the bosses. Unlike Mega Man, there is no stage select, and you usually earn your item before the boss encounter of that stage. Like every other Sunsoft game the difficulty is on the steep side, but I have no doubt in my mind that I could master it with multiple play throughs. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if the difficulty ramped up to a scale beyond any players’ natural ability.

I’m glad that I picked this one up as it’s a fun little game. Most people will probably see an ancient relic with little to no value, but for someone who is a fan of some of the best the NES has to offer, this is good stuff.