Collection essentials #110: Wheel of Fortune (NES)

This one’s a bit of a nostalgia pick for me, as it’s one of the first games I had when I first got an NES as a young teenager. It always made for a good multiplayer pick, and I particularly remember playing it with my sister Abby on various occasions. While it is a nostalgia pick, though, I do think it’s a solid rendition of the popular game show, though a better one probably exists somewhere. 


If you’re unfamiliar with the game show, Wheel of Fortune is basically a modified game of hangman. When it’s your turn, you spin the wheel, and if the wheel gives you a dollar amount (most common), you can guess a letter, and if the letter is in the solution then you earn the dollar amount that you spun. Also on the wheel are other things like “Bankrupt”, “Miss a turn” or “Free spin” which you can save and use later. Vowels can’t be normally guessed, and vowel guesses must be bought with the money a player has already earned without spinning the wheel. At the end of their turn, a player may take a guess at solving the puzzle. For the final round, whatever player has the most money gets to play a special round where they must pick five consonants and one vowel and then figure out the solution from there to win a fabulous prize. You can pick which fabulous prize you want in this game, but it makes basically zero difference for anything, you don’t get to see your character enjoying it in any way.


A really impressive thing about this version of Wheel of Fortune is the sheer amount of puzzles it has. I have played the game quite a bit, and I struggle to remember even one time where I was given a puzzle that I had already seen before. Things like pace of play and presentation are done pretty well, for the most part, and there are definitely worse Wheel of Fortune games out there. My main complaint with this game is that the time limit for the final round is pretty darn strict, and since it’s fairly slow typing letters with an NES controller, you really have to know the solution right away to even have enough time to type it all out. It’s worth noting that there are also a couple variants to this game with the added subtitle “Family Edition” and “Junior Edition” which apparently have puzzles catered to younger players. They can also simply serve as a way to play the game with different solutions, but I’ve never found that necessary since this initial release has so many.


I’m pretty good at Wheel of Fortune, by the way. I’m able to solve that puzzle shown in the screen shot with just those two letters revealed. Can you? Comment if you have a guess!

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