Collection essentials #232: Nightmare Busters (SNES)

Today’s release is a bit unusual in the realm of SNES essentials. Developed in the mid-’90s by a British developer, the game was basically finished, but ran into troubles finding a potential publisher and never actually reached store shelves back then. Fast-forward a decade, in the mid-2000s, an American company called Super Fighter Team got started with what was at the time a very unique business of acquiring the rights to old video games and giving them official legal releases in cartridge form for old consoles, sold through their web site. Initially they were most known for translating Asian games for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and giving them official legal English releases. And then several years later in the early 2010s, they decided to pick up Nightmare Busters and finally give it the release it deserved. So while the final regular retail Super Nintendo release that hit store shelves across America was in 1998, Nightmare Busters came out via online order only at the end of 2013! You’ll notice the cartridge is shaped differently than other American cartridges, and this is so it will fit in Japanese and European consoles. You may also notice that the word “Nintendo” is not on the box to avoid copyright issues, since Nintendo themselves were not involved in the licensing and release of this game.

Anyways, what is Nightmare Busters like? It’s a side-scrolling run ‘n gun action game (though the characters use magic to shoot, not firearms), much like Contra. And it turns out that it’s one of the best games of its kind on the system! I think I’d take Contra III over this, but not by a whole lot. The game features a nice array of moves and some light platforming elements at times, and there are a variety of shot power-ups that shoot in different directions at various levels of power. And like any run ‘n gun game should, a second player can join in for simultaneous co-op action. As you’d expect from a game like this, it’s quite challenging, and that might frustrate some people, but for me, it didn’t take too long for me to get the hang of this game and beat it.

I didn’t find a whole lot to complain about with Nightmare Busters. The biggest thing that comes to mind is that it felt on the short side, even for a game like this that is typically not very long. There’s also a “boss rush” at the end where you have to fight the bosses you’ve already defeated, which felt a little bit like padding a game that otherwise might have been too short. I feel like maybe one more well-designed level could have really benefited this game. 

I was one of the people who pre-ordered Nightmare Busters back in 2012 when Super Fighter Team made it available. Demand was so high that they had to take more pre-orders than originally anticipated and give the game multiple print runs. It felt like quite a long wait to actually get the game, and it didn’t show up at the mailbox until January of 2014. But I sure did have a good time playing through, and I can certainly see myself revisiting it over the years in the future. It’s a quality retro title well worthy of essential status in my book.