For any of my regular readers, its no surprise that the NES is my favorite console of all time. While it wasn't the first console I owned, it was the one where my love for gaming was solidified. The Atari 2600 got me interested, but the NES got me hooked.

The console has an amazing lineup of first-party games released by Nintendo, but most of the console's library is made up of games from third party publishers. With an officially licensed library of over 600 games, which grows to over 700 when including unlicensed publishers, there are a lot of games to explore on the system. However, some publishers were on par with and sometimes superior to Nintendo and many of their releases are considered classics today.

Here's my list of the top 5 (licensed) third party publishers on the NES

#5 Tecmo

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While mostly known for bringing us the classic Ninja Gaiden series, Tecmo also published classics like Rygar, Solomon’s Key, Fire ’n Ice and some of the best sports titles on the console, from the classic Tecmo Bowl to great wrestling, basketball and soccer games.

#4 Taito

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While they didn’t blaze out of the gates with the best games, they quickly improved with some great titles by the NES’ mid-life and they were one of the publishers that supported the console the strongest at the end of the NES’ life cycle, when most of Taito’s best games were released, like Little Samson, Panic Restaurant, Bubble Bobble 1 & 2. Many Taito games appear on the list of the most expensive NES games and for good reason; they were released after the 16-bit generation was underway, sold poorly due to coming late to the party and were legitimately great games.

#3 Sunsoft

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When you’re playing a Sunsoft game, you just know it. The best publishers on the NES had a feeling you could sense from the graphics and even more from the sound and music. Sunsoft pushed out some amazing games on the NES, including Batman, Batman:Return of the Joker, Blaster Master and Journey To Silius.

#2 Capcom

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Between the 6 Mega Man titles, its numerous arcade ports like 1943 and the Disney titles, which are some of the best licensed titles of the era, Capcom constantly pushed out quality titles on the NES and they too had a unique feeling that told you instantly this was a Capcom game.

#1 Konami/Ultra

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One of the ways Nintendo fought against a flood of low-quality games was to limit publishers to just 5 releases per year. Konami got around this by spinning off a separate company to increase the number of games they could release. While normally this could be seen as sketchy, the quality of both Konami and Ultra titles put’s that criticism to rest. Konami/Ultra released the biggest and best library of third party games on the NES, including Contra/Super C, Castlevania 1-3, Gradius, Nightshade, Life Force, Metal Gear, Tiny Toon Adventures and four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Konami wins the distinction of best third party NES publisher, hands-down.

Do you agree with my list Let's discuss!

Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!

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