At the dawn of time, that is to say 1985, the Nintendo Entertainment System was released. Today is the 25th anniversary. For kids of all ages, things changed that day. While Atari was a great game system and computers had certain advantages over their cartridge-bound cousins, the NES brought gaming into the mainstream. More than 60 million units of the NES were sold, and a generation of kids came to know the Mario Bros. in the way their parents had known sitcom characters.

But as an early home videogame system, it wasn't immediately clear what sorts of games might be popular. And with such a large installed base, you could throw anything against the wall and garner some sales. So, there was a lot of experimentation on the NES, particularly for unlicensed games, which did not receive Nintendo's stamp of approval. Here are 11 we found particularly interesting.

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