Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
The Back to the Future NES game was so poorly received that Bob Gale, the man who co-wrote and produced the films, publicly called it one of the worst games ever made and flat out told fans not to buy it. Not a critic. Not the internet years later. The person who created the story.
Gale has explained why it barely resembles the movie, and the explanation is almost funnier than the game. LJN, which was owned by Universal at the time, bought a game another team was already building and simply pasted Back to the Future artwork over the top. That is why Marty spends the whole thing jumping to grab cherries the way Mario grabs coins. Gale has said he begged them to at least make the collectibles clocks.
They did not really listen, and by the time he saw it and asked for changes, he was told it was too late to touch anything.
It landed in September 1989, developed by an Australian studio called Beam Software and published by LJN, and the actual game is punishing in a way nobody enjoyed. You run down the streets of 1955 Hill Valley collecting clock icons to stop a family photo at the bottom of the screen from fading. Let it fade all the way and Marty is erased from existence and you lose a life. Bees, girls with hula hoops and workmen hauling panes of glass all try to slow you down, and every so often you stop for a minigame, throwing milkshakes at Biff's gang, blocking your own mother's kisses, or playing guitar at the dance.
Then there is the part that answers the question everyone asks about this cartridge. Did anyone actually beat it? Almost nobody, because there are no continues and no passwords of any kind. Fail the final DeLorean drive even once and the whole thing throws you a screen that reads tough luck Marty, it looks like you are stuck here, and that is that. The music is sped up for reasons no one has ever explained, including a frantic version of the Power of Love.
It became one of the first games the Angry Video Game Nerd ever tore apart, a contemporary magazine gave it four out of ten, and LJN kept right on making movie cash-ins until the company went bankrupt in 1994. So be honest like Aknot54 was. Did you own this one, and did you ever get anywhere near that clock tower?
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#backtothefuture #bttf #nes #nintendo #ljn #beamsoftware #martymcfly #badgames #retrogaming #retrogames #80sgaming #gamingnostalgia #1989 #videogamecommercial #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
The Back to the Future NES game was so poorly received that Bob Gale, the man who co-wrote and produced the films, publicly called it one of the worst games ever made and flat out told fans not to buy it. Not a critic. Not the internet years later. The person who created the story.
Gale has explained why it barely resembles the movie, and the explanation is almost funnier than the game. LJN, which was owned by Universal at the time, bought a game another team was already building and simply pasted Back to the Future artwork over the top. That is why Marty spends the whole thing jumping to grab cherries the way Mario grabs coins. Gale has said he begged them to at least make the collectibles clocks.
They did not really listen, and by the time he saw it and asked for changes, he was told it was too late to touch anything.
It landed in September 1989, developed by an Australian studio called Beam Software and published by LJN, and the actual game is punishing in a way nobody enjoyed. You run down the streets of 1955 Hill Valley collecting clock icons to stop a family photo at the bottom of the screen from fading. Let it fade all the way and Marty is erased from existence and you lose a life. Bees, girls with hula hoops and workmen hauling panes of glass all try to slow you down, and every so often you stop for a minigame, throwing milkshakes at Biff's gang, blocking your own mother's kisses, or playing guitar at the dance.
Then there is the part that answers the question everyone asks about this cartridge. Did anyone actually beat it? Almost nobody, because there are no continues and no passwords of any kind. Fail the final DeLorean drive even once and the whole thing throws you a screen that reads tough luck Marty, it looks like you are stuck here, and that is that. The music is sped up for reasons no one has ever explained, including a frantic version of the Power of Love.
It became one of the first games the Angry Video Game Nerd ever tore apart, a contemporary magazine gave it four out of ten, and LJN kept right on making movie cash-ins until the company went bankrupt in 1994. So be honest like Aknot54 was. Did you own this one, and did you ever get anywhere near that clock tower?
Subscribe to Game Forest GF for retro gaming content every single day.
#backtothefuture #bttf #nes #nintendo #ljn #beamsoftware #martymcfly #badgames #retrogaming #retrogames #80sgaming #gamingnostalgia #1989 #videogamecommercial #gameforestgf #youtubeshorts #gaming
