Nintendo Quest

Somehow I went five years without hearing about the documentary that hit in 2015, Nintendo Quest (trailer). Upon hearing its premise, I immediately ordered a copy online and the DVD only sat in my backlog box for two days before I popped it in. The premise is simple, video game fanatic Jay Bartlett sets himself a goal to collect all 678 officially licensed NES games for North America within 30 days. All purchases must be done grass roots style on the road and in person, with no online ordering and all with his own personal funds and no fundraising assistance whatsoever. He maps out a journey from his home in Toronto all the way down to Florida to hit up hotspot retro game shops and personal collectors in hopes of achieving and documenting his journey.

As a longtime fan and collector of video games going back to the Atari VCS/2600 and NES days I can relate to the experience of perusing never-ending racks of NES games at retro game shops, and buying lots of games from fellow collectors. I have never set out to collect the complete library of a major platform before, and then with the ambitious goal to do it within 30 days with no online ordering on top of that lofty destination. For what it is worth I do have all five Sega 32X CD games and all North American Power Pad games for the NES (that is if you count World Class Track Meet in place of Stadium Events, do not be silly now). As a fan of retro games, and retro game collecting, Nintendo Quest’s subject material is 1000% up my alley, and I have no idea why I did not hear of it for five years since its release.

Watching Bartlett start his quest off day one by buying games from local friends and retro shops did a good job establishing what I was in for with a running graphical tracker of key games purchased at each stop, and an especially useful top 20 chart of the rarest NES games that is updated throughout his travels. Shop owners, friends and even rivals that get in his way of purchases are interviewed throughout elaborating on their passion, and occasionally haggle back and forth with Jay on negotiations. I do appreciate that for most major purchases Jay makes he respects the dealer’s privacy and does not divulge how much he paid for games off his top 20 rare games list.

The hour and a half documentary has welcomed breaks from Jay’s journey with scenes dedicated to NES culture, fandom and history. An early scene is a condensed two minute animated history of Nintendo leading up to the NES launch that is well done and hits all the appropriate bullet points in that duration. Another brief scene is interviewing a variety of veteran developers on the 101 of NES game design, and another interviews game composers about the perpetual love for 8-bit chiptune music. Two of my favorite scenes of this nature involve the early days of pro videogame competition with an interview with the self-proclaimed “first pro gamer,” Todd Rodgers and an interview NES box cover artist Marc Ericksen, who explains how he came up with the much talked about box art for Mega Man 2.

Any NES enthusiast can vouch for Stadium Events being the crowned jewel of officially released NES games to collect. Nintendo Quest does its research on justifying why that game is so sought after, and one of the primary over-arching themes of the documentary is Jay consistently exchanging calls with a collector in order to procure a copy. It is where Jay’s adventure undoubtedly gets the most dicey, and the movie had me reeled in for the ride as Jay tried to hammer out the fine details to get the coveted Stadium Events. Bartlett’s frequent revisiting to acquire the rarest of NES games and seeing how he succeeds or fails at it is easily the highlight of the film (no spoilers here).

I was surprised at the complete lack of bonuses for the DVD. Almost all past documentaries I have covered here are usually loaded with unused interviews and cut footage, and that is a missed opportunity here. For what it is worth there are some nicely animated pixel-art menus, and for an indie film I always appreciate the implementation of subtitles. Regardless of that, if you are a retro game collector or just a fan of the NES itself, then Nintendo Quest is the perfect dose of 8-bit nostalgia that presents a feature unlike any other videogame documentary yet.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

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12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
The Accountant
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed I & II
Deck the Halls
Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Grunt: The Wrestling Movie
Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
I Like to Hurt People
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Last Action Hero
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Merry Friggin Christmas
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Not for Resale
Payback (Director’s Cut)
Pulp Fiction
The Punisher (1989)
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VIII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Scott Pilgrim vs the World
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Slacker
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Sully
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
The Wizard
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Days of Future Past