Most people who grew up with the NES and SNES have memories of playing LJN games. My friends and I rented quite a few of their games in the 1990s, and one of my friends owned at least two LJN games. In the 2000s, the perception of LJN and the games they published was shaped by online reviewers. It wasn’t just the Angry Video Game Nerd, but bloggers who wanted to share their opinions as well.
I don’t think any of their games will end up on a “best of” or a “my favorites” list, but a few of them are fun to play. Some of them are morbid curiosities, while others are decent games. None of these games are great, and I’m not trying to change anyone’s mind on them.
I want to share my memories of playing these games, and how they may have changed as I’ve replayed a few of them. When I was younger, I didn’t think much about what I was playing or who made it. The only thing that mattered to me was having fun with my friends.
More often than not, I had fun playing these games. It had little to do with what we were playing and more to do with who I was playing with. Those are the memories I’ll always treasure, and I often think about LJN’s games.
A few of the games that LJN published have gotten better now that I understand what I’m supposed to do. They’ve become average games that have been fun to come back to and try to do better than I did last time. Let’s talk about the games I’ve played and how my feelings about them have changed.
A Brief History of LJN
LJN was more than a video game publisher. Before getting into video games and being bought by Acclaim, they were in the toy business. Much of what they did wasn’t all that different from how they handled their video games.
LJN was founded in 1967 by Jack Friedman as a toy company. They were purchased in 1985 by MCA. This is around the time that they got into video game publishing. It is also when they had a few controversies.
LJN made a line of paintball guns and a video game based on the film Gotcha! This line was unsuccessful and was criticized for being harmful to kids. This was separate from their Entertech line, which was criticized for being too realistic. LJN changed the design after several shootings where police officers thought they were real guns.
Acclaim purchased LJN in 1990 and promptly shut down the company’s toy division. For the rest of LJN’s history, they would be solely a video game publisher. In 1994, they were formally shut down by Acclaim, but the label was bizarrely brought back in 2000 to publish Spirit of Speed on the Dreamcast.
Movie Based Games
LJN had the licenses to quite a few popular movies. A few of them seem a little odd, like Jaws, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street, because these were rated R and not meant for the kids who were playing NES games at the time. Other movies, like Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, made more sense to see on the console.
For games like Jaws and Friday the 13th, this was how I first learned about the movies. I vaguely knew they existed, and that I was too young to watch them, so playing the games was the main way for me to learn about them. Neither game did a good job of representing what you would see in the movies.
A similar thing happened with Karate Kid, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Back to the Future. These were movies that my family or friends rented instead of seeing them in the theater. My family didn’t have much money, so going to the theater was a rarity.
I remember trying to play Who Framed Roger Rabbit with my friend Eric. He owned the game and would convince me to try to beat the game with him. We never did, and usually gave up on the game after an hour or so.
My opinions on a few of these games have changed. Now that I know what I’m doing when I play Jaws and Friday the 13th, I like both games a lot more. I wouldn’t call them great games, but they are enjoyable to play.
Wrestling Games
I’ve played all the wrestling games published by LJN that I’m aware of. Many of them were played when I went through the wrestling games on the NES, SNES, Genesis, and Game Boy. These games are the epitome of what you should expect from an LJN published game.
The same developer made the games on the SNES, and I don’t like them all that much. There isn’t anything wrong with them, but I don’t like the control scheme that the developers used in all three games. That was my only real issue with them.
The NES games are hit and miss. A different developer was used on each game, and the quality is all over the place. There are a couple that I like more than most people, but none of these are good.
The games on the Game Boy are even more inconsistent. They are what you should expect from a game on the handheld, but there are some horrible ports of console games. I would say WWF Superstars is probably my favorite out of all of them.
This is where our story takes an odd twist. LJN didn’t publish the wrestling games on the Genesis. Acclaim decided to use Flying Edge to publish them, but the result was the same games. It is an odd situation, and it probably had to do with licensing agreements between Acclaim, Nintendo, and Sega.
It was around this time that Acclaim started winding down LJN. The company wasn’t used again until Spirit of Speed on the Dreamcast. I didn’t realize that LJN published these games until much later. I simply didn’t notice or care about who made them back in the 1990s.
Super Heroes and Other Licensed Properties
This is the most disappointing set of games in the LJN library. While they aren’t as bad as the movie based games, one of them is one of the worst games on the NES. This category also has some of the best games that they published.
X-Men on the NES is one of the worst games I’ve ever played. It’s a truly awful game that feels more like a prototype. While this is the worst game, The Punisher and Spider-Man received better games from the developers that LJN worked with.
The Punisher games on the NES and Game Boy are very unique. It is rare to see a rail shooter on the home console, and the developer did a great job with it. The Game Boy version has a few changes, such as a cameo from Spider-Man and having Jigsaw as the final boss. Both are much better than other LJN games.
Siper-Man also fared better than the X-Men. Eventually, the developers made beat’em ups, which is a genre that works great for a superhero game. Some of the better LJN games are the Spider-Man beat’em ups on the SNES.
It is interesting that LJN/Acclaim couldn’t get the license for other Marvel properties. They had Spider-Man, The Punisher, and the X-Men on the home console and handheld. Other companies had the arcade rights and home console rights to The Avengers. I’m sure there is a story there, but it has probably been lost to time.
They were a place for creativity
LJN and eventually Acclaim never seemed to care about the quality of what they were putting out. Some of the developers used the publisher as a means to experiment with different ideas. It is one of the things that I like about their games.
Friday the 13th, Jaws, and even Back to the Future are very unique games. The developers took chances, and while not all of them worked out, they were something different.
This is what makes some of the LJN published games stand out in a good way. I enjoy a few of them, even if I can admit that they aren’t that great. It is interesting to see that some of the better developers that are still around today got their start by working with LJN, and eventually went on to bigger and better things.
How I want to remember LJN
I can think of a few good games that LJN published, and several games that I think are fun to laugh at. Even a bad game can be something that brings you some enjoyment. I think that is something that people forget about from time to time.
LJN has a reputation that the online reviewers of the 2000s have negatively impacted, but even putting that aside, the games aren’t all that good. It does feel like everyone has memories of the game they published. I have some fond memories of playing them with my friends.
So, how do I want to remember these games? I would like to think about all the fun times I spent playing these with my friends, and the joy of revisiting a few of them after I’ve learned how to play them. They aren’t going to be on my favorites list, and a few deserve a place on the worst games I’ve ever played.
If you liked this post, please check out my other posts, such as Flying Edge and Karate Kid.