Burger Time on NES is one of those weirdly stressful arcade ports where you’re just trying to assemble burgers, but somehow it turns into a frantic chase. You play as Chef Peter Pepper—basically a tiny guy in a hat—running around scaffolding, dropping burger parts (buns, patties, lettuce) onto enemies below to squash them. Sounds simple, but then Mr. Hot Dog and his gang start swarming you, and suddenly you’re trapped between a pickle and a hard place.

The controls take a second to get used to—you’ll probably walk off a platform by accident at least once—but once it clicks, there’s something satisfying about luring enemies into a perfectly timed patty drop. The music’s that classic NES bleep-bloop cheeriness, which somehow makes the chaos funnier. Later levels get brutal with moving platforms and eggs (yes, eggs) rolling at you, but beating a stage feels like a legit victory. It’s way more intense than a game about burger assembly has any right to be.