Dragon Strike on NES is this weird, cool little hybrid where you're basically a medieval fighter pilot—except your jet is a metal dragon and your missiles are fire breath and a lance. You start off on a bronze dragon, which feels a little underpowered at first, but once you get the hang of swooping down to claw at manticores or lining up a perfect breath attack on a riderless red dragon, it clicks.

The magic orb radar helps, but honestly, half the time I just eyeballed it and hoped I wasn’t about to fly straight into a volley of arrows from the ground. Later missions get brutal if you don’t upgrade—the gold dragon turns you into an absolute wrecking ball, though. Weirdly, your dragon choice changes some missions? I replayed it later with silver and got a totally different final castle assault.

It’s janky in that classic NES way, but there’s nothing else quite like diving at a beholder while your lance charge meter fills up.