Little Nemo: The Dream Master

Little Nemo: The Dream Master is Capcom's adaptation of the 1989 animated film, and it is one of the most technically striking platformers on the NES. Nemo travels through Slumberland, and each stage ends with a boss he must put to sleep rather than destroy.

The hook is the animal transformation. Nemo throws candy at a sleeping creature and then rides inside it, taking over its abilities - a frog that swims, a mole that digs, a lizard that climbs walls, a bee that flies, a gorilla that climbs. Because every stage gives you a different set, the game never settles into one movement rhythm, and several routes are only open to one animal. Its animation, with large sprites and a lot of vertical scrolling, was near the top of what the hardware could do, and the score by Junko Tamiya is widely regarded as one of the NES's best. The difficulty is real: Nemo dies in one hit and the last stages are long.

• ▸Animal transformation - feed candy to a creature, then control it
• ▸A different set of rideable animals in almost every stage
• ▸Boss fights resolved by putting them to sleep rather than killing them
• ▸High-end Capcom sprite animation with heavy vertical scrolling