Popeye

Popeye is Nintendo's conversion of its 1982 arcade game, and it has an odd place in history: it started life as a Donkey Kong conversion using the Popeye licence, and when that licence was not secured in time Nintendo made Donkey Kong instead - then came back and built Popeye properly once the deal went through.

The structure is familiar from that lineage. Bluto throws objects down at Popeye, Olive Oyl drops hearts and musical notes that have to be collected, and spinach gives a temporary burst of invincibility and speed. The trick is that the screen has four different routes down, so you are choosing a path as much as fighting, and the items are only collectable on specific levels of the structure. Three stages rotate, and the difficulty ramps by narrowing your options rather than by adding enemies.

• ▸Four-route stage layout where item position dictates your path
• ▸Spinach power-up granting temporary invincibility and speed
• ▸Collectable hearts and notes dropped by Olive Oyl
• ▸Three rotating stages with escalating object density