Joust

Oh my god with the fucking noises on this game.

I used to love this game on MS DOS as a kid - and especially because knights on winged ostriches was so deliciously bizarre - but even then I could tell it was rudimentary fun at best. Keeping your ostrich afloat with the space (or A button on NES!) is kind of fun and aiming to be higher than your opponents can be tricky but that's kind of all there is to gameplay here.

A quick chaotic credit with an endearingly odd setting. Some may like the "What, you thought making an ostrich fly would be easy?" controls more than others, though they're part of the fun in the right mood. Port quality's a bit all over the the place; crucially, no two ever seem to handle at all the same. The NES one's actually kind of disappointing; funnily enough, it was the first game of Satoru Iwata, who'd shortly do a better job of things with Balloon Fight.

this concept could still be fun

Well, it did a good job of eating quarters, this is hard. It's still a solid experience though as far as arcade games go.

A game that turned your television speakers into a Satanic word generator.

Also-ran to Balloon Fight.