It probably comes at no surprise to hear that NES games weren’t very long. Like, at all. But what they lacked in playing time they more than made up for in frustration, obtuse gameplay mechanics, and nonsensical difficulty! Hey, they had to justify that $60 price tag somehow. And people complain about video games being too expensive nowadays…

Most games were short. But some games were REALLY short. It felt like you were just getting into it when the credits started rolling and you stared at the TV screen in utter disbelief.

These are ten ridiculously short NES games and how long they take to beat.

10 Rollerblade Racer

We know - you have no idea what the heck Rollerblade Racer is. Well you see, rollerblading was this really lame pastime in the 90s that saw people dressing like weirdos and rolling down the streets on shoes made with wheels. And believe it or not, a rollerblading game was released for the NES in 1993 which was advertised as “the most radical race on wheels.” Yes, we actually talked like that. Yes, we are embarrassed. It seems like no one has played this game, but according to the TWO people who recorded their playtime on howlongtobeat.com, it seems like the game takes all of ten to fifteen minutes to complete. Now THAT is one short game.

9 Marble Madness

Playing marbles was another way to pass the time in the 80s and 90s. Man, things were kinda lame back then. And you better believe that Atari capitalized on all that marble madness by releasing a game called…Marble Madness. It saw the player guiding a marble through various levels littered with obstacles. What does that have to do with marbles? We don’t know. Either way, this too was a really short and pitifully easy game, and the entire thing could be completed in just half an hour. You could have more fun, and LONGER fun, by just playing real marbles…

8 Contra

Contra represents all that was wrong and frustratingly beautiful with NES games. It is painfully short, as it can be beaten in about an hour. However, the developers filled this painfully brief time with borderline unplayable difficulty. This game was nonsensically hard, and many people quite literally couldn’t finish it without cheating. Enter the iconic Contra (or Konami) Code - up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. And with that, you had thirty lives instead of three. It made things a little easier…

7 Donkey Kong

It really is amazing how short video games used to be. Donkey Kong quickly became one of the most memorable and iconic characters in video game history, so you would think that his titular video game would be some monumental masterpiece that could be played for endless hours on end. That’s…not quite the case. The game only contained four levels, all of which could be completed rather quickly if you were particularly good at the game. The result? An entire game that could be completed in just twenty minutes. 45 if you were having trouble.

6 Where’s Waldo?

Where’s Waldo? played exactly like the books - you had to, well, find Waldo. Except on a screen instead of in a book. Weren’t early video games wonderful? And, just like the books, the game had incredibly poor replay value. After all, the entire game is ruined once you know where Waldo is. And it’s not like the game was very long in the first place. It contained very few levels, and even newcomers could complete the entire thing in roughly half an hour. If you were fast, or if you knew where Waldo was, you could see the credits in ten.

5 Rescue: The Embassy Mission

This is a prime example of the “But I was just getting into it!” problem. Rescue: The Embassy Mission is the horribly-named NES port of the popular game Hostage. It concerns a six-team terrorist response team who raid an embassy in Paris to rescue its inhabitants from a terrorist group. It sounds exciting, and it certainly can be. But as quickly as it begins, it ends. You can run through the main campaign in just thirty minutes, AKA immediately after you get used to the controls and gameplay mechanics. And you thought modern day shooters were short.

4 The Karate Kid

Yes, even back then we were making terrible, rushed, and painfully short video games based on beloved movies. Not much has changed in that regard. The Karate Kid is a perfect example, as it is both wicked short AND completely irredeemable! The game contains a whole four levels, including two that are nearly identical. Yeah, not a whole lot of effort went into this one. Regardless, the game could be completed in well under an hour. It will take the average person about forty-five minutes to beat, but veterans will be able to breeze through it in twenty.

3 Jaws

What, you didn’t believe us about the whole “terrible game based on beloved movies” thing? Well, we present you with Jaws. Now, you may be thinking what a Jaws video game will entail, that is certainly a great question. Well, turns out that it contains a lot of boat driving and battling dangerous undersea creatures like jellyfish and sting rays. Yeah, it has very little to do with Jaws. Luckily, the game didn’t waste too much of your time, as it could be completed in about 45 minutes. That is, if you didn’t chuck it out the window after five.

2 The Little Mermaid

And just for good measure, we give you The Little Mermaid. Released for the NES and Game Boy, The Little Mermaid saw players controlling Ariel as she found underwater treasures, broke open treasure chests with sea shells, and shot bubbles (yes, bubbles) at her various enemies. It was terrible. Does that come as a surprise? But what makes it even WORSE is just how short it was. According to howlongtobeat.com, the entire thing could be finished in just…25 minutes. Now imagine actually paying for this atrocity.

1 Pac-Man

Pac-Man is one of the all time greatest games, but like all games of its era, it was reliant on difficulty to keep the audience engaged (and paying). This didn’t really work on the NES, when players could just keep playing without having to cough up all their parents’ quarters. As such, players tended to just breeze through the game without a second thought, content in the fact that their one-time payment guaranteed a lack of game over screens. That was true, but the entire game was over in about half an hour, anyway. Come to think of it, it probably would have been cheaper to just finish it in the arcade…

NEXT: ‘Super Mario Bros.’, ‘Tetris’, & More Inducted into Video Game Hall of Fame