It's not the greatest translation, but it's not a bad one either. Paperboy for the Nintendo Entertainment system is simply good enough, giving the fans just enough of what they want but doing little to convince new players to take up the challenge.
As far as the visuals go, the neighborhood scenery is actually well done, perhaps the best looking among all the 8-bit adaptations. But when things start moving, the game's limitations really start to appear. Game play is rather slow, and character animation comes in fits and spurts, losing much of the arcade game's fluid feel. The audio further distances the game from its arcade cousin. The main theme is captured decently if not spectacularly, but the sound effects of broken windows, crashed bicycles and other events seem out of place. Many of the effects are digital sound samples, but they weren't taken from the arcade game. Since the NES isn't well known for its ability to play digital audio, these effects are crude, leaving players to wonder why digital audio was attempted at all if the programmers weren't going to use arcade Paperboy as their sound source.
So again, NES Paperboy does a decent job, but if you want arcade perfection, or even something that at least matches the pace of the original, you will have to look elsewhere.