Stage 7 made me cry 🥲

Seriously difficult, especially in the back half. Ashamed to admit I save scummed my way through the final level - much like Contra Hard Corps (NTSC version) it gets really unforgiving to the point where quick saves became essential. Considering that I was playing on Easy/Normal, I can't imagine what the harder modes would be like, especially on emulation.

I love the vibe and style of this game, the character designs are offbeat and fun, the humor hit for me, and the music is fantastic. It's short but sweet, a great lil summer game.

Wanted a quick one before Tears of the Kingdom, so I gave IQ a go. As a whole it was a delightful lil puzzler. They take minimalistic mechanics and get a lot of mileage out of it with some really challenging and speedy stages. I really dig how much the green and black cubes vary up strategy.

Also why did the music go so hard? It's like an epic orchestral score straight out of Super Smash Bros or something like that.

If Sony had any balls they'd stop making all these prestige games that feel ashamed to be games and make stuff like Intelligent Qube 2 instead. A man can dream, right?

I really love what they're going for conceptually - a pinball adventure game with sprawling tables and objective goals? Super cool stuff! Plus the style is really influenced by the abstract trippiness of stuff like Rez.

Unfortunately the game runs out of steam a bit as the tables progress, the first two tables are really novel and original, with interesting progression and gimmicks, however the third table is repetitive and frustrating with far too many repeating objectives that feels like a chore to complete. The final table is a sort of ode to Arkanoid/Breakout/Pong, mixing the mechanics and controls up to focus on linear paddles vs pinball style stuff. While it's really novel and interesting, it's a bit of a left turn for the game and a mixed bag as a whole.

With that said, this game is a lot of fun for fans of pinball - The physics are nice and the gimmicks are interesting. From what I've heard the local multiplayer is quite fun too - definitely worth a try if you're a fan of pinball or party games.

Finding bliss in utter sensory overload.

Man does DoDonPachi DaiOuJou feel great to play. Shooting with a powered up ship, your shots nearly covering the entire screen (or fully covering the screen if you ride with Type-B) is exhilarating but the combination of doing so while dodging bullet hell enemy shot patterns is what makes you feel like a god. At first glance these patterns can look impossible, however the lightbulb moment for me was seeing this image of your ship's hitbox from the shmups wiki. Your hitbox is a tiny fraction of the size of your ship; the same goes with enemy bullets. The result is complete instinctual play, dodging and weaving through an array of bullets requires precision but doesn't hinder the game from feeling damn good.

I finished a full loop with a boat load of continues - but as the title translates, it was a blissful death. I know for a fact that there's a massive amount of optimization and bonus content that I missed but to me, that doesn't matter - what matters is how this is one of the most satisfying game feels out there. Excited to play this on arcade hardware when I visit Galloping Ghost next month.

Also I've heard rumors of a remaster coming from M2 - fingers crossed on that.

I can't believe that I rolled credits on this game nine times with a giant bear mascot with no mobility of their arms or legs (<3 u kumachan) just to be able to beat people up with a Daytona car.

with that said, daytona car go vroom

this game is clunky and not great mechanically but makes up for it with one of the wackiest casts of characters in any retro fighting games. beating up c-list sonic characters with a walking car is very funny so extra half star for that

also this is the first Saturn game I've ever played! I have no experience with the system or knowledge of what makes it special or interesting - if any of y'all reading this have Saturn recommendations, please shoot them my way in the comments.

Cool little skateboarding game - the big mechanic is that there are slapstick cartoon-style gimmicks scattered throughout the stages - burn, decapitate, electrocute, and flatten your skateboarder to build massive combos. The story mode, featuring mini-games, races, battles, and combo challenges is fun and challenging at times. While the art style and humor hasn't aged super well due to the Spumco/John K connection and the skateboarding itself could be a little better, the inventiveness of creating combos of brutal punishment for your character while chasing the best lines and score chasing can be quite fun. Worth an afternoon - it's quite short and has a local multiplayer option.

This game has some of the worst music I've ever heard. Seriously, listen to this.

I was going through some old Gamecube demo discs and a trailer for this game was in a "coming soon" montage. It immediately grabbed my eye - I love arcade racers, especially colorful ones with loads of crashes and power-ups.

Well it turns out the Gamecube version of this is a fairly barebones port of the arcade game with a fair share of jank and terrible music. With that said, there's something really fun and exhilarating about taking the design principles of something like Outrun, then adding a boatload of shortcuts, power-ups, and visual flair. I really enjoyed this despite the short runtime.

Definitely check out the GBA port too - it's one of the most impressive 1 to 1 ports and 3d racers that I've seen on GBA

Beneath the cute, colorful facade lies one of the hardest arcade-like precision platformers of all time. Playing through the bonus levels with the full sized stick is insane and I can only imagine the calloused fingers of those who braved completion on an original GBA. With that said, I had a blast! The game is kind enough to add a shorter stick "easy" option which is much more forgiving. For such a simple arcade-y concept, they get a lot of mileage out of level variety with various gimmicks such as ice, grabby ghosts, moving walls, and more. Additionally there's a ton of fun little mini games to break up the core loop.

I played the untranslated Japanese version on my Steam Deck and while I didn't understand any text it was fairly easy to get through the entire game as it is such a streamlined level-based experience. It was a lot of fun to replay levels and try to get the gold star for not using any hearts (lost when you hit walls).

With Kuru Kuru Kuruin (the first game) coming to Nintendo Switch Online, I really hope Nintendo ports an English translation of this one to the Switch as it's a blast and more people should be exposed to it. I'm a sucker for level based / time-attack sort of arcade-y platformers (see Super Monkey Ball, Neon White, and Astro's Playroom) and this game scratches that itch in a really nice way. I often found myself squeezing and turning my Steam Deck as I tried to maneuver around tight corners with a single heart left.