Slow and steady wins the race. For the most part. On 4 of the 6 tracks available, it paid just to take it steady round the course and you'll be just fine. The last couple were a little more challenging.

Hang On in name only, I guess. Well, other than you racing a motorcycle of course. Laps around a course instead of a big long road race, and doesn't really have any of the unique and stylish gameplay or music that the original is known for. And this one looks like a dogs dinner.

Yet I still had a lot of fun. Once I figured it out. Avoid the sides at all cost! You'll either be flung from the bike with the slightest nudge or get pinballed from one side to the other. Lucky players will just get a little dink and be allowed on their merry way, however this is not something that happens. More often than not you'll be eating the dirt, with no real indication as to why, other than it just seeming random.

The engine noise sounds like an auto tuned baby making gurgling noises. It's aurally unpleasant.

But again, I find myself having a great time with this, and I had fun trying and and beating each course to earn the trophies for all 6. It's cool that I've unlocked endurance mode, but listening to the engine noise alone can be enduring enough.

Unless I can't see for looking, the game gets you to enter your initials after each race, but there's nowhere to view the records?

Give it a chance if you get to try this. Once you've pinned the way it controls down, it can be a good time.

I've never seen this mentioned when it comes to racing games for the Saturn, but I wanted to try it any way. I was very surprised to see it's a genuinely great arcade racer. Despite the arcade mode being limited to two courses, it's still a heck of a lot of fun trying beat your best time as well as the other bikes on the track.

Its often said that the system wasn't designed for 3d games, and while that's evident in its presentation, it doesn't stop it from being a belter. The pop up in the first track is pretty bad, but thanks to the second being quite twisty turny for the most part, it's nowhere near as noticeable.

A fun time, given a bit of legs by the Saturn and time trial modes, but the arcade is the most fun aspect of this for me.

Decent enough, and whilst challenging in places, is perhaps a bit too simple as well. In some aspects, reminds me of a less baffling Balan Wonderworld. Different costumes with different abilities, not a lot of actions to perform and an odd antagonist, although this is definitely a lot better than that game.

My favourite costumes are the kung fu, sword fighter and ninja ones. Maybe the cowgirl as well. The detective levels were probably my least favourite.

It looks nice and has some nice music too, but is probably a bit too simplistic for me to get too much enjoyment out of.

I was quite keen to give this one a go. As mid 90s as they come. Digitised sprites. The future! The first level was alright. Immediately disappointing when you compare it to the previous Shinobi games, but I was compelled to keep going.

Come level 3, despite the amusing FMV cut scenes and daft time capsule of a game, it's not very good and I didn't really want to keep playing. The big dinosaur was quite amusing. The more fantastical the game gets, the sillier it becomes.

But there's a reason this is pretty much forgotten. Fun as a curiosity, but nothing more.

Trying and trying to get better. I manage to stay completely the same for the majority of my attempts. Slight adjustment in the way I use breaks and drifts etc, but the best I fiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-nish, is always 5th. Part of me wants to knock the difficulty down, just to get that 1st place, but when it's this fun, do you even need to?

I even tried playing in manual transmission and still had the same results; a great time. I decided to watch the replay after several attempts at coming 5th, and I could have happily sat there for a while listening to the music.

I might try it in 3 lap mode next time, see how badly that goes.

I wish I had more Saturn games, but this is by far and away, my favourite so far.

Thus ends my wee run of Metroid playthroughs. Had a great time, once again. The thrill of exploring in this is fantastic. I left it long enough from my previous run that I couldn't quite remember half of what was coming, so that was pretty cool. Unless it's my age, in which case, uh oh!

Like Prime, I decided to run this one through in hard mode, and I have to say I did struggle at some points, which is a different story to last time, where I breezed through it, but that was coming straight off my original completion back at release. It was just as rewarding, however, and by the time I got to the final boss, I was fine with taking as many attempts as necessary to get there. I couldn't be arsed with 100% completion however and I managed to do it in a few minutes shy of 10 hours.

A very good game, that I have enjoyed coming back to at least 3 times now. And I doubt it'll be the last.

I decided to play Prime, again. Only I thought I'd try hard mode, as I did the same on my 2nd Dread playthrough and I had a great time. Of course they are the same thing...

It was pretty much business as usual until I got to the Phazon Mines. That soon started to give me a kicking. But once I picked up the plasma beam, it felt like I was in god mode. And then I got to Ridley. Spent the last 3 days basically doing 2 (3 if you count the 2 stages of Metroid Prime, the boss, not the game itself) bosses. Ridley took more attempts than the final boss, but it was just a case of repetition and grinding it out. If you get complacent or greedy, you get punished for it. Safe to say I did both several times. What, am I supposed to learn from my mistakes?

But it was a rewarding playthrough, and finishing it felt great. I was in two minds just to fuck it off, but I'd come this far, and surely to give up at the last boss would be pathetic. So I soldiered on. Overran on my lunch break, but it was worth it.

This might have overtaken Dread as my favourite Metroid.

I played through this when it was added to NSO last year and I was a little underwhelmed. Clearly 2023 me was on something. This is a cracking wee Metroid, perfectly formed for the system it was made for. Imagine any other wee 2D handheld game absolutely dripping with this kind of atmosphere and dread. And it looks great. Playing handheld on Switch looks great (not so good playing docked, but it's still lovely), and really is the best way to experience the NSO handheld library.

I really appreciated this time around, how suited it is as a GBA Metroid. Not too long that you've got to commit hours on end staring at that tiny screen, and there's still plenty there to keep the spirit of Super Metroid going. And I don't know how I never noticed how much Metroid Dread takes from this one in terms of overall tone and sound.

These games are flipping great, and we really need Zero Mission adding to the GBA library now. And the other Prime games should be on Switch, too. Not that I don't have the Trilogy on Wii and 2 on Gamecube, but that's beside the point! 😅

Back on point, I don't think I'd have stuck with this if I had it back in the day. The Nightmare boss made me break my self imposed no save state rule, the annoying bastard, and I did find myself turning the air blue a couple of times, but overall, this is some top Metroid, and perfect for an hour or so here and there.

After reading the Retro Gamer Super Metroid 30th anniversary feature, funnily enough, I fancied playing it. And play it I did. Absolutely soaked in unsettling atmosphere, and some great action platforming, it's a game that is not only brilliant in its own right, but actually made better by sequels like Prime and Dread.

I did have a few moments where I found it to be a little laborious. Some of the backtracking was a chore, and the wall jump and space jump were inconsistent, but I can overlook those as minor gripes in a game that I had a lot of fun with.

I don't really need to go over what's been said a zillion times already. Game good.

This starts off great. A nice little action rpg that feels like it blends Dark Souls and Zelda, having quite a chill atmosphere. The expansion of your little base camp is nice to watch as it grows every time you have someone back, or progress the game. It's really good seeing how things improve.

But then I hit a wall after a few hours. It started to feel like a real slog and a grind. With a dungeon that seems endless, and there's no spawn point/shrines or whatever, and it's fucking infuriating if you get killed in a cheap way, like getting knocked off a narrow platform, then having to go all the way to the beginning again. Nah, get fucked. At least Dark Souls had bonfires on runs that long.

Otherwise, it's a really nice game to play, and I enjoyed exploring the world with my pal, and kicking in bad guys, rescuing folk, expanding the base. All good things, let down by a crappy big dungeon that I can't beat.

And then I started playing a better, and I was done with this for the time being.