Oh, thank god. The first entry on the Game Boy of a well-known Konami series...that...ISN'T SHIT?! Seriously, though, this game is a very pleasant surprise, comparing it to Castlevania: The Adventure. The only thing they have in common other than being the first entry of a Konami series (starting with C) on Game Boy is that they both have great music. However, this one instead has much more reused music, taking up about half the tracklist. It's a little disappointing, but these are pretty good renditions of those NES songs from the original games. The graphics look nice, especially playing it on the Konami GB Collection (which is how I played it). The gameplay is very similar to classic Contra on the NES, with a few (bearable) changes. Some of them were even good, such as the built-in autofire. Yep, no Machine Gun power up, it's the default. Laser was also booted, leaving Spread, Fireball, and a newcomer. Spread Shot was downgraded to 3 bullets per shot, though by getting another Spread Shot power up, it's upgraded back to 5 bullets, with higher shot speed as well. Fireball is about the same as Super C, but with the autofire mechanic built in. And finally, we have the Homing power up. It's first-tier Spread Shot, but it has homing. AND YES. IT IS VERY OVERPOWERED. I got from Stage 1 to halfway through Stage 4 on one life JUST because of Homing. Speaking of stages, there are five. Less than the NES' eight, a humble number, but still enough so that it has some meat on its bones. The stages are as follows: Harbor, Base, Jungle/Waterfall, Alien Base, and the Laboratory (not official names, I made these up). Stages 2 and 4 are top-down, like Super C, and the rest are normal side-scrolling. I'm glad they went with the top-down stages, but I think it would've been cool if they threw a 3rd-person hallway stage in there. Nothing is wrong with these stages, hell, I think they're pretty good (favorite is stage 2), but none of them are very memorable. They just feel like...more Contra stages, nothing revolutionary, but obviously I can excuse that for being a GB game. For Contra fans, this is definitely a must-play, even if just for the novelty of it. I think it's a great addition to the series. Would be cool to see a remake, but of course, that probably won't happen. (but if it does get remade like 7 years later, I am officially a prophet)

I thought I just wasn't a Kirby guy. Turns out I was playing the wrong games. This game is REALLY GOOD. The sprite art is beautiful. The music is great (I have to say, though, some of the songs get tiring after being played for a long time). The gameplay is pure, classic Kirby and good fun. My only problem with the game is that the levels feel kinda samey. It can get very tiring when a lot of the levels feel the same. Speaking of stages, though, that one stage, man. It made me so happy. If you've played the game, you know exactly which one I'm talking about. And the MINIGAMES!! AIR GRIND IS MY JAM BRO, IF YOU DON'T LIKE AIR GRIND YOU'RE DEAD TO ME

...also, I just realized this is a remake of Adventure and not Dream Land. But can you really blame me?

Yes, this is my first Resident Evil game. Yes, I'm insane. Yes, there's something wrong with me. Yes, it was bad.
Not even good as a novelty. The best part by far is the rhythm-game-esque battle mechanics, that seem like a bit of a precursor to something like Undertale. Everything regarding the exploration is tedious. You're traveling back and forth between four different floors and many, many different areas, which isn't too surprising, but zombies respawn, and items, specifically ammunition, do NOT respawn. I was CONSTANTLY scrounging for ammo, always short of all ammo types, and spent most of the combat using the knife that only works at short range (where non-boss enemies can actually attack you). The story was alright, the worst part was the fact that it was cursed to this game. And oh boy, the cutscenes. The cutscenes are amazing(ly bad), everybody looks super goofy (Leon looks like the guy from loss.jpg). If you've been wanting to play this game, I would recommend playing the first five minutes of gameplay or so,

that's it that's all that's all you should play, basically everything else sucks.
Oh, and the music is ass.

You ever just play a game basically for no reason besides you see one review of it and you are mildly interested and you find out it's only, like, 1 hour long?
No?
Well, thanks MegaTheRealOne anyway for the inspiration.

This is one of the most 3/5 star games I've ever played. To me, a 3/5 game is something that "has potential and some good parts, but fairly significant flaws that I believe harm the experience." Yeah, that perfectly describes Clockwork Knight for me.
The gameplay is very simple. Walk (or run, I didn't find this out until maybe halfway through the second world) around, jump, and kill enemies with your key sword thing (wow that's familiar), which you can do buy stabbing or spinning it. In some levels you can find an invincibility power up, and you can collect gears for your healthbar (I think it goes up to 5 gears but I'm not completely sure). You can also pick up items like footballs to throw at enemies. Simple idea, pretty good execution. The controls are..............FINE. It's not amazing to control, but once you get the hang of it, you can have a pretty good time with it. The bosses are pretty worthless. Dumb simple attack patterns, pretty easy as well. The final boss (both phases) was great, though. Using the item throwing feature was really fun, honestly.
The graphics are pretty meh, if I'm being honest. All the charcters in the game are toys, so it makes sense that the artstyle would look off, but most of the game is unappealing to look at in general. The graphics remind me of Super Mario Kart 64, where the characters are prerendered sprites, but the environments are 3D. It worked pretty well there, but it just doesn't look too good here. The cutscenes are also in 3D and...ooh, they're rough, but they're not horrible. I can see them looking fairly good on an old CRT.
The music, honestly, the music was great. It ranges from energetic, fun jazz music to more laidback stuff to whatever that train level music was with the harmonica. My favorite song was probably the second Boss theme. It had a more latin feeling and it really made the bosses more exciting for me, even if the bosses the song was played for didn't really fit (two robots lmaoo). But overall, this is a solid soundtrack. I really like how they went for something new by basically doing a fully jazz soundtrack. You could see it as a precursor to Cuphead, almost, in that regard.
The game is incredibly short. About the length of Super Mario Land in terms of levels, which is insane, but it's true. There are four "worlds", which are just rooms in the house, which are Betsy and Kevin's rooms, the Kitchen (eugh ice physics), and the Attic. Each "world" or room has three levels, and even that's a stretch, seeing how the final level in each world is just a boss fight. Because of the length, there are no checkpoints in the levels. A little annoying, but I digress.
All in all, it's got a fair bit of charm for a little 2D platformer. I could've seen this series getting pretty big and becoming a Sega mainstay, but seeing as I had never heard of it before yesterday, it's fair to say that did not happen. Might have to play the sequel, Clockwork Knight 2...

Super Castlevania IV is just a game I wish I liked more. And I can't even truly explain why. The graphics are awesome for such an early SNES game, it's really impressive, and the visual details are pretty cool. The music, I see it as an acquired taste. At first, I didn't enjoy it, I didn't really get the appeal. I don't love it now, but I can appreciate it much more. And Treasury is STILL the best song in the game. I don't need to say this, it's already been said a hundred times before, but the atmosphere is great, and the music definitely adds to that. I like the new additions and mechanics, such as mid air control, 8-direction whipping, whip swinging (this is my favorite), flaccid whip (kinda wish this could've been mapped to L button or somethin though), etc, etc. Now let's get to the bad parts. First of all, this isn't really part of the game, this game is HELLA overrated. Second, the level design is not good. Third, this isn't something I find that big a deal as other people, but the weapon balancing is weird, too (whip good, cross good, everything else SUCKS). Fourth, ALL OF STAGE 8. And you may think, "These complaints seem minor for the game to get a 6/10 rating." And to that, I would agree. As I said before, I don't really know how to explain why I dislike this game, I just do. Consider me a member of the Super Castlevania IV haters. This game, frankly, isn't that super.

Also...what the hell? Why does everyone say this game is easy? Definitely one of the hardest Classicvanias I've played, second to probably Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't love this game. Everything about this game is done incredibly: the story, the music, the fourth wall breaks (if you don't know what I'm talking about, play the game, you'll be in for a treat), and especially, the overall presentation, which was especially amazing to me. The only reasons I'm holding off from rating this a 5/5 is because of the gameplay (I personally didn't find it that bad, once you get used to it, and the bosses used it in such creative ways anyway) and the fact that apparently 2 and 3 are BETTER. THEY'RE BETTER? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY'RE BETTER

By the traditional meaning of the term, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light is a bad game. From a modernized perspective, this game has pitifully slow gameplay, clunky battle mechanics, actually garbage item management, and a plethora of laughably confusing design decisions.
...And all of that would be right.
But it definitely has redeemable factors. First of all, the balance is great. The characters you get closer to the start are almost always the best ones of their class. For cavaliers, the best are Cain and Abel, then Hardin, and then Matthis, Roshea, and Vyland. So better players get to use the better units, those being Cain and Abel, if they don't get them killed. Worse players will be forced to use units like Roshea and Vyland the worse they play. It's kinda great, and it's less talked about than other aspects of the game, specifically the bad ones you see at surface level. The same is true with mercenaries. Ogma and Navarre are the best, then Radd, then Caesar. And the gameplay, when you get down to it....it's Fire Emblem. Plain ass, simple ass Fire Emblem, stripped down to it's core, and despite a fair amount of jank, it's fun.
Am I saying that people should play Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light as their first game in the series? Hell no. Quite frankly, you are insane for thinking that. But should a fan of the series try it out? Definitely. And if this doesn't convince you, then this should.

Oh, and if the person reading this ever plans to play this game, do me a favor...do an Ironman run. Trust me, it makes the game way better.

Anyone who says this game isn't good is just plain wrong. Anyone who says this game is better than Super C...is also just plain wrong. While it's definitely inferior to it's NES sequel, this is still a classic game, and a blast in multiplayer.

First of all, let's get the most insignificant part out of the way. The story. Contra has zero story. That is, if you don't have the manual. (Edit: Apparently, the Japanese version has things such as cutscenes, a map in between levels, numerous graphic changes, etc. You can see them all here)). Even then, it's a few paragraphs, that's it. But genuinely, who in their right mind would play Contra, fuckin' CONTRA for the story? It's a game about buff men with guns who kill a bunch of aliens. Need I say more?

Next is the music. Contra easily has an inferior soundtrack to it's sequel, in my opinion. But I can see why many people would disagree. Contra is a much more popular game, and much more people have nostalgic thoughts of it. Inferior, though, does NOT mean bad. Far from it. This still has one of the coolest soundtracks on the system. The title theme is hype, Jungle is iconic and awesome, Base is headbanging, Waterfall is slapping, Snow Field is just plain cool, Energy Zone is energetic and exciting, Alien's Lair is foreboding and atmospheric, yet gritty, and the Credits theme is truly rewarding after a game like that.

Onto the difficulty. It's no surprise to anyone that Contra is a hard game. When people say "Nintendo Hard", this is what they mean. And yet, unlike many NES games, Contra is at a very good difficulty level. Despite so many deaths, so much trial-and-error, it doesn't feel unfair. There are exceptions, as always. But it really does have a well designed difficulty level, which thankfully carried over to Super C.

And finally, the big one. GAMEPLAY. This is what you play Contra for. For the normal levels, the controls are tight. Jumps are sometimes stretched fairly far, but it's no Castlevania: The Adventure. But what good are good controls if the stages aren't designed around those good controls?(cough cough scv4 i meant uh anyways) But fear not, this is no problem. The controls are designed around the stages and vice versa. On the topic of stages, they are very well designed. Let's take the first stage as an example. In the first stage, better guns like Spread Shot(our lord and saviour) and Machine Gun are on top paths, after the bridges. If you play better, you will get the better guns. If you fall off the bridges, you will get guns like Fireball(coming from Super C as I played that first, it's such a "look how they massacred my boy" despite the fact that this iteration came first) and Laser. It's not just the first stage that has this type of game design, it's recurring, most of the game is designed in this way. Now, for the hallway stages, these are much different. There are only two in the game, and these are stage 2 and 4. Honestly, I question the decision to put them both close to the start, but I digress. These stages...are weird. They take a lot of getting used to, mostly because of the odd angle. But I assume these types of stages worked much better in the arcades; I can see how it would be difficult to move something over to a much weaker console. These are the games' "gimmick stages", the counterpart to Super C's top down stages. And...if I'm being brutally honest, which of course I am: these stages are kind of lame. The top down stages are streets ahead of the hallway stages. It's certainly one thing I think they could have improved if it was kept in the sequel, but I'm glad it was swapped in favor of the top down stages.

Phew. That was a long one. All I'm trying to say is this:
Contra is a great game. Unfortunately, because of my history with playing its sequel first, I can only see it as an inferior game to Super C. But it's still an awesome game with great stages, slappin' music, and amazing gameplay.

[Revisitation of my Childhood, Part 2]

Okay, what..? This was honestly a crazy experience for me because my whole life, I was thinking that this game was definitely the better out of the two LEGO Indiana Jones games. But this is...much worse. Not saying it's actually bad, but there is a clear drop in quality from the first game. The best way I can describe it is "undercooked additions and confusing exclusions." Example: Hub world. Definitely the most notable new feature of this game from it's predecessor, the hub world is probably the biggest example of an undercooked addition. Everything besides playing levels, including unlocking characters, vehicles, bonus levels, and actually going to the story/treasure levels is done in the hub world. And uh...it's not fun. The minikit equivalents are basically dropped, and everything is unlocked through the hub world, which gets VERY annoying after a while, because of how much slow transportation you have to do during it. Another example of this game's motto of sorts is the shorter levels. All of the levels in the game are shorter than they are in the previous game, and while many would argue that doesn't mean a drop in quality of those levels, in this case, it most certainly does. Oh, also, after you beat the story of an episode, in the hub world there is now treasure levels(basically replaying the story levels with changes to the level design and sometimes appearance of the stage) and bonus levels(custom levels made in the level builder VERY LOOSELY based off of moments in the story not in the story levels, which just comes off as lazy of all things) to do as well, which means a total of NINETY levels to do, EXCLUDING the stupid million stud levels. Other examples of this are the level builder, and the vehicle levels. Oh god, the vehicle levels. Not only are they super annoying to actually play, but the True Adventurer stud counts are stretched SO FAR that you're better off just going for that after you've gotten stud multiplying red bricks. The only new additions that I actually enjoy are end-of-episode boss battles. Most of them ROCK, like Raiders, Temple of Doom, and Crystal Skull 2 and 3. Also the Green Brick extra "Snake Whip", all my homies love Snake Whip.
Also, THERE'S NO BOULDER TEMPLE LEVEL IN RAIDERS STORY. HOW DO YOU HAVE RAIDERS WITHOUT BOULDER TEMPLE