So, I had never played a dungeon crawler before, much less an SMT game. Decided to start here, and was completely taken by surprise. What an awesome game! It's a SNES game, so hasn't aged perfectly, but the gameplay was excellent and the difficulty enough to make it feel challenging with feeling cheap or unfair. The story wasn't anything spectacular, but was certainly good enough to keep my attention throughout the game. That last dungeon was a SLOG, but didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the game. Looking forward to continuing my journey with this series!

Second GOTM finished for June 2022. I'm kinda surprised by how much I enjoyed this game. It wears its desire to be Zelda on it's chest, much less its sleeve, but I still found it really charming. The music is pretty catchy, and while it can sometimes look like a flash game the graphics were fun and bright enough to keep my attention. The game got easier as you played, due to various weapons and power ups, but the speed and difficulty of some of the enemies early on can be a little frustrating. Regardless, I enjoyed my time with this little game. Crayon Shin-Chan in Western Zelda!

I feel that it simply didn't carry the impact that SMT did when I played it. In comparison, SMT2 was easier, the upgraded graphics and demon designs were nice, and the story was arguably an upgrade. However, certain changes were simply baffling. The Terminal animation and demon fusion animations took much longer, it felt like there was a LOT more backtracking, and Magnetite became detrimentally scarce for a large chunk of the game. Also, if you chose the Law path (like I did), you were in for a much harder experience with less story and level opportunities come endgame. Overall, it just lacked the fun I felt when playing SMT. I enjoyed my time with this one, just maybe not every one of the 30+ hours it took to beat.

Did not play as part of GOTM or GOTW. Super gorgeous little Game Gear game. Baby's first tactics, with little in the way of complexity or scaling difficulty, so perfect for nearly anyone to play with little trouble. Element triangle is really important in this one. You're not doing much damage against enemies going against the triangle, and you'll do a ton going with it. Some elements, like unit promotion, are not explained at all, but it's a simple enough tactics game that it doesn't really change much if missed or not utilized fully. Overall, a great little game that was fun to play!

Ninth GOTW finished for 2022. It was neat seeing characters like Kamen Rider, Ultraman, and Gundam in an old-school platformer, but the difficulty in this game is cheap. All enemies stun lock, including the mooks, and they often appear out of thin air. It can feel purposefully cheap. Once you beat a level (there's 8) it stays unlocked even if you die, so it's not CRUEL, but without save states I doubt I would've finished this one.
The powerups are cool, and each character has their own style of attack (short-range or long-range), but until you get used to what they look like it's vague what you're going to get and you can sometimes end up with a character ill-suited to the level or it's boss. Speaking of, bosses can be brutal, but at least have a relatively predictable pattern if you're willing to try again and again. I didn't hate it, but I doubt I'll play it again.