Cutesy GBA-platformer with a new and interesting gameplay mechanic? On paper this should be something I would be all over, but in the end it just somehow didn't manage to hold up as much as I initially thought. It's fun to play through, the drilling mechanics are comfortable and fun to solve puzzles with and the platforming action feels smooth and mostly uninterrupted, but after the first couple of levels, I just didn't feel like this game has enough to pull me in. There wasn't really anything to keep me engaged further in the game, especially with every level stripping away the gear upgrades and making you start collecting those again. This is perfectly fine way to keep each level as a separate adventure, but that felt just an unnecessary chore having to do the same thing over and over again.

The story isn't really anything new or great, the normal fetch quest type of deal having you collect six diamonds and beating the big bad evil guy, some of the bosses were a blast and some even managed to be challenging, but others just fade without having any real impact. I don't regret playing through it, it's a pretty decent game for a handheld system to set down and return to beat little bit every now and then.

Like many other reviews have mentioned, it's truly a unique experience. It's not a super long one, my first playthrough took me around 2 hours. Despite the length, this game has managed to sit on my backlog ever since it's release. I remember seeing some ads for it when it first came out on PS3, but never got around to buy it until it was released on Steam and even then it took me couple years to actually play it proper. Now that I've played it, I got to say that I wish I had done so earlier.

I really like the sound design with pretty minimal songs and letting the ambient sounds do their work in setting up the atmosphere most of the time. The surroundings manage to feel calm and tranquil, also giving the game a sort of timeless feel. Of course, it still manages to drive the story home even without any dialogue by showing it in cutscenes, which aren't too revealing either and lets you piece it all together by yourself.

There isn't much to say about the gameplay itself other than it works. The controls feel fluid and solid and I never had to fight against my character's movement. There isn't much of a challenge other than couple enemies you need to sneak past, but majority of the time you're allowed to breeze through your journey with whoever you got connected with in multiplayer.

Somehow my partner got lost in the middle of the snow level and turned back. Still didn't ruin the game for me one bit, maybe the fact that you don't actually communicate with them makes it even better for me.

I played this game as a child and remembered it being awesome. Now getting back to it at older age, I fully expected the great game from childhood being just a product of nostalgia, but it just rocked as much as it did back then, maybe even better since I went for the Dreamcast version over Playstation this time.

Rayman 2 is one of those early 3D platformers starring an iconic character from a beloved 2D platformer, now with just another dimension added. I would say Rayman did just as well with the transition as Mario. Of course, there is some jankiness to the controls, especially camera since you control it with the shoulder buttons, but thankfully it never becomes a hindrance. Only in the last level did I feel like I had to fight against stiff controls while flying with the rocket, but I got used to it pretty quickly since the hitboxes themselves were actually quite forgiving and turning surprisingly quick. Rayman 2 also suffers from that unintended creepiness some of the early 3D games had, with dead stares and some jarring environments.

The story is pretty straightforward and simplistic, only there to give you some goals to achieve. That paired with an easy difficulty clearly shows this game was designed for children to play and it serves it purpose wonderfully. Only thing I found annoying was the fact that you could skip any other cutscene in the game with a press of a button except the teensy cutscene that tells if you're allowed to progress or not every once in a while. I don't know why the only repeating cutscene in the game isn't skippable, but it's not a long one so I could stomach sitting through it every time.

Overall, it's a good game that in my opinion, deserves every bit of nostalgia you can muster up for a game from your childhood.

You want bomberman? Bomberman is as bomberman as a bomberman could bomberman. Okay, I'll stop. But honestly, it's a short and simple game with a solid and straightforward core mechanic. You have bombs, you plant bombs, you explode bombs until every single living being on the arena is dead.

The game isn't too difficult, I blasted through most of the game collecting powerups and only occasionally killing myself to my own smoothbrainess. The difficulty ramps up in the final area considerably and you really need to put everything you've learned to play if you want to finish the final stretch. It also helps if you have all the upgrades, but even with those it's going to be an uphill climb. Eventually I beat it, even the fast moving ghosts and the final boss, which were some bs, but I did it and I feel oddly proud for doing so.

I can recommend the game to everyone interested in where the series (or Gmod's famous melon bomber) got their start from. It's a short and simple pastime, I even completed this game on my bathroom breaks.

Car go fast nyoom. Going in, I was told that in Outrun you play as the coked up jackass who passes you on the freeway, flipping you off and certainly going towards their eventual big crash and I definitely felt like it. It's the perfectly chaotic arcade racing game with more than solid soundtrack, difficulty and finally a 3D-effect that didn't make me want to gouge my eyes while playing on the 3DS.

I haven't really played the original that much, but this seems like a good way to port the game on the more modern consoles.

When I was a child, our Playstation had mostly just driving games, so I really developed a taste for that particular genre and even equate the whole platform on the great car games it had. I never played Choro Q back then, but there were almost no issues for me to dive right into this game. It felt right like going back home.

Now, despite it's cutesy and bright style, this game has some serious learning curve. The cars are really light and rather tall, so they spin out really easily on almost every curve. The cpu hardly does any mistakes, but takes the corners really slow so overcoming the difficulty in this game is mostly just about choosing the right tires and making those turns faster than your opponents. You can even use the slippery mechanics to your advantage and drift around the difficult curves, dominating everyone else. Once you get the hang of it, you feel like a god.

Little disappointingly, the difficulty drops after the second grand prix. At that point, you have most likely already mastered the driving mechanics and going into the third and last gp, the other cars are not that consistent with their placements. If you drive couple first races well enough, you can even come last in the final race since nobody can reach your point total any longer.

Still, this is a super solid game and I would highly recommend this if you like driving/racing games and want to have a little twist to the style.

Played the GBC conversion hack. All I got to say is that it's pretty much an old-school Mega Man game, just on a smaller screen, which definitely doesn't help with the frustrations that stem from the "hard platformers" of the era. I know that there is a case to be made that the hard difficulty is to make the short game last longer, but the style of difficulty where the solution is only found with trial and error has aged terribly.

Still, I managed to enjoy myself with this game. I admit that I consulted a guide that told the order I should tackle all the bosses, which really trivialized the vast majority of them. The platforming was passable, although the controls were a bit stiff and sometimes you needed way too precise inputs to clear an obstacle without taking a needless hit. However, once you clear a level, the satisfaction is immense. That feeling is probably the only thing the game has going for it.

So if you're one of those people who love old Mega Man games, this is a mobile version of those and worth a try. For the rest of you I recommend moving along.

Denjin Makai doesn't really do anything groundbreaking as a beat 'em up, but what it does it does pretty well in my opinion. It's a short one, maybe takes about an hour to complete but it's not much of a quarter-burner like some other games.

What I like is that the special attacks deplete their own power bar, which makes them a really versatile tool to use and not just a panic button to avoid certain death. The bosses are pretty easy for beat 'em up bosses and while there is some trial and error, each of them have pretty choreographed moveset and playing around their attacks feels rewarding rather than just throwing more money into the machine after the bbeg hits you with the bullet train to Chicago third time this fight. The playable character are also diverse and have their own strengths and weaknesses, allowing for great variety of play styles.

Of course, there's some gripes. I don't know if what I encountered is a bug, but it seems that the enemies have better range to their attacks than you do. Multiple times I walked up to an enemy and started smashing at them, only to realize that I'm just about too high or low to actually hit them, while they could hit me perfectly fine. Stunning enemies manage to always feel frustrating, especially in later levels when the game fills the screen with enemies and if they all have stunning attacks, it becomes a free-for-all tennis match. The difficulty also increases rapidly towards the end, the last level alone doubling my quarters spent on this game. The difficulty increase comes in a form of just increasing the amount of enemies on the screen, which doesn't give too much room to play around and just leads to lost quarters from action economy alone. This is a huge shame, since earlier levels showed some creativity with environmental hazards and level design, which would've been the perfect way to keep the difficulty high in the last level as well. The game is thankfully short, so these minuses for the game don't fortunately overstay their welcome and the final boss feels just like the ones before: fair and beatable with some clever strategizing.

Overall, if you like beat 'em ups, the game is worth checking out. It's a good way to burn your sunday afternoon.

Very short cute 'em up and definitely on the easier side. Still, it doesn't lack challenge which presents itself in the last level and the bosses. It never managed to feel unfair though and each enemy had clear attacks you could avoid with careful positioning and keeping your eyes on the projectiles.

The game definitely doesn't do anything new, but what it does it does well. Collecting fairies, shooting magic and using specials all manage to feel satisfying with solid controls.

Cute, charming and funny. It's a decently cromulent way to spend your sunday in my opinion.

Once again one of those games that are surprisingly good at what they do, which isn't that much. Of course, it must have been a challenge to make a driving game for Game Boy Color and this attempt left a bit of a sour taste in mouth with it's monotone sound design and very janky controls.

There are some ideas I like with this game, like different road types and cars having different stats and mechanics, giving it some replayability, but even that falls flat once you find the right car for every track, which the game doesn't have a very high number of. If you just want to clear all the races with minimum requirements, you're done in about an hour. As a racer, it kinda follows Ridge Racer in a sense that the races are time trials, you're not actually driving against other drivers, they are in the game just to visualize how good time you're making and offer some challenge as you try to navigate past them. In a sense it also reminds me of Choro Q since most of the challenge is just how to clear those tight turns as fast as possible. It was surprisingly fun to figure it out, though my thumbs were left way too sore.

All in all, it's worth a try if you like driving games. Password system might be a bit of a hindrance, but otherwise it's a passable game picking up one race at a time, maybe during bus rides or loo breaks.

There is nothing much to say about this one, which doesn't mean that the game was bad per se, it just wasn't so long that I got any proper lasting impression. It doesn't offer a much of a challenge, the levels themselves are very short and enemies are fairly few. Only time those enemies managed to actually hit me were some traps you probably only fall for once in a playthrough.

Each time you complete a level, you face against a boss in a fighting sequence. Although the mechanics have changed, the challenge remains pretty much the same. Just block, hit where you can and use your special whenever that gets full. Soon you notice you've run out of the game.

The game's weakness is definitely the lack of challenge and it's length, because everything else is pretty damn well done. The controls feel solid and satisfying to use and the music is pretty banging, probably one of the best NES game soundtracks I've heard.

The game feels like something that was made as a quick tie-in for a television show but developers themselves couldn't stand doing half-assed job out of it.

Playing this after the third installment, it's pretty much the same deal but just shorter, which isn't a bad thing at all. As an arcade game, it felt to be on the fairer side, you can actually get pretty far with a quarter even on your first playthrough and it doesn't feel as unfair as some of the quarter-churners I've seen.

The high-paced action keeps up all the way to the end and the bosses are pretty memorable in their design. I can see how the third one was a direct follow-up, expanding the role of the vehicles whereas here they felt like a neat addition or a temporary power-up (or maybe I just lost them too fast).

Unfortunately the game suffers from pretty heavy slowdowns which really take away from the otherwise awesome action. I've heard there is some ways around those with overclocking or emulation, but it's a sad blemish on otherwise great game.

I've been hearing about this game a lot and now that I played it myself, I can just say that it either fails to live up to the hype or just horribly outdated.

I played the arcade version and while it's not the worst offender of quarter burning, there is definitely quite a lot at play. While it feels at times that you can actually just beat enemies with pure skill without losing any lives, you'll end up fighting against the clunky controls and stiff characters and are quickly reminded your place by damage sponging enemies. There is some leeway given with the rideable creatures with flame attacks that just annihilate enemies if you manage to get one, but even then it's just a matter of a time before some enemy manages to get a lucky hit in and kick you off your mount.

Some of the enemies are notoriously though mainly because they have a shit ton of health. The big armored enemies and skeletons are already a bit of a pain, but the devs just had to make you ride it all the way through and put couple skeletons into the final boss to make sure you spend the last of your allowance trying to beat the guy. I've never really been a fan of this type of difficulty.

Despite the criticism, the game is quite fun played with a friend. The story is pretty straight to the point and magic is abundant and satisfying to use if things get though. Golden Axe is one of those games that are experiences, but you're not really going to look back at too fondly.

It's pretty much a standard Kirby game. Everything about the game just screams plain cute and charming, but gameplay itself manages to be actually quite hard. There isn't much too much unfairness in my opinion, levels and bosses can be willed through with sheer perseverance and they have their patterns that aren't too difficult to master.

It wasn't until the end until the game started to show it's cracks. The levels felt like going on and on with difficult spots and while the last world has some shorter levels, they still manage to ruin them with trial-and-error-autoscroller segments. Still, King Dedede returned back to normal formula and managed to be fair boss, though on the tougher side.

The colorization hack itself does a great job bringing this game to GBC. It even runs well on the original hardware with a flash cart. (I've learned this isn't a given with all GB hacks.)