This was the first ever non Tiger video game I ever remember playing. I was about two or three years old and my mom bought an old apple II along with a bunch of games. It arrived one stormy night and I recall her setting it up and having me play some games while sitting on her lap. Although she swears by centipede and Carmen Sandiego being my first proper video game experiences, this is what I have my fist memory of.

Swinging off those vines and her saying "now he's going to jump into the water!" After I eventually figured out how to navigate that first board- memories you can't really put a price or proper rating on.

One day I'll have the space and money for a proper retro PC setup to nostalgasm over that...but for now...I'm happy to at least remember that.

I'm the kind of person who stays as far away from roguelikes as possible, but this looked cute and I just so happened to get three months of game pass via the purchase of a ROG Ally so I went ahead and tried it.

The gameplay loop is surprisingly good and sees you clearing out waves of enemies while turning your cat mech into a ball and bouncing about to deal damage and do some light platforming here and there. It is a lot of fun just rolling off a ramp and repeatedly landing on an enemy to wittle away at their health. The gunplay is fine, but it wasn't long until I found my favorites and simply ignored everything else.

Roguelikes are known for their brutal difficulty, but I was able to finish this one for the first time after three or four runs. Whether or not I got lucky...I'm not sure. That's one of many things I can't stand about this sub genre.

I really hope the devs will make another game like this with non-randomized encounters and actual level design based around the core mechanics. Like flinthook, I can't help but feel this is a great concept held back by being rougelike.

This is a short but sweet Build-engine inspired FPS that oozes 90's. As in...your melee weapon is literally that damned S everyone drew on their notebooks or sharpied in on school playground equipment. Your character hurls out one liners and insults like a certain Nukem, but they're all as hilariously juvenile as you can get. "Oh yeah, I got it on with your mom!", "You smell like turds. Well, would have...because you're dead!"

If you don't mind crude humor (or, in my case, still get a chuckle out of this kind of garbage at nearly 30 years old) and a handful of those classic "where the fuck do I go?" sections these games were notorious for, then this is a great time. Not sure if I'd put it above Cultic or Dusk, but I don't regret spending four hours clearing it with xbox game pass.

I come back to this game to complete it once or twice every year, and it's been that way for a while now. It's a solid improvement over the original Flintstones NES game in terms of balance and gemplay. Gone are the stupid ice physics and constant placement of enemies in situations where it's very easy to get knocked back and insta killed.

Instead, we are treated to more interesting levels tailored around swapping between Fred and Barney. Fred is able to pull himself up ledges like in the original game, whereas Barney is equipped with a slingshot and can climb along vines whereas Fred can't. It's a very interesting dynamic and although you could argue other NES games experimented with it (Mario 2 for instance), I still find it welcome here.

The difficulty curve is surprisingly modern. The only real difficulty spike pops up at the very end- you're chased by an insta-kill wheel and will have to swap between Fred and Barney quite often. It is ungodly fast and even when you know the level layout its still easy to get clipped by it. This section blew on my first playthrough, and I still don't care for it. That said... it's a small price to pay considering how fun the rest of the game is.

Play this one any way you can...unless you've been living under a rock (heh heh) you're probably already aware that you'd have to give your left nut to own an actual copy. Worth emulating, but not worth getting neutered for.

It's honestly just okay in my opinion. It seems like people either love or absolutely hate this game, but I can't help but find myself gravitating somewhere in between. One hand, the concept of "SMB1, but harder" isn't necessarily a bad thing to me considering I've beaten the original too many times to count (including several times under the influence of our world's magic mushrooms...heh) and I can appreciate that concept. That being said...the hammer brothers spam, the dumb wind gimmick and springs that launch you at inconsistent heights and speeds are really god damned annoying and keep me from coming back to this game as much.

Although unofficial, I think there are a handful of hacks out there nowadays that do the whole "Mario...but for super players!" thing far better. SMB Special: 35th Anniversary comes to mind as far as the original game goes. Bandicoot's Super Mario World hacks (especially Crown Tale which I loved cringe story aside) also fit this bill nicely. None of those games get as hard as this one, but offer a comfortable step up in challenge IMO.

Far better than Final Fight in every department except the graphics. In many ways, this kinda feels like a Master System or NES game with a suped-up appearance thanks to the extra bits. It still has some hang ups from that era too, including super cheap bosses that will knock half or even three quarters of your life bar off and the only (reasonable) way to beat certain enemies is to exploit their AI and incessantly loop them into throws or stun locks. The sequels are all far better on all cylinders in regards to balancing, but this is still worth playing as a history lesson and to see where the franchise started.

I think the concept behind this game is sound and, in some ways, better than Pac Man 99.

That being said...I can't really recommend the game as it stands.

I played several hours in early access and some once the game was officially out on May 8, and almost every game was completely filled with bots. Let me tell you, these bots are even more brainless than your average Reddit moderator. They'll constantly run into ghosts and any kind of trap you set up for them, guaranteed. Normally I'd be okay with bots since the game is new and the cross play functionality may or may not take off, but they offer zero challenge. I'm almost certain even a five year old could put up more of a fight.

The game is fun when there's at least a few other human players involved, but it doesn't seem to be guaranteed at this time. This could have been alleviated if there was some sort of offline/bots only mode with a difficulty scaler, or (heaven forbid with a modern game) local co-op...but Bamco has omitted both.

The final nail in the coffin for most will undoubtedly be the price. 20 dollars is a lot to ask for what is essentially an online only game that may or may not develop the kind of player base Pac Man 99 had. If I wasn't a huge fan of the IP, I likely would've passed and honestly can't blame anyone else for doing so at the moment.

[Played via the very recent NES port which can be found for sale on itch.io]

I'm going to be honest, I usually frown upon homebrews. Once the novelty of playing a new game on an old console wears off, I've always felt like I was left with a half baked product. At least, that's been my experience with the homebrew scene so far.

This, however, was rock solid. Sam's Journey is a bit Yoshi's Island (due to the collect-a-thon element), a bit Donkey Kong Country and a bit Super Mario Bros. 3. You have the large, sprawling levels that europlatformers were typically known for (thankfully not as confusing as something from the original Turrican) and a good number of suits to mess around with. Sam will find himself turning into a pirate, a wall jumping ninja, a vampire that can turn into a bat and even an Elvis knock off that can twirl around in the air.

Knights of Bytes certainly didn't skimp out on the presentation for their first project, either. This game looks just as good as an actual late release NES game, although it does get a little too busy visually. There were definitely times I struggled to distinguish the foreground from the background, but it was never game breaking. Also, the music is absolutely fantastic. It goes way harder than it needed to for a game about a kid getting yoinked into a magic warphole in his closet.

Give this one a go if you don't mind the fact that it's not on the traditional storefronts. I really hope this will come to Steam as well as Switch- it would definitely have an audience on the latter!

This was among the first Genesis games I ever played- summer of 2003 when I was 7 years old and at the absolute peak of my Sonic the Hedgehog obsession. To this day, it is still my favorite entry in the series as it strikes the best balance and has some of my favorite setpieces.

Don't get me wrong- it's still a Ghosts n Goblins game and is still very challenging. However, being able to shoot up (as well as down) makes a huge difference in how the game can be approached and is a bit more forgiving because of it. It's also not "game breaking" in the way that Super Castlevania IV's multi directional whip allegedly is, as the level design and boss encounters definitely account for this nuance. Case in point- the barfing pigs at the end of stage 1 and the giant slug you take on before entering Lucifer's castle.

I also don't think people talk about the psycho cannon. It's the game's mandatory second loop weapon this time around, and it is awesome. It genuinely feels great to use in nearly every situation once you're able to obtain it. When wearing golden armor, it does not grant you any sort of magical ability (like the other weapons) but is able to cancel out projectiles which is very helpful. I'm bringing this up because, in Super Ghouls n Ghosts, the magical bracelet was awful and made the game harder if anything due to its gimped range and lack of any special traits.

Definitely give it a go- you might enjoy this game even if you didn't care for the others in the franchise. I'd consider this, Forgotten Worlds and Mega Twins to be some of the most enjoyable of Capcom's arcade-to-Genesis conversions.

Maybe I just have bad taste, but after replaying this game last week I'm genuinely shocked that there's a lot of people who either think this game is mid or terrible.

I'll agree that the humor isn't for everyone, but looking past that, it's just so much fun simply moving around and doing parkour in this game. To me, I feel like an open world game has succeeded if you don't even want to use fast travel. Even if I was zig zagging between objectives, I still wanted to find new ways to reach the landmarks and potentially discover collectibles along the way. (There are quite a few of them)

The weapon variety is also nothing to sneeze at. The same kind of ridiculousness that you'd find in a ratchet and clank game can be found here- everything from explosive teddy bears to an RC that deploys mini helicopters of death. Most of the ones I encountered really were a blast to use.

I did find some of the missions in the Fargathian/LARPer arc to be kind of a slog, and I do think that the Amp system doesn't add nearly as much to the experience as the devs want you to think. Still, this is well worth playing and it's kind of upsetting that a remaster or sequel is super unlikely.

Upon completing this again after a few years, I am willing to admit that the 8 bit sonic 2 has some good ideas. Being able to skim across the water in the aquatic zone was a really neat touch that I don't think happens anywhere else in the classic sonic series. Gimmick Mountain along with its phony walls and Scrap Brain-like spheres you launch off of were also kinda neat. And, in theory, the paraglider could have been a nice diversion if it didn't have busted and unintuitive controls.

It's just too bad that most of the level design ranges from decent to absolutely terrible, with scrambled egg being the worst offender. It is 100% trial and error when it comes to figuring out what directions to hold to not get dumped into some spikes. Then there are all of the blind jumps in Green Hill Act 3 that involve a sociopathic level of precision to nail. The developers themselves must have realized how bad of an idea the latter case was, as you can rack up copious amounts of extra lives leading up to the ordeal.


The chaos emeralds don't fare much better, but at least they are always in act 2 of each zone. (You're still not going to find some of them without consulting a guide though...I don't even think it would possible to find the emerald in zone 2 even if by complete accident)

Even the music is quite honestly forgettable. Definitely not terrible by any stretch, but a far cry from the tracks in the far superior Sonic 1 8 bit and definitely a whimper stacked up against the Genesis trilogy.

Only play this if you're a diehard sonic fan and just have to beat all of the games. You're not missing much otherwise.

One of the best late Taito releases that isn't Little Samson or based on another IP. It's a very straightforward action platformer (even simpler than the Flintstones games) with the levels being themed around various parts of a food joint. I really like how everything is presented on a restaurant menu as you progress through these short-but-sweet platforming 'bouts.

As others have stated, the game does get it a bit obnoxious with enemy placement. However, it never really got to the point where I stopped enjoying myself (which I can't say for something like Ninja Gaiden or Castlevania III).

Also have to give bonus points for the rival chef/final boss looking a hell of a lot like a cross between Dick Dastardly and Waluigi.