frankursztejn
1986
brutal, cold, actively adversarial towards the player in a way no other game made before it accomplished. hard to completely describe how beautiful some of the later stages are.
i want to fuck devil jin so bad
one of gaming's most potent and mysterious fairy tales. moody and imaginative -- the core impetus of its platforming is mechanical improvisation, going through corridors unknown and barely large enough to fit. best 64 game????!!!
1992
If you do not like ecco the dolphin you are not my friend
2004
goat
2009
slapdash and schizophrenic in both play genre and visual cohesion, plausibly can be considered an arpg, shmup, and platformer all in one go. it is not that it excels in all these sharp changes, but that the same enthusiasm is awarded equally. kind of a miracle.
Always registered as a prototype of MvC but kind of mechanically better than that whole series? Genuinely fluid sprite work, very little character choices but way more customizability than you'd first think from a game like it, soundtrack goes hard! What's not to like?
1993
pretty good but can't help but miss the madcap slapdash of the mainline games, whereas this one goes for the run-of-the-mill SNES cohesion. some of the textures are nice, especially the final stage, but otherwise i'm a little underwhelmed.
1988
i love the NES
1998
totally perfect melodrama atop everything else.
2022
couldn’t get enough of this even when the puzzles are somewhat needlessly opaque.
2023
far and away the best modern FE, or at the very least the first since the Wii games to be as sharp and efficient as its origins. Silly, but well directed action -- characters passing through shrouds, cutting through wind, engulfed in flames.
1994
The definition of rock solid. Really, the only issues I have with it lie in its rather small moveset variation between characters, but after a few playthroughs it actually kind of works with such a stiffly realistic game.
what it lacks in third strike’s “lightning in a bottle” disposition it makes up for in complete aesthetic insanity
The most fighting game fighting game ever made. Mechanically infallible, so strange to actually play as every character is a mixture of unplayable and game-breakingly overpowered. excellent work.