I like the sumptuous, rococo approach to character design here. The cheeky tone is all over the place, which I guess is the hallmark of a "cult" title. I vastly prefer this one to the sequels, even just in gameplay terms.

It's undeniably fun and another example of fine craftsmanship, but decades of refining the 2D Mario formula have almost boxed Nintendo in, driving them to throw stuff at the wall for the sake of novelty.

In my twenties I watched a few of my close friends play this game for days on end while chain-smoking and telling each other to kill themselves, as their laptops overheated in the dead of summer. Never felt compelled to play, myself.

As stylish, inventive, and boundary-pushing a Capcom fighter as Darkstalkers, but completely busted by comparison. Still, that has its own charm. There's an astounding ingenuity to many character concepts.

The "Tokyo Vice City" tone is fun and you can do some adventure-game stuff between missions, but at its core it's a pretty bad beat-'em-up. Interesting little curiosity from the DS era, I guess.

The brutal, heavy, melee-centric first-person combat is engaging and impactful. The grimy, dilapidated urban setting is pretty good, too. Kind of a dumb "Se7en-themed Hobo Murder Simulator" premise, but it's fine.

Highly-addictive puzzle-dungeon RPG with humorously pathetic story and characters. This is where Onion Games' gameplay, and not just writing, gets to shine. It made more sense as an iOS F2P game, though.

Though slightly clunky and very grind-y, it's the only game that really captures the Jump spirit with its vibrant sprite work, kinetic faux-Smash Bros combat, massive roster, and brilliant manga-themed customization.

For being a Treasure-developed Wario game this is really mediocre. I struggle to remember anything about it beyond a couple boss battles. I'm definitely on board for a mainline Wario game, but this wasn't it.

Such a cool take on the match-puzzle game, where you're exchanging small coins until each makes a thousand. Insanely high skill ceiling (and ruthless AI), but fun to play solo. Perky and silly magical-girl premise.

Special Version's one-bullet shield and easy-mode first loop make it an excellent introduction to bullet hells as a whole, without compromising its identity as a blood-pumping Toaplan shooter.

It's such a friendly, pick-up-and-play take on the roguelike. I love how many of its mechanics also work as tiny storytelling embellishments. Art is surprisingly lovely as well. Post-game dungeons are mostly just torture.

Having never gotten really into SFII when it was most relevant, coming back to it now feels comforting in its simplicity, straightforwardness, "honesty," etc. It's still a perfectly fun game to play, is what I'm saying.

Cel-shaded anime Lost Planet spin-off with Monster Hunter-gameplay loop.... It's a tragedy I missed out on playing this online; single-player's way more tedious than your average MonHun. Should give it another go.

The "soft apocalypse" setting and ethereal horror story go a long way towards redeeming its tedious resource management, roadblock-tier boss fights, and surprisingly exploration-resistant environments.