Yet another game that I would not have beaten on my own if it wasn't for save states and rewinding on the switch. Honestly a lot of these Nintendo hard games are saved by the rewind and save state feature. This game is unbelievably hard in it's platforming and enemy placement. With a lot of the game demanding you make certain jumps and avoiding enemies while having some really stiff controls. I don't think this game is particularly good as it was back then simply because of how harsh it punishes you, and with a game over system a lot of the time you'd likely reach stage 3 and die before seeing the rest of the game. It's not even Ninja Gaiden type of hard where the game actively teaches you to jump and kill enemies properly. No, it just demands your full attention to performing these miracle moves every minute. Overall, I liked the enemy design of this game and the possibility of future installments having interesting weapon mechanics, but it's probably better dead.

Originally a adaptation of 1984's the terminator, Sunsoft's Journey to Silius is a pretty alright game. This is one of those NES games where you cant tell if you're taking part in a fun challenge like in Ninja Gaiden or Sunsoft is just torturing you like a lot of other games from the era. This game is pretty standard run and gun platformer and not much more and not much less, you only really shoot in one direction, unless you use the other guns. There's a lot of trial and error with how to go about this and the jank of the NES in general makes this one really hard to time things perfectly. It would be nice if there were more ammo and health drops as they're so rare they make using one of the specialty guns a last resort rather than a good time.
There's no way I've seen so far to get additional lives as well, but there is a decent continue system in place which just makes the game a bit more forgiving.
The presentation is honestly really slick with some of my favorite sprite work on the console and very good looking colors. The soundtrack also abso-freakin-loutley slaps and whoever composed it deserves an award.
I haven't quite finished this game yet, but I'm having fun with it despite it feeling rather unfair at times.

Sections where it's almost impossible to not take damage? Check!
Trial-and-error level design that sometimes drops you straight onto an enemy when going downwards? Check!
Random health and ammo drops from enemies in a game without backtracking and respawning enemies? Check!

If you're here for Kodaka's music, check Blaster Master, Gimmick or Hebereke instead. If you're here for a good NES run-and-gun, just stick with Mega Man or something.
You're going to end up relying on save states anyway, and at that point it's kind of a moot point to "experience the game."

There is a hardware bug in the NES that prevented developers from using differential pulse-code modulation for their music. If a sample byte is fetched from memory at the same time the game is reading from the controller, a conflict occurs that corrupts the controller data. This meant software workarounds were required, such as Mario 3 repeatedly repolling the controller until two consecutive inputs matched. Sunsoft also went this extra mile, and it let them make some of the best tracks on the console. That music is why I played this game, and it's pretty much the game's only redeeming quality. It's a very basic side scrolling shooter without anything unique other than the fantastic soundtrack. It's particularly frustrating because it's from that era of games with limited continues, meaning that you have nine lives to beat five stages, some with multiple bosses. It's an exercise in frustration, and you're better off experiencing this game by youtubing the soundtrack rather than playing it yourself.