Here's the lyrics to Sonata's theme if anyone's having trouble following along.

Ooh ooh
Ooh ahh
Ooh ooh, ooh oh
Ahh ahh ah ahh ooh

Ooh ooh
Ahh ooh
Ooh ooh, ooh oh ooh
Oh ooh oh ooh ooh ahh

Something tells me this game would've benefitted from having an arcade version or something instead of being on the NES only. As it is, it's really small, but I still kind of enjoy it. For the most part.

I like that you get thrown into random encounter shmup segments, but the game doesn't do a whole lot with that idea. Not counting Jaws, there are five enemy types: stingrays that move forward, jellyfish that move straight up, stingrays that go really fast, jellyfish that can move to the side, and smaller sharks. You'll probably see them all in the span of a few minutes, the map isn't that big.

What's more interesting than the enemies is the fact that the shmup segments give you (among other things) shells that can be used to get nifty things from the port icons; first the receiver, then power upgrades. You get punished kind of hard for dying, though; you lose not only a level and half your shells but the receiver too, meaning you have to spend another trip between the ports. I feel like just the level and/or shell loss would've been sufficient.

Eventually you have to fight Jaws, of course, and at first he doesn't really put up any more of a fight than the regular enemies; how fast you can drain his power depends entirely on your power level.
Then comes the second bit where you have to stab him. It took me a couple tries because I didn't know you shouldn't wait until he gets as close as possible to you. That bit kinda sucks for the first time, honestly, but I got used to it.

Jaws is aight. There's probably a game or two out there that does its thing better, but the ideas in it are neat-ish.

Another nice Egg Boy Shmup. DX might blow the Master System one out of the water but it's still very enjoyable, on par with the first arcade game.

Levels are a bit slower paced and more segmented than they were before; now you have to go through warpgates to be able to get rid of all the bases. Shops are also at fixed points rather than just coming in when the game feels like it. If you die, it's a bit tougher getting to where you were beforehand, so naturally it's way easier once you remember which gates lead to where. Also important are the Red and Blue bottles which are costly, but let you take more than one hit if you can find them.

The game gets really crowded from round 5 onwards like the first Fantasy Zone did, though even before you get to that point, you'll likely find yourself getting walled by bullets once or twice. It's kind of intense, but I eventually figured out how to put up with it! Also like the first game, you'll want to actually rely on special weapons more; it's really satisfying to get rid of half the bases in Chaprun with two or three Fire Ball shots, for instance.

Most of the bosses are easier than the stages for some reason, but they're still nice. Once you've made it to Wolfin, you could tear through like half of them with the aformentioned Fire Balls if you wanted to. You can actually beat the final boss without needing a special bomb this time, which is a plus.

Fantasy Zone II. Good game. Not much else to say.

It's Mega Man. Not a "spiritual successor" like some people claim it to be, just a clone with good production value.
RKS is closest to Mega Man 4 or *5 in particular, which means you have a charge shot and slide; most other early clones or fangames had only one or the other, so it's nice seeing this one with both.

Somehow I keep thinking I'm forgetting at least one of the first eight bosses. I only ever played Arcade mode so I can't go off of their dialogue. Let's see who I can remember:

- Freudia, whose stage spams Quick Man lasers but whose boss theme is nice
- Grolla, the one with the sword whose weapon I kept forgetting existed
- Luste has my favorite stage theme and gives you Metal Blade but chargeable, but I wish she didn't wear that
- The swimsuit one whose name I forgot how to spell is like Air Man but slightly more annoying
- Sichte, the time-stopping lady who fights you in a clock tower and throws knives at you
- Zorne, the one whose weapon is just a bomb from Bomberman, never really gave it a chance either
- Pamela is a girl with rain powers whose stage is in an electric tower for some reason?
- Schwer-Muta, a girl in a goofy cat/wolf/bear/other unspecified animal suit who has a tiny squid man. Can't argue with that design, honestly.

Yup, that's all of them.

I think the fortress stages have the issue people keep having with Mega Man fortresses in the sense that they're too "samey" compared to each other; in this case, a lot of them actually do have unqiue gimmicks, but share very visually similar tilesets. There's still a few standouts when it comes to the bosses, like "Glass that's out for your blood" and "Yellow Devil but both you and its gravity flips."

I always thought it was respectable, but weird that they bothered putting in a complete password system for this game (and its sequel.) For comparison, since Mega Man 8 every game in that series had a more traditional save file system, including 9 which came out the year right after the first RKS and was famous for being just like the NES games in most aspects.

Yeah, it's Mega Man.* Guess you can't expect too much out of it, it's pretty old.

In spite of its jankiness, this is one of my favorite Touhous. I'm not kidding.
It really is nice to just jump into a game whose backgrounds have like, 10 colors total, and start flipping cards with symbols I can't read on them.

This is the only (official) Touhou game in existence I'm comfortable playing on Lunatic mode. Besides more aggressive bosses, the main difference this makes is the cards being able to fire a single bullet at you when flipped, not unlike "death bullets" seen across shmups. This gives the game a bit more depth than just hitting the Orb where you know the cards are; there's barely any lulls unlike most Breakout clones out there.

Unlike just about every other game, the act of bombing isn't given its own button and is instead done by shooting while holding both Left and Right. Bombing also holds you in place until you're done, and in some stages nets you way more lives than you would just going about them normally. I thought it was a bit awkward at first, but got used to it pretty fast. Maybe that's Stockholm syndrome idk lol

Which route you're best at is mostly a matter of preference. Some of the bosses in Hell are noticeably easier than those in Makai, particularly its final boss, but a few stage layouts are made harder to compensate. Compare Stage 18 in Hell, which is a struggle to get the Orb under a wall almost the height of the screen, to that same stage in Makai, which is basically a spot to bomb and get a few free lives.

Maybe I'm weird, barely anyone brings them up, but I just think the bosses themselves are pretty solid too? SinGyoku has a cool design, Sariel had a second form with its own song years before Yuyuko did, Kikuri is literally a moon from Hell that fires blood lasers out of its eyes and poison waves out of nowhere, and so on.

Very interesting game. If it were a fangame I don't know if most people would play it, but it's literally the first one. Somehow I feel like it doesn't get as much respect as it should.

A pretty solid standard shmup starring a vaguely egg-shaped little man who buys things with money retrieved from other, equally odd little men.

I like how dying isn't as much of a setback as it is in other early shmups; once you come back, a shop balloon usually shows up to let you power yourself back up as needed, provided if you have enough funds. The Laser and 7-Way shots absolutely tear through things, but make bigger dents in your gold; the Wide shot is sort of just there but is the least costly, so I only get it if I really have to.

Said funds you will need for the second half of the game which picks up the pace by a surprising amount, throwing more dense amounts of enemies at you to keep you on your toes. Since lots of these guys like to give chase or close in on you, it's also around this point where you're expected to take advantage of the wrap-around as much as possible, something I like a lot.

I think the one thing that's stopping me from wanting to go through multiple loops are the weird extending tubes which serve as the final boss. It's sort of a puzzle; you're pretty much guaranteed to die against the last one unless you brought a Heavy Bomb or two with you. The problem is, since your special bombs replace regular ones in this game, it's not likely you'll make it there with one before dying anyway given all the bosses you have to go through first.

That being said! I think Fantasy Zone is really nice. Most of this series is nice, really. It might be a Scrimblo Bimblo series to you, but I have no regrets trying it.