CottonSwab
1993
This game falls off hard in the third episode but the first two are pretty fun. I just found a lot of the later levels to be incredibly tedious and mind-numbing. The core gameplay is fun but it does tend to get repetitive once you've been playing for a while. It gets a 7 for how innovative the game is, but by modern standards it's a little rough at times. Still, holds up well for the most part and is pretty fun, especially the first episode.
2001
this game should not be as fun as it is. nor should the songs slap as hard as they do (seriously if you ignore the lyrics the instrumentals go CRAZY). scoring system is inconsistent and game's too short, those are the only real issues with it.
1999
Has some of the issues from the first game but fixes the main one (the visuals being desynced from the music) and has significantly better music. The cutscenes will give you nightmares though.
This game hits you with three mind-numbingly boring cases right off the bat, but manages to redeem itself with a pretty great fourth case and a solid but drawn-out finale. Overall still fun and good overall, but the fact that the bad is all shoved at the beginning is really rough and makes this easily the worst AA game I've played so far.
1991
Honestly wasn't as bad as I was expecting. There's a lot of charm and fun movement in this game, but the biggest thing holding it back is level design that doesn't allow you to freely run around and enjoy that movement. Wonky hitboxes, cheap one-hit kills and obstacles that are unreactable makes the majority of levels in this game frustrating, but it's built on top of a foundation that's really fun and I'm excited to see how this progresses as the series goes on. Overall, a decent enough first entry - even if Mario's was better... 6 years earlier... on substantially weaker hardware......
1991
This game is honestly pretty fun for the first two acts. The last four really drop the ball but I'd be lying if I said this game was devoid of enjoyment. I honestly like a lot of the bosses in this game more than the Genesis version and Labyrinth Zone is slightly less terrible. If it wasn't so held back by hardware limitations, it would probably be on par with the Genesis version, but this one isn't half bad, even though overall it's pretty mediocre and the last few levels are just boring, like they were running out of ideas.
1986
I'm not gonna give this game an official score since I didn't beat it (or get very far at all). But it's awful. The music is like if they took the Castlevania 1 OST and removed everything great about it. Simon's whip has such a weird hitbox and it always goes through enemies. And the new structure is just abysmal. Here, break every single tile in the level searching for a key so you can move on. From what I've seen, this game is a 2/10. I might come back to it, but I'm not gonna play this before I move on to Castlevania II anymore.
Amazing prequel story, fun gameplay to mix things up, and probably one of the most worth-it DLC expansions ever made.
1986
EDIT: I've changed my mind on this game a bit, see below for my original review. It's definitely alright, and I think is definitely worth playing. I would hesitate to say it's good, however, it has some very obtuse game design choices, the most annoying definitely being starting from 30 energy when you die and needing to grind up your tanks. The copy-pasted rooms also make exploration less exciting. But the core gameplay loop is really good, it has a stellar soundtrack. and is definitely one of the better FDS/NES games.
OLD: It's... not bad.... a good example of an NES game being overhated but still not very good
OLD: It's... not bad.... a good example of an NES game being overhated but still not very good
2021
Would probably be a 10/10 if it was a full game, but this expansion is extremely promising for the future of the series and has me very excited to see where Nintendo takes 3D Mario next.
2017
It's not quite as good as the two Galaxy games, but it comes close. Extremely fun movement, satisfying collectibles, and tons of fun worlds to explore. The biggest problem is the sheer quantity of lazy, easy, and copy-pasted levels.
2017
it's good i guess
2008
Fun game where the guy runs
2011
He runs
2014
This one is the worst one :/