Emphasis on the melee attack is cool, but otherwise I wasn't that into it.

VERY COOL. This is one that I'm absolutely going to keep coming back to. Just relentless, I love how the proximity gimmick means that against bosses it feels like you're mashing up against each other and trying to force each other down. Great.

I played the Japanese version, Gun-Dec. Ninja Gaiden-ish for the most part, there's also some driving stages that are essentially on-road shmup sections. Had never heard of it before this year, it's cool!

You walk around in eight directions and you shoot stuff. Sometimes that's all you need!

Replay. Went through this again for Halloween. Cool game! Tim Curry's attempt at a New Orleans accent is very endearing.

Started this in 2021 but got around to finishing it in 2022. I like the new cel-shaded look but I'd rather play SW4-II. A little too light on character variety. Shikanosuke Yamanaka is very dreamy!

Another cool Cave (kool Kave) game. Not into the look as much as I am ESP Ra.De. but it's fine!

Played the Japanese release, where it's a game adaptation of the anime Area 88 (high melodrama, watch it). Why is this game so hard!

Mainly played this port to hear the music. Sadly not as good as I was hoping, but this version also has a bunch of low-rent cutscenes where the Brothers Lee are Kenshiro clones with turn of the 90s anime hair. Dope.

A triumph. It was super hard and reading up on how the difficulty works made me do a big laugh with zero humour in it, but that's completely secondary to the music and the visuals here for me. A game I really, really wish I had played at the time because I would never have seen or heard anything like it. Maybe I'd be a completely different person now. That's the power I think Darius Gaiden might hold!

Fun as a tribute to the NES but it couldn't really hold my attention.

More of the same from Die Hard Arcade, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Splatterhouse but with a time limit mechanic. It's fine!

Scott Pilgrimcore. Nope.

Wasn't really all that into it, but it's at the very least better than Final Fight 2, which is kind of embarrassing.

Replay. Another one where I think I like the idea of it more than I do actually playing it. When characters from it show up in other SNK things I think that's cool!

Just a fun arcade game. Some parts of this are absolute nails.

Copen's gameplay is switched up to make him more melee-focused and he loses some of his movement options. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Definitely a step down from the first game, but I like Brigade's design.

Essential Amemiyacore. Very fun movement and awesome art direction - the Zeiram hat is flying around in here! Watch out!!

By this point I'd played a lot of shmups and I think this is the first one where I really wondered how anyone could 1CC it. Wild!

Weird that this exists but I think Capcom should do more daft things like it. I cannot forgive how they made Vega look in this, though.

Super creative designs and a very fun core concept (what if Power Rangers were ninjas who did baseball), but I don't think the gameplay quite matches up to the heights of the presentation. This is one game where I actually would want to see a remake that punched things up a bit.

I'm even worse at horizontal shooters, but this is still cool. Tons of personality.

Definitely seems like Psikyo games follow a formula. Not my preferred style but this game still has some charm to it.

This is how you use a license, because it is 10x funnier to try and pass this off as a John McClane adventure. Mental game. There's a review on here that calls it the father of the Yakuza series and they're completely right.

Knocked me for six. What a cool game! Boss health is excessive but that's my only issue. This one really got me itching to go on a run of shmups.

Same as Gunbird.

Replay. Loved Bucky O'Hare as a kid, played the arcade machine and had no idea what I was doing and kept walking into stage hazards. Didn't blow me away playing today but it's okay by Konami standards.

Fun throwback shooter - I'd never heard of it but a friend said hey, you might like this and they were right. Nice!

The amount of work that's gone into this is insane, and it wasn't for nothing: this game is very cool! I need to play more.

Replay. Bad Dudes is not a good-ass game.

It was good, but it's possible that Gaiden has ruined me for the rest of this series.

Another Three Kingdoms one. Not awful, but there's not much in the way of variety so I didn't feel like finishing it.

I'm just confused that this was made and released. Did nobody involved know they were making a crap game? Who was it meant to please?

This is how you do an FMV game! I wanna see those digitised folks walking around, picking up stuff and looking at it - maybe even reacting to it!
Really cool, all the hokey charm of FMV combined with a pretty cool story that involves some real-world history, which I like. Education!

Cool game. Iceman's post-mission dialogue is incredible.

Replay. I've been dipping in and out all year, only at this point that I decided to actually log it. This game is always going to hold a very special place in my heart, even if I've done pretty much all I want to do in it.

Pretty much the same feeling as the first game. Atomic Guy is cool though!

Another Guardian Heroes-alike. I don't think I'm into these, sorry!

Controls can be quite awkward a lot of the time and there's some real bullshit sections, but it's a good take on a mech game still.

Not really a kart racer guy but this seemed decent enough. Did you know Yoshinori Ono of SF4 fame was the composer for this? Crazy!

Presentation carries what is otherwise a pretty annoying game, honestly.

More bog-standard stuff.

A good remake of the good remake. Japanese title is better.

Supremely frustrating game because it looks and sounds absolutely awesome - they are clearly pushing the Neo Geo to its absolute limit - but it plays like complete ass. It takes two full attack strings to break open an item barrel. Every aspect of gameplay is coated in extra thick molasses.

Better than the previous one, I think. I'd be willing to play more of these.

You walk around in eight directions and you shoot stuff, but it's worse now.

Rival Turf 2 - still bad.

Saw a free shmup on PS+, got a bit into it and then got the pervert shit dropped on me when I got hit. That was a surprise! Found out afterwards you can turn that stuff off, so that's a mercy.

Replay. Fucking hell, man. Just one of the most tedious games ever made.

Really cool just how many combinations of your team are possible. This kicked my ass and then I read the review on here about difficulty scaling with credits. Absolutely fiendish.

I feel like your ship moves a little too slowly and your hurtbox is massive.

A lot of bright, creative designs but the gameplay is very basic. Can't hate though, fun name to say.

Can't really remember it. Looks good from screenshots though!

I started this but then realised I could get the Ultimate version instead. Whoops!

Replay. Bad. Everyone knows it.

Liked this more than the first game, but the difficulty is still absolutely sadistic.

Completely odious game. I genuinely have no idea why or how this got made.

One of the best - maybe the best-looking arcade games of the era. Seriously, it's ridiculous! I'm amazed this has never had a home release. Gameplay-wise, well, it's yet more Golden Axe. If you like it you like it. I like it!

It's fine, but I'm not really sure why it exists. What reason is there for not just putting all these characters into Warriors Orochi instead?

Notabe for laying a lot of the groundwork for the genre and as an early Technos effort, but this just isn't particularly fun.

Impossibly fast. Possibly made to see how much the NES can't handle? If there's anyone out there who has 1CC'd this they should be preserved in a museum.

Another free on PS+ trap. Whilst I was playing this a friend sent me a message asking if I was OK and they were right to do so.

The first PS2 game iterated on slightly, i.e. very good. You should play these!

Fun point-and-click that has a bunch of sections where you'll have to do some googling about real-world locations and history. I like when games do that kind of thing!

Didn't get anywhere near finishing it, but it did seem really cool. I need to play it more.

Better than Guardian Heroes, although I didn't finish it at the time. I remember thinking the combo system was actually pretty good. Will get back to it.

Some decent moments to build up the tension in this, and the subject matter is mildly interesting, but there's not really much else to say about it. It does get a bit on the nose with the "CIA bad" message at points, but well, yeah, they are bad, sure!

This is Video Games.

I've got no problems with avoiding this particular turf altogether. Stinks.

Very cool setting but otherwise a slog to play. Might start specifically calling this the SNK Style.

Interesting as a weird curiosity - a beatemup spinoff of House of the Dead - but otherwise not much to enjoy here. I do like that they threw in a Yusaku Matsuda-inspired guy for no reason.

Pretty good from what I remember!

Metal Slug-ish. Not as good as any of those but still okay!

Replay. Solid management game, had no idea there was a sequel until recently but I'll need to play it.

Barely out of the tutorial. Need to get back to it.

The start of a run of PC-Engine/CD games I decided to play. Pretty rough and unpolished but it looks cool and the soundtrack is awesome.

Pretty standard gameplay-wise but the horror setting makes it stand out. I definitely want to give that fan remake a bash.

It's Warriors Orochi, it's good. I think this one isn't quite up to the same level of 3 Ultimate, but you're still guaranteed a fun time. The designs of the new characters are very funny to me - stupid sexy Hades!

Unique presentation although I didn't think it was an especially great game. Great title though.

Another game where if I'd played it at the time I would probably love it, but now just doesn't really hold my attention.

Don't have much to say about the game, but Joe Madureira should be outlawed.

Replay. Remake of the arcade game that is better than the arcade game. Love to see it! Only complaint is it doesn't have Daddy Mulk.

Replay. Initially played the PSP release of this but never finished it, so grabbed the Steam release when it hit and went through it. It's funny!

This game can fuck right off. Honestly.

Again, didn't like it as much as ESP Ra.De., but it's still good!

Pretty much the same deal as RayCrisis for me. Decent, but if I was going to go back to a polygonal shmup it'd be Radiant Silvergun over any of these.

Probably the best of the bunch overall that I'd played on PC-Engine up to this point.

An interesting deviation from the standard belt scroller formula, but not very engaging beyond that.

More of the same. The cover art for these is really cool though, right?

All the big colourful sprites are cool but I wasn't that into it at the time. I might give this one another go.

Another one that I think I need to go through again to really click with.

I SAID no thank you!

Rival Turf 3 continues the legacy of the Rival Turf name (being bad).

Disappointing. I like the concept but the gameplay is just clunky and dull, and the story didn't really end up anywhere I liked either. I guess I'm glad hokey FMV guff is still getting made though.

Another free PS+ game. Serviceable beatemup, it's way longer than it needs to be but the combat is decent and I had replayed Sifu a few days before so I was in the mood for more kung fu.

Didn't think this was really all that good but I do like the Conan-rip aesthetic.

Konami's best effort by a country mile, probably because it's just a Final Fight remake in all but name. Super punchy and satisfying to play, absolutely awesome soundtrack accompanies the carnage. Buy me Violent Storm or go to hell!

Still sitting unfinished. A cool look and concept but the race gameplay feels a bit sparse. I'll get round to it eventually.

A very basic 3D beatemup, but you can smash enemies into tons of stuff or smash enemies with tons of stuff, so that's good. I like the main guy's brown leather jacket/red gloves combo!