Replay. Now THIS is charm!

Definitely has more effort put into it than a bunch of the other licensed musous but I will never understand why they keep removing the ability to jump from these.

From what I remember this was the sequel to Sorcer Striker? Hasn't really stuck in the mind much for me. Dimahoo is a very fun name to say though. Dimahoo, Dimahoo, Dimahoo!

Played for 10 minutes and refunded it. If I want to waste my time I've a million other pointless games and they let me press an attack button.

Replay. The final evolution of Capcom's Final Fight remakes. What a cool game! Really sucks that it's likely lost to the wilderness forever.

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

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.

This is pretty cool but I'm not into Mortal Kombat so I couldn't be bothered finishing it. Probably really fun with two players.

Cool game! Doesn't scare me at all, which is maybe not a good thing, but I like Junji Ito and have always been vaguely intrigued by Uninvited, so the game's style works for me.

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

Darius Gaiden's little brother. Great atmosphere and boss designs makes up for slightly subpar gameplay.

Replay. Never finished it originally so I restarted and went through it. It's fine since it really is just trying as hard as it can to be a SotN clone, but as is the case with every SotN clone, it's not as good as SotN.

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

Only just getting round to playing this now with the full release. It's Warband but more, which is fine!

Oh, this is just Beatmania. Well cool, I like Beatmania! Also I'm terrible at Beatmania!

It's fine!

Finally, a SotN clone that includes one of the most important aspects of SotN: the Alucard Strut. Look at that walk animation! Hell yeah!
Short and sweet, it's a little on the easier side but you could do a lot worse.

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.

Not much here. Platformer with some rules quirks that you can finish in one quick sitting. Again, one you play once and never go back to, but that's fine.

Metal Slug-ish, but before Metal Slug, by the folk who would make Metal Slug. Covering a wider arc because of your dual guns is cool!

A better game than Lords of Thunder despite coming first.

Replay. Same as VSav and COTA. Maybe the most 90s game of all time.

Really tough in parts, but still a really cool game. Honorary Amemiyacore.

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.

It's pretty cool, isn't it? I noticed the other day that I've finally been knocked off the top of my friends list by a few seconds. Raging. Will have to go back to it!

Not quite as strong a game as some of Capcom's other heavy hitters on this list, but man, I wish they still made games that looked like this.

A good take on the formula laid down by the D&D games. Just went on a bit too long for me at the time, but I want to get back to it.

I was having fun with this, but my save messed up and I haven't gone back to it yet.

Meanwhile, a Castlevania 3 clone. Also fine. Good music!

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

Similar to Battle Garegga, so it's decent enough but not one of my favourites. The number of ships available is pretty good!

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.

Can't really remember anything of it, but I feel like I should.

Originally played the SNES version, so here I went for the arcade release, which like the '89 game is trash. Legendary soundtrack but that's it.

Replay. Didn't like it on release, didn't like it now.

Played this with some folk during a Work Get Together. Knowing you can't win but can deny someone else their shot is intoxicating.

Same as Gunbird.

Cool little idea. I like games with boats.

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!

This is also awesome.

Actually pretty good! Just a shame that it contains Doug "The Nostalgia Critic" Walker. If you play it, just try to pretend he's not there.

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

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.

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

Got a couple of levels in before deciding I couldn't be holed at the minute. I'll get back to it at some point.

I have nothing but disdain for this. Genuinely repellent to me.

Probably would have liked it a lot if I played it at the time of release, but this ended up being a big-time disappointment. Just felt sluggish and killing things took forever. Obviously looks awesome, though.

The essence of the arcade game. You're on a hoverboard, you punch stuff. It's good.

A little too samey throughout but it's cool that they tried it. They managed to make the mechs feel really big and heavy, and of course Blodia is just a cool design. Glad they reused it.

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

What a great game! Wish I'd played this at the time as it probably would have blown me away. Hey, listen to this!

Impressive effort for a NES game but playing it in amongst so many technically superior games did it no favours for me. Maybe one day.

I guess this is okay, but I'd rather play SNES Turtles in Time if I've got to play Turtles in Time.

Better than Final Fight 2 for sure, but still pretty lackluster. There isn't even boss music! What the hell!

Oh jeez, I played this last week and it's completely left my head already.

Okay I don't remember this one.

Can't stand turn-based JRPG combat unless it's tactics style, so I thought this would finally be my in as it looked like it had some charm and was an action hybrid. The combat is just too basic for me though and you can really tell the whole thing is a remake of a SNES game. Abysmal dialogue as well. I got a fair bit in so I'll maybe finish it at some point, but woof.

Even worse than regular River City Ransom, because it introduces a bunch of characters who would be cool in any other game but are stuck in this one.

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.

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!

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

Okay this one is worse.

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!

My 360 is broken and I couldn't be holed emulating so Black was out of the question, had to settle for this. Is it as good? Absolutely not. It's still Ninja Gaiden though, it's still a good game.

Replay. Awesome game but it is so incredibly punishing. Whoever designed the bird enemy should face charges.

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

What a game. Max Payne's Pro Skater. When you hit your groove and are actually doing well, you feel like the coolest motherfucker in the world. Very good idea to rip off Rollerball wholesale, because Rollerball is definitely cool in concept, but is mostly pretty boring outside of the actual match scenes. Very glad I played this!

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

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!

It feels really difficult in these Psikyo joints to claw back your momentum after getting killed. Like, moreso than most other shmups. And I get killed a lot so that's trouble!

Played the original and thought it was boring as hell. In years since I've seen a lot of people talk about how good it was, so I thought I might not have given it a fair shake before and tried this out. I was right the first time.

Fantastic animation ruined by physics and controls unchanged from the 80s. I've no idea why folk bother doing stuff like this.

Not really into the style of it but it plays pretty well! Was surprised at this one.

I remember this being fairly basic but fun. A lot of these PC-Engine games have good music that is totally overpowered by loud, bad SFX.

Kind of cool, but just a little too annoying for me.

For no reason I can discern the song It Came From Japan by the Von Bondies popped into my head, and I had to remember why I even know that song, and I remembered it's because it was in this game so I had to go play it. THPS it is not.

Replay. Isn't it kind of wild that this exists? It's hilarious how massive the Kingpin is in the final boss fight.

Tried this after enjoying the Gunvolt stuff but I wasn't into how it controlled at all.

I don't really remember anything about this, but I shelved it, so I must have thought it was decent enough to go back to at some point.

Thought 2 was a bit of an easier ride and then 3 decided they'd given me enough leeway. I was happy to finally go through all of these but they were an ordeal and a half.

Same story, just can't match up to the main games.

Think this was an Eighting one? Tiny bullets. Tiny!

This is what I wish wizards in movies and stuff were like. Just firing huge amounts of magic shit at everyone constantly. Doing a highest level Dragon's Dogma spell 50 times a minute. ZAP

Replay. Not really sure why I went back to this. I think it was because I had been saying "Deathstroke the Terminator" out loud a lot and thinking it was really funny.

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

Another great OST. Game is extremely hard, though.

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

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!

Replay. Have never liked this game - I guess you can say the RPG elements were worth trying at the time, but I think the implementation here just goes against what's actually fun about the genre. And obviously it directly led to the Scott Pilgrim game, which is even worse.

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!

Replay. Couldn't stand this game when it came out, can't stand the franchise in general. Anamanaguchi can also go away.

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

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.

Replay. Hell yeah man. A super ambitious game that combines Cool Adventures with some absolutely primo Capcom art work. I went through it solo but I bet this'd be a total blast on Fightcade. Only complaint is that the controls can be a little fiddly.

Is there any earlier example of Just Defend in a game? Capcom beating SNK to the punch by 8 years. It's fine enough I guess, but later efforts are much better.

Just okay. By this point I'd definitely cemented that I preferred Cave to Psikyo.

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!

Replay. One of Capcom's many remakes of Final Fight But in [Setting]. This time it's the grim future of...uh...4 years from now. It's fine, mostly gets points for being a little weird. Mack the Knife rules.

Another unfinished. A PS4 game that is clearly in reality a PS3 game. A theme song can only carry a game so far. Combat just doesn't have the oomph you want from a mech game and I'll be honest, I don't know how people can play these kinds of dating sim-adjacent things without feeling horribly embarrassed at every moment.

This is in the same vein as something like The Dishwasher for me - i.e., games that I assume you're probably into if you like Jhonen Vasquez.