First time playing the series. The gameplay is cool! There's some niggles - I don't think the crafting system stuff really adds anything - but the core of it is solid. Don't care at all about all the light novel-tier story guff, though, and the designs of female characters are suspect to say the least.

Okay idea but I don't think EDF gameplay needed streamlining. Also pretty racist!

Played under the name Vendetta. Konami's first real pretty good effort. OTGing people is good and punching people's fingers so they lose grip and fall off the stage: great.

Replay. Playing it alongside all these other games in the genre, you can see how basic it is in terms of level design and so on, but it really is just the coolest game of all time. The style, the sound, all of it really plants you directly onto the streets as you plant crims directly into the street. Love it.

It took me a bit to realise how you actually speed up, and then when I did I found I was either trying to win the race or trying to shoot stuff but trying to do both wasn't really working out. Interesting experiment but I'm not in a hurry to replay it.

It's LEGO Star Wars. It's fine! You run around doing simple things, you chuckle at the deserved light ribbing it gives these movies.

I'd played the first episode of this before but decided to go through the whole thing from the start before I play Return. Promptly put it to the side after getting distracted by other stuff.

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.

Replay. Same story as VSav. Weird game. Love Omega Red's theme.

Replay. Fun idea, good enough to play about with for 20 minutes. Mega Man charm counts for a lot!

Konami does X-Men x Altered Beast. Solid, except for the fact that your health is constantly going down. Playing through this genre exposes you to some of the most heinous shit ever designed to take money from kids. I played as MacGyver.

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.

I've only played up to the initial reveal - it seems cool but I'd rather play it on PC.

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

You walk along a perfectly straight level and then you fight a boss. Way too long for how simplistic it is, but you do have way more moves than I would expect.

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

The kind of TV show adaptation game we deserve more of - missions are presented like episodes of the show, you get the little title stings, the eyecatches, all of it (The Space Sheriff Spirits is also very good for this stuff). Gameplay-wise it's an otherwise unremarkable TPS but if you like VOTOMs you will probably get a kick out this for a while. You skate about, it does the noise. Mission accomplished.

A cool idea, little puzzle game FPS. You could do worse for a free game.

Probably a little overlong for what it is, but this is a solid GBA game.

Replay. The worst of these Konami licensed games, I think. Just total guff.

Another one where I think it's conceptually really cool but doesn't quite live up to it in play. Maybe I'll give it another shot at some point.

A better beatemup than the original game is, but still not particularly great.

Has the same problem of being visually unremarkable that 3 has, but I was actually able to finish this one, so that means it's great, excellent, etc.

Decent enough indie shmup, although it doesn't really have much visual personality.

Replay. Can't remember why I went back to this but it's always a good time. juddajuddajudda
(me seeing this actually runs on a Windows 10 PC: IT'S WOOORKIIIINNNGGGG)

Arcade version. Didn't like it as much as the NES version, just felt a lot shakier overall.

Played a bit of the first game in this reboot series and decided it was very Not For Me, but I gave this a bash after seeing it go for dirt cheap and enjoyed it a lot more. Maybe due to all the actual tomb raiding/adventure stuff in it. Avoiding ancient temple deathtraps: fun! Who knew! The bit where Lara Croft gives in to her Dark Passenger is funny, though sadly I think you're meant to take it very seriously.

Part of my ongoing quest to play every Mega Man game. Thought it was decent enough, but my save corrupted somehow and I haven't been holed to restart it yet. Maybe one day.

Also very hard! Such a cool game though.

There's something I can never quite put my finger on about 3DS platformers. They always feel like they have pretty similar physics to them, and I don't think those feel particularly good. Didn't jive with this but you could probably do worse.

Played the Japanese version. It's very good! They've refined the SoR formula to a fine art. And yet the best was still yet to come...man...

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

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.

Still hard, still cool. Great music in this.

The tank controls just suck all the air out of this one - player mobility sucks and enemy mobility does not. Wakle Skade is a very funny name for a protagonist though.

Gave this a go because I've been interested in seeing the Tsui Hark film. Not really all that much to it and environments felt quite drab to me. Worse ways to spend the time though.

Replay. The daddy. It definitely shows its age these days but it's still just so cool. Easy to see just how influential it was. What a game!

Replay. Absolutely the best Battletoads game, probably better than several Double Dragon games, still not really that great.

A Castlevania that features almost no platforming. Also come on, you don't even fight Dracula!

Gave it a bash because of the associations it's had with Castlevania, but I wasn't that into it. That one track is still a banger though.

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.

More bog-standard stuff.

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.

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

The only thing I can remember about this one is the name Duff McWhalen, which is funny. Maybe I shouldn't have played so many of these one after the other.

I think I'd like this more if it was less about the lock-on. Sometimes I just want to shoot what's directly in front of me.

Not ringing many bells. I think it was another digitised one?

Leans more towards Dragon Quest than it does towards musou for my liking. Takes forever as well.

Pretty standard shmup but with all kinds of weird cyberspace environments and enemies, it's really cool. The cutscenes where the main character enters cyberspace are the good stuff. The final boss of this game is Cyber-Hitler's skull, which has skeletal spider legs.

Fine I guess, but it can be really hard to make out what's actually going on in these polygonal ones.

Just looked and felt low-rent, like a Flash game you would have played in the early 2000s. The whole ancient warriors fuck yeah thing isn't really for me either.

Tried this out because I thought the combat would be enough to see me through, but it's not really that good and it would have to be very good to help me power through all this Latest Anime Season guff.

Don't have much to say about this other than I think I appreciate this style of dungeon crawler more than I actually enjoy playing them.

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.

Looks and sounds great and I love Pulseman's look and concept but it's not much cope otherwise.

You can learn the bassline for the Pepsiman theme very quickly! Try it!

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

Kudos for being weird but it's not particularly good.

The two-lane gimmick mostly helps with making the game quicker because you can avoid stuff. I think it being a not-terrible Power Rangers game did a lot of the heavy lifting for me.

Understandably similar to the sequel. Love that box art.

Extremely short game apparently made for a game dev contest? Well, it's cool anyway!

Hilariously edgy and kind of janky but it has that same fun quality of a Hotline Miami where positioning, prioritisation and full use of all your tools pays off big. Also very satisfying in its scrambliness when you don't do any of those and are just using everything around you on the fly.

Replay. I'm still amazed a game like this got made and released on home console at the time!

Gunstar Heroes but harder. There's a bunch of points in this where it feels like there is exactly one and only one way you can not take damage, so it can be pretty frustrating.

Replay. I don't know who it was that convinced the world that the licensed Konami beatemups are really good but they were doing the devil's work. I guess I can see how it would be fun if you had four players on the go and it does look and sound great, but the gameplay absolutely reeks. No impact to a single thing you do.

Has some charm to it but the combat was just too bland for me to want to finish it. Maybe one day.

I like to catch Pokemon and also evolve them. Held together by spit and hope, but it was pretty fun!

Haven't played any of the other games in this series but I didn't expect this to be as linear as it is. I guess it's okay but I can't say I was too impressed.

Replay. Man, it really does suck that hitting objects takes health, doesn't it? A very punishing game, but the presentation is just so cool. I was obsessed with it a kid, right up until I got the bad ending in it, at which point I was too disquieted to play it again.

Another Three Kingdoms one. That's all I've got.

Replay. More Splatterhouse. I think this is my preferred one of the trilogy.

Fairly standard beatemup but the Conan aesthetic is very strong here. Has that one great track that's in Taiko as well.

A little overlong from what I remember, but otherwise pretty much on par with King of Dragons.

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

Not amazing but a pretty charming little game. Parrying blaster bolts back will always be fun.

I feel that I have nothing but hate in my heart for Kunio-kun and his dumb little buddies.

Replay. I first played this on PS4 when I didn't have PS+ so pretty much the only thing I could do was the campaign or the arcade mode things, so obviously I thought it stunk. Having played it on PC now the online modes are definitely fun but the stripping out of things like KDR stats, maps decided by player choice, etc. are completely vile to me. If this is what multiplayer shooters are like now I'll pass.

At least, another actually good Double Dragon game! It can be frustrating at points (staring directly at the final boss) but I think the dodge stuff is really fun. Not huge into the 80s throwback stuff, it's always under about ten separate layers of irony, but it does have the single best rendition of the Double Dragon theme.

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

Played this for the first time after having it installed on like three separate PCs at this point. I'm not far enough in to say much about it.

Another NES platformer that wasn't very good. Think I was playing these because they had translations.

Doesn't really have any of the energy of the first game, sadly. Just kind of a slog. And it introduces Maki, who I think is chiefly liked by anime boys that you would not want to talk to. Not the fault of the game but it's hard to look past.

I think the C64 might not be the best system for this genre.

Looks great, plays bad. Tale as old as time.

Got nothing. Gone.

This is a Troll game. As in the little pencil toppers with the hair. That's all I remember about it.

Scott Pilgrim, but now composed exclusively of anime pervert characters. I wish for a world where its kind cannot exist.

Replay. Golf It night with the boys. Get a solid custom map and it's a great laugh.

No, no thank you.

When you're sufficiently powered up in this one, anything flying up close behind you gets annihilated by engine wash. I think more shmups should do this.

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

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!

More Kunio-kun that I cannot abide.

Replay. Nowhere near as bad as TMNT or The Simpsons - when you punch something it actually feels like you punched it - but it still features Konami doing their credit-stealing best to take your money. Colossus roar rules though.

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.

Okay NES platformer, only really playing it for the license.

Every ship just being a flying gun is incredible, but I didn't much like it beyond that, partner.

Pretty decent game! An oddity in that it's very clearly trying to ape the SNK/KOF look - not really something I associate with the genre. It's pretty basic, but short and sweet, worth playing if you can grab it cheap. You may also notice that this is the fourth game of this genre on the list so far that has Genzoman cover art. There can be too much of a good thing.

Thought this looked cool but was otherwise unremarkable. Outdone by the sequel.

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