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

Oh jeez, I'm sorry, no, Sigma 2 is fine. I couldn't finish this. No idea what they were thinking.
Mizuki McCloud is a really funny name though.

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.

This is also awesome.

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.

Okay this one is worse.

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

Replay. Superseded by the remakes but this is still okay. Obviously the music rules.

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.

Cool game, very hard. This and the first one make me laugh a lot because you've got all these folk who have been facecapped so you can go oh wow that's Naoto Takenaka! And then you've got William who has proper Koei Face.

Another forgotten Legend.

Replay. Perfect game.

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

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.

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.

It's Panzer Dragoon, it's fine, but it's always a little weird to me to play these remakes with modern graphics but unchanged gameplay. Always just feels slightly off.

Can't really remember any of the tunes from this. Wanted to like it more than I did.

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

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

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

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

Not terrible, but the SNK stuff always feels like it's behind the curve even at this relatively early stage.

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

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

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

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

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

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?

Obviously a very cool game but I didn't know at all how to play it. Need to read the constructions (used to call instructions this as a kid haha) and go through it again.

Why does THIS game look like this? Who put THEM up to it?

Okay, by this point I'd played a bunch that were better so it didn't do that much for me.

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

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

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

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.

Pretty good from what I remember!

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.

Can't really remember it, just know I didn't finish it.

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.

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

Tiny indie platformer that had been sitting in my Steam library for ages and could be finished in no time, so I threw it on. One of those you play once and never again, but neat idea.

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

Only got this partly working from what I remember. Whatever, it's Renegade, I didn't care.

A brawler that has a pretty extensive movelist for a two-button controller, but sadly this doesn't stop it being janky and dull.

Watching my cousin play this traumatised me as a kid, finally decided to face my demons and play it. Inventory management and backtracking are not very exciting - dropped it with no plans to return after getting out of the police station.

Sadly nowhere near as good as the original Revenge.

Also very hard! Such a cool game though.

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

Fuckin hell

Backloggd tells me that I played this, so I must have. I must have!

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

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

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.

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.

More Kunio-kun that I cannot abide.

Another kind of drudgy SNK effort but worth a look for KOF history reasons.

I SAID no thank you!

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!

Interesting idea, but that's all.

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.

Didn't blow me away but it's fine. I'll play it a bit more at some point.

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.

More bog-standard stuff.

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!

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.

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

Well, this is no good. Solid remix of the main theme though.

If I had a list of games I desperately wish would get translated, this is on it. An endearingly silly love letter to tokusatsu hero shows. When you create your hero you enter their name and it comes up as a big logo! Anything you put in! Wow!

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

Absurd amounts of creativity, just throwing wild scenarios and locales at you constantly, but feels pretty dated to play. SNK Style! There it is!

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.

This shifted between regular respawning and moving back to checkpoints on death, which was very annoying!

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

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

Still hard, still cool. Great music in this.

I think this is the one where you can possess enemies? Not great but an interesting attempt.

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.

This game can fuck right off. Honestly.

Started this whilst I was on a bit of a Holmes kick from watching some of the Jeremy Brett series. I cooled off but I'll get back to it eventually!

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

Pretty bad, but I at least appreciate any game that has Hiroshi Hase in it.

Relentless game. Cruel!

Wasn't really into this either. Wouldn't be the Game Gear if it wasn't hit or miss, I guess!

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

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.

Not quite as punishing as Revenge, but also more simplistic in level design. That's my only complaint, though - this game rules otherwise. You can tell they're really pushing the Mega Drive as far as it'll go. Looks awesome, sounds awesome, bunch of new movement options, good game.

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

Adding in live-action FMVs are fun but otherwise this is an immediate step down from 3.

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

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

The good shit. Easy pick for my GOTY. Have went back to it all throughout the year, some of these new goal and costume unlock requirements are total murder.

Memory not found. I'll take your word for it.

Replay technically, although last time round I only got as far as the first time you're actually able to move about and said fuck this. A lot of my friends hold this game in very high regard so I'm giving it another go, but went and did other stuff immediately after finishing the first chapter. I'll keep trying but Suda has yet to make a game I've enjoyed.

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

Completely badass game. I had to remap my controls a fair bit, I wonder what it's like on an N64 pad. Play this.

I don't think it's as great as the first game, but it's still very good! Though it's driving me mental that the first uses "and" but this uses "&" on here.

Weird. In order to jump across gaps, climb ladders, etc. you have to stand on little X marks and watch the animation play out like it's a film set or something. Pretty janky.

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

I really wanted to like this, but it's too slow. Put Sonic Blast Man in a better game please.

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