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

Replay. SNK tries a Final Fight rip but with added ripoff music. Okay, but again feels like they can't keep up with the curve.

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

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

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. Loved this game as a kid and still enjoyed it here. It's very basic and enemy variety is nonexistent but it just feels good to hit stuff and it's colourful! Great music too. OK, GO!

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.

Has that high-quality Irem look but I remember it feeling really slow.

Golden Axe II - it's like Golden Axe. I like Golden Axe. I like Golden Axe II!

Don't remember much, other than it being pretty bland outside of the player character being a kabuki guy, which is cool and more games should do.

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.

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

Indiana Jones shoots hordes of animal poachers and also an alien (?). I dunno, I think this game is pretty cool!

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

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!

Looks and sounds pretty good but is just doodoo otherwise. It's embarrassing that stuff like this was getting released by this stage.

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!

Replay. It's Streets of Rage 2, you know the score. Easily one of the Mega Drive's best.

Really disappointed with this one. It looks good, I love the parry system and the animations that come out of it, it's really satisfying to catch a strike and then kick the shit out of the guy, but it takes 100 years to kill anything at all. A slog in the purest sense. Really sad.

It's cool that an SD Go Nagai World game exists but that's all I can really say.

Horrendous. Avoid.

Decent enough for an arcade movie adaptation, although it's a little long. It's Irem so it looks good.

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

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

Rival Turf 2 - still bad.

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.

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

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.

The huge sprites and zooming and the cut-ins are all cool for the time but I don't remember it being very hot to play. Arabian Magic kind of wiped most of my memories of this away.

This, D.D. Crew and DJ Boy form an unholy triumvirate of terror.

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

Digitised guff.

The title of this game is so funny. It's like a weird post-apocalyptic setting! Undercover cops for what?!
Anyway it's decent, it's Irem so everything has that slightly Metal Sluggy look.

This is probably one of Konami's better licensed efforts if you're a fan of the comics, but I don't really give a shit about Asterix, sorry.

Very cool game! Combat isn't really anything all that special but all the stages are so fun and adventurous and, well, magical. Made me want to watch a Sinbad movie, a feeling I have never had before in my life.

A little sluggish for the time, but full of cool monster designs for you to punch. Also has a fun title to say.

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

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

Forgot I played this. Not very good.

Jesus, these avalanche sections! Whose idea was this?

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.

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

Doing A Henshin in this game does not make you any more powerful than you are as normal-ass Takeshi Hongo. What the fvkk. This one hurt.

Another clunky SNES brawler. I remember being completely incensed that this has an obvious Metal Heroes ripoff name but does not share anything of the supreme Metal Heroes aesthetic.

Cool idea that doesn't quite come together. I can't say I've read Mazin Saga; maybe it's the same!

The Golden Axers Once Again. It's still much the same, I still enjoy it, and I think the stage on the back of the giant eagle is badass. Good music here.

Replay. Very cool concept but sadly a little clunky in execution. A game where you wish there had been a sequel to really refine things.

Genuinely pretty cool, slamming people into the background rules. I didn't really feel like finishing it at the time but want to go back to it. Boss fights are a bit crap though.

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

An Elvis impersonator as a playable character is real nice but this game is otherwise not very good.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Replay. Snake Pit, Clinger Winger and Rat Race are all worse in this one than they are in the original game. Rare is made up of the most extreme sadists on Earth.

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

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

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

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!

Replay. Linn Kurosawa is so cool, man. What a good game.

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

Just a very average game. Apparently a Playstation launch title in Japan? Only thing really notable about it.

Licensed game for an instant noodles brand. I would like this to be good but it's extremely basic.

This Legend has been entirely forgotten by me.

Completely terrible. There ought to be a law against shit like this.

Replay. This game is very, very boring, and at no point do you ever actually feel like Superman in it. Why am I not punching all these little Igors and weird goatmen into space? Why am I having to combo them?

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. Actually feels kind of satisfying to play but the enemies and environments are so bland.

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Replay. So, so boring, which is a huge shame considering the license. Come on.

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.

Much better than the original. Weird, kind of grotesque designs and Winkysoft doing a Winkysoft as hell soundtrack. Final boss music just sounds like a Masou Kishin track, which is a-OK by me.

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

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.

Got nothing. Gone.

It's no Skull & Crossbones.

Not good. I think the only notable thing about this to me is that Grifter isn't in it. Is he not this comic's only popular character?

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

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.

Looks really cool, but I wasn't too bothered about finishing it. I'll pick it back up at some point.

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.

Obviously very funny to look at but it plays like ass.

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.

Interesting in that it's an unlicensed game but otherwise not much going on here. I've just noticed the title font on here is in SSF4 Abuket font, fuck me. I thought we'd escaped that.

Replay. It's some more Tower of Doom. It's good!

Not very good, is it? There's a kind of charm to it though. I think I will go back and finish this at some point.

Another forgotten Legend.

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.

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.

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

Replay. Had to do Tekken Force as part of the book. I don't like Tekken.