1991
A neat little Game boy shmup that lets you jump between two layers. If you press select on the title screen, you can choose between three playable ships. This just alters where your powered up shots go though. I like that it uses a health bar instead of lives because you can take different amounts of damage, and recover health from one of the powerups. It does run into the sprite limits on the game boy though, and occasionally something important might turn invisible. It also features two anime girls so this is a must play.
This is very similar to the first game so it wasn't very exciting. The new mini-games are not as fun as the first one and the collectables you need to get the good ending are invisible so you have to do a lot of poking around. At least you can still get your dog to pee on telephone poles.
Really fun game all the way through. Creative puzzles and charming dialogue, great graphics and catchy soundtrack. Nintendo did not milk it into becoming a 35 year long franchise, and that's a good thing, but it should have gotten a release everywhere! The game deserves it.
Pretty fun game with a solid variety of puzzles. The dialogue is pretty good too, made me laugh often. Compared the The Awakened, this game has a more wholesome atmosphere and the puzzles are not as obtuse.
I played on Medium difficulty which may have been a mistake. I found this game brutally hard and dying to a pixel perfect jump set me back a lot. The actual game is fun to play though, the movement is decent and eventually you get used to grabbing cliff edges properly. There's a lot of weapons but a lot of them feel similar to each other.
I have only played this for the first time recently and it was really stressful at certain parts. Shooting things was really satisfying and I managed to luck my way into getting the best ending on accident. I played as Chris because he's on the fucking cover of the game but all my loser friends tell me I should have picked Jill. OK.
1992
Fun game boy version of the TG16 game. This one is easier than the TG16 version and shorter too. It's always fun to see Bonk go grumpy mode when he eats some meat.
2005
Technically, it is a plane game where you shoot things and it is on the game boy advance. I don't think they had any goal other than that. I spent the entire game (Only 12 missions) staring at the tiny radar in the corner because you can shoot things off screen, and that seemed to be the most effective way to play.
I'm not sure why they made so many of these games, this one felt just like the last two, but now in color. It did feel like it had bigger levels though. Not sure if that's actually true or not.
It's too bad this is the last bump combat Ys game (from what I understand), as this was the most fleshed out and enjoyable incarnation of it. It's got cool boss battles, a couple anime cutscenes, glorious classic Falcom CD music, and now a charming fan English dub. Playing this game made me realize the SNES was obsolete earlier than I realized. It's a shame the Turbo CD didn't catch on here in the states.
1997
This game feels really good on several particular courses. The pocket bikes are crazy. If you play on Hard you really have to memorize exactly when you should Boost on every track... I think. Solid game
Pretty fun game, I found it really hard on Normal even. It's really good at keeping things fresh between levels but it has trouble explaining what you need to do sometimes.
1999
I really like the challenge this game provides. It can be incredibly frustrating but it forced me to learn so many intricate details about how gen 1 mechanics work that I have to admire it. This game pulls no punches. But maybe it's easier if you import your own pokemon? I just used rentals. Either way, lots of fun.
The level designer had a fetish for moving platforms and I abhor it. If I play the dreamcast/ps1 version I will update my review since this dumb website has one page for GBC/PS1 versions.
2005
The first hour of this game is the most agonizing hour of your life. Then you get a charge upgrade and your brain adjusts to the horrible jittery scrolling and it becomes kinda fun. The production values are about on par with a movie tie-in game of the time.