The fact that this game's reputation is so bad is very surprising to me, don't get me wrong, this game is bullshit, and there's things to criticize here but what surprises me is how all of those criticisms tend to apply to critically acclaimed games of the same era. I can't sit here and pretend like games such as The Legend of Zelda, Mega Man or Metroid aren't equally as cryptic and mean with their design as this game, practically requiring a guide to not completely lose your sanity, so why this game gets so much shit for the same issues is beyond me, I'd assume it's due to nostalgia but I have none for any of these games, to me this is all new and as a newcomer this game is just as good if not better then the games previously mentioned.

Castlevania II is an extremely ambitious game for it's time, sometimes that works in it's favor, sometimes it works against it, having a day and night cycle, an open world with multiple cities and dungeons to explore, multiple items to buy and discover, secrets to uncover, if these all sound like features even modern games are obsessed with having that's because they are, and this game did all of that in 1987, did it do it perfectly? Of course not, but can you blame it? I won't, I see the developers vision here and that's worth something, and it's why I recommend at least giving it a chance, preferably using a guide, I think you'll find a lot to like and appreciate about Simon's Quest, I know I did.

I'm very mixed on this game, which is probably a little controversial since everyone seems to agree this game is a masterpiece, my personal experience with this game wasn't good and I had to pretty much force myself to finish it, but I'll preface this review by saying that what's good here isn't just good, it's great. Visually this is one of if not the prettiest SNES game I've played, the animations and sprite work here are actually beautiful to look at, enemy design and boss encounters are at their best in the Mega Man series so far, and the music is also a huge highlight, movement is also at it's best, the new dash and wall jumping add a lot not just to the platforming but to the combat as well, that's where the positives end for me though.

Something I noticed immediately is that this game still uses a password system, without any way to save, I'd give it a pass if this was the NES but it's not, if Super Metroid can have 3 different save files then I'm certain this can too, so I think it's kind of inexcusable.

I also disliked the overall level design here, these are very open, wide, big levels with enemies in your way at every step, and there's pickups and upgrades you can get placed throughout the level but most of the time they're just sitting in some random corner of the map so they either require no effort to get or they require to completely guess where they are to begin with.

I felt as though the platforming sections weren't nearly as creative or fun as in the classic games either, most of it just involves jumping through flying platforms and that's about it, enemies also take way too many hits to kill, basically forcing you to either use the charged shot constantly, which gets tiresome pretty quickly, or abuse the bug that boosts the damage of your regular shot while dashing, which isn't ideal. I really missed just killing every enemy in one shot like in the classic games.

Something I also missed from the classic games are the E tanks, which might be another hot take but let me explain, I think sub tanks are a good idea on paper, a better idea than E tanks even, but the execution here is borderline awful, first of all, enemy drops remind me of the first Metroid game and not in a good way, if you want to fill up your tanks you'll have to walk back and forth killing the same re-spawning enemy praying they drop health, it's annoying and tedious and I'd much rather just have different paths in the level that lead to E tanks, second of all, sub tanks use up their entire capacity even when you only use them for a spec of health, meaning they're only worth using when you're about to die, otherwise they feel like a waste, and considering the tedious process you probably just went through to get them to full capacity you wouldn't want to waste them.

Overall Mega Man X felt like one step forward, two steps back, it's an upgrade in many ways but still archaic in a lot of other aspects, I'll probably give it another chance in some time and maybe my opinion changes then but for now, I'm disappointed, I'm glad so many people enjoy it so much though, and if it looks interesting to you, I'd recommend you check it out anyway!

In my original review for Super Metroid I mentioned how it probably gets even better on a replay, and I was right, I still don't think this game is perfect but once you complete it once the experience is, because the bullshit secrets aren't secrets anymore, and you can dispatch the gimmick bosses easily since you know their tricks now, you'll also be accustomed to the sometimes cumbersome control scheme, so you get to fully enjoy what's really good about this game, which is well, everything else.

At first, I loved this game, but I think now it really clicked with me beyond just loving it, especially after playing Dread and loving that game so much going back to this one and realizing just how good it is even comparing it to it's modern counterpart I can't help but call it what it is, a Masterpiece, go play it!