This one surprised me. Reventure is a very simple game, gameplay wise. Explore the kingdom to find all 100 endings to the story, picking up items each run to find interesting ways to bring the story to a close. There's a lot of humour that - at least in my eyes - misses the mark; lots of gore, unfitting jumpscares, long bits of text with huge pauses, and endless pop-culture references.

Still, I think this game is something special. There's a surprising sense of progression as endings you achieve unlock shortcuts and items for other endings, and by the end you really do have a good feel for how to explore the map. A tricky task at first since collecting items - while unlocking different paths for you to explore - directly impacts the height of your jump.

This is a game that plays to its strengths well. The world, gameplay and characters all reflect the endings you've collected. Spend enough time in it and that cringe-inducing humour can even grow on you. At least a little...

This was yet another game I became interested in due to it having unofficial Archipelago support. I think it'll be a great addition to my randomizer rotation, but even beyond that it was absolutely worth the vanilla playthrough.

This is one of the first video games I ever played, so there might be bias here, but Adventures of Lolo is an absolute gem of an NES game.

In a sea of punishing 8-bit platformers, this simple block-pushing puzzle game stands out as a masterclass of design. There's a surprisingly deep set of logical rules Adventures of Lolo follows, and the developers milk that for all its worth. It's a bit of a cliche to say this, but you really do feel so smart when you find the solution to a level.

It's not without flaws. Some levels require a bit more dexterity than one would expect from a puzzler, and while the developers make great use of the fact that blocks can be moved on an offset of the grid, it can be frustrating to push a block half a tile too far. Even so, with its forgiving continue system and timeless design, Adventures of Lolo is absolutely worth playing through 35 years after its release.

A competent indie hack and slash. While I didn't collect everything needed for the good ending, I enjoyed my run and can see where the replay value lies.

I picked it up in hopes of learning enough to throw it in my Archipelago Randomizer rotation, since there's unofficial support. I have many more secrets to learn before I'd be comfortable doing a run in that context, mind you.

It's solid! Very much what I'd consider a throw-a-podcast-in-the-background sort of game, but that isn't always a bad thing. It offers enough of a challenge to be engaging while not being too difficult.

It's easy to write off technical marvels of yesteryear. Sure, a working 3D Monkey Ball on the GBA is an insane thing to even exist, but appreciating it on an interactive level can be a challenge in the first few minutes of gameplay. This is a franchise that relies heavily on analogue input and depth perception; playing it on a 2.9" screen with a d-pad and two face buttons is bound to bring some frustration.

Even so, when you get the hang of it Super Monkey Ball Jr. does offer a rewarding challenge, and utilizes some great features to make it a worthy portable expedient. I played this game exactly where it was meant to be played, on the bus and in the break room at work. With some accessible cheat codes to enable unlimited continues, SMB Jr. becomes a great pickup and putdown game for those looking for a bite-sized bit of precision.

The game isn't without sore spots. Expert levels ask quite a lot of the player, and it can be hard to imagine beating later challenges without using the inverted Konami code on the title screen. The lagging camera and difficulty involved with making micro-adjustments are a particularly big source of frustration. Still, it's hard to be too upset when you're playing Monkey Ball on a device with less than half a megabyte of RAM. Especially when the gameplay is as competent as it is.