Frankly kinda shit to play and has no real meat on its bones. The main takeaway all throughout for me was how ugly it is. Not only how ugly it is, but how ugly it is for a late PS1 title. Take this screenshot from the ending for example, where every character looks like they're taken from something else. Or the ground here or the acorns here. It's genuinely so bizarre to me.

I suppose it's a good thing I kept asking myself "Why does it look like that? How did it turn out like this?", because it turns out literally every asset from this game's development is sitting around on the Internet Archive and TCRF and such. Finds on the dev discs include things such as a plentiful amount of SNES and Genesis ROMs, a folder titled "New SBSP like we care", a list of suggestions titled "SpongeBob Shit List", and (somewhat infamously) three hand-drawn pornographic sketches of the characters for some reason. All in all it seems to point towards the dev team being very bored or dissatisfied with the project, probably wanting it done as soon as possible. I guess I now have the answer to my question.

So as it turns out, the history behind this subpar platformer is far more intriguing than the actual contents of the game. It kinda makes me wish we got more in depth stuff like this for some better games, honestly. Knowing every little thing going on behind some of my favorite games would be very interesting.

SuperSponge itself is not worth the time, though. If you really want some sort of 2D SpongeBob platformer, Legend of the Lost Spatula is surprisingly a safer bet. Definitely a flawed game as well, but has a decent amount of charm to it and a pretty catchy soundtrack. Even then, everyone says if you have Dolphin running then you might as well just play Battle for Bikini Bottom instead. Maybe I'll do that.

played with C_F via fightcade

Pretty mediocre, really. We fed so many credits that I don't think I ever really grasped what was taking place, similar to Konami's TMNT game the previous year. I did feel that the controls were quite limited, and the sfx were a little grating (especially on death, which happened a lot). Looks quite nice for the time, though.

Either way, as a whole Aliens doesn't deliver much and gets beaten out hardcore by some of Konami's other run and guns. It's quite hard not to notice with the masterful Sunset Riders releasing only a year after, but in addition the already existing Contra ports for home consoles were much more enjoyable as well.

I read somewhere that this was slated for a Genesis release in 1991, but it failed to materialize. Probably would have felt redundant anyway with Alien Storm releasing for the console that same year. I would definitely replay Alien Storm over this.

Mostly plays fine but has no sauce whatsoever in the audiovisual department. Musha Aleste precedes this by two years and hits all the same notes with far more grace and confidence than Imperium could ever dream of. Give that game a go instead, it's hard not to compare the two with how it blows this one out of the water.

I was wondering why this didn't feel the tiniest bit like Vic Tokai's shmups on Genesis and then learned it was actually developed by Jorudan instead, tragically also responsible for Xardion and Musya (not to be confused with Musha). All three of these were also released in the same year for the same console. Maybe that's why they're all super weak and hardly feel like final products, but who can say for sure.

Somewhat of a precursor to Ukiyotei's subsequent game Skyblazer, not so much at all in theming but rather in visual similarities and gameplay. Hook is definitely rougher around the edges, though - in particular Peter's slow and rigid movement remains a hindrance for the entire runtime. While this would be suited for a more methodical platformer of sorts, the level design doesn't often accommodate for it very well. By no means does any of this make it a bad game, but I'm not sure I'd find much drive to return to it. Would recommend Skyblazer though.

"Winkysoft" developed this one. I would think twice about buying something by a company named Winkysoft, but actually this is pretty solid. Some people say this is in the highest echelon of SNES shmups, but I'm not sure I've played enough to agree yet. As is, while this is very nice, I would definitely play Super Aleste or R-Type III instead if I was given the choice.

Speaking of R-Type, you know how the SNES port of R-Type II lacks any checkpoints for some reason? Same applies here. It's actually taken a step further, since you only have one life and rely on continues to keep going, effectively erasing your score upon every single death. Seems like it would be a major setback without savestates, so I would suggest them on this game even if you're not really one to use them typically.

This was the cooler one out of these two games when I was a kid, but coming back to both I enjoyed it less than the first. It's definitely easier, which is good for kids I suppose, and I can't really say if it's an improvement or detractor honestly. The character models are also markedly better, and there's more levels overall. However, many levels are just reused from the first game, and the new levels are not particularly engaging at all. Music is also weaker, sound effects are frankly terrible.

The Monkey Ball-esque aesthetic is done away with here to make way for the time travel theme, but it definitely doesn't look as nice in my opinion. The "Beginning of Time" levels have this sand texture which just looks more like a shitty carpet than anything, and while the Middle Ages and Future levels look better, they're still rather bland compared to the original's vibrant colors.

Still passable overall. If my experience is anything to go by, then it's great for kids. Or, was, at least. Sites like Nick Arcade and Shockwave aren't super viable anymore these days from the looks of it, with the latter being totally gone outside of Wayback Machine and such. I suppose it makes sense, with the huge shift over to kids' mobile games in the 2010s, but you don't really see stuff like this now and it's kind of unfortunate. Maybe it's the nostalgia talking? Who knows.

A favorite of mine as a kid, feels a bit low on content as an adult though. Grabbed it off myabandonware a night or two ago and had a nice time streaming it with my friends. I grabbed a couple others too, which I might replay as well.

Bizarrely frustrating quirk I noticed with this one, though. If you're idle, SpongeBob will always turn to face the screen regardless of where you left him. It sounds inconsequential but fucked up my rhythm a handful of times. The sequel gets rid of this but I found it less favorable in other aspects, which I'll get to on that game's respective page.

Pulled all the way through this time after initially running out of steam around world 6 about a year ago. The fundamental gameplay alone is certainly a home run, but the playful music and atmosphere further enhance things and give the game an oddly comforting and familiar feel for me. It might be that it's very reminiscent of games I'd download free trials for off Nick Arcade as a little kid (such as SpongeBob SquarePants Obstacle Odyssey). Either way, really good stuff all around. I can see myself coming back to this several times in the future.

It's not without its hiccups, though. Launchers and Arthropod, for example, are insanely egregious and difficult for the first half of the game's standards, creating a really weird bump in the otherwise smooth, steady difficulty curve. Similarly, in the last world in Story Mode the design philosophy completely changes and noticeably becomes totally obtuse. They're not even necessarily harder than the levels in the previous two worlds, but it's a very jarring shift that doesn't really result in any enjoyable levels out of those last ten.

Would very strongly recommend this game, but definitely don't let your guard down. It gets a lot harder than it initially lets on.

Definitely an improvement over Ys III, but overall kind of mediocre nonetheless. The plot feels pretty run of the mill for the genre, but the game is short enough and the fan translation is written well enough for it to still be somewhat engaging. Music is weaker than it was in III, though I did play III on Genesis in which it sounds kind of insane. Definitely a bit of a high bar to clear.

The combat is the real weak link here. I've heard it's just implemented particularly poorly in this game, but the bump combat system it uses is miserable. At least grinding becomes much shorter than it is in a typical RPG, but since you have no invincibility frames (much like in III), you're dead meat if you slip up more than maybe once. This style of combat doesn't really work out in the game's boss battles either, they were mostly trivial but when they weren't (such as Gruda) they were needlessly tedious and aggravating. No in-between, no bosses that really piqued my interest.

Would I recommend Ys IV on SNES (not to be confused with Ys IV on TG-CD)? Probably not. I didn't hate my time with it, but it didn't really do anything for me that I didn't get more enjoyment of somewhere else. I'm glad to see an RPG that only takes a single digit number of hours, but what I got here could certainly be better. I do hear the Ys games I've chosen are kind of black sheeps, so maybe I should see some other entries if I ever find myself interested. Maybe I'll play Ys V or the other Ys IV one of these days, but the other games aren't really in the timeframe and console era I tend to gravitate towards.

Pretty mediocre overall but still serviceable, albeit rather rudimentary. Controls feel off sometimes and camera work is kinda poor, for example when exiting doors you have to wiggle yourself around to get out of the corner of the screen.

The US version removes the opening cutscene explaining the plot as well as all villages and NPC dialogue. The important characters show up regardless for the climax, though, which just left me thinking "who are these assholes?" Maybe they were just too lazy to translate the text and story over so they got rid of it? Very strange.

Not terribly impressive for Game Freak's early years, with Pulseman and Magical Taluluto-kun both severely outshining it in most if not all aspects. I would probably replay it over Pokemon R/B/Y though.