For an early metroidvania, this is a pretty decent game. Definitely better than Metroid and Castlevania. For me personally, it did get a bit stale the more I played, especially when I had to backtrack, but for what it is the world is well-designed and was fun to explore. The controls also feel good, the upgrades are cool, and I especially love the boss designs. It's no wonder why they used one of them as the centerpiece for the box art. The sprites are massive compared to your character and that allowed them to be much more detailed, making them look very grotesque and menacing. Furthermore, the variety in gameplay is very nice. Having half the game be a side view in your car exploring the overworld, then going into a dungeon area where it turns into an overhead perspective adds a lot of diversity to spice things up. Overall I think it could use some work, but for an NES game, it's fun nonetheless. I'll definitely be checking out more games in this series as I'm sure they'll be even better.

This is without a doubt the best NES game I've ever played. It's crazy how NES games evolved so much within the console's lifespan, going from games like Super Mario Bros, Ice Climbers, and Excitebike (all of which felt like nothing more than simple arcade games) to this amazing gem. Fire n Ice may not be that much of a spectacle when compared to games beyond the NES, but it's definitely peak quality for the console. This game has great gameplay, challenging puzzles, a cute story, and an adorable art style. You can even make your own custom levels which is so cool for a game this old. It's such a big jump in quality from Solomon's Key, and, in my opinion, it even rivals modern-day puzzle games like Box Boy and Pushmo. I love this game and it's definitely my new favorite NES game. I only wish there were more games in this series.

I've played this game for many years on the SNES and only ever made it about halfway through. I've now finally beaten the game after playing the arcade version with infinite lives. It's way too unfair, but despite that, I love this game. My opinion of this game is definitely influenced by my nostalgia for it, so do with that what you will, but regardless it's certainly one of my favorite SNES games and the arcade version is even better. Overall great graphics, good music, and very fun gameplay when you don't have to worry about restarting the game over and over from dying so much.

Lovely game from start to finish. I enjoy every Kirby game I play and this one is no exception. Most NES games feel so outdated and primitive to me, but Kirby's Adventure is one of the biggest exceptions. I understand this could be in part to it being a late-release NES game, but my point stands regardless. Simply put it's one of the best games on the NES. Kirby's Adventure is the second game in the Kirby franchise, but I'd argue it's even more influential than its predecessor, Kirby's Dream Land. This was the first game to introduce copy abilities, a defining feature of the Kirby franchise, as well as many other game mechanics and characters including one of the most iconic characters of the series: Meta Knight. Everything about this game has aged greatly, from the graphics, gameplay, controls, level design, and music, and it all adds up to a peak experience on the NES.

Sonic Lost World doesn't feel like a Sonic game. For the most part, it's just a generic, bland, and broken platformer with sonic assets plastered over it. The parkour gimmick had potential, as the wall running can be fun at times, but it was just executed too poorly. Furthermore, the level themes are just your basic grassland, desert, snow, jungle, etc that's seen in nearly every platformer, and the villains (The Zetis/Deadly Six) all have cardboard personalities. All their dialogue and jokes are completely based on a single defining trait. For example, one's fat so every line has something to do with food, one's emo so he just acts depressed constantly, and one's a woman so her entire personality is based around liking boys, fashion, and shopping. It's just all so uninspired; the game feels as if it was designed by a parent who calls every console a "Nintendo", like the creators had only the most basic concept of what a video game is supposed to be and went through a checklist of the bare minimum requirements and left it at that. And then there's the writing of Sonic, Tails, and Eggman... Their characters were butchered so badly, especially that of Tails. All three of them just argue the entire game and Tails is just a whiny asshole because he's sooo jealous that Eggman is helping Sonic fight the Zetis. Again, the only interesting thing about this game is the parkour mechanic, but the controls are so buggy and the level design is so bad that you can't even fully enjoy the parkour. Everything else is just boring at best. The Zelda DLC level was really cool though, I wish Sonic and Nintendo would do more crossovers in better games.

Super Mario 3D Land is just wonderful. I really want to rate it higher but the only reason I don't is because I know that just about every other 3D Mario game is better than this one. However, that does not at all speak of a lack of quality; Instead, it shows just how great all the 3D Mario games are for a game this solid to be one of the "worst". The game is packed full of content, having 16 worlds total, and the level design is fantastic. After achieving 100% completion, there's not a single level I can think of that I didn't like. The game is much more linear in design than most other 3D Mario games, but that works to its advantage making it feel very cozy and relaxing: perfect for a handheld game. Furthermore, Mario 3D Land saw a return of the tanuki suit from Mario Bros 3 and it feels great. It's implemented so well that it has become one of my all-time favorite Mario power-ups. This is also one of the few games that is actually complimented by the 3D gimmick of the 3DS, as having that extra sense of depth can help with platforming a lot. I really have no complaints about this game. I think it's as perfect as it can be for the hardware it's on. Again, the only reason I don't rate this game higher is that nearly all the 3D Mario games exceed this one in quality, but if I were to ignore all of those and rank this game strictly among all the other 3DS games, then it would definitely be 5 stars.

Simply put, I feel that Double Dragon is a very basic beat-em-up game. There's nothing that makes it stand out in comparison to other NES games of the same genre and the gameplay is pretty annoying in general. Enemies felt much faster at attacking than me and they can completely dodge my jump kicks by crouching, while, to my knowledge, I can do no such thing against any of their attacks. It's pretty short as well but, in this case, that's a positive. If it were any longer, I probably wouldn't have finished it.

There's no denying that Super Mario Bros. was revolutionary at launch. When compared to the next best thing available at the time, that being atari games, this game is very impressive. Everything about it is a huge upgrade from the gameplay, graphics, music, etc. However, it has not aged well at all. It's unfairly difficult, hard to control, and just overall bland. It's an icon of a game, yet nowadays the only purpose it serves is to showcase just how much video games as a whole have evolved over the years. For that reason, Super Mario Bros. is a respectable part of history, but god is it boring as hell to play now.