1942 brings the classic arcade shooter to the Game Boy Color with satisfying results. While its core gameplay remains simple – dodging enemy fire while blasting planes out of the sky – the portability and surprising addition of passwords make it a fun pick-up-and-play option for retro enthusiasts. The visuals may be basic, but there's an undeniable charm to the pixelated dogfights. Don't expect a lengthy or complex experience, but if you're craving old-school shooting action, 1942 delivers some quick bursts of nostalgic fun.

My favorite multiplayer game.

I have a thing for golf games, for whatever reason I find them to be the most charming set of games if done right, and i can vibe easily with them. Kirby's Dream Course was probably the reason for that.
It's unusual to call it a golf game though, it doesn't really follow the rules of golf. Just hit your little Kirbo around and smack into enemies until the goal opens up and you get to it. Simple enough, but some of the stages can be a little intricate on how you handle your shots. Also you can gain the powers of the baddies hanging around on the levels too, giving some extra thought on how to get the most out of each level.
Single player is fine, it gets you used to the mechanics quite well, it's when you get Player 2 involved where the magic happens. Now it's a race to get the most stars before punting your Kirbo into the Goal Hole. And you can steal the stars from your opponent too, so it makes for what was a cozy time, to a frenetic and competitive experience.

....also it's Kirby as a golf ball, come on that's cool no?


Please play the game, its cute and fun!

The very first handled Castle Vania game and...
Yikes this game is terrible.

The classic formula is brought back and with it is every problem this style brings times 100. The control is unbelievably stiff and unresponsive due to the amount of lag, the enemies are way too nimble and platforming asks for way more than you are realistically cape-able of. There's no sub-weapons, so you are relying entirely on the whip, which can be upgraded as usual throughout the level. But for some baffling reason, you lose a stage of power every time you get hit! And the lowest power whip barely has any range and pitiful attack power so it sucks when your stuck with this.

There's only 4 stages but they are all awful. While some gimmicks are fairly unique, they are implemented so poorly that it takes away any interest I had in the game. I mean I know it's a very primative system, but it's no excuse for how this game is designed, constantly forcing you to take damage and lose any chance of surviving the bosses. To be honest untill the final boss, they really aren't that bad, but if your whip is at its weakest you will stand no chance.
The final boss is extremely cheap, and is easily the worst l've faced so far... I mean my god.

The graphics are poor by the gameboys standards and I can't say I remember the music, god get it away, this is easily one of the worst games I have ever played - 1/10

I’m trying to get into the mindset of the time when these games first came out. But again, this would have been impossible to enjoy without save states.

Castlevania does just enough to keep each stage fresh and original. Enemy variety was cool.

Receives downvotes for the static trajectory jumping and the infuriating grim reaper and Dracula boss fights.

Nowadays, Metroid is probably most well-known for respawning you with 2 health and a bottle of seltzer, and having a remake that's just objectively better, even a replacement! Of course, this is because Metroid is a deeply flawed game, and doing a full review of it would require playing more Metroid. Instead, it might be productive to see what the game does right, which I would argue is its microdesign.

Microdesign is a stupid fake word, but it takes less time to type out than more clear meanings like second-to-second gameplay. Essentially, if you play the beginning of this game and deal with some of its platforming challenges, it can actually be pretty fun. Samus cannot shoot while crouching, aim down in the air, or aim diagonally at all. She's also much slower, preventing you from just running past enemies and abusing iframes. These may seem like inconvenient limitations, especially compared to later Metroids. However, limitation is a tool for the designers, to say that games shouldn't have any is a stupid sentiment, or else we would just noclip to the credits of every game. The limited range means enemy now gives at least the baseline choice between shooting them and evading, as opposed to blasting right through

One-block tall crawling enemies take up a much more threatening role in this game, as dispatching them often requires the morph bombs. This means they can disrupt your landings and force you to think more carefully. Those stupid charging flying enemies that you farm can be baited to fly at a specific height, effectively neutralizing the threat for a few seconds. You can also morph ball under them, but the double tap input prevents this from functioning as a psuedo-invincible escape hatch (also the crawling guys can still fuck it up for you). Those flying enemies that go at you in a U-shaped arc can force a jump, which then leads into the game asking you to maneuver so as not to fall on another enemy or into a pit of acid.

There's a sort of bullet hell-like quality to this game, only the bullets can be destroyed or frozen and not just dodged, and more interactions is (usually) good! There's a focus on assessing the most immediate threat and executing the best course of action, which is quite exciting. The best course of action changes as threats are almost constant, so it really is quite dynamic. The scenarios are very well-designed in this regard (and Nintendo seemed to agree given how many times each one gets reused). It offers a lot in the way of split-second decision-making, enjoyable moment-to-moment gameplay or microdesign, but arguably more impressively is the way this action fits within the games' more structural, macro goals (mostly).

Rather than killing you instantly for failure in any moment, Metroid has full faith that its enemies will get the better of you over and over to create challenge. Since plastering bottomless pits all over Zebes would be stupid, the acid serves as a way to punish failing a platform challenge, but doesn't immediately fail the player. Every bit of lost health adds up, which mitigates at least some frustration, and creates those satisfying moments of reaching your last point of death only to realize that you have a couple etanks left this time.

The challenge also serves to make every powerup more impactful. Missiles are not the glorified door openers and boss damage that they are in most of the latter entries, their ability to one-shot many creatures is genuinely useful given how much less frequent it is to land shots on them at all. If you use them liberally though, you'll find yourself running out pretty quick. The ice beam unfreezes enemies after a second shot, so while freezing an enemy can be a huge relief, you might be inclined to reactivate the threat to get a drop from them. You can also missile ice beam'd enemies, but that ties into the ammo management mentioned earlier. All of these aspects also make the screwattack one of the most satisfying powerups in a game. Overall, I think the game lends itself quite well to interesting decisions and opportunities for player skill to shine.

Despite all of this, I don't actually like the damn game all that much. Even with the ability to cheat and respawn with full health, you still have to deal with obtuse, asinine blocks that halt progression, you can still get lost because the reused room layouts couldn't even make a change or two visually to stick out from one another (and you can get fatigued very quickly), and you still have to fight Kraid's dumbass (man-sized Kraid is the toughest and most annoying he's ever been). However the point of investigating this game (and I think a lot of old games) is not to simply tear it to shreds. The game is far from perfect (often it's far from even good), but even bad games can have elements that can be learned from and should be celebrated. For the record, I don't think Metroid is bad, although I also don't think it's particularly good. I do think it's unfortunate that people are so dismissive of it, it may often be frustrating, but it's not antiquated. Zero Mission is a good game, and I'd sooner pick it up than this thing, but the game mostly doesn't attempt to emulate the emotions that the original was going for. The limited control, challenge, and open-ended progression were sacked for a game that ultimately attempts to emulate Super Metroid instead, just with the basic story outline of this game slapped on. But it does have Zero-suit so maybe it's ok