Goemon is one of the few Konami franchises I don't have much experience with, this and...Quiz Magic Academy? I don't really know why it's taken me this long to really play this game, I've played it a few times at parties or when messing around with rompacks as a kid, but recently I finally sat down and played the first SNES game. I mostly just wanted to get to the later SNES games, because they've all been translated now and look fantastic, but it didn't feel right to skip this one.

Now, I just want to say, this game is great, very charming and polished, great sprites, music, level design, all of it is proper Konami. However, the last stage on a first playthrough is...I don't want to say brutal or difficult, because it's not that, I was annoyed more than frustrated. My problem was that you have to grind for gold in order to dig yourself out of the prison, grinding wasn't so bad in the earlier stages because there were many ways to go about it. But with this stage, you're forced to go through hoards of enemies, really annoying ones with spreadshot rifles and spears. When you don't have a buddy with you and have lost all of your upgrades, this is a slog. I know this isn't the games' fault, it's a short arcadey game that wants you to replay it with your friends and breeze through it after learning it through your first couple of runs, but man I just want to get to the sequels.

I'll come back to this game later and properly finish it, it was really fun, but there are other Goemon games I'm more interested in.

Wow, just wow.

It's a shame that this game's legacy is that it was a huge flop and more or less jumpstarted the HAL-Nintendo partnership, because in my opinion, those are the LEAST interesting things about this game, and the Game deserves to be celebrated outside of those factors. As someone whose first console was the NES, I was obsessed with any game that had cutscenes. I've always been fascinated by 8 bit games that push the limits of the console in order to enhance the storytelling, as it leads to both the designers and the player having to use their imagination. Metal Slader Glory destroyes those limits.

Everything from the massive sprites, multiple colour pallets, fluid animation, and even the intricate/dynamic sprite layering, it's all INSANE. I found myself stopping the game and just watching the little details of the characters faces, like how Elina would get upset when you'd talk to Catty, and smoothly shift back to a smile when you talk to her. Or how the characters would react in the foreground to things in the background.

"But the story is predictable, and the antiquated adventure game design is clunky/boring!" - Some jerk off

Look, I don't know how you ended up here if you can't cope with old adventure game tropes or 80s sci-fi anime plots. If you know about this game, you must be VAGUELY interested in one of those things, otherwise, what the fuck were you expecting from such a niche game? And even then, this is by far one of the most polished adventure games from that era, especially out of the Famicom ones.

It's a great game, and I'm glad I finally finished it. Shout-outs to Her-Saki and FandChill, their translation patch was a much needed upgrade, the updated font and more energetic translation made the game that much better.

This is one of those games where I played it for like an hour as a kid, didn't vibe with the controls, and never touched it again. I recently bought an 8bitDo M30 (highly recommended btw if you need a good readily available controller with a Sega styled D-pad) and was messing around with it on a bunch of different games. For some reason this game popped into my (Chuck D.) head, was expecting to put it down like I did as a kid, but instead I actually beat it.

I can totally see why people wouldn't like this game, slippery controls with wonky momentum based platforming on top of being somewhat of an action/exploration game? The latter combination can work, the former is where the game kinda fumbles a bit. It's also got that early Genesis stank, where the colors are colorful yet grimey, the sprites are a bit crude, and the music is farting out some butt metal.

But I dunno, I enjoyed it, I thought it was charming despite the platforming being jank, it felt good to run through the levels and kiss all of the enemies with my chest flesh face. The enemies are funny looking and the game isn't unfair, giving you infinite continues and plenty of items to pick up. I have a soft spot for these weirdo games that aren't mechanically great, but have enough character to pull me through them, Monster Party comes to mind. That game is also a pretty clunky action platformer with a horror theme.

All in all, it's no Dynamite Heady, but it's also not as bad as some of the truly awful Euro-jank platformers this game sits next to.

This game blows my mind on so many levels. An ancient Sonic SATAM fan game, made for DOS before fan games were really even a thing, ported to the GBA. It's a game that's from a bygone era of the Sonic community, when there wasn't a clear distinction between the mainline and the tertiary media. An era of fansites and watching rips of the show on RealPlayer while people fought about Sally versus Amy.

It's an honest game, and while that might be a bit off-putting at times (it can be pretty edgy), it's done in an earnest way, clearly made by a late 90's teenager. As a slice of history and passion, it's great, as a game, it sucks, and that's okay. I'd much rather a game boldy pour its unrefined heart out to me and fail.

I miss this kind of thing, too much media these days feels the need to be self aware, too afraid to be genuine just in case it comes off as awkward. As if the creators need me to know "Don't worry, we know it's silly!", and fill their work with patronising or ironic jokes. I'm fucking tired of it, give me more games that have scenes where a character tries to kill themselves, the main guy responds with "That's mundo uncool", and it's not played for laughs.

I got this game when I was in elementary school, there was this kid who would sporadically come to school, his name was Brandon. and he was usually wearing some kind of brightly colored long sleeved shirt. We got along really well, I never saw him during school, he was only ever at the after school club, for kids whose parents worked late. One day I brought my Pokemon card binder to school, and Brandon told me about this Pikmin game, trying to sell me on it so he could get one of my holos. We agreed on a trade, and the next day, I walked away with a Gamecube game, while he walked away with some crappy Swallot card or something.

When I got home, I waited till everyone went to sleep, I was nervous that my mom would be pissed that I picked up some game without her permission. I remember playing it in the dark living room, with nothing but the buzz of the CRT and the fans of the console. Despite Brandon's recommendation, I couldn't get into it, the game made me anxious, with the timer and the dying Pikmin, I felt like I was playing the game incorrectly.

I went back to school, hoping to see Brandon again and get some tips, but I never saw him again. Nobody ever mentioned him again, felt like nobody even knew him to begin with. I eventually sold the game, my family didn't have much money, so if we wanted new games, that was the way to get them. For years, Pikmin would stay in the back of my head, I loved the concept, world, and aesthetic of the series, but I always thought I was too stupid to understand how to play it.

But that changed, I finally beat this game, and while the game was a lot of fun (a good proof of concept for the rest of the series), I honestly think that without Brandon and his enigmatic vibe, I wouldn't like this game as much as I do. There are a lot of games that I grew up with that came from strange characters in my life, they can either make or break the experience for me, but in this case, it worked. Pikmin 1's atmosphere is mysterious and isolating, it truly makes you feel alien and lost. Even after I beat the game and got all of the parts, I feel like I never truly understood the planet and its rules, I was just able to interpret it.

TL;DR : Brandon Peterson, if you're reading this, I don't know what kind of shit you were going through, but I hope you're doing okay now. I get it dude, I finally understand what you saw in this game, and I'd love to know if you still feel the same way about it.

I learned about moon in the same way I learned about The Silver Case, finding the OST back in like 2008 on Youtube. They were both so mystifying, their styles so unique, and as a kid who couldn't read Japanese, nor understand the plot, I was left to just hope to play them some day.

Eventually the Silver Case got translated, but it would be another 5 years after that until we even got a mere mention of a moon translation. I stalked the Onion Games website from 2019 to 2020, and when it finally came out...I didn't play it.

I had built up the game so much in my head, after years of anticipation, I was just too scared to actually play it. "Gotta be in the right headspace, not now." "Don't want to play it on the Switch." " I want to play it with this person." Excuse after excuse.

Then, a moment of clarity hit me, bought it on Steam, sat down, and played it.

It consumed me, it had my complete attention. It made me feel like a kid again, playing through Chibi Robo, making an agenda, connecting the dots. It's been so long since I've felt that, without any outside noise or motivation. I was playing it because I wanted to be there, I wanted to find everything. Nobody was forcing me to do that damn fishing contest, nobody made me buy all of the CDs and listen to them all in my house. It was all so organic, so natural...

But with that said, the game can be really damn obtuse, thankfully there are plenty of guides that play by the "three strikes" rule, giving you hints before outright giving you the answer. I managed to figure out a lot of the puzzles on my own, but just couldn't figure out the exact timing or way to execute them. But that's half the fun, immersing yourself and noticing new things with every area.

Artistically, it's unmatched. I mean, wow. Everything from the sprites, the backgrounds, even a simple animation like the Birdman's guitar and hat. And to hear the OST in game after all this time, building a playlist just like I did all those years ago, so awesome. Love and charm was put into every facet, you could feel just how much of every team member's heart went into the game, a true melting pot of artistic integrity.

So yeah, it was brilliant, and for Love de Lic to get it so right so early on, managing to make it on par (or even better in some cases) than their later games is astounding.

My main takeaway:
Enjoy life, enjoy its weird intricacies, don't take them for granted. This world is strange, funny, beautiful, sad, scary, frustrating, open, closed, it's all of that. When you're stuck in life, it won't be like that forever. It's only a matter of time before you figure things out, or things figure out themselves. In the meantime, put on some music, meet up with an old friend, or just reflect for a while.

Maybe you'll see something new.

One of the first projects I worked on, learned a lot and met some really good people in the process. So much energy and passion was going around, it's a feeling you can only get when working on a small game like this with an even smaller team. It's hard for me to not be sentimental about it and look at this game objectively, I'll always love the game but seeing the reviews here tell me it's not for everyone lol.

Whether you enjoyed it or not, thanks for playing Super Ledgehop and taking a chance on a random indie game, when you could've bought a McChicken.

This is probably in my top 5 GBC games, whenever I have the chance to play some Game Boy Color games, this is always my go to. I love everything about it, the song choice, the sprites, the pocketability, been playing this game for years and I feel like I'm still improving and learning.

If you can't appreciate Getter Robo, Dragon Ball, Cutie Honey, and god damn Tiger Mask getting chiptune remixes and animations on your god damn Game Boy, then go back to playing moe shit on osu! at the Boy's and Girls club, poor ass bitch, you don't deserve this game.