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 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.

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.

Cool game, but that kinda goes without saying, this game is oozing with style and pizazz. I dunno why I held out on playing it for so long, I didn't realize how short it was. It was fun, but it's a little bittersweet, as cool as Grave and his world are, I would've much preferred to have that Trigun game RED was also making.

To have a Trigun game with this kind of crazy balls-off-the-wall shootout style cel shaded type beat would've been the tits, but it just wasn't meant to be. Hopefully we'll get a beta build someday, or maybe we'll get a shitty Bamco game with the new TikTok fuckboy Vash...

Here Comes The Rain....

Great game, went into it expecting another Park Patrol, but came out of it very impressed. They managed to adapt the Chibi Robo game loop in its entirety to the DS, while adding more than the first game. The first Chibi Robo game was probably the first game I ever stalked in magazines, eventually getting it a few years after it came out. The quirky yet somewhat emotionally grounded story and calming gameplay mixed with the colorful graphics really stuck with me. The game isn't afraid to show a dysfunctional family, they show the highs and the lows, I think that's really special. Clean Sweep has all of that and more, just like the first game, I really related to the story. It was a weird feeling to play the first game when I was a kid like Jenny, and then play Clean Sweep as an adult, made it a lot more personal. The only things that stop this game from being a 5 are the pacing and the OST. The progression can take a while at some points and the music was a bit of a letdown when compared to the first game.

Not the best Wario game but still a damn good puzzle platformer when compared to other titles on the Game Boy. What I was really shocked about was the differences between the GBC version and GB version, I think I prefer the GB version because of the shading on the sprites. You can just tell that this game was designed with a monocrhome look first, as the GBC version is washed out and boring looking, even missing some details such as the skull on the flag in Chapter 3.

If that wasn't enough, you can't even use the same save if you decide to switch systems, which I've never heard of before. Why can the Pokemon games share saves when in GB mode, but not this game?

This game feels so much better on the PSP for one major reason, the god damn load times. I would've never beaten this shit if I had to reboot my PS2, go through the UI, wait for it all to load, then get instakilled because I forgot to equip floating legs. In this version, everything's snappy and instant, if I fuck up, it's a matter of seconds to restart.

Besides that, amazing game, it's been a long time since I've felt such a gratifying learning curve. Insane how this game nearly perfected the mecha experience despite all of its limitations, and built something deeper/rewarding than most games would even dream of going, especially within its genre of mecha action games, which is a smaller pool of (good) games than you'd think.

Here's another game I played as a kid, really liked it, but put it down because I found it a bit overwhelming. But coming back to it as an adult, it's much, much easier, which isn't a bad thing. I think that the way the game describes its mechanics sometimes can make them a little more confusing than they actually are, which is probably my only gripe with the game. The art direction is practically unparalleled, it's hard to think of another platformer from the time that was this stylised without sacrificing anything. I also think the way this game deals with mental illness and trauma is really commendable, there were some pretty serious topics here, and they managed to have fun all while recognizing the real world implications they have. I'll be very impressed if the sequel can live up to this one

Not even being ironic here, I loved this game.

This game reminds me of GARAGE: BAD DREAM ADVENTURE, you're not in it for the gameplay, you're there for the uncanny, oppressive, and disgusting atmosphere. As games, they're tedious, clunky, and not fun in the slightest, but as art pieces, as worlds, they're very unique.

Though Funny Pizza Land captures a very different kind of fear, the fear of being trapped in a 2000's Eurojank shareware game. There were so many horribly jank platformers/adventure games that you'd get on a CD from your Eastern European uncle back then, games that were unintentionally unsettling and awful. FPL is definitely trying to be weird, but not overtly creepy, it's trying to be ugly and quirky, but comes off as horrifying.

If you grew up in the 90's or 2000's and played a lot of shareware, play this game. It will take you back to an era where this was all you had. You had to invest your child mind into this grotesque world, dealing with its disgusting looking characters, awful controls, and buggy collision. We don't see this kind of earnest attempt anymore, if FPL were made today, it would be some lame "analogue horror" wannabe and have no real meat to it other than trying to play off of your childhood fears. FPL never set out to do that, it just naturally IS fucking awful.