This is still one of the best examples of a perfect difficulty curve. Once you get good at it, you can pretty much beat it every time, even after not playing it in years, but it never stops being exciting.

I still think Super C is bigger and better, but there's nothing as consistently great as the first Contra.

PD: The stage 4 boss is stupidly creative. I've never had another boss purposely make me cross my eyes in such a disorienting fasion.

Super C is probably the best aged game I've ever played. I seriously doubt there'll come a day when this game feels old. It's as basic a game as any; you run, you shoot, you jump and dodge... and yet, that's all you really need.

This applies to Contra too, but Super C is way more demanding and also ups the insanity. These are still some fantastic bosses for a run n gun. There's some bullshit here and there, but the game never feels terribly unfair.

Sadly, the final boss is quite underwhelming. A second phase would have gone a long way in capping off Super C as a complete masterpiece. Oh well.

Why's everyone recommending to play on Super Easy on a first playthrough??? Alien Soldier is excess incarnate! It's the purest form of MDMA in the shape of 2D action! What, all of a sudden you want it to be tame? It's against the very soul of the game! It demands for you to jump into the meat grinder inside its cartridge and come out the other side all mushy, just to hop back into it once again.
Who the hell looks at the two settings "SUPEREASY" or "SUPERHARD" and doesn't instantly get the message!?

Ok, hear me out.
This game is massively flawed, I'd even say it's pretty bad and I wouldn't recommend a full playthrough. That said, I'd be lying if I said there isn't something very interesting hidden beneath its shortcomings, especially for the time.

They really took the hard route for this game. It could easily have been just another generic platformer like the Nightmare on Elm Street game, yet Friday the 13th is one of the very few NES games that aims for actual horror. All in all, it's surprisingly effective at setting its tone and atmosphere. You're just a group of intentionally weak camp conselors at Crystal Lake, and Jason is a looming threat at every turn, capable of showing up when you're least prepared.

At this point, I should mention the actual objective. Basically, you're just a team of 6 camp counselors that have to survive 3 nights at Camp Crystal Lake while caring for the children. You'll be roaming around the camp killing enemies and gathering items like weapon upgrades and health power ups. Eventually, the Jason Alarm™ will go off and you'll have to take the quickest route to the cabin pointed on the map before he starts killing children. You'll have to fight him off; he runs away a couple times but retains the damage from each encounter. When you deplete his health bar, the night's over and a new day starts. Do that 3 times and you're done.

I really like that the theme of the game is pure survival. Sure, you defeat Jason in the end, but he's more of a looming inevitability than a foe you're actively going up against. Aside from the Jason Alarm™, he can show up completely unannounced and deal some heavy damage when you're least prepared. There seldom are any moments where you feel he's not there stalking you.

You also have to manage your resources if you want to survive. You have 6 counselors for all three nights, and if any die, they're gone for good. They all each carry their items individually too, and whenever you switch characters, you can choose to exchange items. However, if you die with said items, they're also gone. This forces you to strategize which characters should carry the best weapons or the health items. You also may have to reluctantly switch to another counselor because you took too much damage with the other one. All this, although unrefined, surprisingly contributes to the rising feeling of doom as you progress through the nights.

It's a shame, however, that the camp counselors are so absurdly unbalanced. Two of them are GOD tier, while the other four are just trash. If you happen to lose one of the good ones, all incentive to continue is lost because the others are wasted effort. It would have been cool to give each counselor a special ability, so the weaker characters could compensate for their lower stats. The loss of a councelor should immediatly propell you into problem solving, not absolutely discourage you from continuing the playthrough.

Item collection and leveling up is also pretty poorly executed. You either have to randomly hop about as items pop into existence, or kill a ludicrous amount of enemies to get the best weapons, and if you lose them, you're pretty much fucked. There are some items that have very elaborate conditions to acquire. They're usually way too hard to get without a guide, and you'll only be geting them by the second or third night, but I really dig the concept, as they encourage the most exploration and even have a hidden surprise that I wouldn't want to ruin for any other Friday the 13th fan.

Of course, the atmosphere is also kinda marred by the awkward map navigation, which, to its credit, does have a logic to it and can be dealt with just fine. It's simpy very counter intuitive at first. However, there's very little variety in the scenery, and that really doesn't help orientate oneself. This is aggravated whenever the Jason Alarm™ goes off, since you gotta hurry and can get lost pretty easily. Worse yet is when you're stuck with a slow as a turtle counselor and have to go all the way to the other side of the map (luckily, you can go into any of the big cabins and fast travel to any other cabin currently occupied by another counselor, though it forces you to change character.) I gotta say, all the orientation issues become smaller the more you play, and realisticaly, no one is beating this game on their first try; it's simply jarring at fist is all. What never gets better are the cave and forest areas tho. They house the best items, but they're beyond convoluted to explore and they're filled with enemies as potentially deadly as Jason himself. You also never get enough time to explore them before the ™ɯɹɐlɐ uosɐɾ forces you to come out. It's a shame, really, cuz they really would have worked to break the pace of the main boring scenerey.

The cabins are also hard to navigate and a common source of complaint, but I'm fully willing to defend them. A great feeling of tension arises whenever you KNOW Jason's in the cabin but you keep looking... and looking... and looking when SUDDENLY he pops out of nowhere with that chilling sound effect (a sound effect so classic that the 2020 game World of Horror uses it as a homage.) I'm sorry y'all, but that's just a damn well built jump scare. Just stop and think for a second: how many NES games can actually pull off a jump scare like that? Hell, there are horror games now at days that don't put half as much effort into building a scare. This game also gives you no time to relieve tension; as soon as the jump scare happens, you're thrust into battle with Jason a la Punch-Out. They're some grueling fights, especially as the game goes on.

To finally put a end to my rambling, I'll say that I think core structure of the game is rather sound and fascinating for its time. It's incredibly unrefined and the criticism it's gotten over the years is proof of that (I'm looking at all you AVGN fans). However, I simply can't say that there's absolutely nothing to this game. Although extremely unpolished, it makes use of some effective tactics that horror games wouldn't really take advantage of until much later.
If an indie team were to pick up and refine the core concept, expand upon it, add some much needed variety and pace breakers, balance all mechanics and inject some character, I'd say it would turn out to be a pretty good game, faithful to the movies.

So there you go, without a doubt the most in depth review of this game that maybe two people will read, if at all, lol.

MMX2 is exactly what a good first sequel should be. It's all the original X1 has and more. I'd call it even better than the first. However, its merits lie more in the addition of extra content rather than the way it expands on the formula. For that reason, I can't justify rating it as highly as the original.

I will say, save for a few annoying stages, the level design is top notch, probably better than X1. The armor upgrades finally get to trully shine too. In the original, they kinda felt like a necessity rather than a cool extra. Here, X's moveset is already great from the start, and the armor pieces really open up many more possibilities (air dash, double charge shot, giga crush).

I'm torn whether I like this soundtrack better than X1 or not. On one hand, X1 has banger after banger, and arguably better instrumentation. On the other, X2 has more variety in tone. Bubble Crab's theme is a great example.

On a personal note, I may think this one's better than X1 simply because I've already played X1 to death. It'll never stop being a great time, but it really makes me appreciate just how much variety is packed into X2.

It really is THAT good, but I don't necessarily think it's for everyone.

If you have any interest in playing it however, I urge you to take it to heart and give it an honest try. Don't get discouraged by its slow opening. As you've probably heard, this game is a very unique experience, and unique experiences require an open mindset. Just to put it into perspective, I only finished the game after my second attempt, and I'm incredibly thankful I gave it another chance, so stick with it!

This game felt like a nostalgic, dreamy scene of my childhood. It's funny, tragic, peaceful and downright terrifying at times. It's like a chameleon when it comes to the way it masterfuly handles its tonal shifts throughout the story.

It's terribly hard to describe the experience, but I can safely say there's nothing else like it. I guess the best way I can put it is that this game really made me feel profoundly happy. I didn't simply have fun (tho I'm not discrediting plain fun at all), but rather I managed to tap into a feeling of happiness that I don't think I had fully experienced since childhood. I even get chills thinking about it.

Please, please just give it a shot.

I don't know what happened, I went form feeling miserable while playing this game, to actually quite liking it towards the end. It may have been some form of Stockholm syndrome, but either way, it sure took a while for it to click with me. It doesn't live up to X1 or X4, but I still ended up with a deep appreciation for X8, even if it's quite flawed.

X8 has some die-hard fans, but it's hardly the incredible return to form that some make it out to be. It doesn't control nearly as well as the PS1 entries, and it's level design is easily some of the weakest in the entire series, filled with crappy gimmicks that greatly de-emphasise the movement based gameplay the X series is so well known for. No stage sinks as low as some of the worst in X6 and X7, but 90% of them are just mediocre. The interesting thing here is that X8 exhibits much more polish than those two. I can imagine how X6 could have been a great game had it not been so rushed, X8 seems to be as good as it could have been. It's simply had a good execution for poor concepts.

There are a lot of positives to X8, however. All three characters are very distinct and fun to use. There are also a ton of secret items scattered in all stages, and they all require you to use a specific character. The navigators help a great deal too, and give much needed personality to the cast.

Overall, it packs more variety than any other X game, and it has quite a bit of meat to sink your teeth into (I've heard some complain about Mega Man games being too short, so there you go). The combo system is kind of bare bones, but at least it makes stages more interesting when you try to go for a high score.

I will say, the game feels very lacking at the beginning. It takes a few upgrades and weapons for the game to get good, so I suspect that X8 is the kind of game that benefits from a New Game+, I'll have to find out some other time.

Above all I said, the most important thing about X8 is that it feels like it had a purpose of being made, the passion and love behind it shines bright beneath its flaws. It's easily the most unique X game for sure, and although it's quite divisive, anyone who likes the series would do good to check it out.

What a pleasent surprise of a game. As other reviews point out, it's hard to get the hang of Wario Land 3 at first, but once you get going, it's pretty wild. It's biggest asset is its unpredictability. I never knew where the game would take me next and that was a great feeling, even if my objective in each stage (getting a new treasure chest) always remained the same. It's a hell of an impressive game for the Gameboy Color, that's for sure.
My only word of warning is that it is best played on emulation with a rewind feature. Since you have no health and don't take damage, the game's concept of penalty for getting hit or falling more often than not is just wasting your time. I think the experience is most fun without the hassle of having to repeat sections of a level just because you got hit.

Nearly flawless.

It's the rare type of action game with the kind of charm that makes you stow any frustration and allow yourself simply enjoy it to the fullest.

I have some minor complaints, but they don't really detract from my rating. For once, I wish there was more of it. 6 stages is criminally short, but they're so sweet that I'm glad I even got to play them.
The game does a poor job at communicating the propper way to utilize all your tools. It took many, many deaths for me to realize the way to activate the Vulcan gun, and I didn't even know you could throw a lasso until I saw some playthroughs online. However, the unlimited continues means it's never too frustrating to die, so the time to experiment and figure things out is definitely there.
Lastly, I wish one of the shoulder buttons could have been used to recenter your crosshair. I'd often have to push myself to the edge of the screen just to realign my aim. In a game where positioning is essential, that was quite inconvenient. That said, I'm not entirely sure how a re-center button could have messed with the game's balance.

Anyway, if you like rail shooters, gallery shooters, arcade action or simply action games, there's absolutely no reason to skip Wild Guns.

In all honesty, I didn't think I would finish it when first picking it up, but woooow, it's so demented that I couldn't stop myself.

Dynamite Headdy is certainly not as addictively action packed as some other Treasure outings on the Mega Drive. What this game does have, however, is one of the most out of this world art directions in any 2D game I've seen. As always, Treasure pushes the hardware to great heights in both graphical effects and outlandish mechanics. Couple that with its sheer visual insanity and Dynamite Headdy manages to stand on the same tier of Mega Drive classics as Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier.

I say Mega Drive because I had to play the japanese version with an english patch. The american release is too cheap to bother with, and a lot of its visual mayhem is needlessly tampered with.

On a final note, the credits theme gave me a very melancholic feeling. It was rather beautiful, even if not entirely in tone with the rest of the experience.

Playing this game is like being stuck in a doomed relationship.

Somehow, I keep falling for its bullshit every step of the way, even when I should see it coming. Despite all, I always find it in me to forgive it, thinking that we can still make it work; maybe with enough love and hope we can get back to the wonderful feelings we had for each other at the beginning. How foolish... Some way or another, Sonic the Hedgehog will find a way to screw it up.

Thank god for the rewind feature in the Sega Genesis Classics collection, otherwise Idk if I would have gone all the way through with it.
Now if only I could rewind my real life doomed relationship :'-(