It's surprising no one talked about Maze Hunter, but I got it in the game about the person that removed their name and gave it a shot. It's not really 3D per se (that's still about 3-7 years out) but isometric, walking around to find keys to exit the maze. As you warp, you will be sent to a lower or higher part of the maze and have different sprites to adjust. There are enemies you can beat by either jumping on them or the safer method, whacking them with your stick. There are 20 mazes in all, with 5 themes that are like the others but with a different color tileset. Sometimes there's a red dot you can jump and hit with your stick to unleash a power-up that usually won't do a whole lot but it's a thing that exists.

I think no one's really talked about it before because honestly, there's really not a lot to say about this one. Like yep, it's a video game that exists. I didn't think it was awful or anything great, just a middle of the road game. Which is actually decent compared to some of the system's other offerings, but in the grand scheme of things, yeah Maze Hunter 3-D is a game that exists.

Another Rare NES game that turns brutally hard by the end, Snake Rattle n Roll is an interesting idea about a Snake needing to platform and most of all eat (except the levels that just ditch the mechanic) to advance. Unfortunately eating mostly amounts to standing across a generator and waiting for the pellets to drop, then advancing once you get everything you need.

The real brutal parts are the movement, as it's an isometric game that was controlled by an NES D-Pad. Were this made in the 3D era it'd likely control a lot better but this isn't what we got. This is especially hellish in the ice levels, where your low traction gets even lower and the terrain will push you off it if you don't fight for dear life. Also the final boss? If you don't play perfectly, you're simply not getting past Final Foot.

Isometric is just hard to make work and this feels like it works less often than desired.

It's gorgeous and the physics are very intricate, but man this game is so slow, so easy to get lost in, and just not fun. When picking things up is the objective holding things should not make the game slow to an absolute crawl.

Crazy to me that a 90s review can say "Level 2 is tough and it doesn't get better" but still give the game 4 stars like what that's crazy what do you mean there are 12 levels of this, make the maps smaller, better movement, carry items weigh less, and take less damage for hitting walls, then maybe it'd be worth playing but not like this.

Very nice graphics and lots of mission variety, that's ultimately ruined by the game being way too hard. At least you keep your power-ups permanently but man the game is needlessly brutal. All enemy boats are faster than you when they want to be, get attacked from all sides, have knockback and hitstun meaning attacks can combo you, your health meter doesn't update right away for some reason, some attacks just do so much damage...among other things.

If the game were just a bit easier, it could be considered a classic NES title.

There seems to be a lot of hardcore fans of this one and I can see why: with the high energy cars, the awesome music, and the visually interesting courses (especially the amusement park) there's definitely a lot to love!

TIME EXTENSION!

Please teach me how to play this insane game I can finish the races but I can't place above 9th I know there's skill to this and would love to git gud.

A really cute game. It's on the easy side, but it's a nice relaxing time that you can get into the flow of. The story is on the simple side, but Noah is endearing that it makes it a good time, and the climax and ending are cute. Combat is also fairly simple but there is strategy in assembling your Lilliputs (which serve as your attacks)and how you want to build your team for your raid. It usually involves gathering all of whatever element you get accessories for first and racking up massive damage that you 2HKO every non-boss enemy in the final area, but it not being too difficult is what contributes to it being relaxing. You can absolutely make it harder for yourself if you so choose to but outside of the Dante Must Die Hell Mode all it really does is change the number multipliers, so if you weren't getting hit before you likely wouldn't get hit on harder difficulties either.

If you want a cute easy Rougelike, this is the game for you!

Unlike Sparkster Sega Genesis, Sparkster SNES recaptures the gameplay of Rocket Knight in a meaningful way, and the new Roll in his moveset just gives you an extra grip of control in your whacky movement. There are some insta-kill hazards that are incredibly frustrating, like in stages 2 and 8, (and one random spike that insta-kills in stage 5 despite no other spike in the game insta-killing)but outside that you have plenty of room to just zip around and roll around to recalibrate and it's just a good time. Goofy concepts are still here too, the ostrich level moving at extremely high speeds had me laughing the whole time. Music in this game is solid too. Also shoutouts to the music level where not only do you get to play a piano for a bit, but your rival can play too!

I could keep going but this is a goofy good time that I would consider the true successor of the first game. Just like Aladdin, the SNES versions of multiplats continue to be king.

At first I thought "oh, it's better Mach Rider" but no, this game is far more brutal than Mach Rider.

So you gotta ski fast, right? Well tough shit, things are coming at you a mile a minute and the consequences can be dire, a full stop even. Go too slow, other skiers wearing nothing at all, nothing at all will come from behind and pound your skier's ass if he tries to accelerate, flipping you right back out. Go too slow, and you'll miss the strict time requirements to keep going. Oh, and the flags? You better get between them or your skier will slow down, just because. But you have to be precise because the flags are obstacles too. One missed game and it's back to the start. I cleared all the courses on Snowy Hill, the EASY course, and I still had to abuse save states to make it even remotely feasable.

Definitely not a game meant to be played with a modern mindset, you're supposed to just see how far you go and that's it. Unfortunately playing legit will not get you very far.

Behold, the first Megaten game to ever make it outside of Japan! A really cute game, it just falls into the Atlus trappings of it becoming needlessly hard at the end.

The Jack of your choice (should be Jack the Ripper/Jack Skeleton for attack power, but it's my boy Jack Frost) gets trapped in the Human World, and must fall down floors to make it back to Fairy World. Because of this, you don't really have health per se, but a timer that you lose time every time you get hit. Your timer carries between floors, but not between areas.

The first area is easy, at just 3 floors. Pixie tutorializes everything so most floors you'll be greeted by her talking about the new enemy. There's even a floor where she says she doesn't know what to say anymore.

The problem however is each area becomes longer and longer, the the point of feeling dragged out. The final area, Crystal Palace, is 19 FLOORS LONG and is followed up by a two-phase final boss with massive HP that if you fail, you have to do ALL 19 FLOORS AGAIN. These are featuring bulky enemies that can corner you easily and force you to use a special or lose time. It becomes tedious to redo all that since they play out the same each time.

It's a cute game with adorable art and good music but damn if I were in charge I'd tone down the difficulty in the second half.

This is my legitimate favorite ZX Spectrum title that I've played. Here you control Sheriff Quickdraw in another cool isometric style game, and have to hunt down famous coyboy outlaws and beat them in a duel. They're all tough and will take you down without hesitation, so you need to be careful. You have to use the jumpy pointy townspeople to find the outlaw, and then very quickly confront them. This isn't to mention the true danger in this game: Women (Am I right fellas). One touch of a woman and you're both gone. You must steel your resolve, refuse women and shoot outlaws to make money.

The economy fluctuating is cool too, adds a layer of strategy as to when you want to take a horse or shoot a civvy or fire the last shot in your round. Music that's there is cool too.

the ZX Spectrum has been a rush of "the tech isn't there yet but I can tell they're trying" games, but Gunfright is a good bit of fun even if there aren't 20 duels worth of content in it.

Like its predecessor, Sabre Wulf, you're given absolutley no clues about what to do other than get out of hell. The bad news is the game isn't good, but the good news is it's at least goofy as hell and I love it.

Now it's a 2D platformer, but it's still a pre-Super Mario Bros. world which means jumping is absolutely awful. But here it's done in such a silly way that I love it: The guy just goes full force, and will bounce off everything he touches in a free fall state as you cannot control the Sabreman after making the initial jump. The bleeps and bloops and this guy's dumbass jump are charming as hell don't ask me why. Often time you'll have to initialize a jump on the previous screen and predict what happens on the next, meaning you can just get bopped for no reason by an enemy and fall to your death, which is the only way you can die. Thankfully your weapon is far better, you can just shit bullets (or shit knives) and get past everything when you're not busy falling to your death.

There's even a hanging from a rope bit which has nice physics but like everything else in the game is funny by how easily you can be bopped by endless enemies.

A very funny game, but I get the feeling the unintended humor is a sentiment only I hold.

Okay so you know Atic Atac, that I just reviewed like 10 minutes ago?

Well what if we took that game, made your attack much weaker, the environment even more confusing in a jungle, sped you the hell up, gave you traction so bad it'd make Luigi blush, and instead of a silly bounce off the walls attack you only had a pitiful sword with no range? Oh, and instead of health and being able to take hits, you just had 5 lives and we called it a day.

Horrid game, but at least the studio has learned from it. I like the title music at least.