Raein
1980
The finest example of the maze genre at the time of its release. Adding the dots (thanks Head-On) and fruit as a constant carrot on a stick to chase, coupled with the unpredictable behavior of the ghosts requires your attention at a level that only a few of the vertical shooters could equal. Simple, but iconic designs and sound effects round it out.
1985
Gradius was a synthesis of all the gameplay ideas that had been played around with since Galaxian. It added an upgrade system, had good music and sound effects, a variety of enemies and stage designs to work through via smooth gameplay all in one complete package. It set a new baseline for what should be expected from a schmup going forward.
1988
A great action platformer that added a nice layer of cinematic storytelling to these types of games. In many ways this feels like an evolution of Casltevania's combat. I would say the only major knock on the game is some mediocre level design here and there, as well as the spike in difficulty towards the end of the game.
1983
This game gets a surprising amount of praise for being a mediocre Asteroids variant. Ignoring Sinistar's comical lack of chill, the gameplay loop consists of shooting at rocks that don't degrade in any way to collect resources for bombs you'll need to defeat Sinistar. The only thing keeping you from doing this is an occasional ship that shows up. That's it. That's the extent of the danger. The entire loop just feels like it goes from 1 to 11 without anything interesting in between.
1986
I think this game is Castlevania's sci-fi equivalent in terms of impact and there's a reason the term Metroidvania is a portmanteau of the two games. Much like with Vlad's castle, you work your way through the depths of planet Zebes, exploring in a free-form way similar to the original Zelda and Vampire Killer. The music and stark visuals help to highlight the feel of isolation and danger, and even the weapons and item upgrades act as tools to explore further. Just like with Castlevania, I have issues with the precision of the controls which can be frustrating at times, and the exploration can get tedious, but the achievements here far outweigh the niggles.
1982
Two boring game phases where you're either collecting money, or investing it utilizing basic platforming for both. The first, and probably last game to make literal bureaucratic red tape an enemy and for that it gets my regards.
2024
This franchise has been attempting to reboot itself into relevance for three decades, and every time it feels like it's way too little, too late. In this instance it not only comes across as a generic derivative of Resident Evil and Silent Hill (the irony is not lost on me), but it also follows after a year that gave us the Dead Space remake, the Resident Evil 4 remake, and Alan Wake II. You can't show up to the Oscars with a SyFy original.
1984
Certainly unique, but not definitively interesting.
The "How do you do fellow kids?" equivalent of Super Mario Bros.
1976
Yet another Pong variant, but the dopamine hit from clearing the brick layers just hits right.
1981
By the time I had discovered that Ultima existed, I think I had all of the sprite based Final Fantasy games under my belt already, so I understand and appreciate its historical importance. The problem here, just like with so many of these early progenitors of entire genres, is that the ideas which would go on to be refined over years and decades are still raw, unpolished and severely restricted by the computing power of the time. Couple that with an extremely sophomoric attempt at world building that amounts to basically a teenager throwing EVERYTHING he thought was cool into a single universe and you get a mess of a world.
1983
I appreciate Nintendo's attempt at doing something different with the third game, but blowing literal smoke up DK's ass isn't it for me. On its own merits, it works fine, but the lack of much variation in the levels and the very simplistic shooting mechanic didn't bring anything interesting to the table. Unique for the sake of being unique isn't automatically good.
1982
A simple platformer with a nicely fleshed out jungle environment. It gets dull once you get the timing for jumps down and spend most of your time running back and forth to collect the treasures. Could have used a bit more excitement a la Jungle Hunt.
1980
I like this because it has character despite the basic Space Invaders concept. The two guys carrying around a giant crossbow, the goofy king with his "HELP!" and "Thaaank you!" sound effects and silly parasol give this the type of flavor that so many lazy clones of the day lacked.
1982
Compared to some of its super hero contemporaries, this game is actually playable and has a cohesive gameplay loop. Spider-Man also makes quite an impressive sound when he falls to his death in this.