Rondo of Blood is classicvania perfected in all manners. The sprite work in this game is still so beautiful it was pretty much the gold standard for Castlevania Sprite Work for years to come.
And gosh, that SOUNDTRACK. My man is dancing his way to Dracula's Castle in most of these tracks.
The level design is insane here as well. Most stages are fairly linear, but every now and then you'll find a branching path that could be harder but more rewarding, or even better: Alternative Stages. All of them with their own optional bosses at that.
Richter and Maria are so much fun to play here, Item Crash is an insane feature in this, and I absolutely love it.
Dracula X/Rondo of Blood and Symphony Of The Night are two sides of a coin, both being the gold standard of each Castlevania style.

"Something clicked for the final time. My mind had never been so clear, as if somewhere high above the storm clouds were already gone, cold stars gazing from the black skies."

Remedy's MAX PAYNE is truly one of the greatest shooters of it's time. A perfect mix of action, thriller, noir, that 90s weirdness and the ever cool bullet time element.

The story is basically your standard noir thriller. Max's family is murdered by junkies, so Max goes undercover so he can figure out what or who is the reason behind the new drug that's going around NYC. Of course, nothing is that easy and eventually he gets not only the city's gangs, but also the police looking for him.

There's nothing cooler than going around at dirty, dark New York City, killing gangsters and thieves that get in your way as you dodge, jump around and kill them with your sawed-off shotgun. And all of that as Max gets snarky as all hell around them, and the gangsters fear the one-man army right in front of them.

Keep in mind, I did have to go out of my way to patch this game to hell and back (or rather, my sister did), since running this on modern machines is absolutely impossible without tweaks. Apparently even the difficulty curve of the game is broken without tweaking it??

While I absolutely enjoyed the experience, I have to admit I'm not too big of a fan of the trial and error element of this game. Sometimes enemies will one tap you with a shotgun blast, so you better have saved soon, or else....
And not to mention, there are some specific segments where the game attempts to make you do platforming, and boy are those annoying sometimes.
Still, this is still an amazing shooter if you're looking for one. Naturally I would recommend you wait for Remedy's remaster of this bad boy.
Also RIP James McCaffrey...

"Something clicked for the final time. My mind had never been so clear, as if somewhere high above the storm clouds were already gone, cold stars gazing from the black skies."

Remedy's MAX PAYNE is truly one of the greatest shooters of it's time. A perfect mix of action, thriller, noir, that 90s weirdness and the ever cool bullet time element.

The story is basically your standard noir thriller. Max's family is murdered by junkies, so Max goes undercover so he can figure out what or who is the reason behind the new drug that's going around NYC. Of course, nothing is that easy and eventually he gets not only the city's gangs, but also the police looking for him.

There's nothing cooler than going around at dirty, dark New York City, killing gangsters and thieves that get in your way as you dodge, jump around and kill them with your sawed-off shotgun. And all of that as Max gets snarky as all hell around them, and the gangsters fear the one-man army right in front of them.

Keep in mind, I did have to go out of my way to patch this game to hell and back (or rather, my sister did), since running this on modern machines is absolutely impossible without tweaks. Apparently even the difficulty curve of the game is broken without tweaking it??

While I absolutely enjoyed the experience, I have to admit I'm not too big of a fan of the trial and error element of this game. Sometimes enemies will one tap you with a shotgun blast, so you better have saved soon, or else....
And not to mention, there are some specific segments where the game attempts to make you do platforming, and boy are those annoying sometimes.
Still, this is still an amazing shooter if you're looking for one. Naturally I would recommend you wait for Remedy's remaster of this bad boy.
Also RIP James McCaffrey...