Another Sports game to the list. This time it's volleyball. To be honest, I had no fun playing this game.

The controls were kind of instinctive. Yet, it was so hard to execute them. The reason for it is that you really needed to be at the right spot to hit the ball. Because of that, it was a frustrating experience.

The only thing that was charming about this game is the intro song before picking your team. Other than that, the game was pretty plain. A crowd, a ref, two team and a net. That's about it. the only thing that was funny to look at is that the players sprites always move their butt back and forth and when getting smashed in your face, the player was doing the turtle move on their back.

If you like volleyball, maybe you would have a chance to have fun for 15 minutes. Other than that, I would simply avoid this game.

Game #38 of my challenge

This game is a mix of puzzle with a tiny bit of platforming. This game really reminded me of Wrecking crew while playing it.

The gameplay is simple : grab some L shaped blocs and reach the door. While the concept is simple, they put some obstacle in your track to make things hard. There's some enemies, stuff that you need to collect to unlock that door, moving platforms, etc.

The enemies can be eliminated by crushing them with an L block. This is however not that simple. Crushing them is precise with both placement and timing. Also, if you think you can grab an L block anytime that you want, that's where you are wrong. There's a limit to the number of time you can grab blocks. Depending on the stage, a certain number will be allowed to the player and if you reach 0, you lost the level. You can grab an item in the game that can give one more of those grabs.

During the course of your playthrough, you will get some passwords to get back to the level that you were. This was the old fashioned way to have a save file. It's not in every levels and you have a limited number of lives.

Graphically, this game is kind of plain. Not much to see in this.

While it's clever in the way they bring the puzzle element, it can be frustrating sometimes because it can be timing specific for the level or you don't have enough grabs. Rotating them can also be a pain since you can't rotate them in your hands.

If you like puzzle games, it can be for you. However, I won't recommend someone to do all 64 stages.

Game #37 of my challenge

This spin-off of Gradius is a great game that added some spice to the original game.

The graphics are almost the same between Gradius and Life Force, however they added some really nice sprites to this game that makes the game more clean. The background is also neat and are also part of the stage as obstacle.

The gameplay is also similar to the original. They simplified a little about the power up system. The bosses are also really nice to be against. They are menacing and fun to fight against for a space shooter game.

The biggest change between the two is that now, there's some stages that are horizontal or vertical (depending on which stage you are at).

This game is a better version of Gradius and would recommand if you like space shooter.

Game #36 in my challenge.

Side pocket is a basic pool game with a ''Story'' mode in it. The story mode consist of reaching a certain amount of points, then a bonus stage, and after getting a trick shot. Getting the trick shot will make you move on to the next stage.

Making points is really simple. Get the balls in the holes. The game provides you some way to make more points per stages. You can aim a ball at a Star pocket. Getting balls in a row or simply put them in a numbered sequence with give you a bonus at the end of the stage.

The trick shots however, are a real pain to do. You only get one shot and if you miss, you need to do the whole stage again. Which can be annoying.

Graphically, the game does his job of looking like a pool table. There's not much to say here.

For the controls, there are good. My only complaint is that when you really need to be precise, moving your aim can be really clunky since it moves too much at once.

It's one of the first sports game that I come across though my challenge that I found decent. it passes the time real good, but that's about it.

Game #35 of my challenge

This game is really simple in concept, but it's so much fun, especially in 2 players. Bubble Bobble is a cute platformer with 100 levels in it.

The art of this game is really appealing, with the cute dragons and enemies. the background is really really simple and doesn't have much. However with some designs of certain levels, they do some nods to others games release before it. Those are cute Easter eggs.

The music is really catchy and the short music loop can get stuck in your head for a while.

The gameplay is really simple : catch the enemies with the bubbles that your dragon spits and burst that bubble afterwards. However, the charm of it comes from how the the stage is designed. It's a still screen, however, if there's a hole at the bottom of the screen, you can jump in it and fall from the hole at the top of the screen. This makes the game feel like a puzzle game. The bubbles creates can also be used as platforms. This gameplay is really clunky and is kind of hard to be consistent with it.

The game is fun, but can be redundant with 100 levels. it's a good thing that sometimes you can skip levels when collecting stuff. Also, just has a heads up, you can only have the real ending if you beat it with two players.

Game #34 of my challenge

Star Soldier is another Space shooter. but have it's own little gimmicks to it.

First of all, the power up system is a little difference. There's some background stuff that can be shot and destroyed. Once they are all destroyed, a Power capsule is released and the player can collect it. Those things that can be destroyed blends a lot in the background, so it's can be not obvious to get.

Also, one thing that this game can stand out of other space shooters of the time, was the fact that players can hide behind obstacles and background. Hinding in the background will make you dodge the bullets. While it seems really neat on paper, this can sometimes be confusing since there were no difference between those you can hide and those who can't. Sometimes, you can even lose view of your ship because of it.

Other than that, it's an average Space Shooter game.

Game #33 of my challenge

The sequel of the legendary game Super Mario Bros. , the Lost Levels offers quite a challenge to those who thought the first one was easy.

From a graphical point of view, it's the same as the first one. They simply reused the sprites of the first one and added some new ones.

The controls are also the same as the first one. Mario has the same momentum and physics than the previous entry.

The level design is where everything changes. They added some more obstacles and enemies so that the game will be harder. Playing this game is like playing a super mario maker level with all the B.S that this games offers. Poisoned mushrooms, trampolines, wind effects, hidden block, you name it. Also, in particular levels, if you don't take the right path, you will go back to previous levels. This is particularly frustrating, since the right path can be well hidden.

I still think that the game is good, even with all the B.S, since it's the same controls as the first one. This game feels like a DLC of Super Mario Bros. If you want a hard challenge and you like SMB, this is a game for you.

Game #32 of my challenge

I don't know if this game was the first one of the beat them up genre, but it is certainly the first one on my list. For one of the first, it's not too bad of a game, but it still have many flaws.

First of all, the controls are a lttile bit clunky. It's not consistent on what attack you wanna do. You will also abuse the hell out of the flying kick attack. If you try any other attacks, your butt will get kicked. So the flying attack is the only attack that you cannot get abuse by other enemies.

The hit box aren't that great too. Trying to be aligned to hit someone is really hard to do. You need to be perfectly aligned to do so. There's an enemy that what really annoying because of the hit box : the motorcycle guys. When on foot, you need to do a diving kick to hit them without getting hit. However, the alignment and the timing is really hard to execute. You will get hurt by them and you will also be mad at them.

Except that, it's always pleasant to beat some random goons. There's also some cool parts like the one on the motorcyle that you kick people off of their own bike.

The game was pleasant, but I wouldn't recommand for someone to get out of his way to play it since it's not that accessible.

Game #31 of my challenge

Dragon Warrior, the first of the beloved Dragon's Quest franchise. I know this game influence greatly the game genres of JRPGs. This is my first time playing any of those games and it's also the forst real RPG on the list. So I have no nostalgia for those games.

First of all, the graphics are really charming for his time. A lot of bright enemies sprites that are now icons for the series ( especially the slimes). Everything is recongnizable in the environnement and the UI is well done.

The story is kind of classic. The chosen one that needs to save a kidnapped princess. It does his job and that's about it. The dialogs of the characters are generic or really cryptic. You need to talk to everybody to be sure that you won't miss anything. Without those dialogs, you couldn't found certain mandatory things for sure.

Gameplay wise, it's pretty simple, but a good simple. Since it's some of the first of his genre, a lots of things are barebone or just unpolished. When starting the game, you start at level 1 with some stats. What I found BS about those stats is that depending on your name that you chose, the stats will change. This is kind of stupid, because when you are a kid, you use your name to be the hero's name, but your name could suck more than another kid name.

Also, your "party" is composed of only one character. You also always fight against one enemy at the time. This makes the things really simple. When trying to interact with something on the map, you need to open the menu. So that means that each time you want to talk, items, stats, open a door or even using the stairs, you need to open the menu and use the right option (which makes the thing a little tedious).

The level system is really grindy. You will pass a lot of time turning in circle around a village and beat enemies, go heal and then go back. You will want to grind around a town, because if you die, you will go back to the first town and you will lose half of your gold.

Speaking of towns, the map is really huge for a first JRPG. You will need a map on your computer to find yourself in this map. It's kind of impressive when you thing about it.

I'm gonna be honest, I used a guide to help me save time with this game, but I still enjoyed my time with it. Since the combat system is really simple, you can watch something else while grinding XP or gold and it won't be that bad. I think it's a good game for his time and I would recommand people to at least to try it, only to get a feel of what it was back in 1986.

Game #30 of my challenge

1987

This game have a lots of things that were really neat for the time. It's a mixture of platformer adventure with a sprinkle of RPG in it.

The platforming part is ok at best. It's not bad, but it isn't good as well. For the adventure parts, the nice thing about it , is that you have some section of side-scrolling and some top view action. The mix of both is a really nice change of pace. The attacks that your character have is really original with his spinning shield. The last part is the RPG element. So, when you beat a whole bunch of enemies, you will gain XP. When you do, you gain a level and your strenght/HP is upgraded. At the time, the XP mecanic is not really exploited yet, so it brings a new flavor to this game.

However, since the game is not fully polish and not that memorable, I can only give it a 3.

Game #29 of my challenge

This game didn't make it for me. They wanted to have their own platforming style using big jumps and glide, but it was too clunky.

I will be honest that during the whole game, I didn't know what I was doing. I was collecting stuff without knowing what they do. I was woundering in levels to any doors I could find only to find out that sometimes, it brings you back to a same room that you already did. In the later levels, I was to lost that I've decide to use a guide and to my suprise, you can change colors in this game. When I've first started, I tried every button to know what they do and couldn't transform. I guess that collecting something will help you with that.

It was a real pain to complete, wasn't instinctive enough of a game and the controls were awful. This game wasn't for me.

Game #28 of my challenge

The first of a legendary franchise. This game have innovated so much in the gaming industry with all the newer stuff implemented in or simply polished certain mecanics already introduced.

First of all, the story is mainly in the booklet. However, you can still see some bits of story telling in this game since there were some speeches from characters in-game. The only game older that I played that had text in-game was Super mario bros when saving a toad or princess toadstool. This makes the world that you play in way more alive since you could interact with a whole bunch of characters.

The graphics is also really good for the time. All the sprites are easily distictable between them. Also the world inside is very lively.

Speaking of world, they introduce in this game a new type of way to create this world. Instead of having one single screen that the player interact with or one level that scrolls when player move in one direction, they had the genius to create a map composed of multiples squares, and each of those squares, they had a fixed camera. When the player goes outside of that square, it goes to another part of the map. It's a genius way for the player to have a sense of exploration in the map. They also had a whole bunch of secrets in the hyrule kingdom, which makes the player wants to interact more with obstacles and the world.

The many secrets is doubled-edge sword, since they were reallly hard to find. Sometimes, those secrets were important to the main quests since there were a lot of hidden dungeons that needed to be beaten to get a piece of the triforce. So this game really needed to have a guide to beat. This was one of the ways they could sold more copies of Nintendo Power (since internet wasn't a thing yet).

This was also a long game compared to all other videogames that was release before it. Which is why they implemented for the first time in an NES cartridge a saving system.

All the equipments in the game are really good to help the player to have a feeling of getting powerful each time something was equipped to Link. Some items were optional, only to help the player to have an easier time with the game, but some of them were mandatory (especially to find dungeons and to beat Ganon).

One really neat thing about this game as well was the lifebar. Instead of having some one-shots kills, the player could now eat multiple hits and survive and also being able to heal was also a huge thing. Player could also find some heart pieces and/or heart containers to upgrade Link's health. There were no other game (that I'm aware of) that had that system implemented before this game.

I already said a lot about this game, so in conclusion, this is a great game that people should try to beat once, but should use a guide to help them since there's a lot of hidden secrets and hard enemies. A must play.
Game #27 of my challenge

To be honest, This game is pretty much forgettable. Jumps between floor, eliminate enemies with shurikens until the stage is cleared and that's about it. I have really nothing else to say about it.

Super Mario Bros. Just reading this title should already tell you that this a great game.

The story of this game is simple, but it doesn't tell you directly unless you read the booklet of this game. The only parts that mentions the story in the game is when saving a toad or beating the game.

The music in this game is so good and recognizable, that even people who never played this game would know that this is mario. The game has 5 different full songs : the above ground, underground, underwater, the koopa castle and the ending song. All other tracks are completing a level and completing a koopa castle stage. They are all good in their own right.

Graphically, the game still looks good for his age. With all the colorful sprites used in this game, it's easy to recongnize everything in the game.

The gameplay is what makes this game really good. A simple platformer, but with really tight controls. Something really facinating is that it's one of the first game where you can influence your jump momentum, even mid-air. This makes the platforming even tighter. All enemies are fair (except tbe hammer bros, which can be really annoying). The 2 power-ups in the game (mushroom and fire flower) are simple, but effective. The player can also collect coins and for each 100 coins, they will gain a life. Before this, it was only with score that player gained lifes other than items in the game. This incite the player to collect them when seeing them.

Also, for those who doesn't know, if you get a game over, the player can choose which world to start to.

This is why I think most everybody think this is an absolute classic and everyone should at least play that game once.

Game #25 of my challenge

The main goal of this game is to get as much points as possible. To do that, you need to roll on some lines with your car.

Your car can jump over enemies (which are police cars and cats) and each stages has 3 differents floors to go to.

The game is really boring since the only thing that you do is to drive the car without hitting anything. The jump timing to go to different floor is precise and getting the stripes on a side of a ledge is really annoying.

I would not recommand this game unless you are curious about it. If you try it, 5 minutes is enough to get an idea of the game.

Game #24 of my challenge