One of those games that gives you less the more time you sink into it. The core gameplay loop is solid enough, but by Day 5, you have a feel for the game's controls, and around Day 30, you've taken on about everything the game has to offer. There are 128 Days. Running through in free play, it took me 3 hours, an impossibly long time for an arcade game. Multiplayer probably helps extend that playtime a good deal, but even with three-player, I can't imagine this game has enough content to warrant its long, long runtime. I say this as someone who has a lot of nostalgia for the weirdly mellow vibe you get after a couple dozen singleplayer levels of quietly leveling skyscrapers.

It's a solid enough play if all you want is to run out a couple credits, but don't go for completion. The reward on the final stage isn't worth it.

USE ALL THE COLORS!

I'm not good at Defender. That might be because it is a pretty tough game. I remember it getting incredibly fast and always being very difficult to target enemies. Of course, arcade games are meant to eat your quarters, not be easy, so this makes sense!

The real draw of Defender is the very sweet graphics and colors. I can imagine this game was incredible in 1981. It uses literally all the colors as every font and UI element cycle through them at a pretty quick clip. The ship looks awesome and the lasers look incredible. Explosions use all the colors and do cool 1980's stuff. The alien ships are okay and the people are whatever, but your little defender ship is where the magic happens.

Add in the groundbreaking feature of a mini-map/radar thing and the classic synthesized sounds, and you've got yourself a fun few minutes for $0.25.

And then aggravation after you spend your whole lawn-mowing savings in 20 minutes...

Review from thedonproject.com

It’s Joust, a single screen arcade fighter thing! I found the arcade original incredibly hard, I enjoy Balloon Fight which has sanded off edges and is tighter in my opinion.

However, Joust is technically more impressive on Arcade than NES. At the second round there’s something like 8 enemies whirling around the screen but it’s difficult to work yourself back to the top, or at an opportune position to take down the enemies. Your guy has the slippery move too fast in the one direction and it’s hard to correct yourself.

Game is designed to take quarters, I feel as though Balloon Fight and later, Balloon Kid tighten up the experience so it is enjoyable for longer play periods.

For a bonus thank-you game redeemable through Japanese Club Nintendo, you certainly can do worse. It's exactly what it says it is; Balloon Fight but with Tingle. It uses the DS's dual screens to have an extra high vertical aspect ratio, as well as better control compared to the sluggish NES original, but I think the better control and extra space make the game a bit too easy for its own good. The game uses the same 12 stage loop that the NES game has, no Vs. Balloon Fight stages or anything else freshly designed for this game here. The game also saves after every stage of both the main balloon fight mode and the balloon trip mode, so really finishing all the stages is just a matter of persistence. In the options there's the ability to play either with music and sounds taken directly from Tingles Rosy Rupeeland or the original balloon fight sounds and music/random beeping. The music quality for the NES tracks sounds compressed, like they recorded it off of the original game rather than just using an NES sound font, which is lowkey strange. Lastly, there's a picture gallery of various images of Tingle overlaid on real life photos for some reason, where reaching certain milestones in the game earns more tingle photos. One of the photos is locked behind a 4-player multiplayer game, so you better call in the boys and hope this games multiplayer is download play compatible.

It's light on content and substance, but it's a club nintendo prize game so of course it is. It's certainly way more unique and interesting than the borin game and watch compilations we got over here in the states, that's for sure.

I have now played all the tingle games baybee!!!! kooloo limpah motherfuckers

I feel like most Nintendo fans have that one obscure title that they absolutely adore despite how niche of a reach it has. This is that Nintendo game for me. It has a banger of a fighting system that promotes creates loadout-making with a lot of versatility to it in spite of how simple it is, overall. To a point where it almost feels like a mix between a fighting game an a mech game.

Each weapon has its niche purpose. You can stick to a main loadout, but hardly any combination of parts is everything-proof, I simply wish you got new parts at a faster pace or at least that the main story was a little longer, because it's only towards the end and the post-game that you really get an opportunity to think out your matches and figure out a counter-build for your opponent. Though maybe that is for the best, since the postgame content is very much designed for the folks that want to stick around to keep playing. The game isn't the hardest, but it still has plenty of bite, especially for the postgame battles.

Needle Gun ended up being a mainstay for me for its relatively reliable poke but also really smarting when I get a chance to dive in and shoot it point-blank. Ended up switching between Float and Throwing pods, the former for the aerial space denial and the latter for being good at locking opponents into a corner. There's all sorts of combinations to mix and match that it's a delight to toy around and experiment. While some parts are more versatile than others, nothing felt blatantly overtuned and like it didn't have a notable weak spot of some kind. At least apart from illegal parts, but. They're illegal parts. D'uh, they're a little overpowered. I know Custom Robo Arena was a thing and had wi-fi matches, but I swear this game could make for a really compelling competitive multiplayer game in the same vein as a Smash or a Splatoon.

I do think the battles featuring any more than 2 fighters have a tendency to get a little chaotic. While there's no friendly fire for guns, there is friendly fire for bombs and pods, and 4 active fighters at once means there's a lot of explosions happening all over the place and little pods bumming around to a point where I've probably been blind-sided a stray pod from my own ally once or twice. It feels a bit like sensory overload, especially during the 3 vs 1 final boss of the main story.

The characters are delightful, colorful, and expressive. I only wish the main story had a bit more going on so that the plot punches could punch more, cause some of the things fall flat due to ham-fisted foreshadowing and just. Some of the characters not getting a ton of screentime to develop past their very simple anime-esque arcs. But it's hard to complain about the writing when it has so many touches despite it being a mid-to-short-length game. Losing in most games just boots you back to a the last checkpoint, here they have brief what-if scenes. And there's plenty more where that came from, with a lot of amusing character interactions and how each tutorial prompt from Helper Character Harry has a "mock or bully Harry" option where he repeats himself either out of frustration or sometimes just to spite you. And it has one of the best "but thou must" scenes in all the games I've played.

Underrated classic. If you can run Gamecube-level games on your PC, this game runs on Dolphin pretty much flawlessly. Play it.

This is one of those games where I think back on it and can only go "Ahh, damn. Klonoa"

A unique experience like no other game I've ever played. The beginning level sets the tone for the rest of the game. It's absolutely blossoming with vibrant colors and cuteness. The gameplay is simple yet fun and the charm of the game is most distilled into how you attack enemies: you blow them up so they're fat full of air and throw them into other things. You can even bounce on the bigger boned enemies. I don't really like platformers but this game opened me up to them. Getting 100% is also very attainable yet still satisfying.

The boss fights are all super fun and some mind-bending and a bit trippy - again, full of colors. The characters and bosses all feel like like a they're from a really cozy kid's cartoon. There's some really nice humor and charm in their dialogue and personality that will make you smile each time you encounter them - one my favorite characters is the snappy recurring antagonist minion.

Your sidekick, Huepow, is one of the cutest characters I've ever seen in video games, or any media ever. His voice is like rainbow cotton candy and each time he lets out a squeak, it's good for your soul. On top of all this, the game manages to have an emotionally touching narrative. Masterpiece.

Getting emotional just thinking about it again :)

(Formerly cult-)classic JRPG set in "America," where 4 chosen kids go on a globe-trotting hijinks-filled adventure while meeting tons of eclectic characters, fight goofy enemies, drink psychedelic coffee, and listen to an amazing freakin' soundtrack. Some people go in expecting the greatest game ever made based on the praise Earthbound gets online, but it's more like a 7 or 8 out of 10 that gets bumped up to a 9 on its sheer charm alone; if you're on the fence, play up until the first Sanctuary guardian fight, its way more difficult than the rest of the game but offers a nice vertical slice of why people adore this absolute classic.