Someone expanded the general layout/gameplay of Elevator Action into a proto-Smash Bros platform fighter, with weapon pick-ups, stage hazards, and interactable scenery; plus, an Austin Powers-tier sense of humor about its spy-fiction premise. Solid gold.

Had game consumers (and devs) not fallen for the "length = value" lie or the dopamine drip-feed of immanent RPG mechanics, these are the levels of quality we'd be rolling in at all times. We didn't deserve SEGA, the industry's dumbest most beautiful child.

Basically a precursor to OutRun 2 in its blistering speed, spectacular stages/graphics, depth of handling intricacies, and expectation of mastery from the player. I'm sure there are further subtleties but to me they are both perfect arcade racers.

You really need the arcade version. This game was built around a twin-stick setup and when it's there it becomes the mech combat game: so simple but rewarding, blessed with that SEGA turn-of-century 3D and art direction, and a legendary cab to boot.

Kind of a weird beast. I really like the roster (Kizuna Encounter?! Buriki One?!) but the game feels very high-execution even for KOF. There's that Playmore-era look where everything's a bit off and drab. But I would love a re-release, I need more Shen Woo in my life.

I love 8ing fighters, their basic motion and impact animations are so deeply satisfying that playing them even at a casual level is always fun. It's a deeply esoteric game with a sky-high skill ceiling, busted tech, and a microsopic community, but great fun regardless.

As stylish, inventive, and boundary-pushing a Capcom fighter as Darkstalkers, but completely busted by comparison. Still, that has its own charm. There's an astounding ingenuity to how certain elements of the manga were adapted into gameplay mechanics.

It really is a top-shelf beat-'em-up, with its variegated roster and movesets, and its super-fun combo/juggling systems. The wacky art direction is nicely complemented by detailed sprite work, and it never feels cheap. An unassumingly near-perfect game.

The good: Beautiful character models and layered stages; a massive roster with some truly goofy deep cuts; decently fun, faux-Jump Stars combat. The bad: Tedious story/mission modes require endless grinding to unlock every character. Would love a sequel, though.

As a financially irresponsible student, I mostly bought this game because it came out before the Wii U version. I'm giving it one more star for the novelty of a full-fledged portable Smash game, for how nice the thick black character outlines looked, and for Smash Run.

Too long, yes, but what a blast: charge-based attacks and dynamic grappling combine into an intense, crowd-control / proto-God Hand gauntlet, and the fashions and music are shockingly fresh. And it had four-player local wireless?! Really hard, but insanely fun.

Though I've no interest in the story or aesthetic, enough time has passed for it to come off as a charming artifact of the 2010s. A remarkably friendly and immediately-fun anime fighter, with tons of accumulated content making it a great-value release. RIP I guess!

Intensely feedback-heavy anime fighter with some mechanics that feel gratuitously complicated. The story mode is a bloated visual novel but there is lots of it. A very complete package if you're amenable to its charms, personally I found it a bit overwhelming.

It absolutely nails the visuals and music, one of my favorite worlds to just inhabit in recent years. The campaign is a chore, combat is plain bad, and stages aren't all that well-designed, but it's a great hangout game regardless. Kinda wish they'd added multiplayer.

On PSP there's some squinting and finger-spraining involved, but on Vita it's pretty comfortable, and the new content is worthwhile. A solid port of a great game (and its sequel), I just wish Capcom would port it to the Switch in HD with online and so on.