I got a sensory overstimulation whenever I was able to beat a very long level or I cleared that darn turtle jump on the bridge level, this is true now and it was true twenty (!!!) years ago. I don't think it's fair to say that games are outdated since they are children of their age, but in some cases, like with XCOM Enemy Unknown and Crash Bandicoot, playing the sequel is better in almost every category.

This game has charm, started a breakthrough in 3D platforming and despite having wonky mechanics and some backtracking, it's got real love poured in it and I feel that alone makes it worth checking out. I personally prefer playing the original over the trilogy version because for some reason Crash, whenever he lands from a jump, carries momentum; this was true in the PS1 second and third game and it was carried in the remake, despite the original first game not having this aspect. Crash needs to perform very precise jumps in the horizontal sections and it feels clunky to do, but the trilogy is much more accessible in general so you do you.

Incredibly complex, detailed and deep foray in tactical RPG, Reborn could be considered a 10 years old remake of Let Us Cling Together instead of the SNES original. In truth, all three versions play so radically different it's worth to check each iteration. Reborn adds consistency to the crafting, cleans its hands from the class levels but adds lots of variety with the blue cards in each battlefield. It may look silly at first, but the tactical edge they give is incomparable (and I personally prefer it compared to how it was), It adds depth and gives an incentive to clear up space and develop killzones in certain maps. Not only that, but skills were given a pruning and each character can equip 4 skills, 4 magic spells a piece and that's it, cutting away from the ridiculous builds you had to have in the PSP version. I don't miss putting Anatomy on each unit, thank you.

Still, the postgame (called CODA) is very unfriendly and requires a lot of time and effort. It is truly the game asking you if you really like playing Tactics Ogre: Reborn. The card system is a bit frustrating at times and some bosses really gave me an headache, but it never felt unfair. If you lose a battle it's because there was a tactical mistake here and there. I'll admit though that the game requires the player to actively strategize and spend hours customizing your killing team, which means min maxing. It never feels good to hit a great note in the story just for the next 30 minutes to be spent browsing the shop and buying everything you need (I like doing it but I wouldn't ever recommend it).

I think Reborn has become the definitive way to experience Denam's story and branching paths. The music, the gameplay, the experience has been fine tuned and I'm the happiest about it, I especially enjoyed the voice acting and the rearranged soundtrack. Crossing my fingers for a remake of Final Fantasy Tactics as good as this one, because Tactics Ogre truly was reborn.

First part of the duology, Golden Sun takes everything Camelot did in previous years and takes it to the extreme, before they had been relegated to mario sports games.

Golden Sun is a wonderfully presented game; visuals are phenomenal, with charming and colorful sprites filling the rich world of Weyard. The music by Sakuraba is at time soothing, at times imposing, at times inspiring, always perfect for the occasion. The Lost Age will come up next, taking everything the first Golden Sun did and cranking it up to eleven.

Just use a guide for the djinn, I honestly had no idea where half of them were. Puzzles are fun and so is character building, but I will not leave one of those critters behind.

Timeless classic of Christmas, year 2005. Everybody and their mums were playing on their shiny Ps2 libraries while I was blowing dust out of my older brother's grey brick. To me this game means a lot, being probably one of the first games I ever played, and coming back to it I felt a bit of dread: what if I had bad taste?!

Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time is not a bad game at all! Its controls can feel a bit outdated and some levels are a bit frustrating but the fun and chaotic mess of a Bugs Bunny cartoon is captured in its truest form by this collectathon, almost entirely voice acted (take that, gaming year of 2023! Bugs Bunny did it first!). One of my most cherished memories was playing the snow level in the Medieval world and talking about school with my mother present in the room.

At the same time, it's a bit janky. As I said, the controls aren't the best and thankfully Bugs will automatically jump when running towards a cliff, so that you can correct the course. Meanwhile, some levels like the car chase, the trolly level and most of the space era ones can feel like you cannot control the bunny. Time and again, by trial and error, I was able to finish and 100% the game, at time needing to go back to older levels just to collect all golden carrots. I was greeted by a warm, orange tinted screen, telling me Bugs was finally able to go to the beach.

When you're a kid, you don't know you're making memories, you're just having fun. This game, Digimon World, Spyro, just to name a few, have made me reminisce the old times, when me, my brother and my sister were spending time together.

I am calling both of them, right after I'm done writing. Visiting the past is lonely business, you may be mentally there but no one else is; reminiscing together instead is a fun and warm activity. We may live in different cities and live different lives, but we have in common all the good fun we had.

The sheer amount of content inside this cartdrige is insane. Are you telling me Mario Kart DS has the best battle mode, missions, passable retro tracks and incredible replayability and driving? Waluigi Pinball? Shroom Ridge?

I admittedly grew up with Mario Kart DS, but it feels good to revisit old games and see that the fun you had as a child was justified, imagine playing and enjoying bad games, right? Jokes aside, stellar tracklist with some stinky ones in the SNES repertoire, Mario Kart DS is probably the first Mario Kart to feel modern in how it plays, in the amount of content (to this day rivaled) and especially in how driving feels: responsive, quick and with a broken but rewarding miniboost system. Hitting continuously left and right on the dpad destroyed my DS but it was worth it, especially playing online. Lots of good memories and to this day the most consistent Mario Kart.

Final Fantasy Tactics is dearly beloved for a lot of reasons by many, still subject to modding and new character builds every so often. It's simply good, from the flow of combat to the great storyline and character development. It ticks many boxes, from customizing your team to actually giving you the means to break the game - and be broken. The game is unfair at times, but I can't really hold it against it since it's very open about it. Not only that, but the game is beautiful, the sprites are colorful and detailed, stages and cutscenes look incredible and thanks to great sound, both soundtrack and design, immersion is guaranteed. What I can tell you that I don't like is the uneven difficulty curve, the way progression is handled (looking at you, Wiegraf) and random encounters not being fair, but it's small things I reckon.

Simply put, I love this game, it came to me as a revelation, it made me realize that videogames could tell stories, good ones at that. They could mean something more than simple entertainment. I don't recommend the PSP port for several nitpicky reasons, but if you can you should get The Lion War and other mods from the boys, gals and meteor chugging chocobos at ffhacktics dot com.

Quirky and interesting perspective on the Ninja Gaiden idea, despite looking like it could never work, it sort of did? Hear me out.

The early DS games had to display in full what the console was able to do. A touchpad wasn't anything new at the time, but something as responsive as a modern handheld device (from which I'm typing this review by the way) was completely and utterly game changing, even if it was just a gimmick. Most games were gimmicks, at their hearts, very few titles utilized the full potential of the touch screen more than a few times; even fewer were entirely basing their gameplay on the new technology, which in and out of itself is a crowning achievement. I respect the dev team for pulling through this.

The game is kind of ass though. Ninja Gaiden has to be precise with its input and, punishing as it is, you'll sometimes be screwed and there's nothing you can do. It feels unfair and it takes enormous effort to beat.

Everything else gets my seal of approval, the prerendered backgrounds look fantastic and the atmosphere is stellar. Holding the console vertically can get tiring when you're playing this game, so I'd recommend playing it just for its novelty and as a time capsule of early DS games, more than anything. If you want to play a Ninja Gaiden for its tight gameplay, you can go and play Dead or Alive or get your hands on the OG Xbox, but at the same time Dragon Sword works just as well as the intended to-go & portable alternative.

It's incredible how as soon as the Super Nintendo was hitting the shelves, so many good games would come out. Actraiser is the most original experience of them all, mixing city management and platforming, as a God nonetheless. It's got soul and love poured into it like very few games and you can see it from its spritework, its music, its tight design and gameplay.

My only sour note is that the controls can feel stiff and it can get exhausting in the end when you've got to fight all bosses one after the other. Yet, Actraiser is able to sow a plotline like no other through gameplay alone, somber and inspiring; it always feels good to start the game, hear the first notes of Fillmore and getting back to business.

Played for over 250 hours back when I first got it, I had a lot of bad things to say on this game but in retrospective it accomplished what it wanted to do - being a swan song for a game series which could've been ended here and there. Combat is fun and quick, replayability is high with how much you can mix and match the cast. The only big cons I can think of are the very bland map design and story, both having no real rhyme or reason to do what they do half the time. Lunatic + to this day is one of the most challenging modes of all the franchise - for very wrong reasons. It's fine for what it does.