I didn’t truly experience Link to the Past for the first time until this version of the game more than 20 years ago—long after I’d mastered Link’s Awakening, Ocarina of Time, and many others I like far better. I actually got as far as Turtle Rock in my first-ever playthrough before….putting it down? Can’t remember why for the life of me. Sold the cartridge not long after that, because poor.

Now in my thirties and with disposable income and more Zelda-liking friends, I finally re-bought a physical cartridge and truly 100%ed both LttP & Four Swords. I’m not convinced the bonus dungeon was worth the hype—I’d maybe give it a 7.5/10? But Four Swords is excellent with a pal, and the Hurricane Spin kinda rules.

A Link to the Past is, like, right in the middle of my top Zeldas. I don’t hate it, but I like every other 2D Zelda after the NES better. I’m glad I finally crossed this game off the ole bucket list.

When I first saw this game on an Indie World some time ago, I was like, "Oh! This is Drill Dozer!" It's...kind of not, despite both games having drill-based mechanics at their core. Drill Dozer emphasizes puzzles more than platforming precision or combat, and Pepper Grinder is the opposite.

I knocked a whole point off for the bosses, though. The ones that aren't middling are just...extremely frustrating. It also suffers from a lack of things to do with the stuff you collect. There are games out there that have the same kinds of rewards and incentive to collect every gem you see, but are better implemented.

Still—if you're a fan of the Game Boy Advance era of platformers you can beat in a single sitting that'll leave you mostly satisfied, this one's "where it's at."

Someone in my family is/was super into Felix the Cat, to the point where he's got a tattoo of Felix on his arm. So I got both the NES and Game Boy games in this "collection" as a Christmas gift almost thirty years ago. Absolutely loved them at the time, so I've got tons of nostalgia & bias.

Coming from someone who's a genuine fan of these games? I can't recommend this package to most people in good conscience, you know? What you've got here is the exact same games from my childhood—plus an unreleased Famicom version that actually never made it to Japan. The Famicom one is 99.9% identical to its US counterpart; it just has Japanese-localized text. I'm mystified by both its inclusion here and the fact that it exists in a complete form at all. For those who don't know already, the Game Boy Felix is virtually identical to its console brother. It just has much fewer levels, even if it still manages to capture "the gist." As a Game Boy nerd, I find it pretty impressive!

But the "three games" bundled together in this "collection" are really just one. The stuff you expect to see in "retro game ports" is here and easily accessible—a single save slot & the ability to rewind. But that's really it, and it's a crying shame. They could've included manuals, art, magazine scans—anything!

As it stands though, I'm betting most of the $24.99 here went towards paying Universal and Dreamworks for the license, haha. You'll beat everything here in a single sitting, even if you really try and stretch it out.

I'm glad this exists. I still miss Hudson Soft a lot. But I'm not screaming from the rooftops for anyone to try it, unless you're a Felix fan or you like games with Kirby influences & quirky transformations.

I love Adventure Island as a series, and I'm especially fond of III & IV. So I decided to try this on a whim, even if it goes for stupidly high prices on Japanese auction sites. The thing is—all these ports are extremely bare-bones. The Game Boy version of Adventure Island III has a password system so you don't have to play it all in one sitting, but THESE ports have absolutely no extra features. You're even stuck on the credits at the end without being kicked back to the title screen, haha. All the menu does is let you reset or switch between the four games.

It's currently the only way to play Adventure Island IV on a portable system, so it's got that going for it. But that's about it.

There's a good essay to be written on how remakes don't always necessarily preserve the original games they're based on with 100% accuracy, but it's not mine to write. I'd heard of "Trace Memory" and its sequel a billion years ago, but never got around to them. I hear the differences between "Journey into Lost Memories" on Switch and "Another Code R" on Wii are actually pretty substantial.

After playing this collection, I kind of want to experience the original games. Another Code: Recollection tells a good story that's maybe worth the "full" price for fans of the genre, especially if you can buy it with a Nintendo Switch Online Voucher or something.

But honestly—the way Another Code: Recollection's Hint System works is super great. I think more "puzzle games" should follow its lead. It stops just short of literally solving the puzzles for you, if you want it to. The only real problem I had is that some of the instructions were a bit obtuse sometimes—like figuring out exactly what the game wanted me to do to unlock an analog combination lock, even though I knew what the combination was.

Whoever designed the seventh Special Stage in this game must've been going through...a very dark time in their life. Genuinely couldn't beat it without using this game's "pause trick." It makes me think I didn't 100% Sonic Rush when I first played it almost twenty years ago.

It's not a bad little game at all, especially when you compare it to Sonic Superstars or Sonic 4. The only Zone I really found "not so great" was Huge Crisis, and my gripes with it are tiny. The bosses are fun, Blaze has enough to differentiate herself from Sonic... I repurchased this game for $20 on eBay CIB. I'd say the experience is worth that. Maybe it'll get re-released in a collection someday with an Anniversary Mode that forgoes lives and alleviates some pain of the Special Stages.