Horizontal shooter with a lot of unique elements and stage design. You have a hook that can swing around your plane based on your movement and hit enemies and bombs, when nothing is on it you can grab enemies or objects in the environment. When shot down you bail out and can fight as the pilot who can jump and pick up and throw objects, and can take motorcycles, tanks, artillery, horses, elephants, etc as new vehicles. Some inventive stage design and the first stage and next five that you pick between are all a combination of well designed mechanically and/or visually interesting.

Hard to manage the hook, tends to just be either extremely easy or so chaotic it can be difficult to tell what is even considered to be an enemy or obstacle and where a threat can be coming from, fighting on the ground can be amusing but control wise feels like a bit of an afterthought (or as an arcade game, they still needed you to die eventually for you to spend more). No rapid fire as quickly mashing the fire button will start to fire out lightning around your plane, can get very tiring if you are trying for that all the time. Dull final stage with two ending choices with one leading to a boss fight and the other forcing you to replay a random stage and then to replay the final stage to get the better ending.

Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1538604025758699522

This game rocks - popped off multiple times per session even when I was actively frustrated while playing it. A game that changes genre every 2 hours, linked by a broad, mutable battle system and a commitment to showcasing what's possible with just the SNES soundchip, a head full of genre fiction, and a few good sprites. The battle system is too slow (thank god for emulation speed-up functions) and getting the proper ending is grindy and esoteric, but its worth it to see Squaresoft in the middle of their golden years, giddily showing off the possible futures of the genre in which they were consistently head-of-class.

At the start of Legendary Axe, the game seems to be a standard action-platformer in the vein of Castlevania. However, it quickly distinguishes itself as the “Axe Meter” comes into play and adds a layer of strategy to each fight. This meter makes the axe do greater damage the more it’s filled, but empties after each swing. Since it takes about four seconds for the meter to recharge when fully upgraded, attacking places high value on precision and patience as opposed to mashing buttons. Considering all the enemies that are much faster and have a wider range than you, making the most of every hit is essential. Thankfully, the game is still manageable as long as you position and time yourself carefully. The labyrinthian fifth level does justify a walkthrough though, and the infinite continue code (I + Select, then hold Left) also helps quite a bit.

As cliche as it is to say, this game is exactly what I’d imagine for a 2D Dark Souls.

You know those early Playstation games which feel like they could have been made for the SNES because the devs hadn't caught the 3D train yet?

Well that's not the case of Little Ralph.

Little Ralph was made well into the console's life and the creators obviously WANTED to make a 16bit-styled 2D platformer. And it was made with a lot of love.

It's a beautiful game with nice-looking and well-animated pixel art. It controls with only two buttons, and two buttons are enough (there's a nice downward slash and a charged-attack you can use to blow small enemies and projectiles away which is very satisfying). You can play for scoring, the stages are full of secrets, some bosses have a fun gimmick, there's a minecart section,... It's a great little game!
I'll still give a warning: Little Ralph is tough as nails. You die in one hit and the game can be extremely unforgiving at times. Thankfully, there's a lot of checkpoints, unlimited continues, and you can save your progress on memory card. If you're not afraid of a bit of challenge, Little Ralph is well worth a try.