Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master is an audio-visual tour-de-force. When the game starts with the Shinobi theme, you know that you're in for a treat.

The graphics and sound are fantastic and really feels big budget compared to its predecessor, the great Revenge of Shinobi. Even though master composer Yuzo Koshiro didn’t score this game, it still sounds incredible (look out for Shinobi, Whirlwind, Hassou, Japonesque, Mandara tracks).
Where the game has really improved is in the quality of Joe Musashi's moveset - every action feels great, from the Shinobi walk to the running slash. The dive kick adds an extra dimension to the gameplay and not a frame of animation is wasted. The game also feels a lot more forgiving compared to its predecessors with less of a memorization need as the enemies are more leniently placed among the environments.

The stages feels varied with the classic opening forest level, where you’re just gliding and mowing down baddies (though here I prefer Revenge of Shinobi’s opening). There is also horse-back riding and even Ninja surfing. You’re also fending off enemies in a running elevator to a falling rocks section where you've to pull off a succession of double jumps. Speaking of the double jumps this is more of a "me" issue but just like in Revenge, I didn't always pull it off properly when most needed, which caused me no end of strife. Also, I didn't really enjoy the factory levels and the returning maze section (glad it was short this time), which kept the game from being perfect to me.

All in all, Shinobi III is a fantastic game well worth your time if you like side-scrolling action games with an incredible soundtrack, great looking sprites and backgrounds and well-designed levels and gameplay.

Night Trap proves that it doesn't have to be a "good" game to be a memorable experience. All you do is going around flipping through cameras and trapping the baddies at a designated spot and time. The cheesy acting has a lot of the 80s B-movie charm, and I was genuinely intrigued about the story playing in the background. Alas, the way you're supposed to play the game properly actively discourages you to watch the plot unfold as everything happens in real-time, which is a bummer, but there's always Youtube.

I had previously dismissed FMV games as not worth investing time in, but thanks to this playthrough of a cult classic, I will seek out the better experiences that are surely available. Love the theme song!!

The problem I've with this game is the same problem I had with Darius I, in that you're not given enough defensive/offensive weapons to counteract the millions of shit flying all over the admittedly highly attractive backgrounds. The difficulty feels like it has ramped up over its predecessor especially with the bosses and the sub-bosses, as they've more ways to punish you now with your bigger hitbox(and they really look awesome doing it). The graphics and sound are the real stars of the show here, just like in the original with more levels to play through now as well.

One of the worst feeling games I've ever had the displeasure to play. You've only two moves - punching and kicking, while the enemies have a much wider pool of moves and can even perform special actions that your sorry ass can only ever dream about. The graphics are ugly for 1989 (the year of the great brawlers like Final Fight, Golden Axe and Konami's own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and the gameplay is more like something from the mid 80s. Add to that this a long game with 8 stages (why the worst ones always the longest?) and the enemies take a lot of damage, you've got a special brand of turd sandwich.

Very good arcade conversion for the Sega CD version with good quality CD music enhancing the original experience. The graphics do take a hit from the arcade and the sprite limit on screen is 4, which changes the approach to the general game. Not sure if its me but the damage output seems lower with the enemies taking more hits to go down. But the arcade game is mostly preserved with all the content except some censorship issues with the naming and character design, some missing objects here and there, but all levels are present with animated intro and outro sequences. All in all a good conversion with some re-balancing issues.

The SNES version is not especially good with sprite clipping issues, sound is grainy, enemy limit is only three and also there are two missing levels. The graphics look good but that's it.

The arcade version is absolutely fantastic and completely blew me away. Now, we already got two great brawlers in '89: Golden Axe and TMNT, but Final Fight really brought more quality and refinement to the fledgling genre. Huge gorgeous sprites, great animation that feels distinct among the three fighters, massive number of enemies on screen and the core fighting is simply outstanding through the entire ~1 hour playtime. Haggar the wrestler feels completely different from Guy and Cody with Guy being the most nimble and Cody having the best balance. They bash and biff their way through the entire Metro City to save Mayor Haggar's daughter Jessica from the street gang Mad Gear and their despicable boss, Belger.

Capcom really raised the bar in '89 and ushered in a new era for the beat-'em-up genre.

A game so popular that it helped elevate the already good Konami to a completely different level for their legendary run through the golden 90s. This is a licensed game done right, from the intro, to the music, and contains all the major villains like Bebop/Rocksteady, Krang and Shredder.

TMNT: the arcade game is a simple two button brawler style action game with four player support, great graphics and animations with big sprites and some great boss artwork (special highlight: Krang and the funny Bebop/Rocksteady fight). For sure, it may not be as good as some of the later brawlers down the line and maybe it lacks some variety, but it plays really well and for what it meant for Konami and arcade games in general, it deserves all the props.

The only game so far this year that I beat once (with the dwarf), and then immediately did the same with the Amazon. Golden Axe is a Conan the Barbarian influenced brawler where you can choose between the Warrior, Amazon and the Dwarf - all of whom had at least one family member murdered by the main villain, Death Adder, so vengeance was much desired.

The scenes of the villagers running away and getting tortured by the Death Adder henchmen really enhanced the game's atmosphere and raised the stakes as it's not just your story any longer: you have to save the villagers from their miserable plight as well.

You can ride the mounts that the enemies bring to the battle and can use them against their masters (includes fire-breathing drakes!). When surrounded by enemies you can use the B+A button to perform an inelegant roll and cut-'n-thrust move which does added damage. Magic spells are also present in this game; depending on how many potions you can collect and save from the imps, it can affect the spell power and do significant damage at max level.