Released 1996-06-23 · Played 2026-07-14 · N64 · Nintendo EAD / Nintendo
- Excising all nostalgia I have for SM64 from my brain to the extent that I can – it’s one of the best games of all time. Jumping around has never felt better – full stop.
- The skill ceiling for the movement in SM64 is so high. Going fast feels so good.
- To be fair, not all the SM64 levels are created equally, there are a few stinkers, like Hazy Maze Cave, but these are the exception rather than the rule.
Released 1995-12-08 · Played 2026-07-16 · SNES · Compile
- Best version of the classic 1v1 action-puzzler.
- Miss me with that Tetris shit bruh. Puyo Puyo requires you to do much more than just pattern match and press buttons very fast (well you do have to do that as well of course).
Released 2001-03-21 · Played 2026-08-23 · GBA · Eighting / Nintendo
- Trying to make your way through hallways holding a long fluorescent tube light while you’re constantly spinning around has never been this fun and it never will be again.
- A video game ass video game. Cute as a button. Catchy music that won’t drive you insane as you try to improve your best times.
Released 1994-04-17 · Played 2026-06-20 · ARC · Data East
- The Endless Breeze romhack combined with libretro’s fantastic rollback netcode makes Windjammers one of the best 1v1 experiences around.
7.
Lunar Pool / Lunar Ball
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(1-2P)
Released 1985-12-05 · Played 2026-07-16 · NES · Compile / Pony Canyon / FCI
- A super simple NES billiards game with a focus on oddly-shaped tables.
- Almost a perfect game. So, nobody tried to one up Lunar Pool throughout the history of gaming.
- Although, I guess I sort of tried to did that with my Lunar Pool Championship Edition romhack.
Released 1988-10-23 · Played 2026-08-29 · NES · Nintendo R&D4 / Nintendo
- Playing SMW and SMB3 back to back I can definitely say that SMB3 is the better game overall (at least playing it on the SNES through Super Mario All-Stars). Playing the NES version of SMB3 a few weeks ago prior to beating SMW felt pretty terrible but I’m not sure if it was my emulator or the game.
- The only thing that SMW seems to have over SMB3 is a super high skill ceiling due to all the glitches, weird interactions between game mechanics. The high skill ceiling allows for people to make absolutely nuts romhacks, stuff like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1jwZekUBjo which are really fun to watch.
- But comparing the base games with each other, SMB3 blows SMW out of the water. Level design, music, SFX. We could argue about the core movement mechanics, I’d probably take SMW’s physics/gamefeel over SMB3’s but the levels in SMB3 are so much more interesting, thematically cohesive and fun to play – they more than make up for the movement being a little less to my taste.
- One thing to note is that SMB3 is super hard and the bosses are toxic, but I prefer this over SMW’s piss-easy difficulty and pushover bosses.
Released 1985-01-22 · Played 2026-10-06 · NES · Nintendo R&D1 / HAL Laboratory / Nintendo
- Simple as heck design: d-pad and one button to fly. Elegant, but feels really good.
- The difficulty is fair but hard making runs pretty quick.
- Tense gameplay with little room for error. Rewards slow/patient play but requires you to play fast enough to avoid the balls of electricity produced by the clouds.
Released 1997-09-30 · Played 2026-09-16 · PS1 · SCEI / Sony Computer Entertainment
- The action puzzle gameplay, the sound of the blocks “rolling” down at you, combined with the orchestral score is something else.
- Few, if any, games followed in the footsteps of I.Q.: Intelligent Qube and that’s a damn shame.
11.
Sin and Punishment / Tsumi to Batsu: Hoshi no Keishōsha
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Released 2000-11-21 · Played 2026-06-29 · N64 · Treasure Nintendo R&D 1 / Nintendo
- Sin and Punishment is the first retro game I’ve played so far that I couldn’t brute force my way through with rewind/save states and a guide. It’s got some boss fights with some pretty subtle tactics to beat them ( Limited Range Heatbomb : you can’t use lock on here because it doesn’t do enough damage to kill it before you get instakilled by Saki’s nuke attack ). Youtube is helpful though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTclPNrbR80
- Easy 6/5 game. It’s hard to believe that this game actually ran on N64 hardware. Visually impressive but gameplay was great too.
- The VO was in English but I feel like I would have understood about as much of the story if it was in Japanese instead.
- The game’s pacing is fast and doesn’t waste your time with long cutscenes. The “START -> SKIP” text overlaid on the screen during cutscenes is a vibe and not something I’ve seen since on a console game.
- The game felt very arcadey in more ways than one, especially with respect to the difficulty. I’d say that it was mostly fair but it’s a tough game.
Released 2001-11-01 · Played 2026-07-09 · PS2 · Namco
- I’m skeptical of the anti-war game where you fly billion dollar jets and drop bombs on people but hey these games feel good and the narratives tend to be interesting and weird if not exactly mind blowing in their originality.
Released 2005-10-18 · Played 2025-03-05 · PS2 · Team Ico / Sony Computer Entertainment
- I took me a few tries to get through this one but sticking with it was well worth the effort.
Released 1996-03-30 · Played 2026-09-13 · PS1 · Capcom
- I played the 2001 GameCube remake in the late 00s and through that experience I discovered how much I enjoyed the gameplay loop of classic Resident Evil games. Playing through the PSX original revealed to me how faithful the remake was to the original but also the extent to which the few minor changes it has, improved upon the original without erasing what made it special in the first place.
- Navigating through the cramped spaces over and over again in Resident Evil games is still very enjoyable to me. Whether I’m breaking new ground or making my way back through previously visited areas, Resident Evil encourages you to navigate spaces efficiently. I think that’s fun. Metroidvanias rarely have the same impact on me for some reason. Maybe it’s the tank controls?
- Resident Evil feels like a classic point and click adventure game where you control a constantly threatened character in the world, instead of a disembodied cursor, making for a more tense and memorable experience as a result.
Released 1988-12 · Played 2026-07-09 · NES · Capcom
- This might be the most “in my wheelhouse” game we’ve played so far. The hook shot feels really good.
- For a game called Hitler’s Resurrection, Hitler doesn’t show up on screen for very long.
- I do think that this might be the first game that we play that’s explicitly political (I’m not sure Link’s never mentioned Christianity counts as being explicit).
- Weissman is a neo-nazi who has resurrected Hitler in both mind and body but he’s immediately overpowered by Hitler’s/fascism’s actual evil-ness. There’s also the American / World Police element at play here as well that could be dissected too.
- It’s a NES game so we get the rough sketch of a story rather than a full one but what’s there is interesting I think.
- Difficulty-wise, it gets pretty hard at the end. I’m excited for the game industry to leave that behind. I love hard games but I like easy to learn but hard to master games that aren’t needlessly punishing much more.
Released 1998-01-21 · Played 2026-09-09 · PS1 · Capcom / Capcom, Virgin Interactive Entertainment
- Resident Evil 2 also holds up. I like it. It’s a bit of a shame that the Leon/Claire playthroughs are really similar to one another. After playing one and a bit of the next, I didn’t feel like continuing.
17.
Super Mario World / Super Mario World: Super Mario Bros. 4
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Released 1991-08-23 · Played 2026-08-13 · SNES · Nintendo EAD / Nintendo
- Not as good as Super Mario Bros 3 but I playing this like crazy on my GBA as a kid definitely changed my brain.
Released 1989-12-22 · Played 2026-06-23 · NES · Konami
- If you enjoyed Castlevania and you want more, Castlevania 3 is a more faithful sequel to Castlevania than Castlevania 2 is.
- I’d recommend the Japanese version of Castlevania III over the US version because it has better music, better background colors and better sprites than the US version.
19.
Cybernator / Juusou Kihei Valken
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Released 1993-04 · Played 2026-08-27 · SNES · NCS Corp / Masaya(JP) / Konami(NA) / Palcom Software(PAL)
- Cybernator is a proto-Armored Core, I wasn’t expecting that.
- Despite the goofy name, we’ve definitely crossed a threshold graphically but also game structure-wise. If this came out today, we’d say that it’s old school and hard AF but it wouldn’t feel too out of place.
- OK so fair enough, Nintendo probably wanted to remove one of the last shots/portraits in the game but it’s a shame they removed all of them in the English version. They really add a lot of flavor and much needed humanity to this very mechanical/robotic environment.
- The Japanese game with the English-patch has a few typos but they’re worth it to keep the portraits in the game.
- Once again, we’ve got a game that is way too hard but at least you have infinite continues (you might have to hold up, L+R and press Start on the start screen to get them though). You would have to be a real sicko to beat this game legit in current year.
- eg. take the amount of health you think a boss should reasonably have in a hard AF old school SNES game and then multiply that by about 3 to 5 (10 for the final boss?) and that’s the health they actually have.
- Unlike with Metal Storm, the movement in Cybernator feels like you’re moving around in a heavy mech. It really does feel like a proto-Armored Core. There can’t have been many previous games to have done this before (and even less that looked this good).
Released 1987-04-30 · Played 2026-06-25 · NES · Konami
- Playing Castlevania right after playing Ghosts ’n Ghouls I can really imagine the Konami devs being like “hold my beer, watch this” and actually making a good game out of the core idea of GnG.
- After playing Castlevania, I sampled a few other games in the series:
- I beat Castlevania III and it’s awesome.
- Castlevania II is a disaster but it also laid the groundwork for what Castlevania became later on (open ended-ish non linear gameplay, backtracking, RPG systems, key items to unlock areas becoming more Metroid-ish giving us Metroidvanias as we know and love/hate today) starting with Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
- Castlevania Symphony of the Night makes much more sense to me after having played Castlevania and Castlevania III, I “get” it now. (Editor’s note: Strat really hates backtracking and so he will never beat Castlevania SotN).
Released 2007-08-21 · Played 2026-09-16 · PSP · Level-5 / SCEI / SCEA
- It’s a great tactical RPG that I’d recommend to anyone wanting to get into the genre.
- It’s not too fiddly UX and gameplay-wise but it’s got enough complexity to be interesting and allow for you to come up with some broken builds which is always fun.
- The narrative doesn’t waste your time at all, it’s straightforward but it has moments of actual emotional impact which is rare in these games.
- The 2D anime cutscenes bring the whole game together. The English with French accents VO is very fun. Grounding the story in history/myth rather than just pure anime bullshit untethered to reality works for me.
- Henry VI being a little demonic fucker sending demons to attack France is gold.
- Jeanne D’Arc hearing voices from “God” but maybe not really is also fun.
- One con would be the Mii looking 3D characters. They’re pretty ugly.
Released 2001-01-25 · Played 2026-09-04 · PS2 · Capcom
- Resident Evil (game) + Samurai (kind of historical Japanese guy).
- It’s campier than even the campiest Capcom games I’ve played previously. Other than the water puzzle section, it was a lot of fun.
Released 1985-09-13 · Played 2026-06-21 · NES · Nintendo R&D4 / Nintendo
Released 2002-10-29 · Played 2026-07-07 · PS2 · Rockstar North / Rockstar Games, Capcom
- It’s like Grand Theft Auto III but what if the main character wasn’t a complete zero and the missions were actually fun.
Released 2001-03-22 · Played 2025-03-12 · PS2 · Capcom
- The performances of Code Veronica’s Canadian voice actors are fantastic. The number of “eh"s and “soooorry"s you’ll be hearing playing through this game is surprising to say the least. If the inclusion of all these Canadianisms was intentional, it is bold and makes the, poorly directed and shot, cinematics in this game some of the most enjoyable in the Resident Evil series.
- The gameplay is a return to the more puzzle-oriented gameplay of RE1 and RE2 rather the action-heavy gameplay of RE3.
- As of 2026, we’ve learned that Capcom is remaking Code Veronica. Capcom’s remake track record is impeccable and I’m excited for this one. I don’t think this is the direction they’ll take the game but I would really love a return to the classic style, optional tank controls would be awesome.
Released 1992-03 · Played 2026-08-20 · SNES · SunsoftChat Noir / Sunsoft
- Lemmings is one of the few games we’ve played so far that isn’t another take on the little guy jumping around genre. Hats off to the Legend of Zelda which is the only other game we’ve played that fits the bill.
- Lemmings is pretty unique in that sense although it’s got some warts. The core premise is sound but, in practice, levels being shared between the difficulties is odd. With these shared levels the only difference being the number of types of skills you have access to is weird because if you have a really good solution for a level you’re being asked to replicate it more than once.
- Lemmings 2 takes the premise of Lemmings, polishes it and makes it bigger and better:
- No repeated levels.
- No difficulty levels.
- Levels are designed much tighter and more explicitly puzzle-like.
- Non-linear design allows for you to go to another level “set” (each themed around a different tribe of Lemmings with their own set of skills) if you can’t beat the one you’re on.
- Many more skills (from the 10 in Lemmings to something like 48 in Lemmings 2). You have access to a subset in each level.
- It wasn’t as popular as Lemmings apparently but I’m not sure why. It’s a much better game.
Released 1994-11-21 · Played 2026-09-03 · SNES · Rare / Nintendo
- The Donkey Kong Country OST is fantastic, blows everything else we’ve heard on the NES/SNES so far completely out of the water. It’s going straight onto my media server.
- The visuals are really great. It makes the game so unique looking compared to everything else we’ve seen so far.
- It’s hard as balls. I lost a lot of progress repeatedly and it’s starting to wear me down like that usually does. If I would have known how hard it was I would have cheated from the start. I’m not sure I’ll be finishing this one (Editor’s note: he didn’t. Predictable).
Released 2001-10-22 · Played 2026-07-02 · PS2 · DMA Design / Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, Capcom
Released 1987-08-22 · Played 2026-07-02 · NES · Nintendo R&D4 / Nintendo
- I’ve seen everything in The Legend of Zelda 100 million times before but that’s because of how influential it is. One of the most interesting parts of the game for me were the moments of light lateral thinking required for progressing through the game. Modern games have largely moved away from any kind of friction whatsoever so it’s nice to see a game that would have required the player to bash their head against the wall a few times to beat the game (or call Nintendo’s help line or read Nintendo Power magazines). If things were different, we might have lived in a world where more friction of this kind rather than less became the norm in games and we’d all be playing La Mulana-likes rather than Vampire Survivor-likes.
- Link is literally wielding a shield with a massive cross on it throughout the entire game. Nintendo pretty quickly move away from Link being a warrior of Christ but it’s kind of wild that he started out as one.
- “the core design principle of the game running out of steam halfway through and turning into a painful slog " hehe. I’ve always felt this way about Zelda games but never put 2 and 2 together about this being a core issue with all of them. Beating the later ones is an absolute ordeal but at least LoZ is short.
Released 1998-12-12 · Played 2026-07-02 · GBC · Nintendo EAD / Nintendo
- This is a weird Zelda game. It’s steeped in Daoist philosophy (in particular Peng and The Butterfly Dream). It feels like a romhack because of the mismatch of what came before vs. what this is. Link starts the game by waking up (but he’s actually still sleeping/dreaming?) to a drunkard copycat of Mario (yes that Mario) and his daughter Marin who found him washed up on the shore of their island.
- There’s a lot to go into but one moment speaks volumes about this fever dream: there’s a fetch quest where you have to bring a letter from a bitter old anthropomorphic goat lady to a guy who likes writing letters but never receives any; you bring it over and a photo falls out, it’s a pixel perfect rendition of Princess Peach posing for the camera, the photo is labelled “Christine”. Literally WTF is going on. I’m a little more than halfway through the game and I adore it.
- It is weird and I love weird.
- It’s also a slog like every Zelda game is.
Released 2009-03-05 · Played 2026-09-24 · PC · Capcom
- Hats off to Louis Contant for playing this game in coop with me. He seemed to be having a good time.
- Definitely the worst Resident Evil Game I’ve played. I’ve yet to play RE6 so I’m looking forward to that.
- RE5 is absolutely rizzless RE4 with:
- Mid co-op.
- Crazy balls to the wall racism.
- No direction to speak of.
- Horrible and buggy boss fights (especially noticeable after playing Metal Gear Solid).
- Boring AF characters (spoilers for the first 5min of RE Village:I don’t care about Chris Redfield unless he’s killing my wife and stealing my newborn within the first 3min of starting the game).
- Uninspired level design.
- A bargain bin orchestral score.
- RE5 is the Call of Dutyfication of Resident Evil and I can’t stand by it.
- Please for the love of all that holy, do not remake Resident Evil 5 Mr. Capcom nobody reasonable wants that.
Released 1990-07 · Played 2026-07-30 · GB · Capcom / Capcom / Nintendo
- I wasn’t able to get through much of it in my 2 hours of no cheating play but I can see the vision. It’s definitely a more reasonable game than Ghosts n’ Goblins was difficulty-wise but it was still too hard for me. I think if I was more used to CBT (cock and ball torture) games I’d have been more into it.
- I love a good challenge but I’m so much more into “easy to learn yet hard to master” games like SM64 than this much more punishing and backtracking heavy kind of game.
- I enjoyed the goofy dialogue. The engrish with a weird/playful tone was fun to read.
Released 1989-07 · Played 2026-07-16 · NES · Hudson Soft / Hudson Soft / Nintendo
- The first “important” game we’ve played because the action-roleplaying gameplay in Faxanadu becomes so imbued into what modern games are/were for a very long time that it’s interesting to see a very early attempt at that kind of game.
- Unlike Castlevania 2, it’s actually much more reasonable in terms of the hints that it gives you to figure out how to progress. Famously though, I hate backtracking and I hate grinding and so this was tough for me. If the gameplay held up a bit more and I was having more fun maybe I wouldn’t have needed to whip out the walkthrough.
- I think Faxanadu is historically interesting and the series influenced a lot that came later but I can’t say it holds up.
- Bionic Commando feels like a game at the opposite end of the spectrum – It doesn’t seem to have had any impact whatsoever on the games that came after but it’s still awesome to play to this day.
Released 1992-11 · Played 2026-08-20 · SNES · Arsys Software / Masaya(JP) / Konami(NA/PAL)
- The animations must have been mindblowing at the time but actually playing this game is hell.
Released 1986-11 · Played 2026-06-19 · NES · Micronics / Capcom
- this game is fucking deranged, I love it (Editor’s note: I don’t love this anymore). From this walkthrough https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Ghosts_%27n_Goblins/Stage_5#NES: For whatever reason, Satan is invulnerable to the Axe in the NES version.
- Is this the first rage game?
- If you’re cheating it’s a very short game.
- It is super hard. I can’t stress this enough. This is definitely the hardest game I’ve ever played.