While I wouldn’t call myself a Pokémon fanatic, I do really enjoy the games because they are so well made, and because I love level-grinders. Pokémon Pearl (and its companion, Diamond) is considered by many as one of the best games in the series, and people still love to play it now.
Compared to previous generations, Pokémon Pearl has lots of new features, and compared to later generations: the series hasn’t yet started to collapse under its own weight.
The 2009 hand-held follow-up to the classic PS2 game Dragon Quest VIII is another fine level-grinder, with cheerful, colourful graphics and mesmerising gameplay.
Continue reading Dragon Quest IX, Nintendo DSGunple: Gunman’s Proof was developed by Lenar and published by ASCII Corporation in 1997. It was one of the last games to be released for the SNES and was only ever released in Japan. An English fan translation does exist, though, which means that non Japanese speakers can enjoy this wonderful game.
In essence, Gunple could be described as ‘Zelda with guns’ or a ‘Wild West Zelda‘, because – graphically – the game does have a lot of similarities to Nintendo‘s classic A Link To the Past. In fact: some of the background graphics, in my opinion, appear to have been lifted from the aforementioned Zelda game, which in reality is no bad thing.
The second sequel to the wonderful Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Ganbare Goemon 3: Shishijyūrokubei no Karakuri Manji Katame was again only ever released in Japan and was recently given a fan translation, allowing English-speaking audiences to finally enjoy it.
Continue reading Ganbare Goemon 3: Shishijyūrokubei no Karakuri Manji Katame, Super Nintendo
The sequel to the wonderful Konami hit, Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Ganbare Goemon 2: Kiteretsu Shougun Magginesu (translated title being: Goemon 2: The Strange General McGuinness) was released in 1993, but only in Japan.
A brilliant fan translation was released just this year – February 2020 to be precise – which now makes this fantastic game more accessible to Western audiences.
Continue reading Ganbare Goemon 2: Kiteretsu Shougun Magginesu, Super Nintendo
Toki is a relatively obscure platform-based arcade game, by Japanese developer TAD Corporation, which was first released in 1989. And it is as bloody hard as nails!
Cosmic Spacehead is a 1993 Sega Megadrive release for British publisher Codemasters. It is, in fact, an enhanced remake of a previous Codemasters game, Linus Spacehead’s Cosmic Crusade.
Developed by Johnson Voorsanger Productions for Sega and published on the Megadrive in 1991, Toejam & Earl is a cult collect ’em up starring two alien rappers who have crash-landed on Earth.
Pier Solar and the Great Architects is a famous homebrew Role-Playing Game released in 2010. It was developed by a team called WaterMelon and was initially released on cartridge exclusively for the Sega Megadrive.
Since then, though, it has been ported to a number of different platforms, including HD remakes for Dreamcast, PlayStation 3 & 4, Wii U, PC, XBox One, and Android.
Continue reading Pier Solar and the Great Architects, Megadrive/Genesis
Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle is a 1989 platform game released for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis. It was developed in-house by Sega as a competitor to the Nintendo Mario games, which were hugely popular at the time.
Continue reading Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Megadrive/Genesis
