Tag Archives: weird

Umihara Kawase, Super Nintendo

Umihara Kawase is a weird-but-great Japanese platform game first released for the Super Nintendo in 1994.

The game has an excellent rope-based mechanic that makes it different and interesting to play.

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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, PC

First released in 2015, CD Projekt Red‘s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a third-person, open world Role-Playing Game that is based on a series of novels by the Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.

Obviously it is the third instalment in the series (and last, according to the developers), and in it you play a monster-hunting detective badass called Geralt – a Witcher; a carrier of two swords (one steel, for killing humans, and one silver, for killing monsters); and a superhuman solver of problems with acute senses and no emotions.

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Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge, Game Boy Color

This colour remake of Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge was released as part of the Konami GB Collection Vol. 4 compilation in 2000.

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Twinkle Star Sprites, Neo Geo

SNK‘s Twinkle Star Sprites was released for the Neo Geo in 1996 and is an interesting mix of vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up and head-to-head puzzle game. Yes, I know that sounds weird, and this game IS weird, but weird in all the right ways…

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Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge, Game Boy

Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge was first released in 1991 and is the sequel to Castlevania: The Adventure on the Nintendo Game Boy.

Castlevania II makes much better use of the Game Boy‘s hardware than its predecessor, and is considered to be one of the best titles on Nintendo‘s monochrome handheld.

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Monster Max, Game Boy

Monster Max on the Game Boy is a direct descendant of the classic isometric platform game Head Over Heels, it having been created by Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond – the same team who made Head Over Heels, and a string of other hits on the ZX Spectrum.

And Monster Max is a brilliant little game! The movement, jumping and inertia are slightly more refined than in some of their other games, which makes Monster Max a joy to play.

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Mr. Gimmick, NES/Famicom

Known as Gimmick! in Japan and Mr. Gimmick everywhere else, this 1992 release was an attempt by Sunsoft to push the graphical powers of the Nintendo Entertainment System further than they’d ever been pushed before (in order to compete with the Super Nintendo, which was relatively new on the market).

In order to do this, Sunsoft used all kinds of clever programming techniques using graphical tilesets and colours, and the end result is very striking. But it wasn’t enough to compete with the newer consoles of the time and Mr. Gimmick sank without a trace, into relative obscurity.

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