All 16-Bit

Review #11114 Super Darius Looks and sounds ever so slightly better than the HuCard version PCE CD 1990 NEC Shooter Shooter › Horizontal F 51 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay The constant mashing of two buttons is giving me carpel tunnel. There are no weapons to power up with and the peashooter shot and bombs are no ideal. Enemies also take too many shots. Deaths are even more punishing than Gradius because powerups are few and far between and are lost after a death. Insane difficulty. 3 / 5 Level Design The stages are sooooo long! Enemies are placed to flood the screen with projectiles. The only way to progress is to know exactly where to position and mash those buttons. 4 / 5 ...

Review #11113 Super Daisenryaku Advanced Age Wars PCE CD 1990 Micro Cabin Strategy Strategy › Turn-based Tactics H 33 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Plays like an early, early version of Famicom/Advance Wars. The same mechanics are here - build units at a base or airport, move them along a grid, take neutral or enemy bases, and attack enemy units which has strengths or weaknesses against certain kinds of units. Unfortunately, that the UI is clunky and dated, and everything moves at a snail's pace. It was 45 minutes before I had my first encounter with an enemy unit. On the first map. The other huge complaint I've got is the jilted scrolling of the map. Only full tiles appear on the screen, and moving the cursor toward the border of the screen ...

Review #11101 Shanghai II How to not win at a puzzle game PCE CD 1990 Hudson Soft Tabletop Tabletop › Board Game X 24 / 100 You've been warned Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay Move a cursor, pick matching tiles to remove them, but only if one of the sides of the tiles is free. Uggh, Mahjong is the dumbest game ever. Imagine playing a board game where 90+% of the time you cannot win. Unable to select only winnable boards, like in the Genesis version. This makes the game not worth playing imo. There's something therapeutic about clearing a board. It's aggravating most of the time but there's satisfaction in finishing something. 2 / 5 Level Design Lots of tiles and layouts. None good but whatever 0...

Review #11092 Ranma ½ Gender bender PCE CD 1990 Masaya Action Action › Punch n Kick H 35 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay Horrible hit detection! Slow movement. Kick and jump kick. You can really spam attacks but hits rarely register the way you'd like. Boss enemies have much farther reach, powerful attacks, and far more health, making those fights nigh impossible. You also can't move while attacking, expect on the weird auto-runner stage, of course. I'll never go back to this oddity. 3 / 5 Level Design Some goofy stage design almost makes up for the terrible gameplay. Almost. Stages range from a standard platformer to an auto-runner to 1v1 battles. The sheer variety keeps you guessing, even though the st...

Review #11084 Pro Yakyuu Ugly but serviceable PCE CD 1990 Intec Sports Sports › Baseball G 46 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay I could not buy a hit in this game. Pitching and fielding are middling but ok, but hitting is nigh impossible. 3 / 5 Level Design Season and exhibition modes. Easy enough to jump into a game. 3 / 5 Theme English is used on enough menus that it's not a problem. Has a sort of stuffy environment. Japan League license, of course. 2 / 5 Art Style Eh, the graphics are weak. Not terrible, but decent for 1989. Still below average though. 2 / 5 Audio Loud music plays continuously, and changes based...

Review #11063 Legion My name is Legion, for we are many PCE CD 1990 Telenet Japan Shooter Shooter › Horizontal H 36 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Stupid difficulty due to a combination of slow movement and insanely fast enemy movement. Few power ups also. You can only hold one weapon at a time so touch luck if you don't like it, but at least there are four to choose from. One hit kills. Nothing unique or interesting in the gameplay department. 2 / 5 Level Design Cheap kills with rocks and other fast moving objects speeding toward you faster than you can react. Better memorize the stages. Long boring breaks between enemy waves. Nothing remarkable. 2 / 5 Theme Positively generic...

Review #11047 Golden Axe I have an axe to grind PCE CD 1990 Telenet Japan Action Action › Beat Em Up H 35 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Slow movement. Even slower than the Genesis version. And far worse hit detection to boot. Attacks have a short reach. The jump attack has really poor hit detection so I found it to be very unreliable. Three playable characters but they play identically. Occasionally climb on a dragon but good luck hitting enemies when on it. Enemies are super annoying. They do the Double Dragon thing and do all they can to surround you. They start just out of reach while the do so. You have to be lined up just perfectly to hit them. Enemies also like to stun lock you. There's a screen filling magic system and plentiful pick ...

Review #11024 Deko Boko Densetsu PCE CD 1990 Telenet Japan Racing Racing › Overhead H 39 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay The object is to race up the screen in auto-scrolling courses. It plays a bit like R.C. Pro-Am with its forward and reverse weapons for damaging other racers. It does the weird thing where all racers must be on screen, ala Moto Roader. When a car goes offscreen they take damage and are flung forward on the screen. You seem to take way more damage than your opponents, so it's hard to have enough health to cross the finish line. VERY slow movement. You can jump, like in Bump 'n' Jump for NES. Being in first place is a major handicap because you are at the tippy top of the screen and have noly a few pixels worth or notice whe...

Review #11008 Avenger Insert Marvel joke here PCE CD 1990 Telenet Japan Shooter Shooter › Vertical E 62 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Four weapons that must be chosen at start of the stage. Barely any powerups and they're hard to collect because they float near the top of the screen. Four blocks of health help, but this is still a tough game. The worst feature is a gun that points the direction you are moving to, making it hard to hit enemies, ironically. If not for that I'd rank this higher. 4 / 5 Level Design Great enemy waves, good variety in the settings for each area. The second stage is a canyon run like 1941, or the freakin Death Star. Love it. 4 / 5 Theme ...

Review #10039 Valis II Twice the Valis TG-16 CD 1990 NEC Action Action › Hack n Slash E 62 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Faster movement than the first game, but the jump feels horribly floaty. Best to stay grounded except when absolutely necessary. Collect four weapons (normal, wave, sort of homing, and 3 way). No double jump, as in the Genesis remake. Most enemies go down quickly but in later levels they're bullet sponges. There's no draw distance like in the Genesis version, but gameplay still amounts to slowly moving while constantly firing. Fairly easy game, since there are plentiful health pickups. The only real issue is when enemies get inside your hitbox and stay there, dealing a ton of damage. 3 / 5...

Review #10022 Last Alert Overhead Contra TG-16 CD 1990 NEC Action Action › Gun D 79 / 100 Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay Plays like an overhead Contra. Great movement and slow projectiles make for a bullet hell experience. Also enemies continually spawn so you can't progress slowly and clear the room. Got me out of my comfort zone. Three primary that you acquire over time, including an Uzi and then machine gun which both let you lock your direction. Easy to shoot diagonally. Secondary weapons are actually helpful and can be used at the same time as your primary. Once you're powered up the game gets fairly easy but it's a rollicking good time. 4 / 5 Level Design Each mission is broken up into three stages, with...

Review #10026 Magical Dinosaur Tour Encyclopedias have gone the way of the dinosaurs TG-16 CD 1990 NEC Educational Educational › N/a F 52 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay It's a digital encyclopedia, for better or worse. The cursor is slow on pages that use one, but my only real complaint is how tiny the viewport for text boxes is. The box only shows two lines of text and scrolling up or down snaps to the next line rather than giving a nice scrolling effect. 3 / 5 Level Design This software's design amounts to a few different ways to find and access the dinosaur-specific enyclopedia articles. There's a visual view where you pick an era, a geographical region, and then mouse over and click on a ...

Review #10014 Final Zone II Ikari Warriors, in mechs TG-16 CD 1990 NEC Action Action › Gun F 57 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Top-down view replaces the isometric view of the first game. And mostly for the better. It plays like so many of its contemporaries, but with crazy fast movement. The camera doesn't keep pace with movement, so gameplay amounts to move, stop and shoot for the camera to scroll, move, stop and shoot, repeat. You've got two weapons - the primary vulcan cannon with unlimited ammo, and a secondary weapon with limited ammo and such a terrible firing rate that it's almost never worthwhile to use. Frequent pickups restore health or ammo. Few weapons have spread capabilities, so combat isn't much fun. You ...

Review #9904 Mado King Granzort Mega Man Zero Zero PCE SG 1990 Hudson Soft Action Action › Hack n Slash C 82 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay Feels great. Movement is the right speed, enemies have distinct and predictable patterns, and your weapons have nice reach and power. My only complaint is that you can't attack while moving. You can switch between three mechs - red, green, and blue. Red has a fast sword attack with fantastic arch and reach while green has a gun that does what you'd expect. Blue is completely useless and should never be used and honestly just gets in the way as you switch between red and green. It's a one-hit kill game, which makes it very challenging, but 1-Ups are everywhere. I had 15 or 20 by the time I reached le...

Review #9903 Daimakaimura The one where you can shoot up PCE SG 1990 NEC Action Action › Gun E 69 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Stiff controls which are the hallmark of this series. You can shoot upward. Yay 4 / 5 Level Design Design is simple but there are still lots of memorable moments and set pieces. The enemy placement feels extremely cheap here, even more so than in other G&G games. Still good but requires memorization more than reaction. 5 / 5 Theme 3 / 5 Art Style Black background. Love the enemy designs but poor animation and effects take away from the experience. I know it's a product of its time but Super G&...

Review #8154 Zipang I'm blocked PCE 1990 Pack-In-Video Puzzle Puzzle › Platform G 43 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Single screen puzzler. The core mechanic is the ability to build or destroy blocks. Enemies can be killed only by removing a block from below them. It's basically Kickle Cubicle as a platformer but without the ability to directly kill enemies. That last part about not killing enemies is this game's Achilles heel, but we'll talk about that in the level design section. An oppressive timer means that you can't take your time to noodle over how to solve a room. It's a speedrun the full time. Laggy controls. Feels like the mid-80's arcade game that it is. Also, jump is accomplished via pressing up on the dpad, w...

Review #8151 Xevious - Fardraut Saga Aged like fine milk PCE 1990 Namco Shooter Shooter › Vertical H 31 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay First, the negatives: Slow movement, peashooter, no powerups or pickups, dumb bomb, tiny hitboxes, and enemies that zip around and take too much damage to be killed. The positives: uhh It's really the slow movement that kills this game. You can only move at the speed that the screen is scrolling, so unless you hit your ground targets first try there's no backind up to line up another try. 3 / 5 Level Design Props for creating a decent bullet hell experience. Enemies are so hard to kill and fire so many bullets that you mostly need to watch your ship rather than your targe...

Review #8147 W-Ring - The Double Rings Trying to out Gradius Gradius PCE 1990 Naxat Soft Shooter Shooter › Horizontal C 80 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay Great movement with three selectable speed settings. Weapons can upgrade quickly with plentiful power ups. They don't get overpowered so you need to carefully avoid taking damage. One hit loses your power up and another kills you. Four or five weapons with a bomb subweapon which fires automatically. No major complaints but also nothing exciting or new about it. The gimmick is an option/shield which surrounds your ship and can deflect small shots. It moves with your ship but only covers part of it so you must move backwards to move it to the front or forward to put the ring behind you. Kinda cool...

Review #8145 Valkyrie no Densetsu Slow Pocky, no Rocky PCE 1990 Namco Action Action › Gun E 63 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Slow pace of play. Everything from enemy projectiles to moving platforms crawl along at a snail's pace. But once you embrace this slowness there's a lot to like here. You can fire and jump and your shots are large, with generous hitboxes. Your shot cancels out enemy projectiles, so it's possible to move along without taking hits. You can purchase power ups at shops but they're costly so you'll rarely hold more than one and can only use one at a time anyway. They don't stack. You can't choose which item to use either. They run out randomly and are replaced by the next item you'...

Review #8143 Toy Shop Boys I got your toys, I'll get you all next!! No Gamma! You never! PCE 1990 Victor Shooter Shooter › Vertical G 49 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Competent controls and weapons. You have three weapons that can be toggled between anytime - spread, homing, and a rotating laser sword. The other weapons act as options on either side. Powerups are plentiful, but weapons can only be upgraded a couple of times which upgrades all three. There are four speed settings which can be up or downgraded via collectables. Kinda weird, but fine. 2 / 5 Level Design Poor stage design, but I think that's because of the intended audience. These devs thought kids were terrible at shooters because this is the most...