All 16-Bit

Review #11089 Puyo Puyo CD Tsuu Deja vu all over again PCE CD 1996 NEC Puzzle Puzzle › Blocks F 57 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay This is a franchise that never evolved. the gameplay never improved or worsened over time. I have no ideo why they even bothered making sequels. 3 / 5 Level Design 2 / 5 Theme 3 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio Even more Japanese dialogue, including an intro for every stage. More PCE CD reviews Browse all reviews

Review #11066 Madou Monogatari I Kindergarten Dungeon Death Quest PCE CD 1996 NEC RPG RPG › Dungeon H 30 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay It's a dungeon crawler like the Mega Drive version but the fights are more standard for the genre. The same weirdness from the other games in the series exist here, like no health bar. This one is worse that the MD version because there's no map. 1 / 5 Level Design Typical dungeon crawler. You begin in a small floor of a tower with locked doors and all the usual trappings. The dungeons feel empty and samey everywhere you go. The lack of map makes this nigh unplayable. 1 / 5 Theme Same as the Super Famicom and MD versions. You're a ki...

Review #11045 Go! Go! Birdie Chance Visual novel + traditional slow golf PCE CD 1996 NEC Sports Sports › Golf H 37 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay There are two distinct (and I mean DISTINCT) modes in this game - a standard golf game, and a visual novel with next to no interactivity. I'm going to put the VN aside for this review, but I spent 20+ minutes watching it and can confidently say that it's not worth exploring. The golf game is passable, but there are far better options available. The only gauge to worry about sets the power and fade. You click once on power and then again to stop it after the gauge snaps back to its starting position. Movement is far too fast, making it crazy hard to do anything less than a 100% power shot. Thanks fo...

Review #6843 Tintin in Tibet Archie x Indiana Jones MD PAL 1996 Infogrames Adventure Adventure › Platform H 29 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay Laggy controls like Prince of Persia which favor animation of responsiveness. You only have a run and jump button. Jump is extremely short. No platforming. Instead, the gameplay involves ducking to avoid environmental obstacles. That's about it, really. You have a huge hitbox, low health which doesn't refill between stages, few health pickups, nothing to collect or items to use, and an oppressive time limit that gives you barely enough time to finish each stage. 1 / 5 Level Design Stages are only about 1 to 2 minutes long and require some combination of talking to peo...

Review #6836 Smurfs: Travel the World Smurfette is in the house MD PAL 1996 Infogrames Action Action › Platform G 46 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Far better controls than the first game, but not without faults. My main complaint is that it's so dang boring. Just like the first game, all you can do is jump and run. No powerups and no abilities. Also, the controls are laggy making the game eat inputs. The best tactic is to jump slightly too early. Enemies follow set patterns and can be bopped, but most have chaotic paths and are hard to hit. 1 / 5 Level Design The same find-all-the-stuff to end the stage nonesense prevelant in so many Western games. I hate this design philosophy with a passion. Many stages, including ...

Review #6828 Premier Manager 97 Roster update MD PAL 1996 Sega Sports Sports › Soccer H 35 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Nothing but menuing. Set up your roster, your arena, your coaching staff, your training routines and in-game strategies, and then watch the game be played. And by watch the game, I mean watch an almost entirely static screen with a four pixel ball move around a narrow green pitch while text announces tackles, shots, saves, and the like. The menus are actually intuitive to navigate and the game simulation can be dailed up or down between six speeds. At any time you can interrupt to make substitutions or change formations and tactics. There's not much to it, but it appealed somewhat to my left brain. 2 / 5 ...

Review #6824 Micro Machines Military Shoot and spin and shoot and spin MD PAL 1996 Codemasters Racing Racing › Overhead F 56 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay More of the same, but this time with a forward gun shot. This is fun for a second, but quickly becomes little more than a nuisance. It also ensures that whoever can separate from the pack will race on their own and coast to an easy vistory while everyone else is bumping and shooting one another in the back. The speed is still a problem, only compounding my dislike of the gameplay. Get hit or bump a wall once and you've got not chance of catching up. 4 / 5 Level Design Same game modes as the previous game, but without the track editor in "96...

Review #6819 International Superstar Soccer Deluxe ISS with even less scoring MD PAL 1996 Konami Sports Sports › Soccer G 40 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay Basically just updated roster from the previous game, although it seems much more difficult to move the ball. Less fun 3 / 5 Level Design Different stadiums have various attributes list slightly different length and width of the pitch. Also can choose 1 / 5 Theme I hate soccer 4 / 5 Art Style Same as previous game 3 / 5 Audio Same as previous game More MD PAL reviews Browse all reviews

Review #6805 Brian Lara Cricket '96 A couple of new options MD PAL 1996 Codemasters Sports Sports › Cricket G 42 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Same game as the previous one, only with a smaller cursor when bowling. Still boring as sin. 2 / 5 Level Design Several more configuration settings, including choosing the ruleset (international, county, and something else). I have no idea what these do, but hey, there's more options. 2 / 5 Theme 3 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio More MD PAL reviews Browse all reviews

Review #6009 Brave Battle Saga - Tai Kong Zhan Shi Taiwan for the win MD 1996 Chuanpu Technologies RPG RPG › Japanese B 91 / 100 Amazing Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 5 / 5 Gameplay Every QoL improvement you'd expect for a late Gen release. Well, almost The battle speed is painfully slow and there's a long intro where you're a one-person party but otherwise this is high quality. Movement and text speed is configurable, battles are avoidable, ala Chrono Trigger, and your menu selections are remembered. Battles also feature ATB, which is also configurable. One of the better 16-bit RPG systems out there. 4 / 5 Level Design Good but not great. Linear stages and some annoying "talk to the right person" gates which unlock the n...

Review #3935 Winter Gold Pretty. Boring. SNES PAL 1996 Nintendo Minigame Minigame › N/a H 35 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay Like all these Olympics games, the gameplay is incredibly thin. There are six events, but really only five. They have decent controls, but are so shallow that I have no reason to revisit them. 2 / 5 Level Design Only six events, downhill skiing, half pipe, freestyle ski jump, long ski jump, skeleton, and bobsled. The last two are identical. You can choose three courses for each - Lilehammer, Salt Lake City, and something else - but these too are identical with each other. So yeah, it's hollow as could be. 1 / 5 Theme The vibe is Olympics in a disco. The ja...

Review #3938 Worms Don't play solo SNES PAL 1996 Ocean Puzzle Puzzle › Platform H 31 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay Probably only works as a multiplayer game. The only mode I can find allows me to play as every player using a single controller. Controls are fine, although movement is annoying. It's turn based and you can select a weapon and fire it at a nearby enemy Worm. The novelty wears off quickly. My main complaint is an inability to move the camera to see the map. How am I supposed to aim at anything outside of my immediate area? 2 / 5 Level Design The stages seem random and the game places players all around the map in clusters. Who ever goes first in these groupings has an advantage. Mm k ...

Review #3926 Smurfs Travel The World Smurfette is in the house SNES PAL 1996 Infogrames Action Action › Platform G 48 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Far better controls than the first game, but not without faults. My main complaint is that it's so dang boring. Just like the first game, all you can do is jump and run. No powerups and no abilities. Also, the controls are laggy making the game eat inputs. The best tactic is to jump slightly too early. Enemies follow set patterns and can be bopped, but most have chaotic paths and are hard to hit. 1 / 5 Level Design The same find-all-the-stuff to end the stage nonesense prevelant in so many Western games. I hate this design philosophy with a passion. Many stages, including...

Review #3919 Micro Machines 2: Turbo Tournament Too fast SNES PAL 1996 Ocean Racing Racing › Overhead F 56 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Same basic controls as the first game but the speed is ramped up significantly. My reaction times aren't what they used to be. I could not keep myself on the road in this game as things popped up way too fast. Your car is kept not quite in the center of the screen. In fact, I think it's closer to the direction you're headed than it is to the back of the screen. the saving grace is that the penalty for going off road or even falling off a click is fairly small so with practice and memorization I think I could get good at it. Still, I MUCH prefer the prior title. 4 / 5 ...

Review #3904 Asterix & Obelix The quintessential European platformer SNES PAL 1996 Infogrames Action Action › Platform F 52 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay I believe this is the last Asterix game of the 16-bit era, so you'd think it would be a culmination of all the good the dev had learned over the years, but no, it's got terrible controls. Movement is slow, running is awkward, attacks have no range and enemies walk right on into your hitbox. It's everything wrong with European platformers from the 90s. 4 / 5 Level Design What a shame! I love the level design on display here, but hate the gameplay. Stages have verticality, personality, multiple planes, variety and memorable moments. It...

Review #2413 Touge Densetsu: Saisoku Battle Road Rash without opponents SFC 1996 Bulletproof Racing Racing › Bike G 49 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Pretty standard Mode 7 racer. The turns aren't so tight that you won't make them, but your bike isn't terribly responsive either. I wound up off-road and in the walls quite a bit. That said, the controls are passable. My biggest complaint is that there isn't anything to do. Other racers are on the track but you and they're are moving so fast you rarely see them. This makes the experience feel incredibly empty. 2 / 5 Level Design Perhaps I should spend more time to figure out how to see more tracks, but I was only able to see one track. It just just ma...

Review #2414 Treasure Hunter G I'm Blue (and Red), da boo dee da boo die SFC 1996 Square RPG RPG › Japanese D 76 / 100 Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay 8 direction movement. Run by holding B. Terrible font in the menus. There are no random encounters, instead you run into enemies similar to Chrono Trigger, however the battles don't take place on the same screen. I'm not sure why that didn't become a standard after Chrono Trigger because it's so much better than the alternative. Battles are played out on a grid like a turn-based strategy game. You move your player which takes up points just like in Fire Emblem or Advance Wars. Once you're close enough to an enemy, you can attack which again uses a certain number of your movement. Te...

Review #2383 Super Puyo Puyo Tsuu Remix Cut and paste from its predecessor SFC 1996 Compile Puzzle Puzzle › Blocks F 54 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay I found a few different settings in the menus, but otherwise this is the exact same game 2 / 5 Level Design 2 / 5 Theme 3 / 5 Art Style 3 / 5 Audio The worst menu track I've ever heard More SFC reviews Browse all reviews

Review #2380 Super Power League 4 The best of the bunch SFC 1996 Hudson Soft Sports Sports › Baseball G 48 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Massive improvement in gameplay. Hitting is still difficult, with basically no opportunity to see and react to a pitch. The ball is on you before you can react. But once you do the base running and throwing physics are quite good. My other complaint is how weak every hit is. Rarely does a ball leave the infield and nothing gets any where near the deep outfield. 3 / 5 Level Design 3 / 5 Theme 3 / 5 Art Style Big improvement in the graphics. They're still going for hyper realism, which isn't my preference. Lo...

Review #2373 Super Nazo Puyo Tsuu: Ruruu no Tetsuwan Hanjouki Puyo RPG 2 SFC 1996 Compile Puzzle Puzzle › Blocks F 59 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Standard Puyo. Obviously. 3 / 5 Level Design There's the standard mode but the big draw here is a Zelda-like overhead view where you walk between matches. The matches are puzzles rather than a competitive mode. The rules of each match are lost on me due to the language gap so this mode does nothing for me. Still, it's got the other standard stuff. 2 / 5 Theme Nameless anime girls 3 / 5 Art Style 3 / 5 Audio Inoffensive music and sounds ...