All 16-Bit

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 #10043 Ys: Book I & II God-tier soundtrack, bug-tier gameplay TG-16 CD 1989 NEC Adventure Adventure › Overhead H 37 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay The Ys formula of bump-attacking sucks, and no one can convince me otherwise. It's terrible. Victory in a battle has far more to do with luck than skill. And it's only mitigted by an insane amount of grinding which may as well be done in the first area of the game because no matter where you are, all enemies give a single point of XP. Maybe this changes later on, but I got several areas into the game and it was always true so I'm calling it. 2 / 5 Level Design Directions and objectives are cryptic at best. The lack of a map hurts and the gates don...

Review #10041 Vasteel Dig that elevator music TG-16 CD 1993 Working Designs Strategy Strategy › Turn-based Tactics H 39 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Has a couple of good ideas, including real-time battles, but the controls are so stiff that they don't matter much. Just face your enemy and fire until one of you is dead. The only truly interesting mechanic is that if you attack an enemy city you fight its defences. If you attack an enemy in a city then you're up against them and the defences. Kind of a cool idea. 2 / 5 Level Design Pretty standard fare for this era of SRPGs. Build units at a base which is very far from the frontline. There's a story mode and a one-off mode whose name I don't recall...

Review #10042 Ys III: Wanderers from Ys Dat soundtrack TG-16 CD 1991 NEC Adventure Adventure › Platform H 33 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay Horrible hit detection Enemies with no collision Weapon has better reach than the SNES version but still is awful to use. Insane difficulty - grind to win gameplay. Zero skill required or rewarded. Enemies don't respawn as quickly as the SNES version which oddly enough I found annoying because I could't grind as easily. 2 / 5 Level Design Linear story is easy to follow. Just go to the next area, beat a boss, and grab a statue. Repeat. Levels are short and boring 3 / 5 Theme Standard hero story. Impressive anime cut scenes at the sta...

Review #10040 Valis III The Castlevania one TG-16 CD 1992 NEC Action Action › Hack n Slash E 63 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Major upgrade over the Genesis version. Faster movement, easier platforming, better hit detection, improved draw distance, etc. This is easily the definitive version of this game. There are two playable characters in the new one uses a whip like a Belmont. The second level even has a ferryman sequence similar to Castlevania 2. You can switch between the two at any time, ala Portrait of Ruin. It takes several seconds to switch, however. 3 / 5 Level Design Much better level design than the other two Valis games. There's some vertical sequences and just more variety in the lev...

Review #10038 Syd Mead's Terraforming Visual futurism TG-16 CD 1993 TTI Shooter Shooter › Horizontal E 69 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay I want to score this higher but the game powers you up so quickly and so completely that you don't have to do much. It takes six or seven power-ups reach full strength and taking a hit downgrades you by one. Each level has maybe 30 power-ups so even if you do take some hits, you'll be powered up again quickly. Once you get the seeker weapon, you can pretty much park yourself near the back of the screen and never have to move. There are four difficulty levels which help with this but still it's kind of boring. 4 / 5 Level Design The levels are definite...

Review #10037 Super Air Zonk Bonk...ers TG-16 CD 1993 TTI Shooter Shooter › Horizontal F 59 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay What a disappointment! Movement is slow in this sequel and there's just not much to do. Enemies are rare and often require numerous hits. The familiars from the first game are gone and most of the weapons are tied to a single stage and amount to little more than a peashooter. There are no powerups for your weapons. The only extra firepower at your disposal is a bomb that must be charged up by holding down on the fire button. There's no gauge to show when it's available, which annoying. The biggest downside is the incredibly low difficulty. 3 / 5 Level Design Mega Man sty...

Review #10036 Splash Lake Let's talk turkey TG-16 CD 1992 TTI Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead F 55 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Equal parts Kickle Cubicle and Ka-blooey. Enemies walk around on one tile wide bridges which are anchored to one or more solid blocks. The bridge tiles are breakable and will break away from their anchors and kill you or enemies caught on a collapsing tile. As you'd expect, the goal is to kill all enemies. The concept is simple and actually quite clever, but the controls are awful. You have two moves - peck (to break a tile) and jump. Peck works fine although it's a slow animation, but the jump is completely unacceptable. You bound around rather than walking and can only jump when on the ground, which make...

Review #10033 Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective Elementary, my dear Watson (but only if you're Sherlock Holmes) TG-16 CD 1991 NEC Adventure Adventure › Point n Click F 54 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay As far as these point and click games go, this is about as good as it gets. The UI is intuitive (except for the newspaper) and the cursor moves slowly at first, which allows for precise movement, and gradually speeds up to allow for long movements. A perfect solution for the lack of a mouse. Minimal loading times, for the time. 1 / 5 Level Design As much as I enjoy the setting and the gameplay in this title, the cases are so obtuse that you'd have to be a savant or using a walkthrough to figure o...

Review #10031 Shadow of the Beast Rubbish TG-16 CD 1992 TTI Action Action › Punch n Kick X 10 / 100 You've been warned Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 0 / 5 Gameplay Impossible. Enemies run at and right through you. Atrocious hit detection. Unless you time your hit perfectly you're taking damage. And even then you often have multiple enemies come at once and there's no way to stop them. Punch is your only attack. Long attack animation and even longer turn around animation makes it impractical to even attempt fighting enemies who spawn behind you. Checks all the Western boxes and then some. This game is unplayable. Complete rubbish 0 / 5 Level Design Go to the right. Nothing resembling platforms or any other story of obstacle or f...

Review #10032 Shape Shifter Conan the Metroidvania TG-16 CD 1992 TTI Adventure Adventure › Platform F 59 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Plays a lot like Cadash. Terrible platforming. Enemies swarm and fly in at odd angles that don't align with your limited moves. Attack with your weapon, obviously, but you can also crouch and kick. This is the main way to get rid of pesky enemies. Enemies hit lightly and every ten minutes your health is restored completely so you can wait it out if you get in trouble. Pretty weird. Choose from three weapons (axe, mace, bow) which can be upgraded twice, all within the first 15 mins of playing. Why did they even bother? Key gimmick are 5 animal transformations which open up new areas. 3 ...

Review #10035 SimEarth Geography 101 TG-16 CD 1993 TTI Strategy Strategy › RTS X 24 / 100 You've been warned Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay No clear objective. One of those titles where you're constantly out of currency so you can't do much of anything. Stuff is just happening. Zooming in and out of the map is slow which is annoying. Just painfully boring 1 / 5 Level Design At least it let's you play with unlimited energy or three levels of difficulty. I guess that counts as levels. 1 / 5 Theme Booooring. I'd rather get a science lesson from the Magic Schoolbus, thank you very much. 1 / 5 Art Style Videos graphics. NES quality graphic...

Review #10034 Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Vol. II More headscratchers TG-16 CD 1992 TTI Adventure Adventure › Point n Click F 54 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Same game as the first one. Just new mysteries. 1 / 5 Level Design 5 / 5 Theme 3 / 5 Art Style 4 / 5 Audio More TG-16 CD reviews Browse all reviews

Review #10028 Monster Lair Baby Cuphead TG-16 CD 1989 NEC Action Action › Gun D 71 / 100 Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay Simple, responsive controls. Short jump. Great hit detection. It's an auto scroller with the health mechanics from Adventure Island and constant weapon pickups straight out of Metal Slug. The weapons only last for 10 seconds or so but enemies are constantly dropping new ones. Some enemies deal minimal damage while others kill you in a single hit. Feels extremely random. 3 / 5 Level Design Every stage is an auto scroller and they toggle between a platformer and then a shoot em up stage. Kind of like Cuphead, now that I think of it. The boss fights are always in the shmup sections and are more difficul...

Review #10030 Riot Zone Streets of Rage 1.5 TG-16 CD 1993 TTI Action Action › Beat Em Up E 68 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Quite possibly the most blatant clone ever. This is Streets of Rage in ever way. Only two fighters to choose (no female) and a limited moveset. Still, it plays perfectly fine and I have no big complaints. Good hit detection and fair difficulty levels. Actually, one complaint is the lack of any weapons. No run, so the slow speed gets old. 4 / 5 Level Design Very long stages. All the obligatory environments are here, including sewers and elevators. No destructible boxes and whatnot, however. 4 / 5 Theme Again, a blatant Streets of Rage clone. ...

Review #10027 Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra D&D Outside Factory TG-16 CD 1993 TTI RPG RPG › Dungeon X 23 / 100 You've been warned Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay Feels more refined than the other D&D games plus I get to walk around outside. Combat is just as horrible with death coming in virtually every battle. Controls are confusing with tiny unreadable icons instead of text menus. Not sure what anything does. Feels like I need a 30 min tutorial before playing. 1 / 5 Level Design Finally out of a dungeon. There's a map Nearly full screen view 2 / 5 Theme Seems like there's more of a story but I didn't get into it far enough to see much The world feels bigger ...

Review #10029 Prince of Persia PoP, with the soundtrack! TG-16 CD 1992 TTI Adventure Adventure › Platform F 53 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Laggy inputs, especially on jumps. Press half a second before you want to jump. If only jumping to grab a ledge and climbing down didn't require such precision. You have to be in the exact right spot. Combat isn't fun either. 3 / 5 Level Design The levels seem designed to highlight rather than minimize the game's warts. Climbing and descending platforms and jumps are ridiculously tough in this game but the levels seemed designed to make these two things even more difficult. There's also a 60 minute timer - half of what the SNES version gives you...

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 #10025 Lords of Thunder Headbangers delight TG-16 CD 1993 TTI Shooter Shooter › Horizontal C 82 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay This may be heresy but I nearly gave this a 3 because of one thing - the power up system, of lack thereof. This game tries something novel but allowing you to start out powered up and nerfing you as the stage goes on. Every hot takes off more of your weapon strength until you're down to the weakest form of the gun you chose for the stage. Interesting concept, but an annoyance at my advanced age. That's due to your slow movement compared to your enemies, the screen filling swarms of enemies, and the currency pickups that must be picked up after every enemy dies. My brain and reflexes are stretched to their limit...

Review #10023 Loom Just sew with it TG-16 CD 1992 TTI Adventure Adventure › Point n Click E 68 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay I love the simplicity of this title. There's no inventory, no complex controls, and no menuing. The gameplay amounts to clicking where you want to go, clicking on an item, and using the always on-screen musical notes to play a "draft" to apply an action to the highlighted item. You learn these drafts as you explore and you have to write them down to remember them all since the game doesn't keep a record of them anywhere. There's minimal loading times as well. I really enjoyed my time with this game. 4 / 5 Level Design The puzzle solving is best described a...