All 16-Bit

Review #11070 Minesweeper Roguelike bomb finding PCE CD 1992 Pack-In-Video Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead G 48 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Players of a certain age know Minesweeper well. This classic Windows game needs no introduction or explanation, but it boils down to two actions - flagging a block, and clearing a block. As you'd expect, this works perfectly well with a two-button controller. And unlike that old analog mouse you used on Windows 5.1, it's impossible to accidentally hit the wrong square with this cursor. So I guess that's an improvement. Still, while the game plays exactly as you'd hope, it's still a hollow experience without much innovation in its gameplay. That is, until you play Cook's Quest which adds a roguel...

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 #8115 Puzzle Boy Potato Sokoban PCE 1991 Telenet Japan Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead F 58 / 100 Not Bad, but Flawed Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Also released on Game Boy as Kwirk. Plays very similar to the Sokoban games, which I enjoyed. This one involves moving boxes but also rotating blocks on a fixed axis to create a path to the exit. There are over 100 levels and my brain was mush after about 15 of them, so I don't think I'd come back to this game. Still, the controls are stupid simple (just walk) so it's easy to jump into and game for a few minutes. 3 / 5 Level Design The difficulty spikes early and doesn't let go. The levels are very well made but require a precise solution that doesn't allow for ...

Review #8007 Batman I'm Pac-Man PCE 1990 Sunsoft Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead D 78 / 100 Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay The view is overhead and the gameplay has more in common with Pac-Man than the beat-em-up you were expecting. The Caped Crusader ditches melee combat in favor of throwing batarangs to stun and walking right into bad guys to temporarily knock them off the map. The only menace besides enemies walking through single-tile corridors are a set of collectibles and a generous time limit. These collectibles include containers, artwork, and x's on the ground. Yup, nothing says The Dark Knight like picking up makeup, cleaning up graffiti, or setting bombs where X marks the spot. Amazingly, despite being stupid in concept, the gameplay is actually p...

Review #2385 Super Tekkyuu Fight! Maceman SFC 1995 Banpresto Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead D 70 / 100 Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay It plays a bit like Bomberman but instead of bombs you throw a mace to hit your enemies. All enemies take four hits and they will walk or charge right through you. So you can't just get in front of them and beat on them. At least not all of them. So you have to hit them from the side as much as possible. Your movement is limited to four directions on existing paths and a jump that sends you two spaces in any direction. This makes it possible to fall into the abyss so you have to carefully maneuver around the level. The controls unfortunately are kind of finicky. It's hard to align yourself just right so you can turn at an inte...

Review #2384 Super Soukoban aka Boxxle, BoxyBoy, and Shove It SFC 1993 Pack-In-Video Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead E 63 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay Same game on TG-16 and Genesis. 4 / 5 Level Design Difficulty ramps up far too quickly, but I'm this version you can freely choose whatever level you wish. 3 / 5 Theme 2 / 5 Art Style 3 / 5 Audio More SFC reviews Browse all reviews

Review #2370 Super Loopz Pipe Dream. With a loop. SFC 1994 Imagineer Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead X 20 / 100 You've been warned Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 1 / 5 Gameplay Rampart without boats shooting at your walls. All you have to do is create a fully connected wall by placing pieces that are either a straight piece (of varying lengths) or a 90 degree angle (again, of varying lengths). It's as uninteresting as it sounds. No thanks. There are no gimmicks, no features, nothing. It's not terrible or unplayable, just unbearably boring. 1 / 5 Level Design 1 / 5 Theme Uhh, what is the theme? 2 / 5 Art Style The blocks are a single color and are as interesting to look...

Review #2321 Soreyuke Ebisumaru Karakuri Meiro: Kieta Goemon no Nazo!! Ebisumaru's pipe dream SFC 1996 Konami Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 82 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay Plays like an isometric Pipe Dream. I generally hate Pipe Dream and its clones, but this one has my full attention because of the variety in its gameplay. The pipes (or arrows, in this case) aren't the only obstacle. Rather, environmental elements such as enemies, cannons, and overlapping paths give every stage a unique feel and a new challenge. I also usually hate isometric games because of the wonky controls, but this one gives you the option of selecting your preferred directional controls in the Settings menu. Hurray! The default settings are the ones that make no sense ...

Review #2285 Puzzle'n Desu! The one for savants SFC 1995 Nichibutsu Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead G 48 / 100 Bad Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Simple, one-button controls. You can do one thing - push blocks. They slide all the way across the screen, so every push is critical. The objective is to complete sets of 3 or more colored blocks. These simple rules, devilish puzzle design, a short time limit, only two "lives", a pause screen that hides the puzzle, and no way to reset or retry a puzzle, all combine to create one of the most difficult puzzle games I've ever played. I realy want to love this game, because it's brilliant, but you have to be even more brilliant to be able to play it. 2 / 5 Level Design The pu...

Review #2279 Power Soukoban Boxxle meets Zelda SFC 1999 Nintendo Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 81 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay Classic Boxxle (aka BoxBoy, Shove It, Sokoban, etc.) gameplay, where you push boxes to fill holes. I guess this is also the mechanic in Lode Runner, but I hate that series of games. I've always like the simplicity of the Sokoban games and games like it, especially Lolo and Kickle Cubicle. They're single-screen affairs, but in this title the screens are connected into a Zelda-style dungeon. Also, you've got a fireball you can shoot to kill enemies or to hit and move the blocks. This opens up a lot of different options for the puzzles and keeps the gameplay fresh. Movement is slow, but you can run by holding B. Hit...

Review #2272 Pipe Dream Plumbing puzzles SFC 1992 Bulletproof Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead E 61 / 100 Your mileage may vary Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 3 / 5 Gameplay The goal is to connect two points with a complete pipe. You've got a minimum number of pieces to use per puzzle and a timer counts down as you build your pipe. You can't rotate or change the pieces given to you, so you have to place any pieces you can't use. Unlike the NES version, you can destroy unusable pieces and there's a nice QoL feature where you can hold the B button to quickly end the timer and cause the goo to travel through the pipe. I was surprised at how enjoyable this was. It's ultimately a one-trick pony that gets old after too long, but it's not as painfully boring as I w...

Review #2269 Picross NP Vol. 7 Wario puzzles SFC 2000 Jupiter Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 81 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay 5 / 5 Level Design 4 / 5 Theme 4 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio More SFC reviews Browse all reviews

Review #2267 Picross NP Vol. 5 Zelda puzzles SFC 1999 Jupiter Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 81 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay 5 / 5 Level Design 4 / 5 Theme 4 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio More SFC reviews Browse all reviews

Review #2270 Picross NP Vol. 8 Donkey Kong puzzles SFC 2000 Jupiter Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 81 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay 5 / 5 Level Design 4 / 5 Theme 4 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio More SFC reviews Browse all reviews

Review #2268 Picross NP Vol. 6 Mario 64 puzzles SFC 2000 Jupiter Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 81 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay 5 / 5 Level Design 4 / 5 Theme 4 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio More SFC reviews Browse all reviews

Review #2266 Picross NP Vol. 4 Star Fox puzzles SFC 1999 Jupiter Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 81 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay 5 / 5 Level Design 4 / 5 Theme 4 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio More SFC reviews Browse all reviews

Review #2263 Picross NP Vol. 1 Picross as it should be SFC 1999 Jupiter Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 80 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay Perfect Picross controls, including all the QoL features you'd expect. Just look up a translation guide to get the settings the way you want them. My only complaint is that the hints don't automatically turn red to indicate that you've found that set. You can manually set this but it's laborious. 5 / 5 Level Design Tons of puzzles, with a board going up to 25x20. And the transition between levels is perfect - finish one and it drops you right into the next one. As it should be. This makes it a great pick up and play experience. 3 / 5 Them...

Review #2264 Picross NP Vol. 2 Picross NP with a few Yoshi puzzles SFC 1999 Jupiter Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 81 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay See notes from Picross NP Vol 1 5 / 5 Level Design 4 / 5 Theme Yoshi puzzles 4 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio More SFC reviews Browse all reviews

Review #2265 Picross NP Vol. 3 Kirby puzzles SFC 1999 Jupiter Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead C 81 / 100 Very Good Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 4 / 5 Gameplay 5 / 5 Level Design 4 / 5 Theme 4 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio More SFC reviews Browse all reviews

Review #2257 Olivia's Mystery Aryol Ugoku E Ver. 1.0 SFC 1994 Altron Puzzle Puzzle › Overhead H 29 / 100 Horrible Screenshot used for review/reference purposes. 2 / 5 Gameplay Animated jigsaw puzzles. No way to see what the picture is supposed to look like. B to rotate and X to flip. All pieces are square. Lame. 0 / 5 Level Design You're greeted with a huge text wall and then dropped straight into the first puzzle. So every time you turn it on you have to start with the same puzzle?! 1 / 5 Theme Zero personality. There's not even a menu! 2 / 5 Art Style 2 / 5 Audio More SFC reviews Browse all reviews