hello I am writing this from a room I have been stuck in for 48 hours because I have finally caught COVID-19 and I am isolating as best as I can. I don't recommend it. anyway:
Great Waldo Search (SNES): This was me looking at RetroAchievements and going "oh there's a GWS badge I don't have?" and then getting it. Great Waldo Search lasts, at the most, like twenty minutes. Even for a small child, I don't suspect they would need more than that. While I am not a person who minds a really tiny game most of the time, not at all, this would've been a lot to ask someone's parents to spend SNES game money on at the time.
(Seriously. The fact that most speedruns are under a minute on all three versions should be telling.)
Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising (PC): I've had this since its launch, and never played it. With the final thing along in a few weeks it seemed like now was the right time.
I goddamn loved this one. Some of the most charming character writing I've encountered in a game in years, first and foremost, but it played alright and I was real into building a JRPG town, it's been awhile.
Final Fight 3 (SNES): Another RetroAchievements game, but this time it was because FF3 was the only game on my account that had a "beaten with save states" status. This is because the last time I played it it was like 1AM, and I just decided to put a save state in it and crash. Needed to wipe that outta my list.
FF3 is a game with a lot of depth to it that, honestly, I've never really explored all that much. It's the one of the original trilogy I'm least familiar with, by a fair margin, and while I have beaten it twice now I feel like I would need to spend more time with it to really appreciate its movelists.
Automaton Lung (PC): It's .....um. I think I enjoyed that quite a bit?
Something of a low-poly liminal space platformer, I got the majority of the chips hidden through the world, but not quite all-and once more I feel like I simply just missed an entire game. (I do know I missed literally every single weapon. That's fine.) It's really cool, a pile of places to exist in that are just loosely uncomfortable in their way.
Squirrel Stapler (PC): this happened to my friend dave once
Captain Commando (Arcade): I've honestly never been the biggest fan of the captain's one outing, and I've finally figured out why: none of your shit has any real oomph to it. Any given move just does not move enemy life bars enough, even when they're the bigger, flashier ones. It does not feel great.
With that said, it's rare that there's a beat-em-up I don't have the time for, so I still had fun for the duration.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered (PC): I think this game does itself a disservice. The next-to-next-to last section of the game, Flight of the Stone Angels, is an atrocity. A crime against man and ghost alike, it's one of the most obnoxious encounters I've ever played in a game, and my return to replay this game was delayed vastly just by thinking about it. (I mentioned this in a discord that there were rough spots and three people immediately went "yeah fuck the Stone Angels.")
And when that's three rooms away from the end of a video game, it's easy to walk away with a bit of a rough taste in your mouth-which is a real shame because a lot of the game up to this point's a damned joy. Your tools are all really fun to use, slamming ghosts into traps feels good, the environments are big and varied and interesting, it builds on franchise lore in genuinely interesting ways. The friendly AI is notoriously unreliable and repeats its barks too frequently, but beyond that they did really strong work and I had a lot of fun revisiting it.
MEGALITH (PC): This is another one where I really vibed with what it was doing, but I'd have a little bit of a hard time selling someone else on it.
A small visual novel about a man walking across the Russian wilderness after some undefined end of the world. It's hard to place the tone of this game exactly, but I walked away assuming our protagonist got what he wanted, in his way, even under a layer of despair. I enjoyed it plenty.
Crystal Caves HD (PC): I didn't have the original as a kid, but I happened upon it pretty early into my first forays into exploring DOS titles a bit later on (mid-2000s). Always liked it, but I didn't know about the HD release until I happened upon it looking at GOG sales.
This is a decent remaster, too! They didn't do much to it, but the new episode alone is pretty good-it's all unique levels, and while they're slightly mean, they are less so than the original episode 3. Apparently Secret Agent got this same treatment? Probably will check that out at some point, it's a similar enough title that I like it plenty as well.
HOLEHOLE (PC): I am not normal about how much I like HOLEHOLE. I wrote a whole nother post on it, but it's just a really heartfelt little game within the confines of a tiny space.
Also yeah mousegirl boobs. Those are a plus.
20 small mazes (PC): It is the exact thing it says it is, frankly. Just a pile of little variants on a simple idea, presented in a really charming fashion. Not something I'd ever really feel the need to go back to, but I adored it.
Please, Touch The Artwork 2 (PC): meet James Ensor/Belgium's famous painter/dig him up and shake his hand
This is a hidden object game about walking though classic art as a skeleton. As a plural system who had a headmate form the first time I went into the National Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian (specifically someone was talking smack about impressionist art and I had to very quickly decipher why I took umbrage at that, aside from just how generally wrong he was), this is also exactly my shit. Loved it.
Amid Evil: The Black Labyrinth (PC): This Amid Evil prologue/expansion has some cool setpieces and I liked the new weapons, but man there really always are at least two more archers than you might initially realize.
Was nice to revisit Amid Evil's stuff, though. It's a fun kit of weapons! The new gauntlets pack some severe power, too-it feels really good to just take a swing at a guy and have them crunch under you.
Spanky's Quest (SNES): This game's never gotten the respect it deserves-it's genuinely one of my favorite SNES games, always has been.
If you've never played it, if nothing else: go listen to the soundtrack. It SLAPS.