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20 |
Mad Stalker |  |
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| Underrated mech-flavoured scrolling beat-em-up. Mad Stalker has all the usual genre elements, with you making your way through city streets kicking ass and taking names, and each section needing to be cleared before you can move on (a la Final Fight, Streets of Rage et al). Here you get a reasonably large moveset of Street Fighter style attacks (including projectiles and Shoryuken style uppercuts for dealing with flying enemies), but the game also has a dash move, and a block (hold both buttons). Unfortunately the game is only 1 player, but the enemies here are varied in tactics (important for these types of games), and the graphics and music are top rate. The makers of Guardian Heroes have actually named this game as an influence. | |||||
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19 |
Forgotten Worlds |  |
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| A very nice version of Capcom's arcade game. Forgotten Worlds is a horizontal shoot-em-up where you can rotate your character to aim in 360 degrees (1 button rotates clockwise, the other anti-clockwise). The graphics here are excellent, outdoing the more well-known Mega Drive port, but unfortunately the game is missing its 2-player co-operative support, which is why It ended up dropping a few places. | |||||
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18 |
Dungeon Master - Theron's Quest |  |
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| This is essentially a re-worked port of the ground-breaking computer classic Dungeon Master, but split into stages and given a more detailed storyline. Dungeon Master was a western RPG that had you exploring large dungeons in 1st person view picking up equipment, gaining experience, manipulating objects, and doing a lot of puzzle solving. Its a smart game that has an impressive amount of freedom and lateral thinking for its time. | |||||
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17 |
Lemmings |  |
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| Lemmings is a puzzle classic that's seemingly available on pretty much everything! The aim of the game is to lead the little Lemming guys from the entrance to the exit by giving them orders such as digging or building, trying not to lead them to their deaths. The PC-Engine port is a pretty good version, it has mouse support, and a two player option, but does tend to slow down at times when there's a lot onscreen. | |||||
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16 |
Loom |  |
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| Memorable point and click adventure game ported from the PC where you play music to cast spells. Gameplay has you exploring the rich and detailed world of Loom solving puzzles and learning new spells (which can be played backwards to have the opposite effect). Its a memorable example of its genre, with a great story, a lot of humour, and intuitive puzzles. | |||||
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15 |
Gradius II |  |
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| This is a very impressive port of the arcade classic. The Gradius games are an acclaimed series of horizontally scrolling shmups where you kit out your craft by picking up power-ups and selecting the highlighted piece of equipment. This second game in the series adds some memorable set-pieces and bosses, with fiery landscapes and crystal asteroids, and the PC-Engine game's music is excellent. | |||||
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14 |
Nexzr |  |
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| Challenging Vertically scrolling shooter with a lot of cool power-ups and addictive gameplay. The presentation here is great, with some nice spacecraft designs and classic 90s Japanese aesthetics and music, and everything is decidedly polished and well-crafted. | |||||
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13 |
Dungeon Explorer 2 |  |
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| Sequel to the well loved Hu-Card game. Like its predecessor, Dungeon Explorer II is an action RPG that plays kind of like a 5-player Gauntlet with a simplistic experience system thrown in. This sequel aims for a little more cohesion in its world, with the overworld, villages and dungeons joining together much better than in the original. The game is also a little more non-linear (it rewards explorers with extra chances for gaining experience, and secret characters to find), and the plot is more extravagant, and includes video cut-scenes. | |||||
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12 |
Spriggan mark II |  |
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| For the sequel to their shmup Spriggan the developers really decided to change things up a bit, and the game ended up barely recognisable to its predecessor. Unlike the original this is a Horizontally scrolling shmup that has you piloting a mech with multiple different weapons that can be cycled through on the fly (a la Thunder Force), with more and more mech's becoming available as the stages progress. The damage system here plays out kind of in a similar manner to the SNES version of UN Squadron, with your health recharging over time, which often leads to tense firefights where you're desperately trying to avoid bullets just long enough to recover some health. Its a fairly easy game on Normal, but there are a bunch of incentives for playing it on Hard, such as multiple endings and gameplay changes. | |||||
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11 |
Kabuki Ittouryoudan |  |
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| An excellent exclusive fighting game based on the Far East of Eden RPG series of games (a well loved series that achieved a lot of popularity in Japan but never reached the West). Gameplay wise this is very much a Street Fighter II derivative, but its done very well, with speedy movements and responsive controls, and being that its based on an already established property we have a fully formed cast of interesting character designs from the offset. Outside of the usual gameplay mechanics and excellent graphics the gameplay also incorporates desperation moves that you can only use when your health bar is low, which shakes the gameplay up a little. | |||||
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