[WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS]
here all the games i remember playing in 2025, accompanied by some of my thoughts on them. (the order is fairly random)
LUMINES ARISE
Lumines by way of Tetris Effect… a perfect game by way of another perfect game. feels like a bit of a miracle - there’s no way this was ever going to make more money than Tetris but they made it anyway. we’re very lucky to get a game like this. one of the most special of the year and criminally undermarketed.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: zoning out and locking in
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yeah, if you like rhythm games or Tetris
HOLLOW KNIGHT: SILKSONG
i really enjoyed this game. not to be a contrarian but literally my only complaint is that i wish there were MORE difficult platforming sections. the boss fights were all killer until Act 3, and even then i was still having a blast. whoever joked that this was “the first ever game to be stuck in development heaven” really hit the nail on the head - the team was having the time of their lives making this. it’s a huge improvement over the first in every way. people were complaining about the difficulty but i found it to be a very fair game - yes, it can be hostile to the player, but i strongly feel that’s an extremely valid and even endearing quality to aim for. there’s a little vignette near the start about a bug praying for a door to open - you go around the long way and open the door for them, and they believe their prayer has been answered.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: faith and perseverance
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yes, if you can handle Dark Souls 1 runbacks in 2025
PICROSS S SNK CLASSICS & NEO GEO EDITION
this game is a sniper headshot aimed directly at me from across the desert. the Picross games will always be a comfort-food fallback for me, especially when traveling… and now they made one where i get to make pictures of all my favorite King of Fighters guys? i may have been the only one in the world literally counting down the minutes until this game unlocked at midnight on my Switch
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: making little pictures of guys you like
DO I RECOMMEND IT: do you like Picross? do you like SNK fighters? then there will never be a more perfect game for you
KIRBY AIR RIDERS
a neat game that effectively replaces the original, just like Smash Ultimate did for its predecessor. getting to know the feel of each type of ride machine is really rewarding, even if the game surrounding it feels a bit too chaotic and random for those strategies to matter much. i love Gooey. i must admit i think i had more fun watching Sakurai’s Directs than i did playing the actual game. my friend Pat called this a “little brother game” and i can’t really argue with that.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: "gamefeel"
DO I RECOMMEND IT: honestly, only if you loved the original
TOWERFALL + SUPER SMASH BROS ULTIMATE
every so often this year i’ve had some friends over and we play some party games together. we usually try to find something fresh to try - like booting up Bomberman R (better than i remembered!), the now-defunct Killer Queen Black (still incredible). or trying the new Mario Party (awful) - but it’s always these two games that we reliably anchor the night around. they’re just fun!
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: late nights with the boys
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yeah man what are you up to tomorrow night
STREET FIGHTER 6
over 2 years on and i’m still playing this game regularly. i always see fighting game players whining about something or other in this game (lack of costumes? bad DLC choices? drive impact?) but good god they’re all babies. this is one of the finest fighting games ever made. it’s unbelievable how much love and polish went into this game, how accessible it is, how rewarding it is to master. i’m a Cammy main and i’ve really worked my way up the ranks but i still have so far to go before i could ever hold my own in a tournament. i love this game. i’ll be playing it until they take the servers offline.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: growth
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yes, even if you’re not really into fighters. this is the on-ramp you’ve been waiting for.
RETURNAL
i missed this back at launch, maybe because i didn’t buy a PS5 until Elden Ring came out… but goddamn. what a game! i really fell in love with bullet hell gameplay and the entire loop of this game. i wasn’t very into the story but i have to hand it to them: there’s a mid-game twist that leveraged the roguelike genre perfectly and really knocked me on my ass. this is probably the most expensive roguelike ever made, which is novel in and of itself… but it’s also just really, really good. a proper big-budget video game. kind of insane this doesn’t get talked about more. a defining current-gen game IMO.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: the game thinks it’s about the cycle of trauma but really it’s about jumping through fun bullet patterns
DO I RECOMMEND IT: absolutely. but it’s tough!
MONSTER HUNTER WILDS
i got this because some friends were playing and then i never played it with them. this is like the third time i’ve tried to get into Monster Hunter and it just doesn’t click with me. couldn’t tell you why. i’m not compelled enough to play more of it.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: systems and patience
DO I RECOMMEND IT: i think you already know if you like this or not
SUPER MONKEY BALL BANANA RUMBLE
i missed this one when it came out last year, partly because at some point i just started tuning out new Monkey Ball games. this is a cursed series where the original game is so good they’ve never been able to top it. the “remake” of 1 and 2 they put out a few years back so badly butchered the physics and presentation of one of my favorite games ever that i’d completely given up on SEGA ever putting out a good sequel. and yet… on a whim… i decided to try this one out. and over the course of an hour or two it slowly dawned on me that i was enjoying it. the level design was taking cues from the original and the physics - while still off - were being served by brand new design choices that helped justify the new engine. the spin-dash is an inspired new design choice that’s much smarter than the time they tried to add a jump button.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: good old-fashioned level design
DO I RECOMMEND IT: i can’t believe i’m saying this, but yes
MONKEY BALL: THE ORIGINAL ARCADE VERSION
maybe THE most sublime gaming experience of the year for me was getting to finally play the original arcade version of Monkey Ball. part of it was the unbelievable cosmic alignment: i’d been trying to find and purchase an original machine, only to discover that there’s barely any left in existence and nobody is willing to part with them. i located one confirmed machine at a barcade in NYC, and cold e-mailed them with no hope of getting a response. i did not get one, as predicted. i eventually gave up and moved on. having put it out of my mind, i visited New York for a wedding and met the brides for dinner at a place they picked out. while waiting for them to arrive, casey and i spotted a barcade across the street and we decided to hop in to kill time. i didn’t even notice it until i was standing directly in front of it… this was the bar i’d emailed about the Monkey Ball cabinet. everyone graciously let me play and complete both the Beginner and Advanced Modes on less than $3. Monkey Ball has never felt as visceral as it did here, with me full-body pulling back on a repurposed Gundam analogue joystick to keep my monkey from falling off a 1-inch-thin checkered road in the sky. i’ll be back one day to complete it on Expert.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: the joy of tilting a monkey
DO I RECOMMEND IT: if you get the opportunity, do not squander it
STRAY CHILDREN
this one’s both incredibly special AND incredibly frustrating. a beautiful game and absolutely worth playing, but they took the “talk-to-your-enemies” design cue from Undertale and kind of fumbled the ball. dialogue trees that felt natural and lenient in Undertale feel obtuse and mean here… like old point-and-click games, there’s a LOT of trial-and-error (and i played it Day 1 so i wasn’t even able to look up answers to anything that stumped me for over an hour!). it’s a gorgeous, special, one-of-a-kind game and even with all my complaints about the dialogue trees, i really recommend it. i want Onion Games to keep making stuff forever.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: growing up and becoming annoying
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yes. but. just be prepared for some frustration.
FINAL FANTASY TACTICS: THE IVALICE CHRONICLES
it would not be right of me to crown a remake of a 28-year-old game Game Of The Year but i’d be lying if every fiber of my being wasn’t telling me to. the original is one of my favorite games ever, and this is the rare Perfect Remake. it does right by nearly everything in the original and adds some of the best voice acting i’ve ever heard to a script that has been yearning for it for decades. the new life breathed into the game by its voice cast is worth the development effort alone, but all the so-nice-they-feel-invisible QOL adjustments tip it over the edge. the only criticism i can think of is about messing with the original spritework, but even this was tasteful to me (though i’d rather they just left it as-is.)
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: corruption, class, and the demonic Lucavi within us all
DO I RECOMMEND IT: absolutely 100%, play it before the ruling class crushes you beneath their feet
CAPCOM FIGHTING COLLECTION 2
an incredible package of ports. i wish it had Rival Schools on it as well but Project Justice on modern consoles is a huge get. the real star of the show for me will always be Capcom VS SNK 2, which i talk more about below. throw in both Power Stone games and this is really a collection for the ages.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: ryu shaking hands with terry bogard
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yeah man this shit rules
TAIKO NO TATSUJIN: RHYTHM FESTIVAL
i finally gave in to the impulse to buy the drum controller so i could play this game properly. it has a streaming subscription service to gain access to their huge catalogue of songs, which… disgusts me. but i paid for it anyway for a month. and i had so much fun. i love these games. they also added a new big Taiko machine at Round One in Burbank and i played that one, too. it’s much better on the real cabinet, but, y’know, i’ll take what i can get at home.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: bangin’ drums through all the One Piece theme songs
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yeah if you can stomach a subscription service within a game, and also are willing to import the drum controller
DONKEY KONG BANANZA
a junk food masterpiece. building a 3D game around Donkey Kong allowed Nintendo’s best devs to step away from the refined polish of Zelda and Mario and experiment a bit on a huge budget. this game is a crowd-pleaser in every sense of the word: it’s a mindless terrain-smashing toy, it’s a beautiful world to explore, and it has an absolute all-timer finale that tops any game of the year or even any Nintendo game of the last few generations (provided you’re the right mark for its big endgame reveal like i was.)
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: brute force
DO I RECOMMEND IT: definitely, one of the AAA highlights of the year
INSCRPYTION
finally got around to this one. the first act was the only one i enjoyed. the longer it went on, the more annoyed i got. it’s no surprise that the DLC is just a refined and re-tooled rogue-like extension of the first act.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: rules
DO I RECOMMEND IT: honestly not really. play Slay the Spire instead
OCTOPATH TRAVELER 2
i never got around to the first one and by the time i was ready for it the sequel was out and everyone just told me that was the better one anyway. well, i can’t speak for that but i can say this game is fantastic. i had a lot of fun with this. and oh my god, the title screen music? incredible!!!
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: the glory days of JRPGs
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yep, this is a crowdpleaser
TONY HAWK'S PRO SKATER 3+4
hopefully they’ll let this team make a NEW classic-style Tony Hawk but more likely they’re just going to have them remake the Underground games next
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: what if Mario 64 couldn’t slow down
DO I RECOMMEND IT: we’re kinda starved for these games so yeah you’re stuck with remasters
DELTARUNE CHAPTER 3+4
hey big surprise Toby Fox continues to be a genius
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: control, choice, escape
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yeah. what are you waiting for? play it now, don’t wait until it’s all out
MARIO KART WORLD
i didn’t think they’d be able to convince me to buy another mario kart after 8 but the open world aspect sold me. it succeeded in making things feel fresh again, even if the real star of the show was the stellar soundtrack.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: driving little cars
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yeah, for the soundtrack alone
PIZZA TOWER
while i played a good chunk of this at release, i somehow never got around to finishing it until this year. the art in this is so inspiring. i still think the level design could use some work but as a love letter to Wario Land it’s very special to me.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: anxiety
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yepperino
NINTENDO SWITCH 2 WELCOME TOUR
it’s my own fault for compulsively buying this in my excitement over the Switch 2 but this thing is nothing. it would almost be forgivable if the presentation wasn’t so sluggish and boring. i’d literally rather just have had a menu with the tech demos lol
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: the Nintendo Switch 2
DO I RECOMMEND IT: no. god no. save your $10.
1000xRESIST
this surprised me - i wasn’t sure i’d like it as much as i did. compelling script that has a really good handle on its themes. i really loved the lo-fi kitbashed aesthetic and they did so much with so little. it’s essentially a visual novel pretending to be a third person platformer - the gameplay is very light but there’s really no other game like this one right now.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: generational trauma (but interesting, i promise), fascism and resistance, diaspora
DO I RECOMMEND IT: i do, yes
FINAL FANTASY IX
i didn’t finish this, but i should. it’s one i completely missed out on and i was floored by how much i loved it. definitely a Top 3 Final Fantasy cast alongside 6 and 7. i’ll make it a point to finish this next year.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: final fantasy
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yeah
DEATH STRANDING 2
i liked the first Death Stranding from a gameplay perspective but its story left me cold - the world was interesting, but the plot gave way to all of Kojima’s weakest instincts. i was left wondering if i was even excited for a sequel, but goddamn was i wrong. the story in this one was his strongest since Metal Gear Solid 2, in my opinion. everything here clicked for me. i felt it was a huge improvement over the first in every way, and the biggest miracle was taking Higgs from my most-hated character to potentially my favorite. and all of this after having to leave behind its biggest asset in Mads Mikkelsen! Luca Marinelli was a fantastic replacement and really stole the show. my only real complaint is the same as the first: i wish it was harder! too often you can just cheese the terrain with a vehicle or some other tool, which is absolutely part of the fun but always ran the risk of trivializing all the interesting design choices.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: grief (but interesting, i promise)
DO I RECOMMEND IT: absolutely. maybe my game of the year.
THE HUNDRED LINE
this was my Baldur’s Gate 3. this game is marked by two insane design decisions: the staggering amount of actually-meaningful story choices you can make, and the amount of game-time you need to put in before you can even make your first real choice. when the game gives you your 100-Day Countdown, you expect you’ll be making some dialogue choices before that countdown is up… but no. it turns out those first 100 days are essentially just the tutorial, and after playing an entire game’s worth of a visual novel/RTS-hybrid, the game suddenly opens its doors to you for real. cringe, horny, and self-indulgent in every way, this is a masterpiece of the genre and will go down in history as a hallmark must-play for all the real perverts out there. a true modern loser’s anthem, in the best way.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: perverts
DO I RECOMMEND IT: i think you can tell if this is for you
RISE OF THE GOLDEN IDOL
these games continue to be clever and fun, and the writing in the sequel upped the scale in a way i loved. once it dawned on me where it was going… hoo boy. i wish they’d committed a bit further but i understand why it ended the way it did. the DLC was a nice time, too, though it didn’t hit the heights of the base game.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: the dumbest thing imaginable will always happen
DO I RECOMMEND IT: absolutely
NO, I'M NOT HUMAN
a simple, effective horror/management sim about paranoia and fascism that also happens to guise one of its characters in a lightly-modified image of The Judge from an old Blood Meridian cover lol. i was very impressed with this.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: i said already. above.
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yep
PSYCHO PATROL R (EARLY ACCESS)
ville kallio’s a genius with his finger on the pulse of the horrors of the modern world. nobody gets it like him. like a deep-web counter strike mod by way of thecatamites. hostile. i’m grateful for it.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: the police state
DO I RECOMMEND IT: big time
UFO 50
i played a bunch of this last year when it came out on PC but i got pulled away from it before i got to really explore everything it had to offer. once it hit consoles i dove in even deeper and it really cemented itself as an essential title of the decade. the ambitious project of creating 50 unique games that are both fun to play and plausibly exist in the framing story’s fictional history is daunting, but you really can’t deny they pulled it off. Derek Yu and his team finally makes good on the old broken promise of those disappointing “200-in-1” bootleg gaming carts your friend’s dad brought back from a business trip overseas, where 50 of the games were lazy re-skins of Super Mario Land. for every game that doesn’t land with you, another 3 will blow your mind. there’s plenty i didn’t connect with that friends claim as their absolute favorites of the pack. personally, Mooncat and Quibble Race are my standouts.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: game development
DO I RECOMMEND IT: there’s definitely some games in here you’ll love
BLUE PRINCE
a game that i loved until i didn’t. the decision to pack so much of the “real” game into the postgame is interesting in theory but really takes the wind out of your sails in practice. that coupled with the fact that the game’s uncovered story is actually very dull and even annoying sour what was initially a very exciting and novel roguelike puzzler. i played this cooperatively with Casey until i lost interest, at which point they chipped away at the postgame solo until it seemed like they maybe had started to hate the game.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: writing stuff down
DO I RECOMMEND IT: i guess
CLAIR OBSCUR: EXPEDITION 33
a perfectly fine game that i’m baffled by the response to. the visuals and the story didn’t connect with me at all, to the point where i abandoned this one after hitting a mid-game twist that made me roll my eyes. the Mario RPG-inspired combat was fun and i was enjoying that aspect of it quite a bit but i haven’t felt compelled to return to it since i put it down.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: “what if a JRPG was french”
DO I RECOMMEND IT: nah
LIKE A DRAGON: PIRATE YAKUZA IN HAWAII
extremely fun and extremely stupid. there was a lot of ink spilled at the time about how resourceful RGG Studio can be with their assets and i hope we keep that in mind - shorter dev cycles with a well-oiled machine of a team and smart direction that allows for clever re-use… it won’t work for every game, but it’s a wonderful example to set for the industry to show that it’s an option. also i was so happy to see Ryuji Akiyama from Documental pop up in this!
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: “what if a yakuza was a pirate”
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yeah
ELDEN RING: NIGHTREIGN
i didn’t stick with this game as long as i’d hoped but for the small window i played it i was obsessed. everything i thought i would hate about it turned out to be really fun, especially playing online with strangers. i played plenty of rounds with friends but the bulk of my time was spent matching up with randos, and that’s actually where i fared best. one of my favorite runs was an all-Duchess team that felt a bit like we were all pranking each other at first yet we managed to take down the Night Lord. learning to communicate wordlessly with other players - splitting up and rejoining and swooping in heroically to revive someone - it all worked better than i expected. i just wish the map layouts were a little more varied. i haven’t felt the itch to go back to it at all. while i do still think the team’s strengths lie in single player games, this was an interesting experiment and not a cynical cash-grab like i’d feared.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: “what if elden ring was fortnite”
DO I RECOMMEND IT: it’s fun
METAL GEAR SOLID IV
the one Metal Gear game i never really got around to, because A) i never owned a PS3, and B) i watched my college friends play through almost the entire thing in front of me back in the day. after replaying the first 3, i felt compelled to finally borrow a friend’s PS3 and see this one through with my own hands on the controller. i found it to be my least favorite of the mainline MGS entries, but with some really standout moments and a big crowdpleaser of a finale. a lot of it works - Kojima even ripped himself off just this year by pulling this game’s flashy final boss fight and plopping it down into Death Stranding 2. even the stuff that doesn’t work (a trenchcoat-laden spy-thriller sequence set in Eastern Europe) has the spark of something great, though it all usually wears out its welcome. the microwave moment is an all-timer, and the return to Shadow Moses is hard to hate. a game with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: Drebin Points, the military-industrial complex, and old men dragging everyone into their bullshit
DO I RECOMMEND IT: you really do gotta play it, unfortunately
HUNTER X HUNTER: NEN IMPACT
i’ve been on a crazy fighting game kick lately AND i just rewatched Hunter x Hunter with Casey earlier this year so i was primed for this admittedly-dinky low-budget tie-in fighter. unfortunately, this didn’t have the juice for me. maybe i’ll give it another fair shake down the line, but i couldn’t get the hang of it and Hisoka wasn’t enough to keep me there.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: that anime you like is a game now
DO I RECOMMEND IT: nope
FATAL FURY: CITY OF THE WOLVES
as an SNK-head, i was very excited for the first new Fatal Fury game in 26 years, especially since 1999’s Mark of the Wolves is one of the slickest games in the entire genre. but modern SNK is a strange reincarnation of the troubled company, a scrappy underdog with lots of strings attached. the company’s new Saudi ownership, previously something you could at least try to put out of your mind while playing King of Fighters XV, finally made its presence unavoidable when the otherwise promising game added in real-life soccer player/rapist Cristiano Ronaldo and the Saudi prince’s favorite DJ nobody’d ever heard of as playable characters. don’t get me wrong: the game is really good, and a lot of real passion went into it on the developers’ part. but, uh… man. talk about shooting yourself in the foot. here’s hoping Capcom can do right by these characters with a potential Capcom VS SNK 3 in the next few years.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: what if Rock Howard’s new dad was a Saudi Prince
DO I RECOMMEND IT: ………yes… sorry…
CAPCOM VS SNK 2
i recently got a real Street Fighter 2 arcade cabinet that had been retrofitted with a multi-game JAMMA. the plan was to re-skin it as a Capcom VS SNK 2 cab and i’ve made good progress. i’ve been exploring a bunch of the games on the board - some i was revisiting, some i’d never tried before - but this game is still the one i keep going back to. a nearly-perfect roster in a collaboration that feels like the grand finale of the arcade fighting era. i feel about this game the way everyone else feels about Marvel VS Capcom 2. my team is Iori/King/Rock… all SNK, sorry!!
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: the final celebration of the arcade fighters era
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yes, as both a historical document and a fun fighter
THE METAL SLUG SERIES
these are the other games that i’m spending the most time with on my new cabinet. back in the day, Metal Slug X completely captivated me in the arcade and i was never good enough to get through it without blowing through all my quarters. when i revisited it with modern ports that give you infinite continues, i was able to marvel at all the gorgeous pixel-art stress-free, but it took me self-imposing a “no continues” rule to really begin to appreciate these games all over again. the first 2 at least are impeccably-designed so that you could conceivably complete them on one quarter, and getting to intimately know them in that way has been very rewarding. i’m still hoping to get a No-Continues clear of the first one someday… i think i can do it! meanwhile, 3 takes a big nosedive design-wise and becomes absolutely unfair to the player, but the tradeoff is that it doubles down on spectacle and fun. from 4 onwards they start to dip in quality, and i learned that’s because a new team took over after SNK’s bankruptcy. but they’re still fun! they really just don’t make games like this anymore.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: war is actually caused by aliens
DO I RECOMMEND IT: any day of the week
DOLPHIN BLUE
i had never heard of this one before, but it was on my arcade cabinet and billed as a successor to Metal Slug so i was very excited to try it. you’re basically trading the tank for a dolphin and the earthier palette for something much more bright and blue. it’s a little stiffer and more limited than Metal Slug, but it doesn’t matter: this is a JOY to play and riding the dolphin feels so good. a big highlight was all the great enemy sprite animations - the experience of blowing up a big mech and seeing 10 soldiers hanging on for dear life as it explodes is fantastic.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: war is more fun with dolphins
DO I RECOMMEND IT: if you’ve got a way to play it, yep!
PUZZLE BOBBLE 1-3
i love to play these. it’s been a long time since i revisited them and they’re as fun as ever. these games should be as big as Tetris and Puyo Puyo if you ask me!!
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: what if Tetris was upside down and balls
DO I RECOMMEND IT: it’s so fun
IKARUGA
this has always been such a cool game to me - you’ll be flashed with brief glimpses of the sickest shit ever written (“I will not die until I achieve something. Even though the ideal is high, I never give in. Therefore, I never die with regrets.”) right before getting tossed into the fray of a bullet-hell shoot-em-up with a conceit so simple and slick even a genre-newcomer can grasp it: when your ship is black, black bullets can’t hit you and when your ship is white, white bullets can’t hit you. every time i think about playing this game again i get excited.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: You will not die until you achieve something. Even though the ideal is high, you will never give in. Therefore, you will never die with regrets.
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yeah baby
DODONPACHI
speaking of shoot-em-ups, i decided to take the opportunity of having an arcade cabinet and explore a genre i wasn’t super well-versed in. this was a game i’d heard of over the years as an exemplar of its genre, and i really had a great time with it. was it overwhelming? yes. would i have spent over $100 in quarters to complete it if i’d been playing it in a real arcade? also yes.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: bullet patterns can be beautiful
DO I RECOMMEND IT: sure
PANIC STREET
another amazing gem i found while exploring my arcade library: Panic Street is a Qix clone with a suite of juicy modernized features and an incredible gamefeel. Qix is already a great game, but Panic Street completely replaces it in my mind. the icing on top is finding out that this is actually the safe-for-work spinoff of what originally began as a hentai-themed game series where you slowly uncovered sexy nudes. an adult-game so fun they had to capitalize and make a kid-friendly version!
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: all games should start as hentai
DO I RECOMMEND IT: trust me, you gotta try it
THE CRAZY TAXI SERIES
i’ve been very selective about what games i can add to my arcade cabinet: generally, they need to be arcade-friendly and work with a joystick + 6-button layout. Crazy Taxi is cutting it - the arcade version won’t run because it needs a steering wheel, but i was able to add the Dreamcast version and make it run with my control panel. the result is kind of a wonky way to play Crazy Taxi, but even with always forgetting which button is mapped to “reverse” i can’t stop myself from coming back to it. the game’s just fun.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: crazy taxis
DO I RECOMMEND IT: yes
THE POINT BLANK SERIES
another big project i undertook with my arcade cabinet was installing some light guns. they’ve been the biggest hit with friends i show the cabinet to, and while it’s fun to play Time Crisis or House of the Dead 2 or some of those weird LaserDisc games with live-action FMV cut-scenes, the real standout has been the Point Blank games. these collections of light-gun-based minigames call to mind the inventive gameplay of stuff like WarioWare - minigames that are as fun to play as they are surprising. just wondering what kind of game is coming next is enough of a reason to keep playing.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: “what are all the silly things you can do with a gun”
DO I RECOMMEND IT: every chance you get
STREET FIGHTER 3: THIRD STRIKE AND GAROU: MARK OF THE WOLVES
these two have become the other mainstays on my cabinet. they both feel like the pinnacle of fully sprite-based 2D fighters, and slowly learning to get better at both of them has been insanely rewarding. every time i play i notice some new detail in the art design or else some new character clicks with me and unlocks a new depth to the gameplay. it feels godlike to pull off a parry in SF3, and i lose it every time Rock Howard throws his jacket into the river and then the river washes it away in Garou.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: passing the torch to the next generation
DO I RECOMMEND IT: they’re god games
STRIDER 2
this one was just a huge blind spot for me - i knew the character from Marvel VS Capcom, but i’d never played a Strider game. this is a real joy to play - it’s got perfect “gamefeel” and it feels as big as exciting as you could hope from an arcade platformer. it’s tough and fair, short and sweet. it really stood out to me.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: mobility
DO I RECOMMEND IT: you’ll have a good time
OSMAN
my time with Strider 2 led me to Osman, an earlier game also inspired by the first Strider. it’s a slightly different flavor than Strider but very much has the same DNA. the real standout here is the art direction, especially the color palette.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: kicking while hanging from the ceiling
DO I RECOMMEND IT: there’s not much else like it!
NEO TURF MASTERS
how juicy can you make an arcade golf game? leave it to the Metal Slug team to baffle you like this. no reason this game should feel as good as it does, no reason i should continue to come back to such a simple golf game. even with the great over-the-top animations, it’d be easy to overlook this one. i really recommend giving it your time.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: the beautiful sport of golf
DO I RECOMMEND IT: trust me
METROID PRIME 4: BEYOND
from what i’ve played… it’s fine. there’s some cool stuff and there’s some annoying stuff. there’s too much talking, but it’s not as bad as people made it out to be. the desert IS as bad as it looks, though. it was a big enough ask to just to breathe new life into a dead franchise like this, let alone deliver on 7 years of hype and troubled development news. in a few years people will revisit it and see it a little more clearly: a solid 6/10 with some good fundamentals that didn’t reinvent the wheel. would’ve been a harder pill to swallow if we didn’t get the excellent Dread just a few years ago.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: what if samus was psychic now and had a Harley and wasn't alone
DO I RECOMMEND IT: not really but if you’re a Metroid fan what are you gonna do, not play it?
BITS AND BOPS
every once in a while some indie devs try their hand at an indie WarioWare or Rhythm Heaven - this one is the latter, and it’s got a lot of charm. i would say it’s almost a little TOO slavish to both the gameplay and aesthetic of its Nintendo inspiration, to the point that it mostly just makes you want to play Rhythm Heaven instead. even the results screens are sluggishly-paced to match! but what they’ve done here really is fantastic - early games like the one about taking photos of seals or the rock paper scissors matchup take the Rhythm Heaven template and run with it, telling fun little stories full of gags throughout the minigame. Nintendo doesn’t make Rhythm Heaven games quickly enough, and even with a new title on the horizon slated for next year this is still a welcome treat. i got the sense that the team really understood what makes these games tick - it was as much an exercise in stepping into the shoes of those developers as it was a love letter to the series.
WHAT DO I THINK IT'S ABOUT: Nintendo’s Rhythm Heaven series
DO I RECOMMEND IT: if you like Rhythm Heaven, it doesn’t hurt to consider this a new entry