1. Tenchi Sōzō (Super Famicom)
2. Eternal Senia (Steam)
3. Tombs & Treasure (NES)
4. Magic Knight Rayearth (Super Famicom)
5. Zelda no Densetsu: The Hyrule Fantasy (Famicom Disk System)
6. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)
7. Seiken Psycho Caliber: Majū no Mori Densetsu (Famicom Disk System)
8. Deep Dungeon: Madō Senki (Famicom Disk System)
9. Deep Dungeon II: Yūshi no Monshō (Famicom Disk System)
10. Suishō no Dragon (Famicom Disk System)
11. Dandy: Zeuon no Fukkatsu (Famicom Disk System)
12. Lagoon (SNES)
13. Contra (NES)
14. Super C (NES)
15. Wonder Boy (Sega Master System)
16. OutRun (Sega Master System)
17. OutRun (Genesis)
18. Ninja Gaiden (NES)
19. Written in the Sky (Steam)
20. Wendy: Every Witch Way (Game Boy Color)
21. Mario Bros. (NES)
22. Popeye (NES)
23. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
24. Super Mario Bros. 2 (Famicom Disk System)
25. Phantasy Star II Eusis's Text Adventure (Steam - Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics)
26. Phantasy Star II Nei's Text Adventure (Steam - Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics)
27. Phantasy Star II Rudger's Text Adventure (Steam - Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics)
28. Phantasy Star II Anne's Text Adventure (Steam - Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics)
29. Phantasy Star II Huey's Text Adventure (Steam - Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics)
30. Phantasy Star II Kinds's Text Adventure (Steam - Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics)
31. Phantasy Star II Amia's Text Adventure (Steam - Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics)
32. Phantasy Star II Shilka's Text Adventure (Steam - Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics)
33. Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic (Famicom Disk System)
34. Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)
35. Super Mario Advance (Game Boy Advance)
36. Gunman Clive (Nintendo eShop)
37. Zaxxon (Xbox 360 - Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection)
38. Zaxxon (Atari 2600)
39. Zaxxon (Intellivision)
40. Zaxxon (ColecoVision)
Zaxxon is a classic Sega arcade game released one year before I was born. Having never played it before, I decided to attempt a run for the Summer Challenge. Ended up finishing four variations because that's how I roll.
The game is an isometric scrolling shmup consisting of three levels. There's a lot going on here. Managing the ship's altitude is required to avoid crashing into walls. Enemies are abound, though most are rather easy to avoid assuming you're not shooting for a decent score. And there's fuel. This must be replenished at regular intervals by..... shooting the fuel tanks.
The Xbox 360 version (also on PS3) is a direct emulation of the arcade original. The graphics are extremely impressive for the time and the tilted space junkyard looks amazing. It is hard to control though, as the flight stick arcade control scheme doesn't translate perfectly (or well) to a d-pad/thumbstick. Since the game is isometric it's imperative to master the spaceship's movement. It's tempting to try to push the d-pad diagonally, but this will do no good. Pressing left and right will move the ship left and right
relative to itself on its fixed track - in other words, to the middle-left and middle-right edges of the screen. You can't fly back and forth within the screen - down and up are instead used to control altitude in an inverted fashion, with up causing the ship to nosedive downwards and down to bring it back up. There's an altitude meter, which is sorta helpful, and growing/shrinking shadows that indicate how far something is off the ground. All said, playing the game isn't nearly confusing as my explanation is, but takes some time getting used to.
Avoiding the walls and enemy fire eventually leads to the final boss, Zaxxon himself. He's somewhat of a pushover and arguably the easiest section of the game. The only catch is that his weak spot is at a specific altitude and his projectiles can't be avoided so they must be shot down. Avoid a brief congrats the game loops.
Zaxxon was ported extensively.
The 2600 version is a completely different beast. The developers decided to forgo the isometric view for a traditional top-down one. The game looks like a giant pixelated mess and I found myself crashing almost instantaneously. Turns out the yellow areas are actually the high walls (can't be flown over) and the black squares represent holes in the walls to travel through. Once I had this figured out the game was a breeze, arguably the easiest variation.
The Intellivision port looks much like 2600 one, but with some additional "slantiness" to the landscape and improved graphics overall. The wall/hole system is actually legible this time around. Like so many arcade ports the "telephone" numeric keys are completely ignored - just use the disc to fly and fire with a side button.
The ColecoVision port looks astonishingly good and actually controls better than the emulated version of Xbox 360. I found myself enjoying this one the most.
To me Sega's retro arcade output was rather hit-or-miss, but this is certainly one of the better titles. It's beautiful to look at, and challenging but fair. It's most certainly miles ahead of
Congo Bongo, the isometric platformer released a year later that generally just feels like an exercise in frustration. I'd call this mandatory second gen gaming, and with so many ports (I ended up with three without even trying) and a low price there's no reason to avoid it.
(And shit, "only" 40 games? I was around 60-70 at this time last year. Now that my [babby] daughter has finally settled into a somewhat predictable sleep pattern I should be able to up this total soon).