January:February:March:April:May:June:July:August:September:75) The Mafat Conspiracy (NES) (5.0) (9/1) (~1.5 hours)76) Snake's Revenge (NES) (8.0) (9/4) (~4 hours)77) Ys: Memories of Celceta (VITA) (7.5) (9/4) (~25 hours?)78) Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble (NES) (5.0) (9/7) (~2 hours)79) 1943: The Battle for Midway (NES) (7.0) (9/9) (~2.5 hours)80) Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom (ARC/360) (5.0) (9/9) (~1 hour)81) Arkista's Ring (NES) (6.0) (9/9) (~1 hour)82) Bad Dudes (NES) (4.0) (9/9) (~45 minutes)83) G.I. Joe: The Atlantis Factor (NES) (7.0) (9/10) (~2 hours)84) Target: Renegade (NES) (2.0) (9/10) (~1 hour)85) Gyruss (NES) (8.5) (9/11) (~1 hour)86) Renegade (NES) (3.5) (9/12) (~30 minutes)87) Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS) (9.0) (9/18) (11h35m) (16h total time)88) Rambo (NES) (4.5) (9/19) (~3 hours)89) Return of Double Dragon (SFC) (8.0) (9/20) (~1 hour)90) Wizards & Warriors (NES) (6.5) (9/21) (~1.5 hours)I know my rating for
Rambo might be higher than you'd expect, but hear me out. The game is actually a passable, if aggressively mediocre, action adventure game. You'll run around as Rambo, recreating your trip into 'Nam just like the second movie. It follows the plot really well, especially the part where you fight skeletons and robots. Man, I loved that part in the movies!
Anyway, kidding aside, most of the game is a giant navigation puzzle, and it's made more confusing when areas wrap around on each other, but they don't do so consistently; you can go left and loop around the same screen you were on, and immediately go right and be on a brand new screen. Plus, you can go north and south on markers indicating as such. That's not to hard to fathom, as lots of games do it, but combined with the above weirdness and some nondescript areas with the same enemies, and you'll be confused for quite a while.
Still, there's a rudimentary leveling system here, beating bosses gives you extra health, and you amass a stockpile of weapons, most of which are pretty helpful (and also weaker than your knife, ha!). And it's never too bad; checkpointing is somewhat forgiving and you've also got passwords if you're not sliding through with save states. Most enemies and bosses aren't very tough, but the last one can be without a full stock of health and potions.
It's not anything amazing. But it's amazingly weird and strangely ambitious for a licensed game. I can't really recommend it unless you're really curious about it. It's not as bad as its reputation suggests, at any rate.
EDIT: I finally gave in and bought a copy of
Return of Double Dragon. It's typically cheaper than the US release, and it's considered to be the better version on top of that. I played through on hard. I also jacked up the number of continues, but didn't need to; I'd have finished with the default complement.
The primary change with this one is that it's a much more typical brawler. The NES games saw fit to add a lot of platforming elements, for good or for ill. This one, not at all. Some of the move set has changed, too. The cyclone kick is done by charging your meter over halfway by holding the L/R button. If not at halfway, you'll do a spinning backfist, and the maxed meter sees you go all rage-style on folks, knocking them down with one hit while it lasts. Also added is a block/counter move. It'll keep a lot of hits from connecting, but certain blows will also catch the enemy in an armlock, at which point you can smack them or toss them.
Honestly, though, the most effective move in the game will be your fists and good crowd management. Enemies (at least on Hard) block a
ton, so to get them to stop blocking, you need to be at just the right distance. Your punch length is conveniently about right for this. It's also the quickest move you have, making it that much better for just flat-out not dying.
The best weapon in the game is the nunchucks. Once you get them, you'll rip through enemies. It's like easy mode. Too bad you can't keep it from area to area.
For my money, this is much better than the first two
Final Fight games. It's a little slower, but it's also got a bit more combat variety, so it gets points in my book for that. It felt to me like Technos Japan was going downhill from here, though. Too bad, I loved their earlier stuff.