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First 50

51. Ninja Gaiden (GG)
52. SonSon (Arcade)
53. Wonder Girl: The Dragon’s Trap (iOS)
54. Minit (iOS)
55. Ninja Gaiden (SMS)

Ninja Gaiden for the Sega Master System is a shockingly solid Ninja Gaiden title. It plays slightly differently from the NES titles, adding a wall jump, taking away the wall cling, and adding a hanging mechanic (like the one found in Ninja Gaiden Shadow/Shadow of the Ninja). The special weapons are also a bit different, and there is a move where you can sacrifice some of your health to clear the screen of enemies. Otherwise, however, the gameplay is very similar. It’s fast; it handles wonderfully; and it makes sure you know you’re playing as a ninja. The platforming is consistently solid, but the bosses are a bit too easy and predictable. The story is also just OK, but the cutscenes look good. Overall, I’d place it above the NES version of Ninja Gaiden III, but below the Japanese version. Recommended for fans of the series.

1. Dusk (PC)(FPS)
2. Project: Snowblind (PC)(FPS)
3. Soldier of Fortune: Platinum Edition (PC)(FPS)
4. Ziggurat (PC)(FPS)
5. Wolfenstein 3D: Ultimate Challenge (PC)(FPS)
6. Destiny 2 (PC)(FPS/RPG)
7. Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris (PC)(FPS/RPG)
8. Destiny 2: Warmind (PC)(FPS/RPG)
9. Destiny 2: Forsaken (PC)(FPS/RPG)
10. Star Wars: Rebel Assault (PC)(Rail Shooter)
11. Castle Werewolf (PC)(FPS)
12. Project Warlock (PC)(FPS)
13. Castle Crashers (PC)(Hack and Slash)
14. This Strange Realm of Mine (PC)(FPS)
15. BioShock Remastered (PC)(FPS)
16. BioShock 2 (PC)(FPS)
17. BioShock 2: Minerva's Den (PC)(FPS)
18. Blood (PC)(FPS)
19. Blood: Cryptic Passage (PC)(FPS)
20. Blood: Post Mortem (PC)(FPS)
21. Shadow Warrior (PC)(FPS)
22. Shadow Warrior: Twin Dragon (PC)(FPS)
23. Shadow Warrior: Wanton Destruction (PC)(FPS)
24. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin (PC)(FPS)
25. F.E.A.R. 2: Reborn (PC)(FPS)
26. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (PC)(RPG)
27. Men of Valor (PC)(FPS)
28. Ultima III: Exodus (PC)(RPG)
29. Albedo: Eyes from Outer Space (PC)(Point and Click)
30. Midnight Ultra (PC)(FPS)
31. Amid Evil (PC)(FPS)
32. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC)(RPG)
33. Betrayer (PC)(Horror)
34. Borderlands 2: Commander Lilith & the Fight for Sanctuary (PC)(FPS/RPG)
35. Far Cry 2 (PC)(FPS)
36. Apocryph (PC)(FPS)
37. Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor (PC)(RPG)
38. Menzoberranzan (PC)(RPG)

Menzoberranzan is a dungeon crawler that takes 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons and helps it shift fully into a 3D world. Gone are the days of Eye of the Beholder's tile-based movement; this is where SSI jumps into Ultima Underworld territory, and the result is a hybrid that features some of the best of both worlds...but is not without problems of its own.

In Menzo, as it is usually truncated, you create two characters who return to their village to discover it has been raided by the evil Drow. Since the villagers have all been taken underground to the Drow city of Menzoberranzan to be slaves, you decide to rescue them. This being the Forgotten Realms universe of D&D, you soon find the character Drizzt as well as several other potential companies, letting you build a party of up to four characters as you press on into the Underdark to rescue your friends and families. Along the way, you go up against a solid variety of D&D creatures that are too often left out of the games and stories I see, from killer mushrooms to demon spiders to cloakers and evil Derro, the dwarves that delved too deep. In this regard, I highly respect what Menzo throws at me, because there are a lot of encounters that I was just happy to see.

What I wasn't as thrilled with is the design of many of the areas, which just feel like the same labyrinthine designs over and over again. The walls change color, the enemy types change, but too often it felt like I was just exploring yet another cave system that was basically the exact same as a previous cave system in terms of design. While some areas do feel unique because they open up and take a different approach to how their caves are laid out, a lot of the repetition just feels like filler. For example, once I met the Myconids, I then moved into an area where a living rock wall made me go get a necklace for him. None of the enemies in that area were new, and the level was a loop that just felt like a big waste of time.

Another change? Food did not make the jump from the Eye of the Beholder games, so you're no longer forced to carry rations or continuously cast spells to replenish yourselves. Also, while there are many spells for curing things like disease and paralysis, the only status effect I ever encountered was poison. You might think this reduces the importance of Clerics, but that isn't true; poison is still fatal, so hopefully you're high enough level to cast the necessary spell by the time you first encounter it. Also, while you start at level 5 so you can handle some of the nasty denizens of the Underdark, the game doesn't expect you to get beyond level 10, and there is a limited number of ways to cast Raise Dead. You probably won't even reach a high enough level to cast it, so you need to be ready with healing spells just in case things go south fast. A death more often meant a reload than continuing on, so yes, the Cleric is still the most important class to bring.

Perhaps the strangest choice to keep was the spinner, which is represented in two different styles at Menzo but only appear at two specific points. The first immediately turns your party backwards. Since this isn't a tile-based game and instead has you walking around, the only way to move past is to slowly walk up to where it turns you, get turned around, and then back up to get through. That trick took me a while to figure out, so the one area where you see this kind proved to be a little trickier to pass than I would have liked. The second actually takes control of your directional turning and slowly spins you around in a circle. The best way to handle this is simply to run through it. Again, this is only found in one specific spot in the game, so I question what was the point of either of these. They could have been dropped from the design entirely without any issue and help cut down on bloat.

As you might have guessed, combat has changed a bit since we're no longer tile-based. Enemies can hit you from all sides, and aiming with your melee and ranged fighters can be a little awkward. You can now attack by clicking on the enemy to target while the game cycles through which character is taking a turn, though spells do not affect this turn order and will pause the game while you choose your target. It's best to centrally target enemies for ranged attacks, and arrows must be manually collected again, but they can't be stacked the way you could in previous games. In short, range isn't really a viable option. While combat is real time, it will pause not only for spell targeting but also while entering your inventory screen, so you can swap out weapons and things like potions or scrolls as necessary. The only time I really needed to do this was the final battle, but it still proved useful when I needed it to.

Menzo isn't a vital game in the pantheon of Dungeons & Dragons video games, but it is a nice low-stakes showcase of how SSI was adapting. Sometimes it gets old having to constantly kill gods, and the changes it brings are refreshing, even if some don't feel completely thought through. It goes on longer than it needs to, but I had a good experience overall and would recommend this to folks interested in dungeon crawlers from the early 1990s.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood for PS4, though I still have a few missions and trophies to get.

Good posts my dudes. Really entertaining reads.

@alienjesus: My heart goes out to you reading those reviews, I have gotten to the point that I just can't tolerate playing something I am not completely enjoying but you are a trooper. I actually do want to check out gain ground, I generally hear good things about it but all of your criticisms make sense, its been on my bucket list forever.

Also, is kid chameleon only 3 hours? When I played through it the game felt like it took me 457 hours or so to beat. I rarely make absolute best or worst statements regarding my opinion of video games because it changes so often, but if you put a gun to my head and asked me to name my least favorite game of all time I feel reasonably confident I would say kid chameleon.

It is a game that is absolutely oozing with potential and drops the ball in just about every conceivable way, watching people play it actually makes me angry and I'm getting worked up just typing this, it is one of the most poorly designed games ever. Having said that, I actually think of all the games getting remakes that kid chameleon has the potential to be a pretty amazing game if remade with our current standards of retro themed games, hand it over to a developer like wayforward and I bet it would be awesome.

@prfsnl_gamer: I'm glad you finally played Ninja Gaiden, it definitely is one of those games that is a very nice surprise for fans of the series. I completely agree about what you said about the bosses, most of them you can just outsmash and use no strategy. I think the story is complete shit as well, its been awhile since I played it so I can't offer specific criticism I just remember there were a lot of glaring things that stood out to me at the time.

It is a really fun game though, I think your placement of the game in the hierarchy of the series is on point as well.

@MrPopo: FF adventure is a game I completely forgot existed, now that I read your review I definitely remember owning it as a kid, who at the time had no idea it wasn't an actual final fantasy game.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:God bless you, AJ. You are slogging through some of the Genesis’ most mediocre offerings. I’m one scenario into PSIII, and I am having a hard time summoning the motivation to see it through to the end.

Also, great reviews. I find them immensely entertaining.

Thanks, another batch should come tonight. I'm actually still posting reviews for games I beat in March and April - I have a backlog of 29 or so still to write and post

And yeah, that was definitely a rough patch on the collection. As mentioned before, I divided the collection into 9 waves of games to beat to ensure some diversity. Wave 4 was definitely the weakest!

Ack wrote:...I actually like Gain Ground for being so unusual...

Nothing wrong with that. I thought it was boring, not bad.

MrPopo wrote:44. Final Fantasy Adventure - GB

Nice review. I really enjoyed that game, I think it's far better than Secret of Mana. And swapping weapons for weaknesses later on is tedious, but it beats spending 8 minutes every boss fight in SoM opening the spell menu and casting over and over.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:55. Ninja Gaiden (SMS)

I played this one last year and quite enjoyed it. It's a good Ninja Gaiden title for those days where you can't quite put up with some of the bullshit of the NES games

PresidentLeever wrote:
"Kid Chameleon was equally as awful (as Super Thunder Blade)"

That's a damn lie and you know it.

It's the honest truth
As I said, I thought they both sucked, but one sucked for 30 minutes and one sucked for 3 hours. Choose your poison

pook99 wrote:@alienjesus: My heart goes out to you reading those reviews, I have gotten to the point that I just can't tolerate playing something I am not completely enjoying but you are a trooper. I actually do want to check out gain ground, I generally hear good things about it but all of your criticisms make sense, its been on my bucket list forever.

Also, is kid chameleon only 3 hours? When I played through it the game felt like it took me 457 hours or so to beat. I rarely make absolute best or worst statements regarding my opinion of video games because it changes so often, but if you put a gun to my head and asked me to name my least favorite game of all time I feel reasonably confident I would say kid chameleon.

If they had been longer games I wouldn't have persevered, but being that they're so bitesize, and that I have a mission to clear all 51 games on the collection, I did my best. Luckily, because I spaced out series over the collection and put sequels after their earlier entires, the remaining games I have on the collection are generally above average. There shouldn't be too much as bad as the ones I just posted reviews for now.

And yeah, Kid Chameleon is also now a contender for one of my least favourites of all time.

PresidentLeever wrote:
One of the most poorly designed games? Ridiculous comment.

I'm sure there are plenty of worse games out there than Kid Chameleon, but I didn't make myself sit through those so I have less opinions about them

PresidentLeever wrote:Kid Chameleon can get rather long if you take the longer paths through it.

http://images.wikia.com/kidchameleon/im ... 0a/Map.svg

One of the most poorly designed games? Ridiculous comment.

I stand by it

insanely long game with no passwords or save--its release date is no excuse, plenty of nes games had either passwords or battery back up
levels that are non-linear, require exploration, and also have a strict time limit that make sure you actually can't explore at all
samey boss battles
invisible blocks that randomnly kill you because you accidentally jump into one
generally cheap level designs
no sense of progression at all, like you just never know if your going backward or forward or just repeating the same levels over and over again
poor implementation of a very cool idea (ie: lots of costumes, few are used in a way to maximize their strengths)
very limited lives with no continues? or limited continues? (I don't remember) again ridiculous given how long the game is

Those are the most glaring flaws I could think of having not played the game for about 2 years, but it really is a game that I completely disdain.

Having said that I get why you may like it because the parts of a good game are there. The amount of variety in the costumes is very cool and I absolutely give the game credit for it's ambition. As I said earlier, give the license to a developer like wayforward and I bet a new kid chameleon can be one of my favorite retro remakes but as it stands now, I just hate that game.

If it makes you feel any better, I also really enjoy E.T. on atari 2600 so take my opinion for whatever thats worth.

I was stunned by how bad Kid Chameleon was. Barely playable. It has one of those grating "techno" Genesis soundtracks that's just so dated and corny too. The same developers were behind Comix Zone as well, correct? Because that one is even worse, somehow.

Can't believe all this Kid Chamelion hate. Worst thing is people piling on and this isn't even the first multi-page Kid Chamelion bash in this forums history.

But you're all wrong. It's a gem on the Sega Genesis.

I almost never post on Racketboy but am compelled to come to this games rescue!

IMO Kid Chamelion has it all. Graphics, music, sound effects, level design and innovation. Huge replay ability. There are secret warps so the "no password / save" argument is null.

Alright. This weekend I'm starting a Kid Chamelion appreciation thread. All haters welcome of course. Just maybe I'll be able to turn you around.

chupon wrote:There are secret warps so the "no password / save" argument is null.

So what you're saying is that it's at least as good as the original Super Mario Brothers? Yeah, I'd buy that.