Sumez

The MegaDrive port is a popular one, but from what I've seen of it, I don't really want to play it. The play area looks so constrained due to the squeezed horizontal/vertical orientation, and the enemy bullets are really hard to see, it must make the final stage a pure nightmare.

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easy mode (which I obviously played on) is generous enough to reset your bomb-count and power-level after each death

This happens on any mode - at least on arcade anyway. In Toaplan games you generally want to use all of your bombs all the time, because restocks are plentiful, and you always spawn with a bunch. It's only on the final stage (again, on arcade) that I really had to be conservative with my bombs, because I needed them to get through tight spots.

What I think is most unique about Tatsujin is how much your ship speed affects gameplay. Ideally you'd stop one or two powerups beneath max to get the best control of the ship, being able to dodge bullets on reaction, but since powering over max is so strongly tied to scoring, I feel enticed to always power to max even if I'm not actually playing for score, because I know it's what the game wants me to do.
So most of the time I'll be at either lowest speed (due to recently dying) or highest speed (due to not dying), which massively changes what the game plays like. On slow speed you want to preemptively dodge every aimed bullet, moving all the time and avoid getting trapped. At max speed, you can't possibly micrododge, and need to memorize stages and play strategically in a way that every obstacle can be dodge by being in a specific spot or just slamming all the way to the left or right.

Overall there's a ton of memo in Tatsujin, but I love it regardless.

I was never a massive fan of the first Zelda game. Every time I've tried playing it, the same issues turned me off on it. I do enjoy exploration and even map-making, but this game feels to me like it has a lot of obscurities just for the sake of having them in a way that's not very enjoyable (and I enjoy Metroid).

I don't feel the moment-to-moment action gameplay makes up for it either. The game feels stinted due the 4-way movement restriction.

I've been building a Top 100 NES(/FC) games list over a few years now. If I ever release it publicly, I feel like the biggest "controversial" take on it will be that I'm probably not gonna feature LOZ anywhere near the top. I'm honestly still unsure where it's gonna land.

I do love Zelda 2 however.

The single player mode of Super Bomberman 2 is probably my favourite of the "super" games next to Super Bomberman 5.  

I usually

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I usually prefer action-puzzlers to be heavier on the puzzles, lighter on the action

I'd recommend Kickle Cubicle (arcade version, Meikyu Jiima is recommended for better bosses and a more streamlined structure, but the NES/FC version plays nearly the same) for an action-puzzler with a nice puzzle focus.

Also, "Bomber Man World" on arcade (not the PS1 game), is possibly my favourite Bomberman game. Unlike Super Bomberman where you keep your powerups over the entire game, that game resets you on each stage, and learning how to get the powerups you need while outsmarting the enemies makes out a super fun puzzle. If you want Bomberman to be more puzzle-focuses, that's a good one to look into.

Another of my favourite action puzzlers is Mr. Driller, have you played any of those?

8 hours ago, Brickman said:

Great read! Although I definitely disagree with your take on the PSP. It’s a great handheld even if it does use discs and some have battery issues. Such a great library.

I love the PSP, I just doesn't love the discs both my psps are fortunately doing great on battery! 

8 hours ago, Brickman said:

@Sumez we can both share Mulholland Drive  when I come to Denmark we can watch it together 

It goes without saying, but if you ever actually are in the neighbourhood, do drop me a line. 

8 hours ago, Brickman said:

I’ve never known anyone else to know (let alone like) Einstürzende Neubauten. Very unexpected.

They are probably a bit more popular in Europe, but generally I think most people into alternative music would agree they are pretty influential. I like a lot of different sorts of music (a cliche I know), and of course it's not a band I'd expect to discuss with any casual acquaintance, but if you're a music nerd I expect you to know them 

Wtf happened?

I'm kinda surprised the game was just removed.

I figured they would probably release a new retail version of the game (like they did with Tetris 99) after the free version had ended, with more modes and features and stuff. I'm honestly baffled that never happened. Maybe it was planned, and got scrapped due to some executive hubbub? I wouldn't be surprised, with Arika involved.

This is everything I'd hoped for from an OptOut interview. Don't ever change!

2 hours ago, Californication said:

That's impressive - especially considering the way things drop from the ceiling and pop out of the walls. 

The things that come out of the walls always come out the same locations - when you enter a room, you need to immediately orient yourself and find the best couple of places to stand in order to maintain the incoming wave.

The more annoying sorts of enemies are the plant-like monsters that pop out from the ground. You can avoid them if you have insane reaction skills, but often it comes down more to dumb luck - they should have had a few more frames before being able to damage you honestly, but I think wil practice you learn when to expect them. Though the game has situations where you simply can't avoid taking a hit, which is undefendable, I think those are a lot more rare than they seem at first - and you have enough hitpoints that once you learn how to skillfully avoid damage everywhere else, you have more than enough buffer for those couple of extra hits.

I think also the game's first two stages are some of the worst designed in the game (and the first boss is way more of a blocker than anything else in the entire game). The two outdoor stages as well as the final two ones have a very different feel to them compared to the remaining three, due to both the nature of the enemies, and how they spawn. They are incredibly enjoyable, and where the game really shines IMO.

15 hours ago, dvertov said:

Maybe with another 5-10 hours I could have gotten there. 

I'm not gonna lie, it actually took me several days to get there. At first I really missed the "dual stick" style controls that the modern ports have, but once the "shock troopers" style controls finally clicked, it really felt the most appropriate to me!

Fantastic game, but it takes a while to get used to how to play it well, since a lot of elements feel super unfair early on. It's mostly about mastering the dash - when to do it, and more importantly when not to.

I practiced a bunch on MegaDrive, and eventually beat the game on Neo Geo (which is a near identical version, but with voices, more graphical effects, and one new enemy type on the final stage):

@SwordDude I actually have a lot to say about this, and considered making another post on the subject, since it doesn't really fit into the TTYD review by itself. I do touch on it slightly at the end of the review though.

Basically, after playing every Paper Mario game aside from Sticker Star, I think the stuff that you're talking about, the stuff that makes people shy away from the new Paper Mario games and long for the early ones, started making more sense to me. Despite still having more similarities than differences (IMO), they still clearly feel like different series, that's definitely true.
But I don't think the way that you and other people lay it out is completely true, or fair to the newer games, but I think that's probably heavily influenced by Sticker Star. With the next two games following the rails laid down by that game it might be easy to overlook just how unique and creative they actually are, simply due to the fact that they are that in different ways.

Yes, the Mario universe has become more tightly controlled since the "Mario Sunshine" era around which the first two games were conceived (with one being released slightly before, and the other slightly after). But I don't believe that means it can't go off the rails in similar ways.

The thing is, TTYD has its own identity, but it isn't necessarily any more "wacky" and "creative". And calling the story "good" and especially "deep" is a massive stretch. It was serviceable, and had an interesting world, and that's all it needed.
In my opinion Origami King goes all the way with that, and it does so despite using mostly toads as NPCs. I do miss some of the aspects of the original Paper Mario games, but at the same time the game's creativity doesn't suffer from it. The sense of humor is incredible, and the crazy ideas just keep coming out. Like I say in my review, TTYD is really a much more traditional RPG adventure that doesn't do nearly as much to shake up the formula as even Color Splash does.

16 hours ago, RH said:

@Sumez I might have missed it but did you 100% this game, or come close?

I guess that depends on your definition of 100%. I did all the sidequests, but I didn't go out of the way to complete the recipe or badge lists, which seems pointless.
The game adds a couple of more pointless quests after the final chapter, but doesn't really offer anything to do post-completion, even though it does let you load a completed save slot and continue where you left off.

13 hours ago, RH said:

think this review solidifies that I want to play TTYD first.  I still think I'll enjoy it, in spite of the flaws you point out, but it sounds like OK might actually be the better of the two.  We'll see.

If you can find it in yourself to not strive for completion, I sincerely recommend that you skip every single sidequest on the bulletin board in the hub town with exception of the one called "elusive badge" (which you want to do as soon as you can). Most of them give pointless rewards like a couple of coins anyway.

The sidetracking is still bad in the game's mandatory chapters, but I think it's a lot less likely to challenge your patience if it isn't tag teamed by the inane sidequests, and that should help enjoying the game a lot more.