Yoshi's Story is the underrated sequel to Yoshi's Island. Originally to be named Yoshi's Island 64, the "story" in the title refers to the premise that the Yoshis have become trapped in a storybook by Baby Bowser. This happened when he stole the Super Happy Tree, which the Yoshis can recover by accumulating enough happiness points. Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but at least the wailing Baby Mario doesn't appear. Yoshi's Story is underrated for two reasons. First, it compares unfavorably to  its predecessor. Yoshi's Island was a late SNES release and one of the best games on the system. Yoshi's Story, in contrast, is merely good . Secondly, in 1998 2D platformers seemed obsolescent, if not moribund. The future was 3D. Especially with the cutesy visuals, Yoshi's Story seemed to many like a game suitable only for little children and doddering old fools. This was to their loss, for Yoshi's Story is a fun, unique, creative, beautiful, and en

Contra exemplifies the classic run-and-gun genre of video games. The NES port is generally considered to be an improvement upon Konami's 1986 arcade game. It usually appears near the top of "best of NES" lists. I may be one of the few people who, despite owning an NES, never played Contra or either of its two sequels . I discovered Contra only after playing these sequels on the NES and SNES Classic. Truth be told, run-and-gun isn't my favorite genre, in part because I don't often play with a second player. Where Contra shines is in its simultaneous two-player action. Even Ikari Warriors , the NES version of which is bad, received plaudits merely for offering simultaneous two-player at a time when that was rare on home consoles. Contra blows that game out of the proverbial water. In Contra you control Bill (and Lance, if a second player joins). In the arcade and Famicom versions, the setting is an alien planet in the 27th century, but the NES port was rebranded su