Final Fight 2, an SNES-exclusive sequel, was Capcom's attempt to rectify the mistakes of the SNES port of their hit arcade game, Final Fight . It includes the sorely missed third character, sixth stage, and simultaneous co-op. The plot of Final Fight 2 rehashes the original: the vicious Mad Gear gang have committed a kidnapping, and it's up to Mayor Mike Haggar and two associates to save the day. The plot is so uninspired that, when Haggar asks how the defeated gang has returned, someone replies, "That doesn't matter." Truly it doesn't matter because we don't play beat-'em-ups for the story. Like the original, Final Fight 2 is about little more than a couple friends button mashing their way through a motley and wretched crew of thugs and street toughs. The worst thing you can say about Final Fight 2 is that it's a total redo of the original, offering almost nothing new, except the elements that were regrettably stripped from the SNES port in the fi...

Street Fighter II Turbo was like an early version of DLC, except you had to buy the game all over again! We were happy to do it, because that's how much better the new version of Street Fighter II was. This was a souped-up, deluxe version of the game that made the PVP fighting genre. The hype for Street Fighter II Turbo was real. I got so excited when I saw it at my local Fred Meyer (a Pacific Northwest superstore) that I bought it instead of Final Fantasy II, which I'd been saving for. I quickly regretted this hasty decision and sold it to my friend, with whom I then played it more than I ever would have at home! Honestly, who ever plays Street Fighter II single-player!? When the original Street Fighter II hit the SNES, the game had been in arcades for almost a year and a half, where it was an unrivalled powerhouse until Mortal Kombat arrived in late 1992. The Champion Edition (released in early 1992) added the four bosses as playable characters. This feature was absent from t...

Super Mario All-Stars is the first in a long line of Nintendo games remastered for a later console. There was incredible value in this package because you got all three NES Super Mario games, plus the Japanese-exclusive Super Mario Bros. 2 (under the moniker " The Lost Levels "). The value of the collection has somewhat diminished over time only because the originals are more iconic, despite their 8-bit auditory and graphical shortcomings. I've already reviewed the first three games , so I won't review them individually again. Suffice it to say they are among the best NES games. And Super Mario Bros. 3 is, as everyone knows, one of the greatest video games ever. The version included here is arguably the best way to play it. Super Mario All-Stars has four main appeals. Firstly, there's the convenience and value of bringing together four great older games on a newer system in one cartridge. We saw this same phenomenon with the well named Super Mario 3D All-Stars ...

When I ordered an Analogue Super Nt to begin collecting and playing SNES games, I knew which game I wanted to play first: SimCity. This game hasn't been rereleased since the Wii Virtual Console in 2006! Analogue Super NT SimCity was created by Will Wright as a PC game, published in 1989. Nintendo worked with Maxis to have it ported to the Super Nintendo for their new console's launch. The SNES version is a huge improvement over the original, with better graphics, pop-up advice screens from Dr. Wright, and, most importantly, gifts. But let's start at the beginning. SimCity was the first ever city-simulation video game. Your goal is to build up a city as successfully as you can. You can play however you like, as it is not possible to "beat" the game, but the main achievement is reaching a population of 500,000, at which point your city becomes a "megalopolis." The maps are fairly small (and some have a lot of water), so the only way to achieve this is to h...

Happy 30th birthday to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening! This fantastic game brought the adventure-fun of the Zelda series to the monochrome Game Boy! It's such a strong game that it arguably surpassed the original as the best 8-bit Zelda title, and it's the only Zelda game to be remade for  two different systems: Game Boy Color in 1998 and Switch in 2019! Link's Awakening adapts many of the conventions, items, and monsters from the Super Nintendo game, A Link to the Past . Link explores an overworld with eight dungeons. He collects numerous special items and weapons, such as the bow, bombs, hookshot, Pegasus Boots, flippers, and Mirror Shield. One nice thing is that you can set the A and B buttons to whichever two items you want. You don't need to keep the sword on A all the time or even have it equipped. Unfortunately, two buttons aren't enough; it gets tedious constantly changing items, but the Game Boy doesn't have X, Y, L, or R buttons. Dungeons r...

I began my retro-video-gaming quest two and a half years ago with Super Mario Bros. To celebrate this, my 100th review, I've chosen Super Mario Bros. 2, one of my all-time favorite NES games. Super Mario Bros. 2 is a reskin of the Famicom Disk System game, Dream Factory: Heart-Pounding Panic . Howard Philips, the PR face of Nintendo of America in the early days, rejected the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2  ("The Lost Levels") for American release because it was too difficult. Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, helped develop Heart-Pounding Panic. Its creative use of both vertical and horizontal side-scrolling made it the ideal candidate for a Mario sequel. This was a stroke of genius, as it is far superior to the Lost Levels. Its deviations from the Mario formula should not be held against it, because there was no Mario formula back then! Among the many differences from the original Super Mario Bros. is the fact that, at the beginning of each stage, you choose whether ...

The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game on the NES sold very well thanks to the mega popularity of the cartoon series that ran for a decade beginning in 1987. The game, however, is notoriously hard and not very fun, despite some positive design elements. The main gimmick is that you can switch between the four titular teenage turtles at any time by pressing START. As in the TV show, each ninja has his own weapon. Donatello is the most powerful because his bo staff has great reach and can be thrust upward or downard. Most platforming segments are divided into two floors, connected by ladders, and Donatello can clear enemies on the top level from below. Leonardo has a sword (katana), which is not as good as the bo. Michaelangelo has nunchakus, which everyone in the 90's called nunchucks. Their range is not great, but Raphael's sais are even worse. All the turtles move slowly and make giant floaty jumps, which makes dodging enemies hard.  The main reason the game is so difficu...