51. Ninja Gaiden II (NES) — I’ve always held this game in high esteem, yet considered NG1 more of an essential play. After revisiting, I feel vindicated about the 2nd part of that statement. It’s totally fine! Insanely difficult with great cinematics, it is pure Ninja Gaiden. Just less essential.

Can’t go 10 minutes in Nola without catching a whiff. Lol.

Friend
Vodka
Pen

Time to get to writing I guess.

I will go hard in the paint for Majora, but I won’t do anything silly like call it a better game than those three.

I like that you grouped it with Dragon Quest because they were both massively important games and a very good time during that era, but they’ve both aged a lot. Original Final Fantasy is in that same category.

50. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons — As these games go, it checks the boxes it needs to. And I can appreciate they tried to do something different with the mechanics and the double-release with OoA. I don’t think it advances things enough, and I disliked the roadblock-filled map. It’s fine.

49. Mega Man V (Game Boy) — The candy to get you in the door is the collection of brand-new bosses and settings, instead of the recycled material of the other GB titles. But it’s actually the level design and zigzagging story beats that make the game a worthwhile play.

On the positive side of things, the dungeons still manage to delight, providing a proper shot of adrenaline to the proceedings, and yes, the seasons gimmick is clever. But the coolest thing might be the underworld areas, which clearly on some level provided a framework for Tears’ “depths” areas.

Within the context of today's entertainment tidal wave, of constantly being flooding with new options and how it all begins to feel overwhelming -- which is really the opposite of how it *should* make you feel -- I think the PS2 was a clear marker in that trendline.

I temporarily tapped out of gaming toward the tail end of the PS2 era, and as I consider why, I think back to the sheer enormity of the PS2 library as feeling daunting to traverse. I wanted to get out there and live life, and well, the PS2 wasn't going to help with that.

It’s currently on sale on Steam. Don’t know if this is the version you tried. (Peep the reveiws below) store.steampowered.com/app/2308130/...

Oh man, you just unlocked a core memory with Zany Golf, lol. Also a great time!

48. Mega Man IV (Game Boy) — I wouldn’t give the first three Mega Man Game Boy games a passing grade, but I think this one deserves one. The level design here is fairly strong.

Coke vs Pepsi breakdown?