GB's Game Reviews: 2025-2026 Edition

This year's top story in GB video gaming: The return of the Sega Genesis.

The Atari 2600 was the console that got me started in the world of video games, but the Genesis was the console to truly solidify a lifelong love of the medium in me. Longtime readers know my story with the Genesis already, but to sum it up in one sentence, my mom got one sometime in 1993 after our Atari stopped working, it was my main console for the entirety of the rest of the decade until I became a Game Boy Color owner for Christmas 2000, and I've adored video games ever since. In recent years, our Genesis collection was mostly inaccessible, partly due to the cartridges beginning to fail and partly due to migrating to modern TVs that the Genesis couldn't connect to. I was still able to play some of our old favorites due to them getting modern ports on the Switch, such as the Sonic games, Castlevania Bloodlines, and Streets Of Rage 2, but many others remained off-limits unless I wanted to emulate, and these days I usually only emulate to play things like fan translations and rom hacks that aren't accessible any other way. In February 2026, though, I had some money saved up and decided to splurge on a solution, buying a clone console called the Mega Retron HD that can connect to modern TVs right out of the box and also picking up a flash cart to replace the legions of old cartridges that refuse to boot. I love physical media, but it's not the cure-all to game preservation that some people say it is. Carts fail and die eventually, and they'll only get rarer and rarer as the supply of 35-year-old plastic carts steadily dwindles, making secondhand market prices skyrocket and making old games on cartridges nearly as inaccessible as delisted digital titles. But I do love the feeling of playing games on the TV with a controller, so the flash cart was a happy medium. Plus, the one I bought came with hundreds of games pre-loaded onto the included micro SD card, meaning I was free to try just about any game in the Genesis library, removing the barrier to entry that downloading all that stuff myself presented. With the help of the Mega Retron HD and the flash cart, I began revisiting some old favorites and trying a few new games as well.

But the Mega Retron HD wasn't the only "new" console to join the family this past year. There was also a little indie thing called the Switch 2 that rolled into town. I've played a handful of Switch 2 games in the past year, all of them major releases like Donkey Kong Bananza and Pokemon Legends ZA. I mostly like the Switch 2, with the improved game performance and faster loading being one of my favorite things about it. I'm at the point where I'd much rather have smooth, clean, fast-loading games than ones that look a little prettier in screenshots. That said, I do see why some people complain that it doesn't feel like a huge jump from the Switch 1. This is a simple evolution, not a complete reinvention, and that's okay. I didn't want gimmicks anyway, just games (The Switch 2's mouse mode could not possibly be less exciting to me, and I frequently forget it even exists).

I've also continued the trend I began a couple years ago of replaying old games, even ones I'd already completed. Some of those games were reviewed by me many years ago, others I never reviewed properly, but in every case I wrote something up and added them to the post.

Lastly, I think this year's blog sports the highest average length of a review. I didn't play a ton of different games this last year (there are 28 reviews here in total), but I had plenty to say about most of the ones that I did play, resulting in a very long blog. Enjoy!

GB's Game Reviews, 2023-2024 Edition

What a year for gaming it's been for me! I'm used to playing games only in limited fits and starts during the warmer months of the year, as ZFRP ends up consuming a lot of the time I'd otherwise be using to play. However, things were different this time. For the first time in a long time, I found the energy and motivation to keep playing new games continuously throughout Season 13 of RP, and as a result of that (plus other factors like continued trips to Funspot and playing several compilations full of quick new additions to the blog) I played dozens of games this year. In fact, this might be an all-time record for me!

It felt good to get my bad experience with Mechstermination Force out of my system in last year's post, so I will be including a few more reviews in this post of games I played but didn't finish if I have something to say about the experience, positive or otherwise. (Xenoblade fans, I am sorry.) This time the reviews are in roughly the order I played the games, so things kind of hop around at times, but at other times you'll see a bunch of Mario, Sonic, or TMNT games clustered together as I stuck with a franchise for a bit.

With that out of the way, I hope you enjoy the largest GB game review blogpost ever!

GB's Vidya 2016: Year In Review

You guys know the drill by now! Every year I give a short review to every video game I beat in the past twelve months, ranking them from least favorite to most favorite as I try to find my favorite video game of the year. Two years ago I played only a handful of games, and last year I played a whole bunch but many of them were small, quick games played more for the blogpost than anything else. This year I focused on "major" games - only nine titles are represented (I have combined two of them into one entry, so there are eight reviews here), but the majority of them were long games I had to sink a lot of hours into. With three Pokemon games, two Ace Attorney games, and another RPG on top of that, I spent a lot of time gaming this year - just not on a lot of different games!

First, lemme just give a shoutout to last year's winner, Robot Arena 2. Just as I was finally tiring of it, I found another mod that completely overhauls the game, introduces a bunch of real-world robot opponents, and basically just breathes new life back into a well-worn game. I still mess around with this game almost daily, if only for a few minutes. Definitely deserved that win last year if I'm still playing the dang thing.

Let's get started.

43 Games I Haven't Reviewed Yet

For years, I've been doing mini-reviews of my video games. I started with the "100 Games" project in January 2013, and since then have done a roundup of everything I beat each year. But that means that some games got left out - ones I didn't include on my initial list.

Not getting on the original 100 Games list doesn't mean these games are bad. On the contrary, I rather enjoyed quite a few of them, and some of them probably deserved to make the list. I never claimed to be good at ranking stuff, as fun as it is.

As usual, only games I cared about enough to see to the end get listed here, and everything I haven't already written about is up for grabs. Sifting through my Backloggery turned up 43 entries' worth of games (a few games are combined into one entry). Instead of trying to rank them, I'll cover them alphabetically.

I've also linked a gameplay video for each game. It's a longplay whenever one is available. Looking at how few games DIDN'T have a complete longplay up on YouTube speaks volumes as to how good longplayers are at doing their job.

GB's Vidya 2015: Year In Review

It's that time again! Every year I make a sequel to my 2012 "100 Games" series by reviewing every single vidya I beat that year. As usual, the only qualification for a game to make the list is that I completed the main objective. Sometimes legit, sometimes I cheese it, whatever - if I saw the end, I put it on the list and talk about it.

After last year's disappointingly short list, I knew I had to step up my gaming. I pulled it off, and this year's list is three times the length of last year's, clocking in at 15 titles. This is, however, still inferior to 2013's 21-strong roster.

Longtime readers will know the drill - I've ranked these games in a rough order from worst to first, but as usual I'm not that great at ranking, although I enjoy doing it - I can usually figure out the worst game and the best game pretty quickly, or at least make tiers, but ordering within a tier is not easy and can often change on a whim. Suffice it to say I consider everything I beat this year save the bottom-ranked game to be at least decent, and the bottom game was at least not offensively bad!

The crop this year is even more old and obscure than usual - 13 of the 15 games are over a decade old, and many of them are over two decades old. I hope to include some more mainstream titles next time, but I do prefer talking about games people don't know about, since you can only write "super mario 64 was a good game" so many times before people stop caring, y'know? Anyway, on with the show.

Chatzy Madness Volume 194: Kobberitis

Molasses Sheep: I'm the worst at actually playing vieogames the way you are supposed to play them
Molasses Sheep: Team composition? But I like this one's design and this one's dialog!
RubyChao: hahahaha
Molasses Sheep: And then I force the team to fit
RubyChao: i can just imagine you picking your touhous that way, sheep
Molasses Sheep: this is literally how I play all my RPGs
Molasses Sheep: I will literally go out and grind and over level instead of just swap my dang team members
Molasses Sheep: BECAUSE WHAT IF I MISS GOOD DIALOG FROM *insert character here*
Molasses Sheep: But, this also why all my Pokemon teams are awful
Molasses Sheep: I generally hold on to like the ten first guys I catch in the game
Molasses Sheep: and that's just my team
Molasses Sheep: I HOPE YOU LIKE ZIGZAGOONS AND PELLIPERS
Molasses Sheep: I just slam the square into the round hole until something breaks

---

Gooper Blooper: oh, spy, you'll be glad to know
Gooper Blooper: when working on chatzy madness this afternoon I came across Del posting a text-to-speech website people played with for a bit
Gooper Blooper: I made one of the voices do a reading of Kanye's Dead Zone
Spynosaurus: Goops
Spynosaurus: You're the best
iKomodo: Oh lawd
iKomodo: "inhale my dong enragement rapper"
Gooper Blooper: the character limit was 250 so it had to be done in two dozen parts but I did it anyway
Spynosaurus: Holy shit Goops xD
RubyChao: how was it
Gooper Blooper: not bad
Gooper Blooper: pretty good dramatic pause on "kanye west was at my door"
Gooper Blooper: when "rubychao" was spelled correctly, he actually pronounced it right (though I still mentally say "ruby kay-oh"
Gooper Blooper: I was really thrown for a loop when I heard it pronounced "chow" ingame
Gooper Blooper: like, you don't call the other guy "chows zero" so what's the deal
RubyChao: goops has been pronouncing it wrong for how long now
RubyChao: goops pls
Gooper Blooper: since I got Sonic Adventure 2 Battle
Gooper Blooper: so I think about thirteen years now
iKomodo: Man, goops
RubyChao: damn
iKomodo: i have to admit, I feel good now knowing my pronunciation of Chao was correct all along
iKomodo: ...but wait, didn't SA2 have the Chao Garden?
RubyChao: it did
RubyChao: but it was never spoken in-game
Gooper Blooper: yeah it did
iKomodo: ah
iKomodo: what about Omochao?
iKomodo: did he speak?
Gooper Blooper: He did, and he said his name I think
RubyChao: yeah but i bet goops ignored him :V
Gooper Blooper: but I just somehow missed it
iKomodo: ...you shoulda twigged then :U
Gooper Blooper: It was later, around Sonic Heroes or something, where he said "omochow" and I was like "wait what did you just say"
Gooper Blooper: I remember I used to have a second "I know this is wrong but I can't stop pronouncing it" problem
Gooper Blooper: For whatever reason, in the early-mid 2000s I pronunced mage as "modge". I have no idea why. If I was pulling directly from "magic" (like how I got kay-oh from "chaos") I would have said "madge" but I didn't
RubyChao: RED MODGE
RubyChao: WHITE MODGE
RubyChao: BLACK MODGE
Gooper Blooper: then I just somehow managed to switch to "mayge"
Gooper Blooper: yes, chao
Gooper Blooper: exactly
RubyChao: i think i have a couple things i always pronounce wrong
RubyChao: a couple 2hu names
Gooper Blooper: Goopsmom has told me that I'm historically bad at pronouncing
Gooper Blooper: This is because I learned words by reading them, not by hearing them spoken or sounded in a dictionary
Spynosaurus: Well ah pronounce it MAGLE
Spynosaurus: . . . I botched the JBL nooo

GB's Vidya 2014: Year in Review

Ouch. I didn't beat too many games this year. Nonetheless, I'm doing my yearly wrapup, ranking, and review!

I only finished five games all year, and two of them were disqualified for reasons you'll soon see. However, I beat two other games very late last year - so late that they missed the last writeup - so they are being added to this year's list, bringing me back to five games. Without further ado, here's the games I beat this year and my opinions on them!

Honorable Mentions: Pokemon Emerald and Crystal
Systems: Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color
Developer: Game Freak
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: RPG
Date Beaten: April 18 and April 22, 2014

Why are they honorable mentions? Because I can't really count them - I technically never beat Pokemon Emerald or Crystal until this year, but I had already beaten the near-identical Ruby, Sapphire, and Gold versions. I generally consider all of those near-identical "versions" to be the same game, so Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald together are all "Pokemon GBA Hoenn" while Gold, Silver, and Crystal are all "Pokemon GBC Johto". Remakes like FireRed and LeafGreen are separate, however, so Omega Ruby will have its time at bat next year.

My Crystal run was a pure nostalgia run, although the ability to speed up play with the emulator made grinding bearable. The highlight of the run was finding a shiny Skarmory and adding it to the team. Later in summer I returned to Crystal and beat Kanto, capping things off with a nice fight against Red.

The Emerald run was... unconventional, thanks to the game being wrung through Pokemon Randomizer. You can get all the details about the upside-down world Ariel was thrust into here.

GB's Vidya 2013: Year In Review

Last year I made the twenty-one post series "GB's 100 Games", wherein I gave short writeups of 100 games I had beaten that I considered to be good or better. Since then, I've beaten over a dozen more video games. I've decided to make a sequel of sorts to 100 Games in the form of a "Year In Review" that gives writeups on every game I beat this year. In addition to that, I'll be putting the games in a rough ranking. Remember, the game can be released in any year, and I can first acquire the game in any year - as long as I first finished the game in 2013, it qualifies for the list.

First, however, to get them out of the way...

Unranked: A Horde of Atari Games
Trying to place all the new Atari 2600 games I played this year would be far too difficult. It's hard enough ranking such old games alongside modern ones as it is - with this many, it'd just be a pain and the list would be littered with them, so they all get shoved here.

Games in bold were played on an actual Atari 2600 with a cartridge. Games in italics were played on my Atari Flashback plug-and-play system.

Atari Climber - A game similar in some respects to Donkey Kong. You must climb from the bottom of the stage to the top, avoiding hazards and scoring points.

Atlantis - You control three cannons and try to shoot down flying ships that want to bomb your city. The cannons cannot aim or move, so timing is literally everything. Nice graphics for the 2600.

Demon Attack - A very similar game to Phoenix. Demon Attack is a static shooter in which you fight wave after wave of "demons". They come in many shapes, but they mostly behave the same.

Dragonfire - In this medieval quest, you alternate between two screens. The first screen is about jumping over and ducking under fireballs to reach a castle. Once there, you gather treasure for points while dodging the attacks of an angry dragon.

Off the Wall - I've never been good at Breakout-type games. Off the Wall is not an exception.

Secret Quest - One of the rare games on Atari that cries out for instructions. I can't give this Zeldaesque game a fair shake because I didn't know what to do a few levels in.

Space Jockey - Space Jockey is hurt by technical limitations - only three enemies are onscreen at once, making the game far too dull. A difficulty option to make the enemies move randomly may help your experience somewhat.

Video Checkers - Not sure how I'm supposed to win. The computer seems to counter my every move. Then again, I don't play much checkers.

Video Chess - Same problem - the computer consistently outfoxed me even on the lowest difficulty. I played chess a lot back in elementary school, and I don't remember being this bad at it.

Yar's Revenge - One of the strongest Atari games I've played. Yar's is more complicated than most Atari games, but it can be figured out pretty quickly, and it's a lot of fun. Once upon a time I had a Game Boy Color version of this game, but I wasn't any good at it and wound up selling the cartridge in a yard sale.

Widow Maker's Game Room 4: Growl

"Denizens of the web! I'm Widow Maker, this here is my special guest Ariel Sierra, and today we're reviewing Growl for the Sega Genesis."

"So when do I get to plug my new campaign?"

"Later."

"Aw."

Widow Maker's Game Room 1: Golden 20-in-1

 "The video game industry is in an odd phase. Some think there might be another video game crash. 'There's too many sequels,' people say. Or 'The big companies are suffocating the little guys' or 'The game prices are too damn high!'

Personally, I think modern controllers use entirely too many buttons. Not that I enjoy that waggle nonsense either.

My point is, why whine about the present when there's about sixty billion video games available from the past? I'm here in my personal Game Room - the largest room of my humble Florida home - and I've got myself surrounded by cartridges from all sorts of crusty old systems nobody gives a damn about these days. Join me as I dig through the pile in search for what every gamer desires: a game that isn't shit.

And by the way: We'll be focusing on more obscure titles. Nobody wants to read about fucking Super Mario Brothers 3 again.

Today's game is... lessee here... Howsabout 'Golden 20-In-1"? Hot damn, twenty games in one! That's one way to get this thing started on the right foot.

GB's 100 Games: 10-6

We're no longer talking about games that were just fun, or engrossing. We're talking about games that had significant influence on my childhood and teen years. Games I bonded with people over, games that I've memorized up and down, games that have implanted themselves into my subconscious. These are THE video games.

It's the first half of the final ten.

GB's 100 Games: 16-11

We've now reached the games I consider permanent classics. Two are from my childhood and early teen years, but the other three are all relatively recent. Two of them I just played last year. Even though I sometimes feel concerned that I'm losing touch with video games and sometimes go long periods without playing one, games like these remind me that there's no getting off this train I'm on.

Today's update is brought to you by Saralex and Liberty Medical.

GB's 100 Games: 20-16

 
It feels like it's been ages since I began this series, and now the final twenty entries are here. These were the games that truly hooked me. I played them top to bottom and fell in love with their miniature worlds.

Let's begin.

GB's 100 Games: 30-26

As Nappa would say, "This shit is getting crazy."

We are about to reach the games that were huge parts of my childhood and shaped my gaming preferences and direction. The games that my teen self eagerly discussed on GameFAQs message boards. The games that influence my writing and creative projects.

The game that began the long, tortured, twisting road to the Sarahkin.

It's all here, and the next thirty games are, as far as I'm concerned, some of the all-time greats.

Kick it.

GB's 100 Games: 45-41

As you've probably guessed from the list so far, I'm a bit of a Nintendo loyalist. I was a Sega fan in the early and mid-90s before Pokemon drove me to Nintendo. In recent years I've been taking advantage of my brother's purchases of a PS2 and Xbox 360 to branch out a bit, but I've always had a connection to family-friendly Nintendo fare, and it makes up the backbone of my collection.

Here, we have five different games from four different time periods - pre-Nintendo, Nintendo, late Nintendo, and the branching-out period. And only two of them are actually Nintendo-produced games, so... variety, I guess?

GB's 100 Games Intermission: The Bad Game Awards

With 100 Games having reached the halfway point, I'm taking a break from it to shed some light on the opposite end of the spectrum: Games that sucked.

There are many ways a game can suck. Terrible music, poor controls, glitches and bugs interrupting or interfering with gameplay, and most importantly a game that is boring, too easy, too hard, or poorly designed. The existence of Big Dumb Vidya Games not only in my collection but on the list of 100 proves a game can have some blemishes - significant blemishes - and still earn high marks. But if a game is not fun, it has failed as a game.

A game can also be bad by association. If your expectations are high based on the past of the series or the developers, and the game falls short, you may think of it as a "bad game" even if it's not bad. It could be mediocre, or even good, but it was not able to match your expectations. This has happened to me a couple of times.

So with that in mind, let's review three games in three categories: The game that most disappointed me, a game that's so bad it's good, and the outright worst thing I've ever put in a video game system.

GB's 100 Games: 55-51

We're all over the map in today's installment of GB's 100 Games! A game that everyone's heard of, a game that next to nobody's heard of, long entries, short entries, and everything in between.

And remember, U R MR GAY. And a hipster, as well.

GB's 100 Games: 60-56

A pretty motley crew in today's installment. We've got a couple obscure titles, a spinoff, and a port/remake up for evaluation, plus a company famous for doing only one thing finally deciding to make a game that did something else.

GB's 100 Games: 70-66

I'D BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR Edition.

All five games in today's group are older titles I played for the first time years after they were made, either as very late purchases or in collections. In one case I played a game three full decades after its' release!

Let's get this wagon train a-rolling.

GB's 100 Games: 75-71

DOES EVERYBODY KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?

VIDYA TIME!!

Okay yeah, on reflection I definitely ranked Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine too low. But it's not like Mario had trouble finding his way onto this list, so whatever. Away we go with yet another batch of five games in the ongoing GB's 100 Games series. Over a fourth done, folks...