EVERYTHING IS PIXELATED: The top 127 games from the third generation of home video game consoles (Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Master System, Atari 7800)

oh yeah i love all those tracks, even the maddening "low on health" music. they have very headsticky basslines, especially.

another one that i've really enjoyed picking back up is Castlevania III, which i'm sure i've posted about before. we owned I, so III's expanded scope really blew me away on rentals even tho i knew i'd never master it all. i haven't delved too deep so far (it is, of course, hard as hell) but it feels good and satisfying --- and the built-in emusave capability of the Mini means no fucking around with passwords, otherwise a huge obstacle to pick-up-n-play gaming. FYI Grant sucks and is not worth the detour into the clocktower and back.

actually Sypha sucks too, i should probably start over and seek Alucard but beating the level with the auto-ratcheting vertical scroll and those flying skeleton pseudo-sine-wave bastards has me on too much of a high.

also --- this was from the ghost ship level --- one pleasure of old school gaming that remains the same qualitatively if not quantitatively: on the nth attempt to get through a hard-ass level and a hard-ass boss, you finally nail it, you're tearing the boss up, your life is running down but you're doing it, then they reveal a new attack or new form that you haven't gotten to before and it's like OH SHIT but you're so in the zone that you STILL BEAT THEM, hell yeah.

In the Japanese version, Grant is easily the strongest companion, because he can throw knives for free. In the American version, Sypha is probably the best, especially with the ice spell. Alucard is probably the weakest in both versions.

huh, didn't realize! i really struggled to make sypha help me out on the ghost ship, which is the first stage after you pick her up. hmm. i'll give her another go.

Was the ZX Spectrum not a part of this generation? Or is that not even considered a video game console? Or did it just suck?

nah that wasn't a console, it didn't have cartridges and controllers and that kind of thing

i probably could have counted it but it was basically a home computer, and the computer game poll is a thing that is too overwhelming to even figure out a way to split up so i haven't tackled it! someone else can put a bell on that cat's collar

If I were to do it (which I'm not) I'd do it for all non console games - any platform (speccy, c64, amiga, st, pc) as long as it's never appeared on a console. too broad?

Maybe remove pc, but then not sure how much interest there would be for those remaining four. (I'm in tho)

or at least limit to an era of pc

yeah no pc games would feel... purer.