My pleasure. In my experience, if I'm writing and the music doesn't automatically come to the surface, then there's a good reason. I may stop to look at it, but I've overlooked soundtracks, too. I'm pretty sure in my NinjWarriors Again review I completely forgot to call out its bangin' soundtrack.

Oops. That's probably the key element that makes it so much fun to play outside of the actual combat physics.

I came into the game with the assumption that it was going to be more on the easygoing side, based on what little gameplay I've seen of it. Then after 30 minutes, I was like "... oh."

Now that I think about, it was odd of me to completely omit any mention of the soundtrack; this may come off as an insult, but as I was playing the game, the soundtrack felt like the equivalent of elevator music. It was only after "post-production" when I was gathering image assets for the review that the music actually grew on me with its simple approach.

I've never played any other Snoopy video game, though I came pretty close a few times. Awhile back I almost got the Snoopy Tennis gbc game because I was on a tennis kick after completing Mario Tennis (Color), but that fell through.

Thanks for reading!

Y'know, I think it was brave of you to take on an obscure game from an IP that has a disparate history of releases. I know of only one other, and that was on the SNES. The soundtrack is quite something, and I was hoping to hear a little bit about that in your review. Otherwise, it seems like an experience that you'd have to be stuck in the back of a car or on a camping trip to endure. Suitable to the intended use case of the Gameboy.

Thanks for sharing!

Oh boy do I have thoughts on X7, but that's coming up. The first is still the best, in my opinion, and I quite enjoy X2 as well. X6 isn't particularly good, but since it was my introduction to the series on the PlayStation, I have a fondness for it and I quite enjoy the music. X8 is the strongest of the fully three dimensional titles, without a question. It's just a shame it dead ends the way it did.

X5 is my favorite of the three MMX games, with X4 following just after it. I didn't care for X6, really, and have yet to play X7. Though I did play and enjoy X8. X and X2 are as good as it got, if you ask me.

You’re going to love it. I don’t know quite how many hours I put into it, but I did everything - collected all the banana gems, snagged all the fossils, acquired all the outfits. It all felt so easy to delve into yet difficult to want to stop until I had seen it through to the very end.

I only very recently finally acquired a Switch 2, which came with Mario Kart World. I also bought Donkey Kong Bananza, because to me it has looked like a good time since the first video I saw of Nintendo employees playing it. I'm glad to hear that my instincts were correct, and I look forward to playing it myself soon.

I don't recall ever playing the game in the arcades, but I do distinctly remember seeing the Ultra 64 logo whenever I walked past the cabinet. You couldn't escape it with the console's launch looming over the horizon.

But yeah, Cruis'n USA, which I really hated typing out every time I wrote its name in the review, is an oddball of a game. It's not "bad" in the traditional sense of the word, and it's not really a solid game either. It does enough to entertain to overlook its blatant flaws, but not enough to make it truly entertaining after just a short few hours.

Thanks for reading!

I've been thinking for quite some time that I need to play this one. I think I played the arcade version briefly, but I remember it was one of the early N64 games I was most eager to play. And then I never played that port. I did buy the digital version released for Wii U's Virtual Console, so I need to go back and play it before that hardware bricks itself.

Can someone add Donkey Kong Bananza on the Switch 2?

Added.

Hey man - thanks for reading! I remember this as a good game that should have been great. It had moments where I thought it was going to get there, but it always got dragged back down. Real shame.

Glad to see you pop your head out.

The N64 was always a mixed bag for me between the impressive graphic fidelity and its inconsistent performance, or the reverse, depending who had coding duties. It could be what you wanted, but not all at once. It's nice to hear that this title fulfilled the quota with just enough gumption to be worth the time.

Thanks, Masters. I sank a lot of time into that game when I was a kid and apart from the fluid animation, wasn't impressed much by Sega's overblown accomplishment. Yes, the animation was draw dropping, but the levels were unplayable. The SNES release was accessible to me and I was able to see what others missed.

Those were the times, though. Sega America sold the hype, even when that's not what the fanbase/audience/customers wanted. In the long run it cost them the hardware business. Nintendo has stubbornly done what they do, whether or not it makes any sense to us.

They've been able to keep doing it, as a result.

Games that "go too hard" last about as long in zeitgeist, like any flash in the pan. Whether we recognize it or not, we're looking for something with substance. Superman (2025) is a good example of that.

I understand about a game hitting at the right time; for me, my Rolling Thunder "lite" was Sly Spy. I never got far, but it always gave me such a cool first impression: sky diving out of an airplane and then shooting a bunch of terrorists in front of the Lincoln Memorial as the 16th President looks on with approval.

It probably wouldn't give the same impression if I played the whole game now, but that's why nostalgia can be fun sometimes.

Thanks for reading!

I know I did (find another way to experience it)! Needed to keep the Star Soldier thing alive a bit longer, since I'd done all three of the TG-16 games. And yeah, Blade does still hold up. Looks great for the time and some of those late bosses are just insanely fun and insane. I'll probably never forget the one that lays down mirrors on the sides and then bounces lasers between them.

Hey pick! Still super prolific I see!

I'll forgive you for not loving this game like I did. I know it hit me at the right time in my life and that's 99% of why I still play it to this day. (And it being an easy, breezy, duck-and-shoot, pick-up-and-play exercise.)

I'm with you on the bouts of ingenuity: shooting the lights out, dropping overhead fixtures on enemies' heads, etc. And the Zuntata score, while limited/repetitive, does bang.

Good review. And now I have to try Rolling Thunder.

Nice work, Rob. I always wanted to play this one. Doesn't it cost a fortune on eBay now though? Maybe I'll... find another way to experience it. ^_^

I was just replaying Soldier Blade the other day and man, it still holds up. May as well continue getting my Star Soldier fix.

Hey dude, great review. I played this game and felt the same way. They got so much right, but the 'combat' was dumb and awkward and kind of just in the way.

Good to see you reviewing... and this is a good review.

I remember there being a lot of fuss back then (valid, if overstated) about the Genesis version kicking the SNES version's behind, but I suspect much of that was chatter from the Segasphere once again grappling with its inferiority complex. :)

(The Segasphere swore Hard Corps > Contra III and that Bloodlines > Super Castlevania IV too. They were of course, wrong, but I get it.)

I can see where you're coming at with that. One way I can say I view a video game is like looking at a fully constructed Jenga tower: different parts of the tower make up different portions of a game. Some areas can be passably stable, like music or visuals, but if other areas become too shaky for the game to function to the point of not being enjoyable, then the tower falls over. All that's left are remnants of what could have been an overall solid game.

This analogy sounds familiar, so I probably took it from somewhere without realizing it...