retro gaming – Page 2 – DaveGladow.com

Super Dodge Ball review

Like “Kid Icarus,” “Super Dodge Ball” is another NES game that I aggressively ignored back in the day, mostly because the concept seemed completely ridiculous to me.

What is this, The Ocho?

If I had been paying better attention, I might have realized this came from the Technos “Kunio-kun” series of games, which included things like “Double Dragon” and “River City Ransom,” which are of course badass.

Technos also developed “Super Spike V’Ball,” which, stupid name aside, was a quite competent representation of beach volleyball. It had super moves and so forth and was basically a good weekend rental.

Dodge Ball works the same way, relying on the usage of special moves to achieve success. Like its “V’Ball” cousin, the appeal of doing this starts out with you feeling like a supreme dominator of peasants, but this wanes, meaning you’ll want to engage in some player vs player action to get any sort of longevity out of it.

“Windjammers” outdid both of these games, but you can see the bones of that title here.

As a curiosity on Switch Online, Dodge Ball is good for a bit. And that’s all it needs to be.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Kid Icarus review

I’ve probably been overdue in playing this old-school NES platformer, though in my defense, “Kid Icarus” rarely gets mentioned first or second (or even 40th) on most people’s favorites lists.

There are reasons for that, starting with the general jank (simple things like landing on platforms don’t always go the way they should), the somewhat spartan look of the thing, and most critically the game being discouragingly difficult and non-welcoming to new gamers.

“Welcome to Kid Icarus; would you like to grind for health, die via enemy, or die via fall?”

If that’s all there was, we could safely dismiss it as an artifact and move on.

And yet…

The power-ups are actually fairly nifty, and the dungeon levels are fun and unique. That latter point is a valuable one: dungeons in 2D side-scrollers have rarely (if ever) been this intricate or interesting to navigate.

So sadly, in the same way I have been forced to admit that various forms of exercise are actually good for you, I must likewise admit that Kid Icarus has an intrinsic value. Get your teeth knocked out for a while and you’ll get to experience a game unlike most anything else.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Ice Hockey review

Hey, hockey fever for us Americans, amirite? Two golds! USA! USA! It makes sense to want to get in a little video hockey.

Yet, full disclosure is necessary here: I’m a “Blades of Steel” guy.

Hockey fans certainly had it good back in the day. So good, in fact, that the old NES gave gamers TWO quality games to choose from, the aforementioned Blades and the Nintendo-produced “Ice Hockey,” which has plenty going for it itself. Then, a couple of years later, EA really got things rolling with its NHL series on the Genesis (and eventually the SNES), which let’s be honest, is much better than its NES predecessors.

I consider the latter to be very nearly must-play (take your pick between ‘93 or ‘94 … I prefer ‘94), and the NES offerings are a little lacking in comparison. Granted, Ice Hockey attempts to create strategy by designing different styles of players (e.g. big and strong vs little and fast) to utilize, which I appreciate. It adds variety to the gameplay, which already boasts nice ice physics. And the game features international squads rather than NHL or pseudo-NHL teams.

But the problem is you get the gist of the gameplay about a game in, and then you dominate. And once you finish dominating your opponent, you’re done. There’s no tournament. No season. No playoffs. Just single matches to set up featuring the same few teams. Dominating them. Over and over. Until the end of time.

Blades gives you a better payoff, and its intermission entertainment is better too. It ain’t perfect either, but it gives you something more, and thusly has better longevity.

So basically, Ice Hockey is a pretty fun time, but it gets the bronze. Them’s the breaks.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

F-Zero X review

There are a lot of “floaty car” racers out there. Here’s another one!

That’s basically the review right there. The second F-Zero game on home consoles released for the N64, F-Zero X stood out for trading any semblance of decent visuals in for lightning speed, as though driving a cyber truck meant you could go 800 mph down a slip n slide.

Sadly, driving a cyber truck only makes you a giant dorkstore. But the good news is this game allows you to make a deal with the devil that actually provides a decently good time and not just the scorn of every person you meet.

The insane speeds here really stand out. Unfortunately, so do the touchy controls, which make the thing a little more inaccessible than other racers, including its predecessor, which I consider a more enjoyable affair overall (and was certainly more groundbreaking).

So yeah, that’s F-Zero X. It’s ugly. It’s insanely fast. And it’s got a steep learning curve. As part of a really deep collection of racers on the N64, I consider it somewhat noteworthy historically as well.

I like it. I don’t love it.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Dance Dance Revolution — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 51)

Do you know what it’s all about?

No, really.

Do you know what it’s all about?

You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around.

That’s what it’s all about.

(I apologize for nothing.)

Hokey pokey dalliances aside, I thought it was important to include a proper, traditional rhythm game in this countdown of my 100 essential retro games, and well, when you think on that for more than two seconds, the best possible choice really begins to make itself obvious.

You see, I think it’s the activity level here that really sets “Dance Dance Revolution” apart. A spirited evolution of the genre that demanded its participants stand up and get moving in order to have any sort of success, “DDR” took over arcades and helped usher in a true golden age for rhythm games.

I don’t think I’m overstating that either. I mean, we can argue that certain games have come along since that have done this sort of thing even better, and we can likewise argue that the activity doesn’t mean so much as the music itself and therefore a less active game might have a case for being considered more important to the games industry at large.

My argument in this discussion is this: Why else would this concept be imitated so gosh-darn much after this if this sucker wasn’t super meaningful to people? Here, you get two things – rhythm and dance – in concert, and moreover, it’s a communal experience, encouraging people to participate in pairs. And when it works, it REALLY works.

Truly, that IS what it’s all about.

Dance Dance Revolution at a glance:
Genre: Dance/rhythm
Released: 1999
Platform: Arcade
Guinness World Record: Most Widely Used Video Game in Schools

My games of 2025

I feel like I might have done my game of the year proper justice here, so I’m not sure there’s a lot I need to add to that.

I played a lot of games this year, but honestly, nothing was better than “Shadow of the Colossus,” a game I think of as being a must-play in the same category of games like Tetris and Donkey Kong.

Yes, you may play this game and not find it to be the game for you.

Yes, you should play it anyway, because the game is foundational to understanding the medium at large.

Beyond that landmark title, however, there was a lot of good stuff on the docket in 2025 (you can read through my thoughts recorded in real time right here on social media).

Below, I list everything I played through to some level of completion over the past year, and at the end, you’ll see a ranking of the best games I finished for the first time this year. It’s a fun list – hopefully with some decent insight included.

I’m excited for next year, too. Santa delivered a Switch 2 to the family, with all sorts of goodies to dive into.

Anyhow, read on to see how I rank the games I completed this calendar year.

SimCity — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 50)

We’ve reached No. 50!

At varying points throughout this countdown of Retro Gaming Essentials, I’ve had several “come to Jesus” moments where I’ve had to re-evaluate my ranking.

Often, these internal conversations have occurred at noteworthy markers, such as when we hit the Top 20 with “Super Mario Kart” or the Top 30 with “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.”

The conversations, such that they are, generally go something like this:

“Would I feel like a dumbass if this game wasn’t (or was) included in my Top (whatever)?”

That acts as a tie-breaker and helps me crystalize my recommendations. And when you boil it down, that’s really what this list is – a list of games I think should be experienced. Not just my personal favorites, and not just the games that seem important: Concessions on both points will be had, in the interest of providing a resource that is a little more worthwhile as a whole.

And that resource is this: What games, at the end of the day, do I recommend people play (and why)?

Building off of that, if we’re saying to folks, “Hey, play these 50 games,” I don’t see how that list of 50 can be at all close to complete if we don’t talk about “SimCity” (and by extension “The Sims”).

Any reasonable approximation of the history of video gaming requires that conversation.

So, as we put a bow on 50 reviews of some of the best games in existence (with the intention of someday reaching a tidy 100), I say this with full confidence:

Any gamer looking to play some of the all time greats should 100% include SimCity (or one of its sequels) on their to-do list.

SimCity at a glance:
Genre: Building simulation
Released: 1989
Platform: PC
“Game of the Year” from Computer Gaming Monthly

Star Parodier — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 49)

We haven’t really talked about Japanese imports in this countdown yet (present company excepted), and it feels like a pretty important part of the games industry at large … so let’s maybe do that, yeah?

Bonus: It gives me an excuse to talk about what is just a dang delightful game.

So, let’s go ahead and discuss “Star Parodier,” an excellent “cute ‘em up” that somehow didn’t get ported to America for a couple of decades despite it being a feast visually, aurally, and gameplay-wise, while also being that rarest of things shooters so often fail to even remotely consider during planning and development:

It’s approachable.

Star Parodier at a glance:
Genre: Shooter
Released: 1992
Platform: PC Engine Super CD
9/10 score from Nintendo Life

Mega Man 3 — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 48)

I don’t know that I’m going to have much more room for series duplicates and sequels in the rest of this countdown.

And yet, here we are anyway.

I mean, sure, we’re still going to have to see some covered ground as we go along, because I just have too much fondness for particular games to leave them off. And if we can acknowledge that sometimes sequels can exceed the original work (as we have done), we can likewise acknowledge that sometimes they don’t *quite* get there … yet they have a great deal of value just the same.

Even more than that, if I’m honest with myself (and you), I can also allow that on occasion, my own choice for elevation in this list is more of a coin flip than a definitive proclamation. In other words, the relative quality between two choices for inclusion from a particular property might be essentially equal.

So, let us state for the record that even though it feels a shame to lean into a specific series often during a countdown of this sort (since it will inevitably result in the exclusion of other series), it is also not entirely without merit. Truly, sometimes, the games in question simply just deserve to be here.

For me at least, the real litmus test, above and beyond personal attachment, historical importance, or even quality, is going to be how distinctive an experience you might get from game to game within a particular series.

I can wince a little at all of the Mario games we have on this list so far, but only for appearance’s sake, because when you peer a little closer, you’ll see a unique experience from one game to the next.

To elaborate, Mario 1 was the original promise of continued fun and excitement. Mario 2 was the colorful oddball sequel that innovated. Mario 3 was excellence personified. Mario World was even more excellence personified. Mario 64 was a groundbreaker. And so on, and so on.

It’s the same with Castlevania. “Dracula’s Curse” is perhaps the best possible example of old-school “NES-hard” platforming, “Rondo of Blood” was the transitional game, introducing more dynamic branching levels and upping the visuals and sound, and “Symphony of the Night” was the natural end point for that evolution, going for more explorer-based action.

With all of that considered, you can probably pretty safely guess why we’re now going to talk a little about Mega Man 3. Sure, I have a personal attachment to it. But it’s also a titan among 8-bit platformers giving it a historical relevance, and it’s roughly as good as the game we already covered – Mega Man 2.

But ALSO, it’s here because it’s distinct enough from Mega Man 2 to merit inclusion on its own.

Mega Man 3 at a glance:
Genre: Side-scrolling platformer
Released: 1990
Platform: NES
GamePro’s third-greatest 8-bit video game of all time

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — Retro Gaming Essentials (No. 46)

This section of the countdown might seem a little like the department of redundancy department.

The next few titles we’ll be featuring in this space are games in series that I love that already had representation in the countdown, and yet, here I am, saying you should play this other game too.

The onus then falls on me to make the case for why people should play not just the game that falls higher on the list (in this case, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time“), but for them to play that game AND this one.

In the case of the arcade classic beat ‘em up “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” we’re going to be looking at three distinct things, I’d say.

The importance of the coin-op brawler as a genre within video games.
The massive cultural relevance of the ninja turtles.
Why this game, itself, is fun.

So yeah, let’s get to it. Why should someone play that other turtles game … and this turtles game too?

Let’s read on to find out!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at a glance:
Genre: Beat ’em up
Released: 1989
Platform: Arcade
Konami’s highest-grossing arcade game.