Now, onto the console itself. It's a cute little system. It's very awkward to play on your lap as it's clearly designed to play on a flat surface. The speakers put out a good amount of volume. The screen is nice and sharp, but it is pretty small so text can be hard to read. There's a cool green bar that lights up over the screen when it's turned on. The buttons feel very clicky and the stick feels about what you'd expect from an arcade. There's also a button that lets you "drop coins", which is increase the number of credits you need in order to play. EDIT: I also found out quickly that you can't start a game until you "drop a coin." I wish the buttons were labeled, though, because it makes it look a bit cheap.
A questionable design choice, though, is putting the USB ports in the back of the console as well as the On/Off switch. Also, the biggest flaw with the unit is no built in battery. You'll have to hook it up to something, such as a power bank, if you want to play it on the go. Right now, I have it plugged into my laptop, and I decided I'm not going to bother playing it on my TV, just on the console's screen itself. There's also no volume slider, so you have to go into the system menu to change the volume. As with any mini console, there's save states, but beyond that, the frills of this system is very minimal. You also only get two wallpapers to work from and they aren't that great.
Now, on to the games. I usually like to do this blogs in alphabetical order, but there doesn't seem to be a way to sort them. They're just listed from 1 to 37 in chronological order of their release, so I'll break from tradition for this series as I don't want to keep scrolling up and down to select the next one alphabetically. Also, I found it somewhat entertaining that the game automatically assumes the first game you'll play is Virtua Fighter. It's the main reason why I bought it, but I'll just play it when I get to it. So here we go.
1. Flicky - Flicky's a game I know nothing off. The game synopsis mentions something about Flicky being in the Sonic roster, and I can't remember seeming him anywhere. Anyway, it's a simple little platformer that scrolls left to right and right to left where you have to save all the birds in every level. There are enemies that try to snatch the birds away from you, so you have to avoid them as best as you can. You also get weapons to throw, but since the game only uses one button, every time you jump, you also throw your weapon, and this can throw your strategy off. It plays well, though, and is somewhat addicting, so I'd like to return to it at some point to see how far along I can go.
2. Sega Ninja - Sega Ninja (or possibly Ninja Princess in Japan) is a top down shooter where you play as Princess Kurumi, princess by day, ninja by night... although you don't really play at night. You can throw an infinite number of shurikens while dodging the ones thrown at you by enemies. You can attack either by throwing them straight forward or use another button in conjunction with the stick to throw them in eight different directions. You also have a very handy ninjitsu ability that lets you disappear to move out of harms way before you reappear and as far as I can tell, you can use it as many times as you want. It took me several tries to beat the first level, but I'm not sure I really had much fun with this one. It just seems loaded with cheap deaths, but maybe I just suck and have to keep trying.
3. My Hero - This is a pretty unremarkable game. I guess with the generic name, that shouldn't be very surprising. My Hero puts you in the role of Takeshi as he has to punch a relentless mob of enemies and dodge all sorts of obstacles. The music's very irritating, though, so it makes it hard to want to keep coming back. It got a bit crazy with the obstacles a little further on in the level, so it makes me wonder what future levels will look like. Not sure if I enjoyed what I played enough to come back, though.
4. Space Harrier - So I own Space Harrier yet again... At least this one's the arcade perfect version and since I traded Shenmue away years ago, this is the only way to play it for now. The Sega Genesis version played very well, but this version obviously looks better. I played through the first six levels and felt that's all I wanted to play. Also, it seems like you can "drop coins" as many times as you want to load yourself up with hundreds of lives before you go in, so there should be no reason why you can't beat the game in one sitting.
5. Fantasy Zone - Just like Space Harrier, I now own this a few times. Again, now it's the arcade perfect version, so it plays and looks better. The only real difference I noted, and I could be wrong, is a time limit when you visit the item shop. That would be make sense, as since this is an arcade game, they want to keep the player moving and spending coins. Anyway, I didn't spend much time playing this game as I played so much of it on other versions.
6. Wonder Boy - I'm pretty sure this is on the Sega Genesis Mini, but just like the previous two games, it's nice to have the arcade perfect version. It reminds me very much of Super Adventure Island with throwing axes at enemies and even riding along the level on a skateboard. I would like to come back to this version in particular to see it all the way through some day, as I really enjoy this kind of game.
7. Quartet 2 - I actually really like this one! I've never heard of Quartet before, but Quartet 2 is a platform shooter where you have to maneuver through the levels shooting all sorts of enemies that never stop spawning while surviving long enough to beat the level boss to get the key to move to the next level. It's designed to play with up to four players, hence the title quartet. There's also a jetpack power up that lets you move around the level a bit easier, but I think it makes dodging enemies trickier. Anyway, I wouldn't mind coming back to this game to play more.
So there you have it, the first batch of games! Thanks for reading and look forward to the next one!
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