PixlBit

I saw Rastan in a few arcades back then.  It's OK, rather generic.  I think it was only made because barbarian movies were popular at the time.  I think it's funny that the sequel is called Nastar, which is just Rastan spelled backwards.

There is one Rastan-like game from Taito that I really liked in arcades, but I don't think it was on any of the Taito collections.  It was called Cadash and it was a 2-D platformer like Rastan, but it had RPG elements.  You could pick from four characters (like a ninja or wizard) and you could level up and get passwords to start up from where you left off.  As a kid, I always wished it would have a home console release, and it did on the TG-16, which I didn't have.  So that was a bit disappointing.

Glover came out when I was in college and writing for The Dallas Morning News.  Strangely enough, I never got to review it, which is weird because I had a pretty good relationship with Hasbro Interactive back then.  I never bought it myself, because I was a poor college student.  So I missed out on it.

This is a great game.  One of my favorite Wii games and it's one of the best selling Kirby games.  Although it's really not a Kirby game at all!  It originally starred Prince Fluff and was called World of Fluff, but Nintendo said 'change it to Kirby' so it would sell better.  So Prince Fluff was regulated to player two.  The yarn graphics in this game are great, but the music is also really fantastic.

I've played every Ape Escape game I can get my hands on.  I love that series and it needs a comeback.

I've never heard of Detective Waffles!  Sounds interesting.  But can it beat Phoenix Wright?

Believe it or not, I've never played that SpongeBob game either.  I know it's popular, but I've actually not a big fan of SpongeBob.

My old Russian Blue cat Chekov loved to be with me when I'd play NES games as a kid.  He'd either swat at the screen or sit in my lap trying to hit the buttons on the controllers!

Yeah the Bubble Bobble timeline is REALLY confusing!  Rainbow Islands has the subtitle "The Story of Bubble Bobble 2" but there is a Bubble Bobble 2 on the NES!  There's also a Bubble Bobble 3 and Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble 3, too!  It's nuts! 

Bubby and Bobby in Rainbow Islands are the human forms of Bub and Bob from Bubble Bobble.  While I do like the cutness and simplicity of the game, I'm kind of with you, I don't really like Rainbow Islands that much.  I do like that in later levels, you go to islands that make reference to Arkanoid and Darius.  If you want to play a really good game with Bubby and Bobby, try Parasol Stars.  It's like Bubble Bobble with technique!

I played a demo of this on a demo disc and didn't like it, so I skipped out on it.  I think the only good thing this game had going for it was Phil Hartman R.I.P.  

Qwark really is a funny, likeable character, though.

There's many forms of Mahjong.  The two main ones you see in games are a matching game and one that's kind of like Poker.  I can understand the matching one, but not the other.  I wrote about it last year, but the Switch has a game called Clubhouse Games: 50 Worldwide Classics that has both Mahjong games on it.  I like the matching one on it, but at least it explains the rules on the other one.

I never saw this in arcades, but I certainly do remember it on the Taito collection.  I'm a sucker for cute Breakout style games.

But what IS Klonoa?  Nobody knows.  He's an Animaniac.

What's Tail Concerto?  WHAT'S TAIL CONCERTO?!?  Well, OK, it was a pretty obscure game.  Anyway, Tail Concerto was a PSOne game that came out at the tail end of 1999, right about the time I was about to graduate from college.  It was made by Bandai and published by Atlus, and it's one of the first games I ordered online!  It's a 3-D platformer starring a cartoon police dog named Waffle.  Waffle lives in a world of floating islands populated by cat and dog people.  Waffle's job is to stop a group of cat pirates and their kitten gang by piloting a walking mech that blows bubbles.  He traps the kittens in the bubbles and captures them with the mech's floppy arms.  It kind of plays like Mega Man Legends in a way.  The game has a Miyazaki style story with animated cut scenes.  It's a very charming game and I recommend you look it up and watch some videos about it, too, maybe.  Believe it or not, Tail Concerto actually got a sequel on the DS that's even more obscure.  It was called Solatorobo and while it was still a good game, it wasn't near as charming as Tail Concerto.