Synopsis

The game that opens this new season is Sunsoft’s Gimmick! This platformer came at the peak of the Famicom’s life, and is a fantastic production both visually and musically. And though it may look cute and possess only six stages, it’s designed for platforming pros; a nice send-off for a system that more or less made the genre.

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In his early 20's Arino played F-Zero on SNES more times than he can remember, because of this Arino must clear all of the original F-Zero's courses on Expert difficulty.

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Arino's F-Zero challenge has been lowered from Expert to Standard difficulty, but even so it proves to be quite a hurdle.

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For the first time, Arino challenges a mini-game compilation title, Tant-R on the Mega Drive.

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Jaleco’s Bio Warrior DAN was an action game that’s filled with weird imagery, and is also a bit confusing at times.

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Arino takes on Sega's unique comic book styled beat-em up.

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Kirby Bowl (Kirby’s Dream Course) isn’t a regular Kirby game — it’s a crazy hybrid of mini-golf and elements of pool, with Kirby being the ball, and needing to get through the tricky courses by destroying all the enemies and dropping into the hole at the end.

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With a zit on his nose and a new hair style, Arino faces Metal Storm on the Famicom, a gravity defying action shooter.

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Daisuke Nagashima, the shows former producer, reappears before Arino. Like the Arinos, he had a baby girl and so he looks to the Kacho for advice on how to raise a child. In Arino's 3rd PS1 challenge he takes on Quiz My Angel which is both a quiz game, and a simulation game in which you raise a daughter to adulthood.

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Battle Formula is hard, rare and expensive, making Arino even more nervous making sure he beats this hefty investment.

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Hello! Pac-Man," known outside Japan as "Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures." is a cartoony action-adventure where you guide Pac-Man through a series of missions. You can only direct him using a slingshot to fire pellets at things he should pay attention to, or a secondary "look" command. There are only four episodes ("rounds") in the game, but this likely won’t be a jolly stroll for Arino.

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Arino takes on a Mega Drive game, and it’s another well-regarded title: Strider, Sega’s port of the Capcom arcade game. It’s a relatively short game — just five stages — and not as brutal as, say, Ghouls ‘N’ Ghosts, but it still has its moments.

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Arino’s challenge this time is Hiryu no Ken for Famicom, a simple action game from the company that would become Culture Brain. You play as a young man named Ryuhi, martial arts master trying to recapture the secret scrolls of the Hiryu-no-Ken. The game alternates between platformer stages and one-on-one tournament battles, and Arino must finish the world tournament at the end of the game to win.

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It’s time to challenge Saint Seiya: Ougon Densetsu, the first Famicom game based on the popular manga/anime Saint Seiya. It’s a regular action game with some RPG elements and loosely follows some plot-lines from the manga.

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Mito Koumon is a Famicom game sort of based on the long-running historical TV drama of the same name, featuring the old adventurer Mito Koumon and his band of followers. It’s an action adventure a little bit like the Ganbare Goemon games, but with more "adventure" — in other words, figuring out what to do half the time. Arino has to get through seven stage, which sounds promising, but it is a Sunsoft game, after all.

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Arino takes on the unique Western Side scroller Battletoads. Known in the west for both it's unique gameplay, and it's difficulty, Arino finds himself doing something he hasn't done in a while on the show...

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Part 2 of the Battletoads challenge, Arino continues to struggle through the brutal difficulty of the game, but the fun factor seems to override the frustration factor.

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Arino seeks out the mystery in Tantei Jinguuji Saburou, a Famicom Disk System game involving the investigation of a murdered bar hostess.

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Arino takes on SEGA's original mascot game, Alex Kidd in Miracle World on the SEGA Master System.

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