Landstalker (Sega Genesis, 1993)

Landstalker is a good game. Some may say a great game. But realistically, you must take the experience with a grain of salt.

First off, you need to get used to using diagonals on the controller. You have to press them constantly. You also need to get used to hitting B. B allows you to jump, and jumping is constant.

Gameplay: The gameplay is both great, and frustrating. The game builds in difficulty, and can be very fun, but many of the puzzles are insanely hard, but for all of the wrong reasons. Since the camera is static, you cannot always tell which platform you are jumping to. Sometimes, it will be a blind jump, which can be frustrating. The game is good, but for this reason, it is also deeply flawed.

Graphics: Decent for its time, and they hold up well. However, the whole TV is not used for the graphics, which can get annoying if you own an HDTV.

Sound: Decent sound, but nothing that will have you humming all day long.

Overall: VERY challenging, very fun, but with so many frustrating moments, the game is so close, yet so far, from being perfect. If the puzzles were not so unforgiving, this game would be stellar. As it is, it is very good, but nothing that someone should want to kill to own.