PixlBit

Aw man, we're at the end of BaD and you haven't even gotten to the really good shooters yet.  If you're playing the PS2 version of Taito Legends 2, G-Darius is on there.  It came out after Darius Gaiden, so it's a bit more polygonal, but I think it looks and plays better.  Plus, you know how in Darius Gaiden you could capture the mid-bosses?  Well in G-Darius you can capture ALL the enemies and use them in several different ways.  You can use their shots, use them as a shield, a super laser, or as a screen clearing bomb!  It was way more versatile.  I have the PSOne version of G-Darius and played it all the time with my brother Jeff.

Another awesome Taito Legends 2 shooter is Metal Black.  It was made by the same team who did the Darius games and was almost going to be a Darius game itself.  It even has seafood bosses, too!  But the vibe the game has is really neat.  The Darius series is one of my favorite shooters ever.  Nothing remarkable about them gameplay-wise, just something about those robotic fish.

My main problem with this game is that it's too grindy.  But I did like the graphics and music.  There is another game coming out that uses this same graphical style, and I'm not talking about Triangle Strategy.  The Live A Live remake also uses this style, and this is a very significant release for several reasons.  It was orginally a game that was on the Super Famicom only, and now it's being released in the US for the first time.  And also, Nintendo is publishing this game in the US, not Square!  And since Nintendo is publishing it, they're making a physical version of it!  So I've already got that preordered.

The videos work for me.  And I tried them out on my computer, iPhone, and iPad.  But here are the songs that were on the videos:

Bounce About Woods

Fluffin' Puffin Babysitting

Lava Scarves and Red-Hot Blarghs

Odyssey is great, but it's not my favorite Mario 3-D platformer.  I think Galaxy is better.

Yeah this game is just a prototype of another game that came out later called Irritating Stick (which was actually based on a Japanese game show).  I do like the arcade flyer for Crazy Balloon, though.  Check it out, it's, well, crazy.

Yeah I'm with daftman on this one.  Sonic Mania is cool and all, but I just had trouble getting into it because I'm not a fan of most Sonic games.  I didn't even like Sonic Colors!  I do think Sonic Mania is a step in the right direction, and Sonic games in general usually have really good music.  

My favorite part of Sonic Manis was the boss of the Chemical Plant Zone, where you just play a match of Puyo Puyo against Eggman. Nice callback to Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine!

I hated high school, so I don't have much of a desire to play a game where I'm in high school again.  Plus these games are way too long.

A few years ago, I passed on meeting with Rooster Teeth at PAX and my brothers gave me heck for that!

Back in the final years of the original PlayStation, a lot of companies would release budget games that were only 10 to 20 bucks.  I got a few of those, but one of them I missed was Cleopatra's Fortune.  I saw it in stores, but it just had a generic picture of the King Tut coffin so I had no idea what kind of game it was. And then when I played it on the Taito collection, I was like, "Aw crap, I could've been playing this awesome puzzler years earlier!"

And of course, I'm sure you remember my other reply where I talked about how awesome the music was and that the main character in Cleopatra's Fortune is also in Puchi Carat, another Taito game that came out around that time.

ALL Kirby games have good music in them!  That's why they reuse so many themes.  I also love how the last boss in Planet Robobot is just a different version of Star Nova from Super Star.  Kirby games have a surprising amount of hidden lore!