Yet another great scrolling shmup for the 'Engine. Long Nosed Goblin is a cute-em-up style shooter with great graphics and large levels filled with multiple routes. The genre staples are well represented, with good power-ups and memorable boss fights, but there's also a unique element here that adds to longevity, the hidden scrolls. Each level hides one scroll somewhere in one of the routes, whilst another is held by the boss, to complete the game properly you need to find all the scrolls as well as completing the game, this is a welcome addition which helps to add a little more depth to the proceedings.

When Hudson ported the US classic, Lode Runner to the Famicom in Japan it was a huge hit, so popular in fact that Hudson ended up releasing their own titles in the series for long after. This is one of the best of the subsequent sequels, all the core elements of the original gameplay are here (run around collecting gold and digging pits to trap enemies), as well as the admirable Edit Mode, but with a new selection of fiendishly designed levels and better presentation. Another important addition here is a battle mode, where Hudson try to add Bomberman-style multiplayer party fun to the Lode Runner gameplay, allowing up to five people to frantically run around collecting power-ups trying to trap each other in pits.

This is a bright and colourful exclusive PC-Engine iteration of the popular Adventure Island series. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a little disappointed with the direction they took here (the game eschews the rideable dinosaurs and memorable boss fights of NES Adventure Island II in favour of gameplay that heralds back to the original title), but the game still manages to succeed at providing fun, fast-paced platforming, with nice graphics (including great parallax), and excellent animations.

This top down shooter has you going deep into enemy territory in an effort to single-handedly rescue the president. The game is smooth and polished, there's no deep gameplay here, just shoot them before they shoot you, but there's items to collect and vehicles to ride and its all very fun. As an arcade port this is actually very impressive, if it wasn't for the lack of 2-player you could very easily call this an improvement, the graphics have actually been added to, and there' even some new levels.

Nice platformer featuring large, explorable levels, shops, and loads of climbing and platforming elements. Son Son II has you playing as a monkey who's main attack is an extendable stick, but can also buy and use magic (chosen by pausing the game, used by pressing both buttons at once), as well as many other interesting items such as a gauntlet which allows you to punch through some walls to find secrets. Its quite challenging at first but once you've got a lay of the land and know what to buy (the extra life giving lamps and bottles are a must), it all falls into place.

This is one of the more challenging games in the "Soldier" series, requiring a little more practice and mastery due to its strong level design which puts much more focus on dodging environmental hazards than in other games in the series. All the other "Soldier" hallmarks are here, lots of action, lots of bullets, huge primary weapons and cool auxiliary weapons such as the ever present homing missiles, as well as some useful rotating shield-pods which were absent from later games in the series.

Raiden was a bit of a benchmark game for vertical shooters when it arrived in the arcade, a shooter with great pacing, nicely designed weapons, and lots of action. Most of the other 16-bit versions came out disappointing for one reason or another, but here we have a very admirable conversion, with good graphics and most of the arcade game's content (it is, however missing the 2-player option). There's an improved CD version of this game with extra levels and re-done music, so those who have CD models should probably plump for that version.

Here we have the first game in the popular Splatterhouse series. This is essentially a horror-themed scrolling beat-em-up that has you bashing monsters and doing some minor jumping here and there. The thing which really makes the game stand out though are it memorable set-pieces and monster designs, the whole thing just oozes creepy atmosphere.

This is a close recreation of Capcom's classic WWII vertical scrolling shooter, with all of the action of the original arcade game. On top of the original arcade game though you actually get a completely new, more modern extra game included that's good enough to have been a stand-alone sequel! By playing the songs 7,7,7,7,9,3,10 in the option menu you open up "Original Mode" a 2-player, adrenaline fueled, no-nonsense game of non-stop bullets and carnage that has fantastic new levels, presentation, and boss fights.

The developers went a very different direction for this sequel, going with a Geiger-inspired horror theme for the art design, and a more conventional system for its weapons and power-ups. The game has you hacking and slashing your way through an army of malevolent monsters and navigating some very excellently designed platforming layouts. All in all the game is successful (much of the new artwork is definitely striking and memorable), but personally I do feel that it doesn't quite live up to its predecessor.