It's easy to dismiss Pit Pot's particular kind of design as unfair or bad nowadays, but to do so would be a mistake. I always appreciate when a game is bold enough to ask you to really understand it to succeed and I think there's still a lot of value in that approach. Because of how intricate and mysterious Pit Pot is despite its conceptually simple mechanics and one button control scheme, I can easily see myself going back to it and continuing to poke at its many curious corners.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this game at all, seeing as how I don’t particularly care for the original, but I gotta say, I came away from this one more positive than I expected! Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a recommendation without caveats, certainly not, but it could have easily been a disaster, so I’m happy to say that it’s at least worth a shot if you like that original game in any way. Whether you legitimately enjoyed its gameplay or loved the concept only to be betrayed by the execution in one way or another, Guardian of the Realms is at the very least a slight improvement upon what its predecessor established. It’s a simple game that shows the depth of its mechanics to you just as quickly as its forebear did, but its aesthetics and surprises do a lot to give it that extra bump to put it just above harsh labels like “mediocrity” or “a pointless sequel”.
Stellar Assault is a game that makes a great case for the 32X - it's gorgeous, technically impressive, robust in its features, and plays very solidly. The action is smooth and exciting while also being easy to get into and there was tons of care put into its visuals, both in the personality of the ships and how the beauty and vastness of space is depicted. The 32X isn't a console that gets much love at all, but Stellar Assault is the kind of game that'll make you re-evaluate its place in history and learn to think of it as more than just a "failure"...
After all is said and done, my biggest problem with Woody Pop is how very unlike Sega it feels. Sega games have immediate energy and evoke excitement in ways that makes their games unique to this day, whether that's through high octane gameplay or even just an announcer that's really happy to be there. Woody Pop is just tepid though, even for its time, with action that remains the same the whole way through, an almost complete absence of music in a game that could have really used it, and visuals that lack any lasting charm and fail to make the game's setting feel alive.
Ephemeral Enigmas 