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.
Experimentation has always been in Square's DNA, which makes their back catalog fascinating to explore. Suishou no Dragon is strange even for their standards, though; what if you made an 80s adventure game with no music, slim amounts of dialogue and few NPCs, progression that rarely takes too much effort, and a runtime of less than an hour? Suishou no Dragon is a game that'll leave you feeling all kinds of ways by the end because nothing about it feels like it should be how it is. And yet, it is most certainly the way that it is! This is a game that I'd love to love, but there's so little to hold onto that even its most interesting qualities struggle to overcome how inconsequential it ends up feeling.
Mighty Guy is enjoyable enough to get into the zone with, focusing purely on survival as you charge upward and wipe out anything in your path, but there isn't much to it and it's all over too quickly even for arcade standards, with a single loop taking about 10-15 minutes. It's surprisingly reasonable to make it to the end with just a bit of effort and see everything it has to offer too, which I imagine made it not so lucrative in the arcades that actually had it set up. It's the kind of game that begs for a sequel or an updated version for "super players" that would really put your skills to the test, but with how obscure it is today, it's safe to say that isn't happening. Your mind won't be blown playing this one, but it's a quick and fun romp that offers some interesting ideas. In a way, thinking about the ideas it has on offer and how newer games have adapted them is more exciting than the game itself!
Ephemeral Enigmas 