Micro Mages

Easily one of the best, if not THE best game on the NES, and definitely not by chance. Taking modern game design and fitting it into a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ NES cartridge is one hell of a feat, and it's all so beautifully simple. My playtime on Steam says I have 0.3 hours, but the actual hours on all of my devices with NES emulators has gotta be closer to 30-40. Its aesthetic fits perfectly in with every other NES game out there while ditching how clunky most of those games feel. When I think of NES games, I definitely think of games that are a bit primitive, a bit underdeveloped, and overall pretty hard to play when comparing them to modern titles. And this game shows us that they don't just play bad because of hardware limitations or developers having to go through hurdles to get ♥♥♥♥ working, but because they were legitimately inexperienced with game development! I say that like it's news to people, which it's not, the NES was very early in the history of gaming, so they didn't have much to go off of, but seeing those limitations that they had back then being used to a game's advantage feels incredibly refreshing to see! This game gives you the charm of the NES's limited hardware and graphical capabilities, without sacrificing any modern game design principles that allow games to actually be fun to play, without nostalgia getting in the way. 10/10 game. Accomplishes its goal flawlessly of being quality, simple, pick-up and play fun.