Started playing four obscure but totally awesome GB/GBC platform games…

First up: Trip World, which is like Kirby minus the whole sucking thing, and with an extra helping of wtf and d'awww. For instance, at the very beginning of the first level, you get a power up to spit out balls similar to the fireball powerup in the Mario games. But they aren't fireballs, they're flowerballs… and any animal you hit with 'em stops moving and just holds a fucking flower. It's stupid adorable.

Even more adorable than Trip World, despite being about a man who was killed by a crime syndicate who then comes back as a ghost to possess people to rescue his girlfriend who was kidnapped by the syndicate, is Avenging Spirit. There's an arcade version of this game with "better" hi-res color graphics, but the graphics of the arcade version aren't nearly as charming as the black and white low-res Gameboy graphics, which are absolutely adorable. Especially when you possess one of the little girlies running around the levels.

Then there's also Wendy - Every Witch Way, which is the easiest of the bunch, but has a cool gravity-flipping mechanic. Might not be revolutionary by today's standards, but for an old-ass game, it was probably pretty cool back when it came out.

But the best of the four though would have to be Shantae, which has superb graphics and animation and is just so very damn cool. It is glorious, and I highly recommend you guys check it out if you like old-school 2D platformers.