February 2026

Viper here

I'm actually remembering to write this one on the last day of the month this time. If I didn't, though, I probably wouldn't be the one who gets to do it!

We only really truly started feeling okay midway through this month, and it's not all better yet. Recovery from all our anxieties and burnout takes time. I dunno how bad this coming March is going to be, but I do believe we can handle it. Blackheart has gotten pretty pro-active at stepping in for us when needed. Gotta say I have a lot of affection for it after all this time. A couple of times we've been thinking about giving it a less goofy name but turns out none of them stick! I dunno, I think it suits it.

Most of this month in streaming was the Famicom Disk System, the extremely failed Famicom add-on where every game is cursed and weird. A number of big name games were actually released for it, such as the original Zelda, which was a launch title. This is also where the real Mario 2 came out as well as Doki Doki Panic. For some reason, there are a number of neat Sokoban-type games for it too. Here's a few that stood out to us in the order I think of them:

Kick Challenger We already reviewed this properly, but it's a really, really silly-in-a-good-way game with complex walking controls and amusing theming. Not the best, but the kind of oddity that you just gotta see.

Mysterious Murasame Castle Made by Nintendo but they only remember it every once in a while. You can play this one on thw Switch NES service right now if you have access to that. It's got a little Zelda in it but is much more action-oriented and quite difficult. Great OST.

Eggerland This series is very complicated and difficult to follow, but the Adventures of Lolo games we got in the West are only part of the story. The interesting thing about these early games is that they take place on a map like a Zelda dungeon and each room is a puzzle. You might find puzzles you can't solve until you enter through another door.

Fire Rock This one's gotten some attention amongst retro streamers lately for being very weird and for System Sacom's star programmer Mark Flint having made it. It's nominally a platformer with mazelike levels but the movement physics and controls are absolutely bonkers. You feel like you're controlling a rubber ball with limbs. I can't call this 'good' in any traditional sense but it has charmed many.

Fire Bam Nothing to do with Fire Rock, this is another HAL Lab game. A kind of action-adventure that will probably remind you of Zelda 2. Your character can run really fast and has a lot of momentum, so the controls are unique to say the least. The biggest star are the character designs, which are stellar. I know this one really doesn't land for a lot of people but its worth seeing the cool monsters if nothing else.

Ai Senshi Nicol A nice little top-down action-adventure type game from Konami. Has a bit of a Blaster Master feel. Mostly, it's just a solid game without any hugely stand-out aspects, but it's really enjoyable.

Bio Miracle Bukutte Upa I believe this got a famicom release and it's not quite as obscure as some of the other Konami games here. Still, it's a platformer where you play as a baby. Not one of their all-timer best works but the music is good, the characters are charming, and the weird inflation mechanic is neat.

Gyruss Konami again, and not for the last time in this list. Just a really, really cool arcade port with a lot added. We usually don't gel with the Tempest-style games but this one we really liked. It's tough and doesn't have continues or anything though.

Knight Move One of the better post-Tetris games from Alexei Pajitnov we've played. Probably even the best one. Sort of makes an action-puzzler out of the idea of the knight's tour chess puzzle.

Meikyuu Jiiin Dababa That's right it's Konami again. This one's a lot like Startropics before Startropics, but you can ONLY hop or jump to move. Takes some getting used to and we wouldn't put it on the same level as Startropics at all, but it's a shame that even Konami doesn't seem to remember it at all.

Monty on the Run - Monty no Doki Doki Dai Dassou Nominally a 'port' of the PC game, it's really a completely unrelated game with just a few borrowed elements. The levels are big and open and you get to choose one weapon and one item before entering each one, which can open up different options, make certain things easier, etc. Actually, the options are totally unbalanced and the game doesn't really work the way you want it to, but this one has an undeniable charm in its potential.

Lutter Like a cross between Hydlide and Lode Runner, it's a tile-based action-rpg-puzzle-whatever kind of game. A little hard to describe in full though it makes perfect sense when playing it. You can render the game unwinnable here if you aren't careful, but in our time with it we found that nothing was too tough as long as you aren't wasting the items you're picking up for no reason. Didn't finish it, but it's a neat game.

There were a lot of other games we played too, and we didn't hit the entire library of the FDS or anything like that. The ones above are not quite the best ones, but the ones that stuck with us the most. Obviously, I didn't feel like I need to talk about well-known games like Metroid here. If you're reading this much, you know what Metroid is already. Anyway, this was a lot bigger than most of our month-end posts, but it was worth it! The FDS library is highly recommended if you want oddities!