No, I've not played the arcade version of Shinobi. I can't speak on it, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just rosy retrospection. I played this Game Gear Shinobi when I was a kid on my friend's Game Gear and thought it was great. Playing it now I can see it's not great. Some response issues and some pixel perfect platforming. On that note, the whole final level is just way too much platforming. That level just gets really tedious and is the pinnacle of showing the game was designed to just get you to die a lot to A) presumably take all your quarters on the arcades and B) superficially extend the game's length. Yeah, really not a huge fan of it.

Was a huge fan of Gone Home though. Maybe not as much as everyone else, but that was a really great game.

Looked it up and the GG Shinobi was an original creation made by Sega.

If the Fortune Cookie gives me a sequel in which I need to play a previous game first, I always defer to the previous game. For example, recently it gave me Apollo Justice, but I played the second Phoenix Wright game instead. That way I don't play things out of order, but still stay a slave to the Cookie's infinite wisdom.

As for the banner background, it's from Marvel vs. Street Fighter.

Thanks for the banner compliment! I'm having such a fun time putting it together.

As for Dragon Warrior, I haven't played it in a loooooooooooong time. It's so tedious. It's a nice blast to the past, but the massive grinding for experience and gold gets old quick. I'm starting to move along nicely though and am about to start going for all of Erdrick's gear.

I like your plan for getting through your backloggery. When I first started mine, I set every game to "Unfinished", whether I already beat them or not and then rotated through each system, oldest to newest. But lately, I've become a slave to the Fortune Cookie. I like the idea of playing games in a random order.

Link's Awakening is one of my favorite games of all times. The music, setting and overall atmosphere is just so much better than anything else on the Gameboy and even (imo) surpass A link to the past. Glad you like it.:D
Btw, Tal Tal Mt. is the most mountainy mountains in any Zelda. :P

No clue, just started. And I never played a Warcraft before, or Starcraft (wish I did).

I should have beaten it ages ago, but I never did.

No bloody clue how to enter dungeon #1 of the Dark World. I'll figure it out someday...

I love A Link To The Past. It's my favorite Zelda game. Sucks that it didn't save for you, that's one of most frustrating things ever.

As for Golden Sun, it's not a bad series. Typical RPGish stuff, but it has some fun puzzles and a good story. It's definitely the best RPG I've played for the GBA, but I haven't played many.

Excellent color choices. Reminiscent of surfing the web back in the good old days.

Thanks. No, it wasn't my first time through LoZ. Whenever I started a backloggery, I pretty much put everything as "Unfinished" so that I would go back and play some classics again. It's still such a great game.

I definitely used a map. Way too time consuming without one.

Next NES game for you: Milon's Secret Castle.

Yes and yes. I own the original cartridge, the SMB+Duck Hunt cartridge, and the SMB+Duck Hunt+Track&Field cartridge. But I have not been able to concentrate enough to do it again recently.