Play Shikinjou (Japan) [En by Suicidal v1.0] Online

Shikinjou is one of those weird little NES games that somehow slipped through the cracks—Japan got it, but the rest of us had to wait for a fan translation. And honestly? It was worth the wait. The first thing you'll notice is how bright and cheerful everything looks, which is kind of funny because the puzzles start messing with your head almost immediately.

You're basically wandering through this maze of rooms, each one a self-contained puzzle. Some are straightforward "push the block" situations, others make you stop and stare at the screen for five minutes going, "Wait, how does this even work?" It's got that old-school RPG vibe where you're talking to odd characters and picking up items, but the real meat is figuring out how everything connects.

The fan translation (shoutout to Suicidal for that) makes it way more playable, though there's still this charmingly cryptic feel to the whole thing. If you ever got stuck in Adventures of Lolo or loved the dungeon puzzles in Zelda, this feels like a lost cousin—just with its own strange personality. The music sticks in your head, too, in that way only 8-bit tunes can.

It's not perfect—some solutions feel a little trial-and-error—but there's something really satisfying about finally cracking a room that had you stumped. Definitely one for the retro puzzle fans.