Dezaemon 3D Japan is one of those weird, niche N64 games that somehow slipped under the radar—probably because it never left Japan. It’s basically a full-on shoot 'em up maker, which is wild for a console game in the late '90s. You get this surprisingly deep toolkit to tweak everything from enemy patterns to bullet hell density, and yeah, the interface is clunky by today’s standards, but it’s way more intuitive than you’d expect for a 3D shooter builder on the N64.

First thing you’ll do? Probably mess around with the pre-made stages just to see how they work. Then you’ll start tweaking—maybe swap out the default ship for something faster, or crank up the difficulty until the screen’s a mess of neon bullets. The real fun comes when you build something from scratch, though. Takes patience, but pulling off a decent custom level feels like a weird little victory.

Not gonna lie, the graphics are rough even for N64 standards, but there’s charm in its janky polygons and chunky explosions. If you’ve ever wanted to make your own version of Gradius or R-Type with zero coding knowledge, this is probably the closest you’ll get on a cartridge. Just don’t expect it to hold your hand.