Dino Land is one of those Genesis games that just feels like childhood—even if you never played it back in the day. You’re a caveman with a serious vendetta against dinosaurs, swinging clubs, hopping over lava pits, and occasionally chucking rocks at pterodactyls like some kind of prehistoric baseball pitcher.

The first level throws you right into it: bright green jungles, those classic SEGA-blue waterfalls, and a T-Rex that shows up way too early for how bad I was at dodging. The music’s got that bouncy, slightly chaotic energy where you can almost hear the sound chip straining to keep up.

It’s not all mindless smashing, though—some levels have these weird little puzzles, like pushing boulders to block dinosaur spawns or timing jumps between floating logs. I died a lot figuring those out. Worth it for the secret areas tucked behind suspiciously placed vines.

If you’ve got a soft spot for games where the difficulty spikes like a stegosaurus tail to the face, this one’s a time capsule worth cracking open.