Ganbare! Daiku No Gen-san is one of those weird, charming SNES platformers that never made it outside Japan—which is a shame, because swinging a hammer at sentient power tools never gets old. You play as Gen, this hyperactive carpenter who bounces around construction sites, smashing robots and fixing broken bridges mid-jump. The controls take a second to click (why does crouching feel so stiff?), but once you get the rhythm of hammer swings and weird little mid-air stalls, it’s oddly satisfying.

The pixel art’s packed with personality—enemies look like they escaped from a Saturday morning cartoon, all googly eyes and wobbly limbs. And the music? Pure 16-bit cheer, like someone remixed a hardware store jingle. Some of the platforming’s brutal (that conveyor belt level still haunts me), but it’s the kind of game where you laugh when you die because a rogue nail gun ambushed you from off-screen. If you dig obscure action-platformers with a silly streak, this one’s worth dusting off.