SD Sengokuden is one of those weird little Game Boy gems that somehow makes feudal Japan feel like a Saturday morning cartoon. You start off picking a warlord—I went with Nobunaga because, well, he’s Nobunaga—and suddenly you’re knee-deep in tiny chibi samurai battles. The sprites are absurdly cute for a game about conquest, but don’t let that fool you. The strategy’s surprisingly deep once you figure out how terrain and unit types interact.

What I love is how chaotic alliances get. One minute you’re bros with a clan, the next they’re backstabbing you over a rice field. The historical figures all have these exaggerated personalities that make diplomacy feel like a soap opera. And yeah, the pixel art’s charming, but the real hook is that moment when your carefully planned ambush actually works. Just don’t get too attached to your troops—they die a lot.

It’s the kind of game where you lose three hours to a single campaign without realizing it. If you’ve got a soft spot for retro strategy or samurai nonsense, this one’s worth dusting off the old Game Boy for.