Ushio to Tora on NES is one of those weird, rough-around-the-edges RPGs from the late '80s that somehow works. You start as this kid Ushio who, in classic anime fashion, stumbles onto an ancient spear and accidentally unleashes Tora—this grumpy, sarcastic demon who's been trapped for centuries. The dynamic between them is great: Tora keeps threatening to eat Ushio, but they're stuck working together to take down bigger monsters.

Combat's pretty basic turn-based stuff, but the monster designs are wild—some look like rejected Final Fantasy bosses. The music's got that classic NES chiptune energy too, all dramatic stabs and dungeon crawls. It's definitely janky by modern standards (good luck with the random encounter rate), but there's charm in how unapologetically '80s anime it is. If you dig retro RPGs with attitude, this one's a fun time capsule.