Yeah, that was kind of surprising. In a way it's kind of a tradeoff for the 30 lives code.

I like how they went down the "co-op is harder than single player" road. I found this out with my brothers back in the 80's and it was the source of many a fist fight.

The trick to select stages is just for the japanese version.

Puroresu technique doesn't quite work for videogames.

GCCX demonstrates that, so long as the host is sufficiently likeable and you have a decent repertoire of tongue-in-cheek reality show tropes, you can make anything not merely watchable but addictive.

I think people don't give Arino as much credit as he deserves, again. He's not a "hardcore pro" gamer, but for the most part he learns fast from his mistakes, and eventually gets good.

I was impressed by how well he picked up on things, such as in the 3d stages. He did put forth a good showing here.

It's just when people say that Contra is harder then say, Ghosts 'n Goblins or any of the other games that nearly broke Arino's will, I gotta speak up.

He's just wildly uneven. In Castlevania 3, even after he finds out that Alucard can turn into a bat, he gets stuck over and over on areas he could have just bypassed with it.

They really need to cut out all the obnoxious cutaways of the king and announcer recapping the obvious. There needs to be a rule anything that isn't Arino talking can't last more than 5 seconds.