When it comes to older games being ported to Switch, there have been all sorts of levels of quality, either based on the execution of the port, or sometimes based on the merits of the original game, or even the platform it came from. While we’ve gotten used to seeing ports from older systems like the NES, SNES, or Genesis, typically people think of them being from primary consoles. If you were told that they came from the Game Gear, you’d likely be much less excited at the prospects for a high-quality play experience.

Griffin, unfortunately, happens to be one such port, and while you could see where at the time it perhaps could have been impressive within the context of the time, on the Switch it’s noticeably lacking. I suppose the shame here is that, at its core, you can see what the developers had been trying to pull off at the time, and I’m sure they put in their best efforts to bring a colorful and reasonably-challenging arcade shooter to the system. Your ship, the environments, and the enemies you’ll face are all pretty varied and distinctive. Also, within the confines of the 8-directional movement and shooting the action is good enough, though with everything being quite chunky, your ship isn’t the most nimble thing in the world, so you shouldn’t get too excited.

What really sinks the experience though is that its difficulty varies between dull and ordinary, only to then transition to preposterously hard in a heartbeat, with too little time finding a happier medium between the two. I have no doubt that the limited screen real estate the Game Gear offered contributed directly to part of this issue, so I have some sympathy. But playing through it half asleep and then hitting a boss battle where they take up roughly half the screen, leaving you little room to operate, really crushed what little interest I had remaining. The lack of any ramp up, or there being some in-game guidance to help you refine your technique to prepare, just made that battle ridiculous. That deficiency, given the lackluster play experience to that point, really sapped me of any enthusiasm to keep persisting when there didn’t seem to be any upside to continued play, especially considering the quality of the competition already out there.