[FC] 月風魔伝 (1987)

How:
Found it mentioned a couple of times on hg101 forums, then read the review on the same site and immediately went out to play (and beat it in two days).
Pros:
- Fast-paced and addicting gameplay
- Cool setting
- Some levels can be rather challenging
- Nice variety of weapons and items
- Colorful and evocative levels and monsters
- The varied gameplay (side-scrolling action, dungeon crawling, boss fights, map exploration) strikes a good balance
Cons:
- Requires a good amount of backtracking
- Easy to exploit in order to max out the character stats
- Boss fights are too easy
- A bit short

[PC] Diablo (1996)

How:
From the old days of double-blind game swapping with friends. Couldn't understand the gameplay at first, but a second re-evaluation got me nailed down to the chair for days.
Pros:
- Immersive world
- Cool isometric graphics
- Excellent music
- Very good replayability value due to the random generation of dungeons and side-quests. Playing with three different characters also provides rather different experiences
- Immediate and fun gameplay
Cons:
- It's too easy to max out characters and beat the game
- Gets repetitive after a while
- Role-playing elements are rather limited

[FC] ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 妖怪大魔境 (1986)

How:
Explicitly looked for Kitaro-based games for the FC, out of an interest for the manga series.
Pros:
- Some nice gameplay elements (e.g. the lit-the-candle levels)
- It's always nice to see the usual monsters from Japanese folklore in a game, including those coming from Kitaro's world (e.g. ねずみ男)
Cons:
- There is no proper ending as the game levels repeat after 8 world maps
- Very repetitive gameplay
- Some levels can get frustratingly difficult
- No introduction, no story, no plot, no ending
- Couldn't understand how to use the "special weapons" (the three monster icons appearing in the bottom part of the interface) during boss fights

[Android] Escape the Room - Limited Time (2012)

How:

Explicitly googled for (exclusive) adventure games for Android devices, this was basically the only decent result I got to (with most people suggesting ScummVM and Flash-based games).

Pros:
- Very polished presentation
- Nice puzzles in general
- A nice mystery to solve
- Reasonably lengthy
Cons:
- Some accurate tapping is required
- A hugely frustrating bug (can't find the light switch in the dark)
- Given that there is a time limit to escape the room, some puzzles are unfairly difficult and require time for reasoning
- The number puzzles in Room 10 are stupidly difficult to solve in a limited time; they totally kill the idea of mobile gaming and make you want to give up the game for good
- Dialogues are often buggy (people saying things in place of others)
- Korean names are totally confusing
- Music is not looping properly

[PC] King's Quest III Redux: To Heir is Human (AGDI remake) (2011)

How:
Found it on the AGDI website after finishing the previous remake.
Pros:
- Excellent hand drawn graphics and animations
- Very good, fitting music and excellent voice-overs
- Nice puzzles, many of them with multiple solutions
- Enthralling story providing a neat connection with the previous two games and characters
- You get to play as a fly and an eagle as well as using magic
Cons:
- Having to bring a meal to the wizard every single time is rather annoying. More variety (such as, doing more house chores, which I only got to do once) would have benefited the overall enjoyment
- Some dead-ends (e.g., saving when the mage is about to return)
- The final song is embarrassing

[PC] Da New Guys: Day of the Jackass (2012)

How:
Read about it on Gnomeslair, tried the demo an liked it. Bought it when it came out on sale with Indieroyale's The Getaway Bundle.
Pros:
- Simple, yet enthralling story
- Great characters with amusing lines of dialogue
- Voice-overs really make the characters breathe life
- Good puzzles, never gets boring
- You get to play up to 3 characters in various sections of the game
- The cartoonish style is consistent, pleasant and with smooth animations
- Music and sound effects are nice and fitting
- Amazing final action/adventure sequence in cell-shaded 3D
- Moderately long playtime
Cons:
- Buggy savestates (screenshots depicted my desktop)
- Sometimes dialogues were skipping ultra fast with a single mouse click, missed some of them

[PC] Metal Dead (2011)

How:
Read about it on Gnomeslair, and enjoyed the demo. Finally bought it with the Bundle in a Box Adventure Bundle.
Pros:
- A blackish horror comedy, full of suspense, that plays extremely well
- Rather polished, with great care for details
- Very consistent graphic style and nice animations
- Full of cutscene events and happenings
- Nice and well balanced puzzles
- Very good writing and humour, cool characters
- Probably a sequel coming up!
Cons:
- Crash when saving the game! Had to complete it in one go

[PC] Ben Chandler: Paranormal Investigator (2012)

How:
Got with the AGS Bake Sale.
The features:
- All sorts of in-jokes only about 2 people will get!
- Wacky screwball comedy with lots of terrible Australian stereotypes!
- Authentic didgeridoo music!
- A 72% Aussie voice cast!
Pros:
- A moderately funny little game
Cons:
- Incredibly linear

[PC] 9 Months In (2012)

How:
Got with the AGS Bake Sale after reading the article about it on Gnome's Lair.
Pros:
- Very nice graphics, presentation and smooth animations, rather polished as a whole
- Nice puzzles, nice dramatic story
- Likable protagonist (a pregnant inmate!)
- Interesting, novel setting inside a women's prison
Cons:
- Voiceovers have alternating quality (e.g. Susie has a constant hiss noise in all instances, the guard has no skills as an actor)

[PC] Oz Orwell and the Crawling Chaos (2012)

How:
Read the review on AdventureClassicGaming, got convinced by the graphics. Was already keeping an eye on Midian Design anyway.
Pros:
- Nice graphics and mood
- Plays well in general and it is far from boring
Cons:
- Very short, a lot of wasted potential
- Clunky animations
- No voiceovers
- Most inventory items are never used
- General lack of care for descriptions and dialogues
- Out of place humour
- Incredibly clichéd
- Very few puzzles