I find it a shame that poponon wasn't able to get into the CV games prior to Rondo. I hope he has at least given the X68000/Chronicles CV a whirl; for what it's worth, I believe it's the best "Classicvania" in the entire series, and magnifies Rondo's strengths 10-fold (being years earlier than Rondo).
CD:
Gradius II
-Top-form Konami, arguably improving upon the arcade original with some technical tweaks, changing hitboxes, enemy patterns/behaviors, and so on, while leaving the core excellence of Gradius intact.
Castlevania Chi no Rondo
-Despite the above, this is still an excellent CV game, even if a few of its rooms feel a bit padded (fight the same large enemy multiple times in a room). Still, this is Konami's CV abilities at their prime, and cannot be ignored.
Popful Mail
Ys Book I&II
-two Falcom RPGs heavy on the dungeon-crawling, bright and colorful, to lots of creativity to boot. Ys is about perfect, presentation-wise, though its progression sometimes suffers from "hug the walls until you find that hidden passageway for game-progressing item." Popful Mail is pure pleasantness.
Image Fight II
-Irem improved upon the HuCard predecessor in every conceivable way, sans perhaps the memorable punch of the first. The bosses are more aggressive, especially on the hellish hard mode. Most importantly, the hitbox, which was achingly huge in the PCE port (larger than the arcade version, which made balancing the game to the AC impossible; proof: they cut out the entire second loop). This is a console-minded shooter with all of the Irem toughness without the unfairness that sometimes plagues tough PCE shooters (looking at you, the still-excellent Rayxanber II). This game is though not anywhere near as hard as some reviews make it out to be. The reduced hitbox alone makes it a solid cruise for at least 3 levels.
Though that last one can be a toss-up with Valis (if I am in the right mood to consider Valis the best of the best), or Dungeon Explorer II (I need to spend more time with this one). I bet if I understood Japanese, I would feel more fond towards perennial favorites like the Xanadu games (couldn't get in to either of them, even with FAQs; cheers to the translation boys, I'm rooting for you!!!), Emerald Dragon, and the Eden games. And weird outliers like Neo metal Fantasy (which I don't think is anyone's favorite game...?).
Not Favorite at All:
-Anything made by Right Stuff; what a waste of printed CDs they oversaw
-A Telenet game not named Valis or XZR; an arguably bigger waste of printed CDs - not to mention a near infinite number of games across other systems.* Overwhelmingly so, popping in a Telenet/Riot CD is a crash course in the eternal question: What the hell were they thinking?
Were they thinking?
In no particular order: Magicoal, Basted, Hatris, Steam Hearts, and Bazzy.
Very strange choices, though Magicoal is a fairly good game (thus far; I haven't beaten it yet). What's there to like about Basted, other than its sweet-looking cinemas? Just curious. Steam Hearts, once you take away the hentai, is just a bizarrely-constructed game.
*sans Wolf Team's output: Granada and El Viento, compared to the usual Telenet fare, are heroic achievements
