Retro Re-release Roundup, week of July 25, 2024

I'm sure most of you have made the appropriate preparations over the last several months, but allow me to issue one last reminder: the Xbox 360 Marketplace is going offline on July 29, meaning you have just a few days left to purchase and/or download any digital X360 content to your vintage hardware... and, given how slow and error-prone the console store has been for the last year or so, and that even the browser marketplace directories (US — UK — Japan) are buckling under the rush, you might wanna set aside a good chunk of time to ensure you're able to grab anything you need to grab. (Anything that's backwards-compatible on current Xbox hardware will remain available on those systems, in case you weren't aware, so non-BC, non-multiplat games are where you ought to focus.)

ARCADE ARCHIVES

VS. The Adventure of Valkyrie : The Legend of the Key of Time (Valkyrie no Bōuken: Toki no Kagi Densetsu)

What's this? The Vs.System arcade conversion of the first entry in Namco's overhead action-RPG Valkyrie series, originally released for the Famicom in 1986 and reissued on all iterations of the Japanese Virtual Consoles as well as the recent Namcot Collection, and remade for the Namco Anthology 2 collection for PlayStation (with this remake ported to 3DS and released exclusively as a digital bonus included with select version of Project X Zone in Japan), with today's reissue being the first official global release. This arcade version is nigh-identical to the Famicom original, save for the addition of an enemy that spawns every so often for the sole purpose of killing the player and kicking them off the machine. (This reissue includes a function to display the spawn timer for this particular enemy so as to mitigate its presence.)

Why should I care? You have a soft spot for vaguely-RPG-ish action games in the vein of the original Zelda and can stomach the notion that the game will tell you absolutely nothing about what to do or how to proceed, or you just want to witness the origins of that one character who appeared all over classic Namco media for a hot minute. (It should be noted that the manual for this reissue explains everything there is to explain, including the small amount of Japanese text, to such an extent that it's basically a full walkthrough.)

Useless fact:  If you're wondering why the character sprite looks nothing like the character plastered over all that merch, it's because the illustrator and visual director was told to work backwards from the sprite — or, more accurately, they took the extremely broad basics of the sprite and drew what they wanted.

OTHER

Aooni

What's this? An expanded port of the wildly viral horror-adventure RPG Maker PC game Aooni, originally released for free in 2004 by developer noprops and quickly followed by an endless succession of updates, sequels, mobile spinoffs and voluminous amounts of tertiary media including live-action films and anime series; this version is the first to be officially localized and released globally and mostly conforms to the latest version of the free game, with an additional procedurally-generated scenario starring a new player-character and a speed toggle that goes up to x15 speed.

Why should I care? I've never actually played this game and only know it as the first big Japanese game in the genre we've since begrudgingly agreed to label "creepypasta", so I can't speak to whether it is or was genuinely affecting, but on principle, it's great that a game of such ubiquity is finally being officially introduced to the rest of the world, and I do see at least a few people celebrating its arrival, so if the very concept of manipulative streamer-bait horror games hasn't been irrevocably tainted for you, ya might wanna give it a peek.

Helpful tip: Again, I haven't played any of these games so don't quote me on anything, but apparently pretty much every port/sequel/spinoff between the orginal free version and this one has been terrible.

SNK VS. CAPCOM SVC CHAOS

What's this? An emulated reissue of the SNK-made Capcom-crossover fighting game SVC Chaos, originally released for Neo Geo hardware in 2003 and ported to PlayStation 2 and Xbox the following year; this Code Mystics-emulated reissue provides full access to the game's many hidden characters and boasts online multiplayer with lobbies, spectator modes and rollback netcode, a training mode with visible hitbox display and a gallery of official key art, among other features.

Why should I care? SVC Chaos traditionally compared rather poorly to the Capcom-made Capcom vs. SNK series due to its peculiar, stark setting, extremely half-baked and somewhat reserved mechanics and plethora of locked characters... and, frankly, this reissue probably isn't going to change a lot of minds — the game was simply forced to market before it was ready, and this version does almost nothing to address the games' many fundamental dissatisfactory points, but if you're willing to embrace it as both an earnest expression of admiration from long-time fighting game rivals and as an example of the base feature suite one should expect and demand from any fighting game reissue no matter how middling, you'll find plenty to love (and that includes' Nona's portrait art, haters vacate).

Useless fact: Should you want to play this in tabletop mode with split joycons, the Switch version allows you to display two game screens in vertical orientation, with each screen flipped to face a player on either side of the unit a la the cocktail arcade setups of yore. Neat? Sure! Practical? Eh, you tell me.

LIMITED-EDITION PHYSICAL PRINT RUNS

Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP (Switch, PS5, Xbox) physical versions from Limited Run Games

"RePOP" seems like a particularly unwise subtitle for a remaster that's explicitly replacing all the licensed pop songs, but tell that to Dragami, I guess.

FLASH CARTS

Open-ED Sega Genesis/Mega Drive flash cartridge by Krikkz, $29

As the market for flash carts has grown and vendors have introduced increasingly more advanced and expensive boutique options, there's been a death of options at lower price points, which krikkz intends to remedy with this cart: Open-ED, a low-cost, no-frills Genesi/MD that'll let you load ROMs on real hardware and not much else. Perhaps more importantly, it's open source.

IKARUGA X360 WATCH: STILL FREE

I struggle to understand how this loophole has persisted for so many years but I'm happy to report that it is still open: simply log into the Xbox Marketplace using your browser and then click on this link (and do not change the region settings on the page) and you should be able to claim a copy of Ikaruga for your Xbox for the low, low price of nothing. Be sure to download a copy onto your X360 before you put it away; it'll sleep better, I'm sure.