Retro Re-release Roundup, week of December 19, 2024

The year may be drawing to a close, but the reissues aren't letting up — and thankfully so, as I don't know how anyone expected to get through the holiday season without easy access to Warrior Blade at all times.

ARCADE ARCHIVES

Warrior Blade

What's this? An ultra-wide fantasy-themed brawler and final game in the Rastan Saga trilogy, originally developed and distributed in Japanese arcades by Taito in 1992, with home versions distributed via the mid-'00s Taito Legends compilations and the just-released Taito Milestones 3;. One or two players are tasked with piloting Rastan and/or two other non-Rastan characters on a quest for riches in a foreign land, which involves beating the life out of all manner of fantasy creatures and negotiating the occasional setpiece, with or without the assistance of a magic-casting sidekick; players can play most of the stages in whichever order they choose, with unique game-altering treasures awarded at the end of each stage, and each stage contains hidden sub-areas that may or may not present themselves to the player under mysterious circumstances... (This reissue allows you to play a mode that includes all the sub-areas, should you desire it.)

Why should I care? This isn't necessarily the Rastan sequel people might have asked for, but it's the one they deserved, and acquits itself far better than the odious Rastan II: it looks fantastic, the always-be-scrolling design adds a unique element to what otherwise might feel like a simple or even dated brawler and the overall setting perfectly captures the essence of Conan/Dragonlance-esque barbarian fantasy, upto and including the inspired mechanic of utilizing magic attacks by belting the crap out of the dirtbag wizard who won't stop meddling in your affairs.

Helpful tip: For many reasons, the game's standard ending is vague to the point of being anticlimactic, but there is a hidden ending that can be accessed by tapping up, down, up, down, up, down during the first scene of the standard ending.

EGG CONSOLE

AQUA POLIS SOS (MSX)

What's this? A fixed-screen underwater shooting game, orginally developed by Compile and released for MSX in Japan in 1983; players are tasked with ferrying escapees from an underwater city to a surface-side rescue ship, which requires them to not only dodge various obstacles and manage their own fuel but also to destroy missile and other debris before it can damage the buildings on the seabed.

Why should I care? This game's very slight (as reflected in the cheaper Japanese price, but not the global price) but, as with most of Compile's earliest games, it does have a slightly-too-complex-for-its-own-good charm that'll carry it for a few plays. I also want to say it was a one-person game made it a few weeks, so it's hard to be too critical, y'know?

Language barrier? Language?

JALECOLLE FAMICOM VER.

Saiyuuki World

What's this? A stage-based, RPG-tinged arcade-style action game themed around Journey to the West, originally developed by Jaleco and published by NMK for the Famicom in 1988; in addition to the standard Jalecolle feature set (save states, rewind, border options, speedrun mode, art galleries and the "Subtitle Guide" overlays for translated/augmented text), this reissue includes offers direct on-screen and/or in-border readouts for the many stats and values that would otherwise be buried behind menus or simply hidden, including your gold count, item collection, magic/gear levels, hidden timer and boss health, as well as viewable logs of the sidequest hints and additional expanded descriptions for storefront items.

Why should I care? This may or may not be evident from the trailer but Saiyuuki World is one of several reskinned conversions of Westone's popular arcade game Wonder Boy in Monster Land, and one that offers signficant changes to the stages and structure that go beyond a mere aesthetic makeover... and, to be sure, these changes weren't necessarily for the better, but if you ever wanted to experience Monster Land as recreated from memory by someone who watched it from over someone's shoulder one time, City Connection's got ya covered.

Useless fact: Because nothing about Wonder Boy can ever be simple, there's a direct sequel to this game that has nothing to do with Wonder Boy, Monster Land or Westone — the all-original Saiyuuki World II, which made its way to the NES wth a Native American makeover and a new title, Whomp 'Em.

REPLICA/"MINI" PLUG-AND-PLAY HARDWARE

Egret II Mini Arcade Memories Vol.3 expansion pack

What's this? The third SD card-based game expansion pack for Taito's Egret II Mini plug-and-play desktop arcade unit; this pack adds another 10 games from the libraries of Taito and other arcade developers, and was sold in various bundles, including one with a cabinet coin base and mini stool accessory kit, and another with a new revision of Dempa Micomsoft's USB Cyber Stick revision, which can be used to play several of the games in this and previous expansion packs.

Which games are included? This pack includes eight Taito games — Rumba Lumber, Metal Soldier Isaac II, Extermination, Dr. Toppel Tankentai, Top Landing, Aqua Jack, Galactic Storm and Akkanvader (aka Space Invaders '95: Attack of the Lunar Loonies) — as well as Universal's Mr.Do! and Seibu Kaihatsu's Wiz; five of these Taito games have never been reissued, and in addition to USB Cyber Stick support for Top Landing, Aqua Jack and Galactic Storm, they've also sought to provide or locate very specific ROMs for certain games, including a version of Mr.Do! that retains a certain scoring trick and copyrighted music.

Why should I care? I mean, if you didn't already pre-order this kit months ago you're probably not getting one without paying a 300% markup but bless 'em, the producers said they'd keep supporting this device as long as people continue to show up, and they're not only showing up but inexplicably increasing in number. One should also commend them for meeting the audience at their level: this is a product for diehards, and the games they're offering are nigh-exclusively diehard picks.

Helpful tip: This new run of USB Cyber Sticks was initially announced as exclusive to the Arcade Memories bundle but has since been made available standalone; what's more, Taito and M2 have recently announced multiple projects designed specifically with the USB Cyber Stick in mind, which included an emulated Operation Wolf/Night Striker collection and a brand-new Night Striker sequel, both of which are currently only confirmed for PC.

OTHER

DoDonPachi Sai-Dai-Ou-Jou

What's this? An out-of-nowhere port of the final mainline game in Cave's venerated bullet hell shooting game series DoDonPachi, which was originally developed and distributed in Japanese arcades in 2012 and ported to the Xbox 360 in Japan soon thereafter; this new Live Wire port is based on the X360 version, which presented the original arcade game (with high-definition source visuals) alongside a novice mode, challenge stages, a new 1.5 arrange mode, an arranged soundtrack and a story mode with constant voiced chatter, among other additions. (This port hasn't been translated, but the basic menu options were in English to begin with.)

Why should I care? SDOJ was not only the final DoDonPachi game but also Cave's final arcade game, and while the inclusion and prominence of overly moe characters was charitably excused as a desperate hail-mary, if not outright condemned by those who appreciated the series' relatively hard-edged aesthetic, the game itself commanded a certain level of respect for coming for players' throats from the jump and pointedly not offering any sort of on-ramping or period of acclimation for newer players (which they walked back to varying degrees for the home version). Now, I cannot currently speak to the quality of this particular port, but it must be said that the X360 version that underpins this port was plagued with its own issues that affected input response, game speed and general stability — Live Wire's previous ports have taken measures to address problems or omissions from their source versions and I know they've endeavored to do the same here, but you may want to wait for reports on just how well the game has been reproduced on Switch.

Useless fact: This port seems like it was produced as a direct response to the massive online buzz generated earlier this year when, after almost twelve years, superplayer Sairyou managed the first ever recorded no-continue clears of the game and its unbelievably ruthless true final boss, both on the X360 version and, soon after, the authentic arcade original.

The Escape Room Chronicles ep3: The Southern Resort

What's this? A remaster of the fourth 3DS eShop entry in D3 Publisher's SIMPLE Series escape room game series THE Misshitsu kara no Dasshutsu, which began life on DS in 2007 and ultimately spawned over 40 games across DS, DSiWare, 3DS, WiiWare, Wii U, PlayStation 3, feature phones, smartphones, Switch and now PC, including several that transcended the SIMPLE Series branding; in this episode, the player-character accepts an invitation from his uncle to visit a tropical resort, but finds himself trapped in the guest room...

Why should I care? We're back to goofy with this one and, as I recall, it's offering a specific kind of Japanese-guy-with-poor-English humor that may or may not have been maintained for the localization.

Helpful tip: This remaster series currently has one more game in the queue, and it'll be out next week.

LIMITED-EDITION PHYSICAL PRINT RUNS

Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown (PlayStation 4) & Virtua Fighter 2 (Xbox) physical versions from Limited Run Games

After years of will-they-or-won't-they, Sega has finally, finally confirmed a new entry in their groundbreaking 3D fighting game series Virtua Fighter, and in preparation for reintroducing the series to newer generations of players, they've kicked off all manner of initiatives, incluidng limited-print physical versions of the somewhat recent Virtua Fighter 5 remaster and the recently-delisted XBLA version of virtua Fighter 2. One has to wonder, how many other currently-unbuyable backwards-compatible X360 games are going to be slapped onto modern Xbox discs over the coming months? (Do note that VF5 Final Showdown on PS$ is not the exact same product as the recently-announced Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. for PC, due out in January: in short, R.E.V.O. is Ultimate Showdown but with the exclusive addition of rollback netcode, which is crucial if you ever intend to play the game online.)