Retro Re-release Roundup, week of February 27, 2025

For as unenthused as many people might be by the prospect of having to re-buy all their old Arcade Archives Neogeo games, just think of all the fighting games that are poised to get official online multiplayer support for the first time... Street Hoop! Money Puzzle Exchanger! Stakes Winner .2!

ARCADE ARCHIVES NEOGEO 2

The King of Fighters '98

What's this? The critical and commercial peak of SNK's all-star team-based fighting game series, The King of Fighters, originally released in arcades in 1998 and ported far and wide over the decades, with post-facto Ultimate Match and Ultimate Match Final Editions produced and updated for PlayStation 4 and PC as recently as 2022; this game served as a capstone to the series' first narrative arc, dubbed the "Orichi Saga:, and serves as a non-canon entry that focuses on bringing back older characters and offering alternate versions of popular characters based on their movesets from specific older entries.

"Arcade Archives Neogeo 2"? Yep! Put simply, Hamster's reselling the Neogeo library for current-gen consoles with a suite of new features and functionality; they're priced a little higher than the original ACA versions, and owning the original ACA versions for PS4 or XB1 will give you a significant discount on the ACA versions for PS5 or XSX/S, respectively. Hamster's shared a full rundown of the new features here:they include big features like online multiplayer and speedrun modes where relevant, as well as quality-of-life improvements that include a quick save option and multiple hard savestates, a rewind function, a greater suite of screen and wallpaper settings, increased control customisation and multiple custom config slots, quick skips for the standard Neogeo how-to-play screens, support for variable refresh rates and more.

Why should I care? At a birds-eye level, this is a welcome sign of things to come for the great many games that have and will only be reissued by Hamster, or have otherwise been licensed to companies that can't do them proper justice; beyond all the obvious hits, this is a library full of games that deserve commercial online-equipped reissues that wouldn't otherwise get them, and one should certainly look forward to them trickling out in due tiem. As for this specific version of this specific game... well, I haven't tried it, so I can't necessarily vouch for the netcode nor compare it to other alternatives, and the Ultimate Match Final Edition version available on PS4 and PC offers a substantial amount of additional content including a rebalance, additional characters, higher-quality music, a training mode and a mode that replicates the OG Neogeo version, so even at a lower price, i wouldn't necessarily recommend grabbing this version, but if your life is entirely lacking KOF98, you should remedy that by any means possible.

Useless fact:  Prior to this one, the most recent KOF98 reissue came via a pre-embedded game on a SNK-themed high-end body monitor produced by Japanese health equipment manufacturer Tanita.

ARCADE ARCHIVES

Dead Connection

What's this? A mobster-themed, fixed-screen gallery shooting game, originally developed and distributed in arcades by Taito in 1992, and recently brought to home platforms for the first time by way of the Taito Milestones 3 compilation for Nintendo Switch. One or two players conrol one of four characters on a mission to do battle against a notorious crime family, which primarily involves defeating a quota of enemies in each environment in order to trigger a boss battle; players are abe to fire their weapons at enemies and various environmental elements alike, with their aim subtly auto-adjusted to account for relative angle and three-dimensionality of each stage, as well as perform proximity-based melee attacks and evasive manouevers to avoid danger.

Why should I care? As with many Taito games of this era, Dead Connection is a game whose reach narrowly exceeds its grasp but is nonetheless carried by an inordinate amount of verve and charm; if you appreciate the specific strain of small-sprite, high-detail pandemonium exemplified by games like Elevator Action Returns, you'll have no trouble forgiving this game for its quirks, and the between-scene cinematics are chock full of signature uncanny Taito dialog.

Useless fact: As revealed on tonights Arcade Archives stream, this game was very nearly titled LAW OF THE BADNESS.

QUBYTE CLASSICS

Glover

What's this? A port of Interactive Studios & Hasbro's unconventional ball-guiding, hand-controlling 3D platformer Glover, originally released for Nintendo 64 in 1998 and ported to PlayStation the year after, with a fresh PC port produced and published by new owners Piko Interactive in 2022; from what I can gather, this console version is derived from the recent PC build and offers a higher-res adaptation of the N64 original with widescreen and a questionably-stable 60FPS option, and little else.

Why should I care? The recent PC version was riddled with bugs and I've seen nothing to suggest they've been substantially addressed for this belated console port (and in fact see evidence of many of the same bugs in the trailer) but let's presume they've wrangled this version into a state of adequacy: Glover's a game whose central conceit was not just imaginative and distinctive from the countless mascots of the day but reasonably well-realized, and I'd say time has been a lot kinder to it than many of its contemporaries.

Useless fact: The Steam version, which may or may not be getting exclusive updates via a Piko-managed non-Steam storefront, openly contains zipped versions of multiple N64 and PC builds of the game, including certain versions of he unreleased and unfinished Glover 2.

OTHER

Justice Ninja Casey

What's this? An exploratory brawler adventure game with an Edo-era Japan theme, originally developed and published for the Super Famicom by Sunsoft in 1994 under the title Shounen Ninja Sasuke and allegedly considered but ultimately shelved for global release as Boy Ninja Sasuke, and reissued here for the first time; in addition to Ratalaika's usual spread of enhancements, which include save states, rewind/fast-forward, button configs, a gallery of scanned materials, screen settings, a sound test and more, they've also translated the game to English.

Why should I care? One might take one look at this game and think "Goemon at home", but that's only half the story: in practice, it's more of a Kunio-kun game with a fantasy Japan motif, due in no small part to being developed by several ex-Technos folk, but if you're strictly into Goemon for the theming and general goofiness then rest assured, this game's plenty wacky, and if you're hungry from a little-played Kunio-like... well, it's hardly the finest purveyor of the format, but this barrel goes much, much lower. 

Useless fact: The English title and localized character name were allegedly assigned/instructed by Sunsoft in order to avoid clashing with the many Japanese and international copyrights that concern every and all permutations of the words "shounen", "ninja" and "Sasuke"; being derived from a public domain pop-culture ninja isn't enough of a safeguard, apparently.

Ninja Five-O

What's this? An emulated reissue of the arcade-style ninja sidescroller Ninja Five-O (Ninja Cop in Europe), originally developed by Konami for the Game Boy Advance but, for whatever reasonly, published only outside of Japan by Hudson in 2003 and never reissued until now; this Limited Run Games-produced version adds a new animated intro, a sound test, a digital gallery of scans and animation art and a small suite of in-game options including a save state, screen settings and an option for higher-quality audio sample rate.

Why should I care? Ninja Five-O was an instant cult classic from the moment it launched — not just because it was a original, non-licensed action game designed by Konami action game veterans in the razor-sharp arcade tradition, in diametric opposition to the contemporary zeitgeist, but also because Hudson printed all of fifty copies — so irrespective of how little this reissue offers beyond putting the game on your monitor, it's a game that absolutely ought to be on your monitor, one way or another.

Useless fact: The drector of this game, Gen Suzuki, made their bones on Konami's arcade TMNT brawlers and led the handheld side (along with many of their Ninja Five-0 colleagues) of Konami's second wave of TMNT games produced in the early/mid-'00s; they were confirmed to still be at Konami as recently as 2018, having directed the surprise hit mobile Picross clone, Pixel Puzzle Collection.

Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION

What's this? An emulated collection of handheld video games from the early era of Konami's media-mix TCG juggernaut Yu-Gi-Oh!, originally released between 1998 and 2005; produced in collaboration with Digital Eclipse, this collection allows you to play virtually every game in English, including several games newly translated for this collection, and offers the ability to instantly unlock hidden content and make modifications to core game rules, use save states and/or rewind, view a gallery of scanned boxes and manuals and even take select games online for versus duels.

Which games are included? This collection includes 16 games spanning Game Boy/Color and Game Boy Advance (newly-localized games listed in bold): Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters II: Dark Duel Stories, Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Capsule, Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Duel Stories, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 4: Battle of Great Duelist (in all three variants), Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh! Dungeon Dice Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Eternal Duelist Soul, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 6: Expert 2, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Sacred Cards, Yu-Gi-Oh! Reshef of Destruction, Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel, Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championship Tournament 2004, Yu-Gi-Oh! Destiny Board Traveler, Yu-Gi-Oh! 7 Trials to Glory: World Championship Tournament 2005. (Do note that Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters 6: Expert 2 is presented solely in Japanese, but that Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition: Stairway to the Destined Duel is essentially an enhanced version of the same game.)

Why should I care? One should not approach this collection as a gateway to any version of modern Yu-Gi-Oh!, nor as a means of learning the intricacies of any of the games presented therein: none of these games are reflective of the broad or specific intricacies of the current TCG, and this collection presents them with exactly as much onboarding and explanatory detail as they originally offered at the turn off the millennium, which is to say, almost none at all. That said, that doesn't mean the games aren't fun, necessarily (nor are they all TCGs, it should be said) but even beyond that, let's think for a minute: series like these, that span multiple forms of media and anchor large and serious competitive ecosystems, have historically been extremely reluctant to allow older, non-compliant media to return to circulation, so the mere fact that we're not just getting one of these games but a full dozen-and-change, with additional localization, is a feat worth celebrating. Yeah, they might suck, but when has that ever mattered?

Helpful tip: As of right now, Duel Monsters 4 is the only game with online play, but they're pledging to patch online play for additional games at some point in the future. (I should also mention that the collection lets you unlock all the version-exclusive cards for whichever verson of Duel Monsters 4 you choose to play, basically rendering your choice of version redundant.)

UPDATES & DLC

Snow Bros. Special (Switch) arcade version DLC ($7.99 or equivalent)

Developer CRT Games has heard the feedback about their recent arcade remakes and their lack of arcade-authentic classic modes: not only are they pledging to include the original arcade games alongside the remakes going forward, but they're adding them to their existing remakes as well, starting with adding the original arcade version of Snow Bros. to Snow Bros Special. It's a shame it's paid DLC and that it can't be purchased standalone, but progress is progress.

Tetris Forever (PlayStation/Xbox/Switch/PC) content update: Super Tetris (DOS), Tetris v3.12 (Academysoft, DOS) & more

No, they haven't added Game Boy or NES Tetris, but the latest Tetris Forever update ain't nothin': in addition to adding Spectrum Holobyte's peculiar Super Tetris and the final Soviet-produced Tetris, they've also made significant changes and additions to the rules and behavior of the Tetris Time Warp game, made tweaks to improve the accuracy of their Elektronika-60 adaptation and more.

LIMITED-EDITION PHYSICAL PRINT RUNS

Digital Eclipse Gold Master Series #1-3 (PS5, Switch) physical editions from Limited Run Games

Digital Eclipse's acclaimed Gold Master series of "interactive documentaries" are getting the physical treatment from Clear River Games and Limited Run Games, with a variety of different packages available that include a three-in-one bundle with an exclusive slipcase. Of particular note is the Tetris Forever collectors' edition, which includes a dedicated handheld devide pre-loaded with Famicom Tetris and Tetris 2+Bombliss. You might like one of those games!