Retro Re-release Roundup, week of July 3, 2025

I know what you're wondering, and I have an answer for ya: yes, Waluigi's crotch chop is present and accounted for.

ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2

Air Combat 22

What's this? A military aerial combat game, originally developed and distributed in arcades by Namco in 1995 and essentially serving as a remake of their flat-shaded 1993 arcade title Air Combat, and never ported before now; players are able to pilot one of three real-world military fighter jets and utilize machine guns, missiles, radar and the various camera options to locate and destroy the requisite enemy fighters through a short selection of stages, with multiple courses of varying difficulty.

Why should I care? I'm sure most of you early-era PlayStation heads tweaked to the name Air Combat being shared with the international version of the original Ace Combat, and that shared name is more than a mere tip of the hat or concession to trademark woes — Ace Combat was a conscious home-focused evolution of the arcade game, technically rooted in what was once a direct conversion of Air Combat, but the arcade version remains prettier, somewhat snappier and razor-focused on short-session play, which is probably the ideal format to play any of the pre-Ace Combat 3 games nowadays.

Helpful tip: Not only do these Arcade Archives reissues offer a multitude of controller options including gyro controls, they also stealthily support the USB Cyber Stick controller that was produced in tandem with the Mega Drive Mini 2 some years ago; that said, the stick is specifically only supported by the standard Arcade Archives release, not the Arcade Archives 2 version.

EGG CONSOLE

Fray (MSX2)

What's this? A cutesy spinoff of Micro Cabin's action-RPG series Xak, originally developed and published for MSX2 in 1990 and ported to PC98/88 in 1991, with substantially-revised versions produced for Sega Game Gear and PC Engine CD; this game follows heroine Fray on an adventure that's less Falcom-inspired and more in the vein of overhead run-and-guns like Pocky & Riocky/Kikikaikai or Legend of Valkyrie.

Why should I care? You like your action-RPGs to take the action-game-with-a-shop format, rather than the obtuse-stat-driven-adventure-game-with-real-time-combat flavor that was most typically seen on the computers of the day. (Do note that it's arcade-esque, but certainly not paced like an arcade game.)

Language barrier? Virtually all of the menus are in Japanese and there is a not-insignificant amount of optional and non-optional dialog, but I expect one might have more luck making progress in this game with zero knowledge of Japanese than with many of the other EGG Console games released week-to-week.

G-MODE ARCHIVES

Pyon-Pyon Athletic

What's this? A super-difficult platformer, originally developed by Game Studio under the direct, uh, direction of famed designer Masanobu Endou and released for Japanese feature phones by G-MODE way back in 2001; the original eight-stage release was followed by a second volume and an "expert" volume, and all three volumes are present in this reissue. Move, jump and try to reach the exit as quickly as possible... how hard can it be?

Why should I care? The phrase "unsung masocore platformer from the creator of Quest of Ki" is only going to resonate with a scant few people, and for your own well-being, I hope you are not one of them. (Okay, it's not that bad: the level of annoyance is more akin to Flappy Bird-esque compulsion-exploiters than anything else, and for as choppily as it runs — and, do bear in mind that this is the oldest game to be reissued by G-MODE by a wide margin — it handles rather well.)

Useless fact: This reissue was fast-tracked by G-MODE after the game was featured in a segment of a NHK daytime TV program in which celebrities backed up and examined the data on their decades-old feature phones — a certain comedian had this game on their phone, sparking a wave of reminiscense from people who'd played, enjoyed and long-forgotten its existence, or who were never able to identify it by name.

NINTENDO SWITCH ONLINE EXPANSION PASS

July '25 update (Switch 2): Super Mario Strikers (GameCube)

What's this? Mario's first dedicated soccer game, originally developed by Canadian studio Next Level Games and published by Nintendo for the GameCube in 2005, spawning a Wii sequel in 2007 and a long-awaited revival title for Switch in 2022; players control one of eight captains from the Super Mario universe in simplified 5v5 soccer matches featuring extremely permissive rules, a variety of Mario Kart-esque items and special power kicks executed with a timed-meter mechanic a la a golf game.

Why should I care? Of the three games in this series, this is the one least bogged down in extraneous mechanics and the one that most resembles actual soccer, making it an easy recommendation for pick-up-and-play multiplayer. It also encapsulates the ever-so-brief era when Nintendo flirted with the idea of letting other developers inject a little more personality into their characters, which in hindsight lasted for maybe eighteen months.

Useless fact: Nintendo apparently specifically sought out Next Level Games, a studio founded by certain members of Black Box Games, for their work on Sega Soccer Slam, which was perhaps the least tacky game in the short-lived wave of "lawless" early-'00s arcade soccer games..

OTHER

Irem Collection Volume 3

What's this? The third volume of ININ and Ratalaika's long-announced, long-behind-schedule five-volume series of compilations from the arcade libraries of semi-dormat Japanese developer Irem; this volume offers the arcade and PC Engine versions of 1987's cutesy semi-free-scrolling shooter Mr. Heli and the arcade versions of the 1992 magic fantasy-themed horizontal shooter Mystic Riders and the 1989 dragon-riding horizontal shooter Dragon Breed, augmented with save states, rewind, online leaderboards, various screen filters and controller settings, modest art and music galleries and cheats.

Why should I care? Mr. Heli's a deceptively strategic and tough game that, had it adopted a more hardcore aesthetic, might have been lauded in the same breath as other arcade shooting heavyweights of its era; conversely Dragon Breed's an example of a cool conceit carrying an entire game, and Mystic Riders is unique among Irem shooters for giving you strong core mechanics and letting you just play with 'em, rather than meticulously anchoring an entire game around them.

Helpful(?) tip: We've yet to receive any timeframe for when the final two volumes of this series might arrive, nor do we know precisely what they'll contain, but my half-remembered inference is that one of 'em will center on Undercover Cops and the other around cartoony action games like Hammerin' Harry, and that one ought not expect anything R-TYPE.

Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World

What's this? A polygonal remake of the final entry in Westone's RPG-tinged action sidescroller series Wonder Boy/Monster World, originally released for the Sega Mega Drive in Japan in 1994, officially localized and released globally via Wii Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation 3 store in 2012, included on the Genesis/Mega Drive Mini and remade for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC by Artdink and Bliss Brain in 2021; that 2021 remake was produced and supervised by several of the original creators and offers modern visuals, re-orchestrated music, voice acting by now-famous Japanese-Egyptian voice actor Fairouz Ai and ever-so-slightly-altered gameplay, and this port brings all of that to the latest PS and Xbox systems, no more and no less.

Why should I care? This remake sits in an uncharitable middle-ground between "modest polygonal remake of a gorgeous pixel-art game" and "beat-for-beat recreation of a game that could and probably should have offered more drastic changes", but I can guarantee that it's leagues above the execrable 2.5D remakes and revivals of the XBLA/early-smartphone days: yes, it does feel somewhat redundant, but if you do choose to play this version before, after or instead of the original, you can walk away from it with a credible sense of what the game is and always will be. They did add, like, fifteen extra animations of Asha opening a treasure chest, which many of you will no doubt appreciate.

Helpful tip: Certain previous versions of this remake came with an emulated copy of the original game, but not this one; you can grab the Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection on PS if you'd like to try it, but Xbox never received the collection, and the XBLA-era Monster World Vintage Collection was delisted at the end of last year.