Retro Re-release Roundup, week of August 14., 2025

This week not only sees another early-3D Namco game coming home for the first time but also ushers in the first on what will hopefully be many attempts to introduce non-arcade-goers to some of Namco's wilder custom-control games, adherence to default game pads be damned. Prop Cycle, your day draws near.

ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2

Aqua Jet

What's this? A first-person jet-ski racing game, originally developed and distributed in arcades by Namco in 1996 and never ported or reissued until now; the authentic arcade release challenged players to win either the 550CC Novice course or the 1100CC Expert course by steering and standing atop a life-size replica jet-ski, which this release seeks to replicate through all manner of input contrivances, including gyro controls and several different presets intended for standard pads, arcade sticks and racing wheels, with even more granular settings that can be tweaked in concert with other analog controllers, should you desire it.

Why should I care? You respect the immense amount of effort and thought that's gone into fascimilating the handling of a big deluxe arcade cabinet gimmick on a regular home controller, and that respect goes far enough to allow you to handwave the fact that playing the game any other way than straddling a big plastic boat makes an already slight game even slighter.

Helpfup tips: Firstly, be sure to check the manual for details on how to enter the mirror mode and everyone's-a-penguin-now cheat codes; and secondly, if you're looking to play with a flight-style analog throttle stick, I'd recommend going into the advanced settings and setting "Control Integration" to either Left or Right, depending on whether you're rocking a single- or dual-stick setup.

EGG CONSOLE

Brandish Renewal (PC-9801)

What's this? The 1995 touch-up of Falcom's overhead real-time dungeon crawler Brandish, originally developed and published for the PC-9801 in 1991 and ported to FM Towns and DOS, with conversions for the PC Engine CD and Super Nintendo and, much later, a remake for PlayStation Portable that was released in Japan in 2009 and localized and published globally in 2015; the "Renewal" part of the subtitle doesn't suggest a grand retake a la some of Falcom's other revisits, but a director's-cut revision of sorts that rebalanced the game to address some lame optimal strageies, added a small amount of music and additional enemies and some other small tweaks not relevant to those not playng on authentic hardware. (Do note that this game was designed with the conceit of being played primarily and/or solely with a mouse; you can plug in a USB mouse if you'd like, but Switch 2 joycon mouse functionality won't work.)

Why should I care? You've played plenty of Japanese takes on popular western RPGs like Wizardry and Ultima but never one based, however obliquely, on Dungeon Master. Alternately, you might be someone who's recently developed a curiousity about Brandish due to the works of Toby Fox.

Language barrier? Aside for some very simple UI elements, all of the crucial text, including status messages and dialog, is in Japanese.

OTHER

Toaplan Arcade Collection Vol.1 & Toaplan Arcade Collection Vol.2

What're these? Apair of eight-game compilations taken from the arcade library of the influential, defunct Japanese studio Toaplan; many of these games saw wide popularity from the mid-'80s to the mid-'90s, both in arcades and via conversions to the various home consoles of the day, but remained absent from contemporary reissue initiatives until their recent re-emergence and subsequent acquisition by Embracer Group, which has seen them proliferated across many venues including boutique M2-developed collections, plug-and-play hardware and a series of lower-budget PC ports. not to mention various remakes and series revivals. These collections are based on the aforementioned PC versions, developed by Bitwave Games, and come equipped with save states, rewind and speed settings, various screen/display options, toggleable DIP settings, new assist options like autobomb and smaller-hitbox modes, regional variants and more.

Which games are included? Vol.1 contains Flying Shark, Fire Shark,Tiger Heli, Twin Cobra, Out Zone, Fix Eight, Batsugun and Dogyuun, whereas Vol.2 contains Zero Wing, Hell Fire, Slap Fight / Alcon, Grind Stormer / V-5, Truxton / Tatsujin
Truxton 2 / Tatsujin Oh, Vimana and Twin Hawk.

Why should I care? I know this comment's coming right after my list of the games contained in each collection but just to reiterate, these arcade collections are specifically focused on Toaplan's shooting game output; so fans of their more general action titles should look elsewhere. Assuming you're cool with that, and that you haven't been spoiled by the many other higher-end alternatives that have been released in the last few years, these collections should serve as a high-value, low-fuss way to experience or revisit a good handful of very influential and, mostly, still-enjoyable arcade shooting games whose lineage traces an evolutionary tract from classic shot-and-bomb design to modern bullet hell. (I should also mention that the PC versions of most of these games launched in a sorry state and many were not fully fixed, particularly with respect to audio emulation, so I suggest you check some footage beforehand, lest Slap Fight should puncture your eardrums.)

Helpful tip: For those not keeping up with M2's glacial Toaplan Arcade Garage series for PS4/Switch, here's a quick rundown: they've produced three volumes so far — the Tiger Heli/Twin Cobra/Get Star comp Kyukyoku TigerHeli., the Flying Shark/Fire Shark/Wardner comp Hishou Same!Same!Same and the Zero Wing/Hellfire/Horror Story comp Zero FIre — with only the first being released internationally., and previously-mentioned efforts to port Tatsujin Ou and Outzone have been MIA for some time., with the inference being that M2 may have abandoned this line in the face of these new Bitwave collections stealing their thunder.