Retro Re-release Roundup, week of October 30, 2025

MKII Reptile, back, back, down, low punch from jump distance. Tell your friends! 
 

ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2

Scion

What's this? A vertically-scrolling sci-fi shooting game, originally developed and distributed in arcades by the company now known as Seibu Kaihatsu in 1984, with a sole port published by Sony for MSX computers; players are tasked with destroying waves of enemies as they fly over mult-layered stages, with progression tied to collecting a ground-bomb weapon from defeated enemies and using it to destroy all the ground targets in each stage, with an occasional boss in between.

Why should I care? You have a fondness for shooting games of the immediately-post-Xevious variety, and you can't lie to yourself about the coolness of all that parallax, even today.

Useless fact: Scion's Japanese flyer challenges players to clear all 999 stages; in actuality, this means looping the game's 4-ish stages some dozen times at a minimum while making use of hidden warps, a task so tedious that there were no records of the stage-999 ending being reached when the game was active, and scant few in the decades since.

EGG CONSOLE

Kiss of Murder (PC-88)

What's this? The third entry in Riverhillsoft's J.B.Harold series of detective murder mystery adventure games themed around American cities, originally developed and published for the PC-88 and other Japanese computers in 1987, both as a lower-priced expansion pack to the previous game, Manhattan Requiem, as well as a later standalone full-priced release, with remakes produced for the Nintendo DS in 2008 and smartphones and Nintendo Switch in 2018; positioned as a sort of "elseworlds" companion to Manhattan Requiem, this game borrows the character designs, setting and audiovisuals of the previous game to tell a new story with no connection to prior entries.

Why should I care? You're intrigued to try one of the very first narrative adventure games to employ something akin to mangaka Osamu Tezuka's "star system" for repurposing old characters in new roles, or even the "digital actor" pipedream of the '90s.

Language barrier? Most definitely: the game's entire in Japanese and requires a keen level of observation to progress, so it'd be both unwise and simply unfun to attempt to blunder through the game without being able to recognise and/or deduce any of the mysteries.

NINTENDO SWITCH 2 ONLINE EXPANSION PASS

October '25 update: Luigi's Mansion (GameCube)

What's this? The first game in what would become a series of lighthearted horror-themed adventure games starring Mario's then-underrepresented brother Luigi, originally released as a launch title for Nintendo's GameCube console across 2001/2002, and remade for Nintendo 3DS in 2018; players guide the cowardly Luigi through a haunted mansion on a quest to rescue his missing brother, which is achieved by examining and manipulating the environment to solve basic puzzles, as well as battling a variety of Mario- and non-Mario-poltergeists and spooks using the vacuum-esque Poltergust device.

Why should I care? The original release of Luigi's Mansion was dealt a rough hand for a few reasons, some self-inflicted and some not: it was a showcase for a stereoscopic 3D gimmick that never actualized; it was a not-Mario at a time where the world was desperate for a successor to Mario 64 and it could be beaten very quickly. Jump to 2025, where this game is the jumping-off point for a series that somehow sells tens of millions of copies per entry, and one might better appreciate the original for not overstaying its welcome or bogging down the player with endless chores, and for encapsulating the brief window of time in which Nintendo's A-teams were not so beholden to The Brand.

Helpful tip: The PAL release of Luigi's Mansion contained a substantial amount of post-game content, equivalent to a second quest, that was never made available to North American nor Japanese GameCube owners, so non-PAL NSO subbers may want to make a point of playing the PAL version this time around. Unfortunately, Luigi's Mansion's PAL release did not offer a 60hz output option and this reissue does nothing with VRR to ameliorate that issue, so it's going to be a little stuttery.

OTHER

Dragon Quest I&II HD-2D Remake

What's this? Remakes of the first two entries in Enix's archetypal Japanese RPG series, Dragon Quest, originally released for the Nintendo Famicom in 1986 and 87 and localized under the Dragon Warrior title for the North American NES in 1989 and 1990, respectively, with successive remakes of both games produced for Super Famicom, Game Boy Color, mobile phones and modern smartphones and consoles; now sporting Square-Enix's ever-evolving "HD-2D" aesthetic, these remakes (made in collaboration with Artdink) reimagine each game with detailed cutscenes, characterization and Japanese/English voice-acting, additional and expanded areas, quality-of-life changes to elements like battle tempo and difficulty, the implementation of additional side-activities like the Mini Medals collectibles from previous remakes and a new scroll-based magic aquisition systems and many more, as well as a rather substantial change to the original game's battle system, reconfiguring it from 1v1 to one-versus-many battles.

Why should I care? S-E's attempt to reshape these two foundational, but ultimately simple games into more guided experiences makes sense when you specifically consider them in the context of being released after the remake of their narrative prequel, and if redressing them in a form that more explicitly represents the designs of the late Akira Toriyama isn't going to get these games over outside of Japan, nothing will. 

Switch 2 upgrade watch: The Switch and Switch 2 versions are completely different software, with no upgrade path available for the Switch version, and any performance enhancements on the new hardware will only be present in the Switch 2 version. Additionally, saves cannot be transferred between the Switch and Switch 2 version, but the Switch 2 version will be able to detect your save file from the Switch version of DQIII2DHD in order to give you your bonus transfer items.

Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection

What's this? An emulated collection of games from the arcade era (1992 to 1998 or thereabouts) of Midway's beloved ultra-violent fighting game series Mortal Kombat, most of which were last seen on consoles via the 2011 Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection; produced by Digital Eclipse with assistance from Implicit Conversions, this compilations not only contains the mainline arcade entries but multiple home conversions and contemporaneous spinoff titles, now equipped with training modes, rewind, easy-fatality options and other assist features (including alternate controls for Mythologies), rollback-powered online multiplayer for select titles and immediate access to the games' many infamous secrets, as well as galleries of character art and lore and an interactive timeline chronicling the history of the series, boasting roughly three hours of documentary footage with developers and other notable figures in MK's history. (The digital version's launched ahead of the physical versions, which are due out in December; do note that the Switch 2 version is specifically more expensive than the other physical versions, as a concession for not being a key card release.)

Which games are included? The collection contains the arcade, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy & Game Gear versions of Mortal Kombat, the arcade, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy & 32X versions of Mortal Kombat II, the arcade, SNES & Genesis versions of Mortal Kombat III, the arcade & SNES versions of Ultimate Mortal Kombat III , the PlayStation version of Mortal Kombat Rrilogy and the arcade version of Mortal Kombat 4, reissued in authentic arcade form for the first time, alongside the PlayStation versions of Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero  and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces and the Game Boy Advance adaptations Mortal Kombat Advance, Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance and Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition. Additionally, this collection contains the first-ever emulation of the ultra-rare Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 WaveNet, a slightly-updated arcade revision of UMK3 only playable via an online-connected service local to Chicago, whose contents were not fully documented until now. Do also note that the arcade versions are represented by a single ROM, and typically the latest revision at that. (1v1-mode online multiplayer is available for all of the multiplayer arcade and console games, but not the handheld versions; additionally, the Switch version of the collection does not offer online multiplayer functionality for Mortal Kombat 4.)

Why should I care? For one, you might've been fooled by the likes of 1UP Arcade into thinking these games were commonplace on modern home platforms, but that's not the case — they've been absent from the home ecosystem since the PS360 days, and putting aside how many of these games or ports weren't available at all, the ones that were left a lot to be desired in terms of functionality and general emulation quality. Now, Digital Eclipse's own track record with fighting game reissues in particular is not exactly spotless, so one shouldn't expect this to offer a credible alternative to other avenues for serious play a la Capcom's recent collections, but what this will provide is a close-to-comprehensive package of a whole gang of beloved, nostalgic, historically-significant and, in at least one ultimate instance, time-tested games that ought to have been available decades ago, with enough supplemental material to satisfy many people without ever touching the games at all. 

Update roadmap: As of right now, the collection's online functionality is limited to random quick matches, but Digital Eclipse expects to have private matches and lobbies ready within the next few weeks. Beyond that, while other notable features like online cross-play have not been ruled out, they certainly have not been promised, either, so don't presume they're coming. As far as additional games are concerned, anything beyond the current emulator suite (that is, PlayStation and earlier) has been all but ruled out, but who knows, they might throw in Master System MKII down the line or something.

Tales of Xillia Remastered

What's this? A remaster of the popular 2011 entry in Namco's long-running Tales of... series of anime-inspired action-RPGs, which was originally developed for PlayStation 3 and published globally in 2013, and followed directly by Tales of Xillia 2 the following year; this version bring the game to upto 60FPS and 4K resolution depending on platform and includes most of the original DLC content (licensed collaboration content aside) as standard, while also offering dual Japanese/English voiceovers, immediate access to certain significant game systems that were originally exclusive to the post-game and a suite of quality-of-life/assist features that include full subtitles, the ability to skip event scenes, the ability to disable random encounters, immediate battle retry upon defeat and many others.

Why should I care? You tell me — I've never touched this one, in no small part due to being repeatedly told that it had been completely superseded by its sequel (and that, in the event that it would ever be remastered, it'd assuredly come in a two-pack. Oops!)

Useless fact: I see a lot of complaints about ~censorship~ regarding this remaster and while I'd usually tend to dismiss them offhand, I'm told that they include the removal of a pile from a comically-large-moustache cosmetic accessory and an edit to keep a certain character from flipping the bird during an event scene, so I've decided I'm actually livid and I'm sure you are, too.

Virtua Fighter R.E.V.O. World Stage

What's this? The latest (and presumably final, but we've all been wrong many times before) revision of the most recent entry in Sega's legendary 3D fighting game series Virtua Fighter, which originally hit Japanese arcades in 2006 and saw multiple revisions and ports across PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, as well as ports within various Yakuza/Like a Dragon titles, before being remastered in the Dragon Engine for PlayStation 4 in 2021 and given another, rollback-equipped revision for PC last year; this latest version is essentially a port of the PC version to current-gen consoles with online cross-play, as well as expanded training functionality, the restoration of character customization items cut from previous versions and a new single-player World Stage mode that sees the player battling ghost data based on real-world players in an arcade tournament-esque setting, not unlike the acclaimed single-player modes present in Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution. (They've also retuned the boss character Dural for versus play, should you feel like shelling out an additional $8.)

Why should I care? Sega doesn't just keep putting this game out over and over to placate people as they wait for the finally-confirmed, all-new Virtua Fighter reboot — it's a certified genre masterwork and one that required only relatively modest visual touch-ups to stay relevant against games that are decades its junior, and one that only feels more fresh when compared to the muddled, spectator-first fighting games of today and the absolute dearth of competition in the 3D fighting game subgenre.

Upgrade path? If you already owned the game on Steam, you'll be upgraded to the new revision for free; if you owned the Ultimate Showdown version on PS4 (even just the free PS+ version), you can upgrade to World Stage on PS5, and any DLC you purchased can be transferred as well. There's also a Switch 2 version scheduled for this winter, should you want to wait for a handheld version.