Retro Re-release Roundup, week of April 3, 2025
Nintendo stole the whole "3D platformer" thing from this game, dontcha know.
I'd be remiss if I didn't open this week's roundup without mentioning Tetris: The Grand Master 4 -ABSOLUTE EYE-, the first entry in Tetris 99 dev Arika's subseries of hardcore-focused arcade Tetris titles in two decades — Arika's been fighting with The Tetris Company to release a new entry in this series for over fifteen years, and while this final release isn't an old game by any stretch, there are still definite holdovers from the version we could and should've gotten back in 2009.
ARCADE ARCHIVES
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster / Namco
What's this? A revised version of Namco's overhead sci-fi dual-joystick tank shooting game Assault, originally released soon after the original arcade release in 1988 and ported just once, as a somewhat hidden bonus mode for a port of the original Assault on a PlayStation-era Namco anthology; aside from some little scoring tweaks, this revision split the game into a 5-stage "easy" course and a 10-stage "normal" course, with 4 new stages sprinkled in between the 11 stages from the original release.
Why should I care? You've yet to experience this game's unique control scheme (think less Robotron, more remote-control car) and you want to try a version with a more accommodating structure for newer players, or you've played the original mode and want to go full sicko with it.
Useless fact: Namco recruited renowned Gundam and Super Robot designer Kunio Okawara to work on Assault's vehichle design and other incidental designs that weren't necessarily depicted in game or via other media, and they're apparently sitting on a trove of unreleased Okawara illustrations that they've haven't yet decided what to do with...
EGG CONSOLE
How Many Robot (PC-8801)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $6.49 / ¥880
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Artdink
What's this? An overhead puzzle game with a quasi-programming bent, originally produced and published by Artdink in 1987. Each stage tasks the player with guiding a robot through a maze containing lit and darkened areas in order to find and dispose of a time bomb; the player can manually control the robot while in lit areas but must rely on the robot's automated behaviors, as "learned" by the actions previously performed by the player, when the robot is shrouded in darkness.
Why should I care? Artdink would make something of a name for themselves with programming-adjacent robot games, and How Many Robot was an early step, however shallow, in that direction. Naturally, the "AI" of the robot has obvious limits that keep the puzzle-solving from feeling overly passive, so one could easily enjoy this as a pure logic puzzle game, too.
Language barrier? There isn't a ton of text, and most of it is in reasonably legible English.
G-MODE ARCHIVES+
Bokujou Monogatari Mobile: Minori no Shima
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (Japan), PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $14.99 or equivalent / ¥1500
- Publisher: G-MODE / Marvelous
What's this? The second feature phone-original entry in the slow-life farming series originally localized as Harvest Moon and currently localized as Story of Seasons, which debuted on Japanese phones in 2008 via the Liveware subscription service; this game takes place on a once-bountiful island cursed to dormancy long ago, so along with the usual focus on farming, upgrading your home and equipment and developing relationships with various side-characters, this game also adds an element of exploring and strategically cultivating the distinct areas found across the island.
Why should I care? You're looking for a game that offers a streamlined take on mid-'00s Harvest/Seasons without feeling overly truncated like the classic Game Boy entries or even the previous mobile game, or you just want to peep some of the more outlandish and fantastical crops this island has to offer.
Helpful tip: This reissue includes both the "For Boy" and "For Girl" versions, which let you play as a male character with female romance options and vice-versa.
OTHER
- Platform: PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $29.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Argonaut Games / Titanium Studios
What's this? A remaster of Argonaut Software's erstwhile 3D platformer Cros: Legend of the Gobbos, originally developed and published for the Sony PlayStation in 1997 and ported to both the Sega Saturn and Windows PC; this version has been overhauled by recent Bloodrayne series remaster devs Titanium Studios and allows the player to mix and match various original and upgraded visual elements including newly remodels characters and retexured assets, offers both the original digital quasi-tank conrols and new fully-analogue controls and boasts a "Crocpedia" of developer interviews and footage, concept art and other historical documents.
Why should I care? If I'm correctly remembering the inane social media discourse of the last year, not caring about Croc would betray some sort of Nintendo-centric historical revisionism on the part of you, me and all associates, so you're gonna eat your gruel with a smile on your face.
Helpful tips: Tip #1: the rather insane file size on most platforms is due to the game containing multiple copies of each video file at every possible resolution up to 4K. Tip #2: the face button commands on Switch seemed to be mapped according to Xbox button placement, meaning they're not at all what they should be right now.
Feudal Bros: Tonosama #1 (April 4)
- Platform: PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $5.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Ratalaika / Shinyuden / Sunsoft
What's this? An emulated reissue of Sunsoft's jokey overhead action game Deae Tonosama: Appare Ichiban, originally published exclusively for the Super Famicom in 1995; in addition to a first-ever English localization, this re-release features all the usual Ratalaika bells and whistles, which include save states, rewind/turbo, various cheat toggles and a gallery of manual and box scans.
Why should I care? The end-stage Super Famicom library contains a surprising number of overly-goofy, post-Cho Aniki action games, most of which are fairly terrible; this one's merely mediocre, so if you and a buddy feel like bluffing your way through what's essentially a half-assed Pocky and Rocky packed with preening beefcakes, this'll give you one session's worth of entertainment.
Helpful tip: Ratalaika's most recent localization of a Sunsoft SFC inadvertently broke the original Japanese version, so we'll have to wait and see on how much damage has been done this time.
Dokidoki Shutter Chance: Koi no Puzzle o Kumitatete♡, Fuuraiki, Honou no Ryourijin: Cooking Fighter Kou and Logic Mahjong Soryu
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $10.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software
What's this? Another four out-of-nowhere ports of PlayStation games from the early catalog of Nippon Ichi Software: the third game in their series of competitive multiplayer jigsaw games, a ridiculous gag-filled action game parody of cooking manga and a hardboiled mahjong game with a customizable-AI gimmick, plus the first entry in FOG's cult series of tourist-eyed romance adventure games, Fuuraiki. These ports are very no-frills reproductions of the original games and boast high-resolution text and up-res'd graphics, with little other features or enhancements to speak of (including no localizaton from Japanese).
Why should I care? You wouldn't know it from just how little effort's gone into these ports, but all of these games were, in some small way, foundational to the pre-Disgaea era of Nippon Ichi (even if some, like Cooking Fighter Kou, became better known as online joke fodder years after the fact). In particular, Fuuraiki's tourist-brochure outlook and bold mix of illustrated characters and real-world photographic stills offers a unique and very freeform vibe that ought to be commemorated in a much less shoddy way, but they've at least provided the groundwork for something halfway passable, I suppose.
Useless fact: Fuuraiki's port was announced in tandem with the news that Nippon Ichi's going ahead with Fuuraiki 5, the first series entry since the dissolution of the original team/studio and the passing of its founder.
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $9.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Arc System Works
What's this? A surprise port of Arc System Works' & APLUS' rhythm-infused falling block puzzle game, which debuted on the NESiCAxLIVE arcade service in 2012 and saw ports to PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3 in 2014; this new version looks to essentially offer a port of the arcade version with dozens of additional selectable BGM from Arcsys series including Guilty Gear, Blazblue and Kunio-kun/River City.
Why should I care? I can't offer any firsthand opinions on the game or the quality of this port, but one should always celebrate large companies bothering to dredge up smaller games from their past that more pragmatic, profits-minded folk might dismiss as inessential. One might also struggle to find fault with their "fix an old game by stuffing "Smell of the Game" into it" strategy.
Helpful tip: This looks to be one of those "don't even attempt to play this game above 60FPS" ports.
- Platform: PlayStation 4 (worldwide)
- Price:$14.99 / £11.99 / €14.99
- Publisher: THQ Nordic
What's this? A PlayStation 4 port of the remaster of Eurocom's 2003 twin-character 3D action-adventure game Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, originally published for PlayStation 2. Nintendo Gamecube and Xbox and remastered for PC by THQ Nordic with the help of a particularly dedicated modder in 2017, with a Nintendo Switch version produced in 2019 and regular updates in the intervening years; this version boasts all the upgrades of the initial remaster (higher-res textures, modern lighting, higher-quality source audio, display settings, bug fixes, etc) alongside upgrades not officially present in the PC version thus far, which include an improved camera, increased draw distance and a new lighting/shadow effect.
Why should I care? You want to experience one of the few full-scale 3D Zelda-likes that ever came within spitting distance of the real traditional 3D Zelda games, or you want to try one of the very few non-licensed titles from one of the lower-key stalwarts of reliable early-millennium contract dev.
Helpful tip: This game was available on Xbox via backwards compatibility for several years but was recently delisted — as you might've guessed, this remaster will be hitting Xbox by the end of the month.
