Retro Re-release Roundup, week of May 29, 2025
Tennis? Tennis!
...look, I don't choose which games show up from week to week, okay? In any event, you'll be seeing plenty of incredibly sought-after and significantly less pervy games next week, so sit tight.
ARCADE ARCHIVES
Super World Court
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster / Bandai-Namco
What's this? Namco's second 2D arcade tennis game, originally released in 1993 and never ported until now; this version improves on the previous Pro Court: World Tennis with more detailed characters, a wider cast of playable characters, selectable court types (including a "FUNNY" Namco-themed court) and full support for four players.
Why should I care? Namco's history of pre-Smash Court tennis games deserve to be appreciated for more than just that one PC Engine entry with the quasi-RPG mode, and this particular game lets you play as a cat, so if anyone's likely to go back to bat (or racquet) for any of 'em, it's probably this one.
Useless fact: The composer of this game's few incredibly catchy tunes has long since left Namco and composed far and wide on all manner of freelance project, including the cult doujin fighting game Akatsuki Blitzkampf.
NINTENDO SWITCH ONLINE EXPANSION PACK
May '25 update, pt.zillion: Nintendo 64 feature updates
What's this? A long-awaited feature update to NSO's Nintendo 64 emulator: simply put, it now offers button remapping, and if and when you make the jump to Switch 2, it'll also offer a CRT filter and rewind functionality.
...but what about all the other games they've dropped this month? Fair question! Nintendo's taken to updating NSO precisely eight seconds after these roundups go up, so I've neglected to mention quite a few recent drops, which include the final pre-reboot entry in Rare's fighting game series Killer Instinct (on the same day as Capcom Fighting Jam Collection, no less) and what might be the single highest-quality multi-game drop in NSO history, containing four below-the-surface gems from the Game Boy library: the second and best of Konami's GB-exclusive Gradius shooters, the first entry in Kemco's RPG-coded adventure game The Sword of Hope, the original Game Boy version of Kirby's easy-chain falling-block game Kirby Star Stacker and the original Game Boy Color entry in Konami's slow-life desert-island RPG series Survival Kids, which may be better remembered by its DS/Wii-era rename, Lost in Blue.
Useless fact: Konami's decision to finally reissue Survival Kids comes as a minimum-effort promotional effort for the all-new Survival Kids reboot they're releasing for the launch of the Switch 2, as a co-development with Unity, of all studios.
SATURN TRIBUTE SERIES
Steam Heart's & Advanced Variable Geo Saturn Tribute
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $19.99 or equivalent (individual) / $29.99 or equivalent (two-pack)
- Publisher: City Connection
What're these? Emulated reissues of two erotic action games borne on Japanese computers via TGL & Giga and migrated to consoles: the shooting game Steam Heart's, originally released for PC-98 in 1994 before being adapted for PC Engine and eventually Sega Saturn in 1998, as well as Advanced Variable Geo, the 1997 Saturn entry in a fighting game series that began on PC-98 in 1993 and successively reached PC Engine, Super Famicom, PlayStation and PC, even spawning an adventure game and OVA. On top of the usual enhancements afforded to Saturn Tribute releases, which include button mapping, screen settings, save states and rewind, these releases include some game-specific settings including an extra-easy mode for Steam Heart's and one-button supers for Advanced Variable Geo, as well as modesty edits that add underwear to some of the saucier character images. (These games are also available as a physical two-pack for PS5 & Switch, should you care to import.)
Why should I care? These releases have already opened the door for reissues of the broader, non-horny TGL/Giga catalogue (including already-confirmed reissues of the Farland Saga), so they've already proven their worth without anyone having to lift a finger. As for the games being presented today, while it cannot be said that this particular Variable Geo entry is the one entry to rule them all (and that it's especially compromised without online multiplayer functionality), it's still a perfectly credible fighting game and a rather unsung evolutionary step between the traditional 2D fighting game and the subset commonly designated "anime games". Steam Heart's apostrophe bugs me. (Do note that these games haven't received in-game subtitles or other countermeasures to make the Japanese text/dialog more enjoyable or navigable, so your ability to enjoy them as character games vay vary accordingly.)
Useless fact: These games aren't part of a shared universe or series; they're being lumped together due to the fact that they both feature character designs from the late Takahiro Kimura, a designer best known for their animation work on series including G Gundam, Dirty Pair Flash and Gaogaigar who passed away in 2023.
VINTAGE MEDIA REISSUES
Cyber Block Metal Orange EX & Kurutta Kajitsu (X68000) physical reissues
Japanese retrom store BEEP has just launched the first two games under their new "Bishoujo Game Reprint Project" product line, which seeks to reissue old gal-centric computer games on authentic vintage media formats, with a particular focus on games believed to be impossible to re-commercialize: Cybertech Custom's Cyber Block Metal Orange EX, a horny brick breaker with music from future VGM luminaries including Hitoshi Sakamoto and Masaharu Iwata, and Fairy Tale's incredibly bleak and gory adventure game Kurutta Kajitsu, each reprinted on both X68000-compatible 5" disks and on X69000Z-friendly SD card. BEEP has said they want to release digital versions of the games in this line for PC and even consoles, but it's hard to imagine some of these games ever being cleared by Sony or Nintendo, even now... (One interesting wrinkle: the reissue of these games seems to have been partly prompted by a notorious online VGM thief who's been both stealing from and polluting the historical record about obscure Japanese computer games, to the point where they've awakened multiple long-dormant copyright owners who now feel the need to assert themselves against this individual's insanity.)
