Retro Re-release Roundup, week of September 18, 2025
Trails, Tenshi no Uta and Temu Mystery Dungeon.
Before you dive into this week's meaty, RPG-heavy roundup, allow me to refer back to last week's post, in which I made a glib remark about the upcoming Nintendo Direct revealing an unexpected reissue of an obscure game: as in-character as it may appear to be in hindsight, let's not pretend anybody had "Nintendo's going to sell a $100 Virtual Boy shell for the Switch" on their bingo card.
ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X (worldwide, ACA2) / Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 (worldwide, ACA)
- Price: $9.99 / €8.99 / £7.39 (ACA2), $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29 (ACA), $2.99 / €2.99 / £2.49 (ACA-to-ACA2 upgrade)
- Publisher: Hamster / Taito
What's this? A construction site-themed action-puzzle game, originally developed and distributed in arcades by Taito in 1980 and reissued via the Egret II Mini plug-and-play replica arcade cabinet a few years back; players are tasked with assembling a walkway in real time in order to assist a walking steel worker in crossing the mid-screen checkpoint and reaching the end of each screen, with limited opportunities to reverse the walker's movement in a pinch.
Why should I care? You can't be convinced this isn't a long-forgotten ZX Spectrum Lemmings prototype without trying it for yourself.
Useless fact: Steel Worker was one of several games expressly designed to burn through excess Space Invaders hardware, and one might argue it was the most ambitious of the bunch.
EGG CONSOLE
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $6.49 / ¥770
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Carry Lab
What's this? A fixed-screen maze action game with a Great Escape motif, developed by Carry Lab in conjunction with wargaming production company Ad Technos and published for PC88 and various other computers in 1985; players are tasked with liberating prisoners of wars from captivity and leading them to the exit of each stage, which requires one to not only evade the guards but also to use their limited ammunition to defeat the guards in search of a key and, once the hostage has been recovered, to command them to either follow behind or disperse in order to evade recapture.
Why should I care? You want to dig into something arcade-like that's perhaps just a little too involved to work well in an actual arcade, or you just dig the neat Escher-esque wrap-around oblique perspective tricks.
Language barrier? Not at all.
G-MODE ARCHIVES+
Stella Deus: Shikkoku no Seirei
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $15.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: G-MODE / Atlus
What's this? A 2006 feature phone-exclusive companion to Atlus' 2004 strategy-RPG Stella Deus, originally developed and published for PlayStation 2; this game aims to recreate the action point-based mechanics of the main game within the framework of an original story centred around the puzzle-esque Catacomb of Trials, and offers renditions of the original's Hitoshi Sakamoto/Masaharu Iwata-penned soundtrack as background music.
Why should I care? I'm gonna level with ya: before this announcement, I had zero knowledge or recollection of Stella Deus, and upon asking around, I was told "it's Hoshigami with Persona character designs", which hasn't given me any particular inclination to try it out, but perhaps one of you can offer a more considered opinion.
Useless fact: This game was just one of two mobile companions to Stella Deus, so if it inexplicably blows up, I'm sure the sequel will follow in short order.
OTHER
Cho Aniki: Bakuretsu Rantou Hen
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, (worldwide outside of Japan)
- Price: $26.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Edia / Masaya
What's this? The 1v1 fighting-game-esque spinoff of Masaya's infamously wacky macho shooting game series Cho Aniki, originally released for Super Famicom in 1995 and recently crowdfunded for reissue adjacent to, but not as part of, Edia's Cho Aniki Collection; you're getting Edia's usual basic suite of features here, which include save states, basic screen settings, a gallery with translated manual and more, as well as move lists for your characters' commands that display on either side of the game screen.
Why should I care? The typical Cho Aniki game is only entertaining for as long as the joke remains funny, so perhaps a game that presents in sub-one-minute chunks is the optimal format.
Useless fact: if you want to nitpick, this collection's missing Super Bubsy, a Windows port of the original game that boasted higher-detail visuals and some other little tweaks.
- Platform: PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $29.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: PQube / Acquire / Zerodiv
What's this? An alleged remaster of the third game in Zerodiv and Acquire's school-themed Wizardry-style first-person dungeon-crawling RPG series Class of Heroes, originally released in Japan for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable, with a North American English released promised as late as 2018 but ultimately never released. Aside from finally delivering an English version to the world, I could not tell you what's new or changed for this remaster, as the good folk at Acquire have elected not to share any real info on any of the modifications they've made.
Why should I care? You're someone who was burned by, or at least remembers, Vic Ireland's many fruitless promises about bringing this game to English-speaking players, or you're someone who came aboard with the recent remasters of the earlier titles and are ready to graduate from upper-entry-level-Wiz to something with a little more bite and a lot more minute character speccing. I can only presume they've given the game a much-needed rebalance, too, but again, they've not so much as alluded to the precise nature of any of the changes they've made, so y'all tell me.
Helpful tip: This remaster was also released as part of a physical remaster three-pack in Japan; as far as I'm aware, that physical trilogy's not being released elsewhere, but you can grab a digital bundle if you wanna save a few bucks.
- Platform: PlayStation 4+5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Mac, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $14.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Claymatic Studios
What's this? A remake of the 2002 stop-motion shooting game Platypus, originally produced by a British indie team for Windows PC in 2002 and subsequently ported and remade for PlayStation Portable, smartphones and other platforms, with its last appearance being the 2009 Xbox 360 release via Xbox Live Indie Games; now under the stewardship of co-creator Anthony Flack's employer Claymatic Games, this new version features 4K-compliant visuals sourced from brand-new claymation models, additional and redesigned weapons, stages, player ships and more, as well as two-player co-op functionality, a gallery showing off the production of the game's claymation visuals and a classic mode that seeks to recreate the original game as closely as possible.
Why should I care? You innately understand the appeal of the euroshmup in a manner that I could never presume to share. (There is a demo, should you want to soak in the visuals for a stage or two.)
Useless fact: The music for these games was and continues to be sourced and licensed from dedicated Commodore 64 chiptune communities.
Puzzle Quest: Immortal Edition
- Platform: PlayStation 4+5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $14.99 / €14.99 / £11.99
- Publisher: 505 Games / Infinity Plus 2
What's this? A remake of Infinity Interactive's massively influential match-three puzzle/RPG Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, originally developed and published for Nintendo DS and PlaySTation Portable in 2007 and very quickly ported and sequelized to every platform under the sun, with the most recent version of the original being the Switch-exclusive 2019 remaster, titled Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns; this new version comes outfitted with all-new, redrawn 4K-compliant visuals and incorporates all the successive content updates produced for the various existing ports, as well as even more new content specifically for this version, in addition to various quality-of-life option toggles and support for higher refresh rates.
Why should I care? You're old enough to remember when the idea of slapping numbers onto Bejeweled seemed forward-thinking or evolutionary, or you're young enough to be curious about experiencing a version of Bejeweled-with-numbers-slapped-on that wasn't a predatory quagmire of microtransations and time monopolization.
Helpful tip: Puzzle Quest: The Legend Returns is being delisted from Switch alongside this release, and those who own The Legend Returns will be able to buy Immortal Edition at a 30% discount.
Rammy no Daibouken 1 & 2 Remake
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (Japan)
- Price: ¥2800
- Publisher: Datt Japan
What's this? A double-pack containing remakes of the two Rammy no Daibouken roguelikes, originally released in 2001 and 2004, respectively, as part of the "GAMEPACK" line of budget PC games that was most famously incorporated as pack-in software with Fujitsu's FMV series of computers; crowdfunded in late 2024, these new versions sport a modern high-definition UI, additional sub-stories, online leaderboards, a bestiary and other tweaks.
Why should I care? These games were the we-have-Shiren-at-home experience for a great many children of a certain generation, it seems, and so it's nice to see that games of such humble origins have managed to stick with people to the extent that they'd pay to revive 'em. One can't say that the developers of these remakes have been slacking off, either — the new UI's straight from modern Shiren.
Helpful tip: While I did see the crowdfunding campaign for these remakes when it went live, I somehow missed the part where they released 'em on Steam months ago, so here ya go. (Neither version's in English, mind.)
Tenshi no Uta: Shiroki Tsubasa no Inori
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (Japan)
- Price: ¥4290
- Publisher: Edia / Telenet
What's this? An emulated reissue of the third and final game in Telenet's Celtic-themed fantasy RPG series Tenshi no Uta; the previous two-games, originally released for PC Engine CD, were recently reissued in Japan via a crowdfunded collection and, as with the above Cho Aniki reissue, this Super Famicom reissue was funded adjacent to, but not as part of, that collection. For this reissue, Edia's gone beyond their usual additions: alongside save states, screen settings, etc they've also added a wealth of unseen design and pitch documents to the in-game gallery, as well as game-specific enhancement toggles that affect things like encounter rates and experience gain. (This game's also available as a stabdalone physical version in Japan, hence the extra effort.)
Why should I care? Telenet's games have a reputation for being rather slipshod, with the later games in their catalog being particularly afflicted by the ravages of oppressive scheduling and overambition, but the Tenshi no Uta games are perhaps the one RPG series under their belt that one might whole-heartedly recommend as not just interesting or novel but competently-assembled to boot, and those familiar with the earlier Wild Arms games in particular might spot some of the same DNA here.
Useless fact: Edia recently announced another Telenet RPG collection that'll contain a few different one-off RPGs that they're openly advertising as rough around the edges, so if you want the real dirt, just give 'em a few months.
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $59.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Nihon Falcom
What's this? A full remake of Nihon Falcom's 2004 RPG The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, originally released for PC in Japan in 2004 and ported to PlayStation Portable in 2006, with a long-fought-for English PSP release produced and published by XSEED in 2011 and eventually transitioned to PC in 2014; this game begat a sub-series that's some dozen games deep, with the most recent entry scheduled for global release early next year. This remake uses the contemporary 3D engine from the most recent globally-released game, 2022's Trails through Daybreak II, and offers all-new visuals, freshly-recorded voicework in both Japanese and English and the option to substitute the original turn-based combat with a modern semi-real-time system, among other obvious and subtle changes.
Why should I care? I'll be real with you: these are notoriously, unabashedly text-dense games and I don't think I've ever reached even 25% progress in any one of 'em, so the notion of jumping right back to the start of the series does not appeal to me at all, but I can only presume that this remake is being positioned as both a smoother and quicker onboarding point for the series, and that the already-confirmed remakes of future games will further assist people along the path of catching up with this decades-long saga before its impending conclusion. (Do note that this remake has been localized by Gung-Ho and the long-time, long-suffering team responsible for prior localizations were not involved, which may affect both the quality of the written content and also consistency between the nouns and terminology used in prior localizations vs. this remake.)
Helpful tip: Falcom is offering a Switch-to-Switch 2 upgrade path: it's not free, but it only costs one dollar (and is factored into the price of the Switch 2 version, hence why that one version's a buck more expensive than the others).
PHYSICAL CARTRIDGE RELEASES
Soldam (NES) physical cartridge release via Broke Studio (50.00 €)
Originally produced alongside a Game Boy conversion but never released, this 1992 Famicom port of Jaleco's Rod Land-adjacent falling-block puzzle game Soldam is finally being released to the world, and it's debuting not on Famicom but on NES-compatible cartridges, courtesy of Broke Studio and localizers Omake Books. Do note that Broke Studios' recent tariff-related US shipping issues have been resolved, so US folks should be able to order with no obvious issues. (Jaleco has a separate, as-yet-unannounced Famicom-compatible cartridge reissue queued up on their end, if that's the particular version you're waiting on.)
