Retro Re-release Roundup, week of January 8, 2026
Another "loop lever" game makes its way to Arcade Archives.
...look, folks are still coming off holidays, okay?
ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2
Touchdown Fever
- 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 / SNK
What's this? A vertically-scrolling American football game for one to four players, originally developed and distributed in arcades by SNK in 1987, with a NES conversion produced and published the following year; players are challenged to recognize and defend against and/or execute on automatically-selected played, with control of individual players enacted via an optical "loop lever" rotary control stick that the player would twist to aim kicks, passes and direct defenders, replicated here via twin-stick controls.
Why should I care? On a completionist note, this game (and the later revision) is the one loop lever game not covered by the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, perhaps owing to the fact that it used a different and more advanced rotary mechanism than the type used by Ikari et al, so it's nice to see it made more widely available. As for the game itself, you can enjoy running circles around completely innefectual defenders, I guess.
Helpful tip: Due to some last-minute submission snags, PlayStation systems won't be getting this game until January 13.
EGG CONSOLE
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $7.19 / ¥990
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / T&E Soft
What's this? The sequel to T&ESoft's high-fantasy action-RPG Rune Worth, originally developed and published for PC98-series computers in 1991 and followed just months later by Rune Worth 3; this game saw them continuing to pursue a direction for post-Hydlide action-RPGs that focused more on worldbuilding and narrative and progression/upgrades conferred via items and deductive puzzles rather than bog-standard grinding and experience.
Why should I care? One of the selling points of these later Rune Worth games, if you want to describe them as such, was their attempt to portray more serious and dramatic narratives, which in practice meant the eschewing of typical JRPG gags and an attempt to present and direct scenes near-entirely with realistically-proportioned characters sprites (as opposed to super-deformed sprites or cut-ins) — the efficacy of this direction is questionable, but interesting nonetheless. One should also note that, of the two very similar sequels, this one skews more in the free-form, exploration/puzzle-focused direction, whereas the next one's more combat-centric and much more linear.
Language barrier? Almost everything's in not-especially-simple Japanese, and you will need to be able to read it to progress. (There's a setting in the options menu to enter your character's name with romaji, should you need it.)
OTHER
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $14.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Rigel Gameworks
What's this? A remaster of the 1993 side-scrolling PC action game Bio Menace, originally released by Apogee via the shareware model; now in the hands of original creator Jim Norwood, the game has been reconstructed by fans at Rigel Gameworks and now runs in a high-framerate, wide-resolution engine with a toggle between original and retouched visuals, retuned difficulty and collision detection, a modern UI, controller support, online leaderboards, a level editor, a brand-new fourth episode and more.
Why should I care? Bio Menace was already one of the more seriously designed games of its ilk and one that I daresay would be more palatable to console-raised players than most of its contemporaries, and this new version not only promises a fresh experience but one that has been retuned from "nigh-unfair" to merely "quite hard". It's also heartening to see that the game's not trapped in the eternal quagmire of being passed around with the husk of Apogee, a fate that has befallen many games that deserve better.
Didn't this come out weeks ago? Yeah, and in the developer's regular flurry of announcments-of-announcements, I completely failed to notice the actual release. My bad!
The Last Ninja Collection + Bonus Games
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $24.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: System 3
What's this? A crowdfunded collection of games from the Commodore 64-era library of acclaimed British indie studio System 3 Software, focused primarily around their popular Last Ninja series; this assortment of games and ports is configured for gamepad and is presented in basic emulated form, with a feature set that begins and ends with a save state and some basic screen options.
Which games are included? This collection includes The Last Ninja (C64), Last Ninja 2 (C64, ZX Spectrum and Amiga), Last Ninja 3 (C64 and Amiga), Ninja Remix (C64 and Amiga), International Karate (aka World Championship Karate; C64 and ZX Spectrum), IK+ (C64, ZX Spectrum and Amiga) and Bangkok Knights (C64 and Amiga).
Why should I care? For as simply as these games are being presented via this collection, it's worth emphasizing that the games packaged here were among the most celebrated (and most commercially successful) games of their era, not just in their native UK but internationally in territories where the C64's brief window of success has been forgotten to history, so if one were to be looking for a crash-course in the greatest hits of the C64 game library, this is a safe place to start.
Didn't this also come out weeks ago? Yes, but a little off-schedule, hence why I forgot. There's also a console version coming, but it's been subject to numerous delays relating to both physical-version concerns and cultural concerns centered on the inclusion of Rising Sun imagery.
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2 (worldwide)
- Price: $19.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Limited Run Games
What's this? A Switch 2 version of Limited Run Games' emulated reissue of Whoopee Camp's exploratory side-scrolling adventure game Tomba!, originally published globally by Sony for the original PlayStation in 1997 and reissued across other modern platforms a year or so ago; as with the prior release, this reissue features save states, rewind, a remastered soundtrack and art/music/interview galleries, with the Switch 2 version offering downsampled graphics and highest-resolution UI and gallery assets equivalent to those of the PS5 version.
Why should I care? You're looking to experience Ghouls 'n Ghosts creator Tokuro Fujiwara's foray into interconnected 2D game design along a very different axis to the format now known as "metroidvania", and you trust that the newest iteration of this chronically-broken reissue has been sufficiently fixed — this Switch 2 build allegedly reflects recent technical enhancements first implemented in the recent Japanese version, but y'all tell me.
Upgrade path? Allegedly, but if it should be active now, it's not, and if and when it does go active, it might only apply to the digital version and not the physical.
DEMOS
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined (PS5, Switch 2, Switch, Xbox, PC) demo
Ahead of the full release scheduled for February 5, Square-Enix has released a free demo for Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, their latest classic Dragon Quest remake and one sporting a wholly different aesthetic to the spate of "2DHD" games they've been offering in recent years; this demo contains a hefty chunk of the early game, and your save file will transfer to the full game.
