Retro Re-release Roundup, week of March 12, 2026
Team Ninja closes out the big three of classic Japanese horror game remakes.
I don't typically mention advance Japanese releases for games with announced global releases in these roundups, but I'm making an exception for the just-released R-Type 1+2 Cosmos (PS/Switch 1+2/XB)— a high-definition double-pack remake of the two R-Type Tactics/Command games that originated on PlayStation Portable — for one reason: the developer, Granzella, has recently been forced to go public about cash flow issues and resultant unpaid wages, resulting in their president and lead creative choking back tears on a live stream as he vowed to keep the company afloat, so there's a very real concern that the global release, tentatively scheduled for June, is in jeopardy. (The Japanese version contains a full multi-language localization.)
ARCADE ARCHIVES NEOGEO
Pop'n Bounce
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster / Video System
What's this? A cutesy brick-breaker for one or two players, originally developed by Video System and distributed internationally for Neogeo in 1997, with a Japanese release under the title Gapporin seemingly canceled, but officially released for the first time a few months ago via a Japan-only Arcade Archives Neogeo compilation for Nintendo Switch. Players are tasked with destroying all the colored blocks arranged at the top of each stage; blocks are affected by gravity and will cascade when supporting blocks are destroyed, with same-colored blocks merging together when next to each other, forming larger blocks that will drop power-ups when destroyed. (Interestingly, this game was programmed with analog paddle controls in mind, and this release will allow you to approximate the paddle, including via USB mouse controls; do note that this is an OG Switch release, and thus is not compatible with Switch 2 Joycon mouse functionality.)
Why should I care? You're looking to play a somewhat obscure Neogeo game and one that, thanks to its dynamic stage layouts, could potentially keep you coming back for a while, or you simply want to play it in a manner that virtually nobody has ever played it before, seeing as the Neogeo never saw wide release with a paddle controller and Pop'n Bounce was, to anyone's knowledge, only ever playable with traditional joystick inputs.
Arcade Archives Neogeo?!: That's right, Hamster's released their first new ACANG game in... almost seven years, I think? What this means for the continued future of the series, or the continuation of Arcade Archives Neogeo 2 — which, in case you forgot, is an upgraded set of ACANG releases with online play that is currently limited to a KOF98 drop from a year ago — is anyone's guess, but do know that this will mark the 109th Neogeo MVS game reissued by Hamster, leaving roughly 40 more they might potentially get to, licenses and rights issues notwithstanding.
CONSOLE ARCHIVES
Sonic Wings Special (PlayStation)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 (worldwide)
- Price: $11.99 / €10.99 / £9.89
- Publisher: Hamster / Video System
What's this? An all-star mash-up entry in Video System's popular arcade shooting game series Sonic Wings (Aero Fighters), originally released for PlayStation and Sega Saturn in Japan in 1996, with a belated PAL release for PlayStation in 2004 and a digital PS Classic reissue in 2007/2010; this version of the game grabs aircraft, characters, stages and content from all three Aero Fighters arcade games and remixes them into one game with additional exclusive content and alternate versions of existing content, changes to the stage-branching system, the ability to play in a traditional vertical format a la the original, not-Neogeo game and more. (Do note that this release doesn't seem to offer a screen-rotation feature, limiting the usefulness of the vertical-orientation mode.)
Why should I care? Aero Fighters found international success through three factors, two of which remain present and are even boosted by Special: their wide array of simple but bombastic stages, enemies and ships, their wide cast of off-beat and very silly pilots and their wide array of character conversations and endings, which vary not only per-pilot but per-combination of pilots — unfortunately, the English version of this release excised all the conversations and endings, so unless you can read the Japanese version, that element might as well not exist, but you're still left with a substantial array of accessible and immediate shooting game goodness that, perhaps, might serve as a sampler for the arcade originals.
Helpful tip: You may or may not have noticed that a brand-new entry in this series, titled Sonic Wings Reunion, hit PC and consoles just a few months ago... and if you did indeed miss this news, for your own sake, I recommend you continue missing it.
EGG CONSOLE
Advanced Lord Monarch (PC-9801)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $7.16 / ¥880
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Nihon Falcom
What's this? An expanded version of Falcom's semi-real-time sandbox strategy game and seventh Dragon Slayer series title, Lord Monarch, released just months after the original in late 1991 for PC-98 series computers and FM Towns, and adapated in full or in part for Super Famicom, Sega Mega Drive, PlayStation and a multitude of Windows remakes; in addition to improved CPU behavior and a new efficiency rating that factors into scoring, this version bolsters the original 52 maps with a brand-new second set of "Advanced" maps.
Why should I care? Should one be able to forgive the clunkiness inherent to being a nascent RTS, they'll find a surprisingly versatile and dense puzzle-box strategy game with plenty of content and oodles of replayability for those willing to push their skills to the limit, annd one whose systems went largely unchanged for virtually all the games, ports and versions that followed.
Language barrier? Between the largely icon-based interface, the various English-labeled values and whatever's written in the English-language manual, you should be able to come to grips with this one, provided you can memorise a kanji-heavy menu command or two.
NINTENDO SWITCH ONLINE EXPANSION PASS
March '26 update: Mario vs. Donkey Kong (Game Boy Advance), Mario Clash & Mario Tennis (Virtual Boy)
What're these? The Nintendo Software Technologies-developed successor to the beloved Game Boy Donkey Kong puzzle-action game, a basic Mario-themed behind-the-back tennis game and an arcade-style game that sees Mario throwing bopping Koopa Troopas and/or tossing shells into the foreground and background planes in order to dispatch enemies in a manner somewhat akin to the original Mario Bros. arcade game.
Why should I care? Virtual Boy inquisitors aren't exactly spoilt for choice, and Mario vs. DK is a game whose reputation is unfairly hampered by its position between an unassailable Game Boy classic and a series of rather plain, identikit DS games that aren't as similar as they might seem at a glance, so its appearance here might give a few people the opportunity to reappriase what is ultimately a perfectly cromulent game.
Helpful tip: The Japanese version of Mario vs. DK, as found on the Japanese NSO GBA app, includes several additional stages originally distributed via eReader peripheral; it is my understanding that those maps were always in the ROM and were therefore simple to unlock for this reissue, and that the North American version's eReader stages were both entirely external to the ROM and would necessitate additional modifications to fit into a single save file, hence why they may not have implemented them here. (The PAL release completely removed all eReader compatibility.)
OTHER
Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake
- Platform: PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $49.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Koei-Tecmo
What's this? A second remake of the critically-acclaimed, fan-favorite second entry in Tecmo's long-running camera-centric Japanese horror game series Fatal Frame (Project Zero), which was originally developed and published for Playstation 2 in 2003 and given an enhanced port to Xbox in 2004, with a fully-fledged remake produced for the Nintendo Wii and released exclusively in Europe and Japan in 2012; remade by Team Ninja for current-gen hardware, this new version retains the basic over-the-shoulder camera perspective from the Wii version (as opposed to the fixed camera angles of the original) and offers completely overhauled visuals and modern effects, redesigned and expanded environments, side stories for various non-playable characters, redone audio including a new English dub, a new hand-holding quasi-escort system involving player-character Mio's sister Maya, an additional ending and a thoroughly reworked combat system that makes numerous changes to enemy behavior and states, evasion mechanics, character skills and the various functionalities of the spirit camera.
Why should I care? In my experience, there exists a particular sort of person who isn't fazed by the average survival horror game but will be absolutely terrified by Fatal Frame, and I have to imagine you've all figured out where your particular lines are drawn as they pertain to spookitude. It should also be emphasised that, for better or worse, Team Ninja has elected to build even further upon the camera systems presented in the most recent game, and in doing so has turned FFII into a substantially more involved (and more challenging, if you wish) action game, which veterans of the rather staid originals might find refreshing.
Helpful tip: Tecmo's already pledged an update to allow PS/Xbox players to disable the aggressive film grain screen filter, which can already be disabled on PC and is allegedly absent altogether from the Switch 2 version.
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $14.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Final Boss Entertainment / REDDEER.GAMES
What's this? A remake-plus-expansion of Wrack, a 2014 retro first-person shooter originally released on PC by Final Boss Entertainment, and now remade during the process of porting to consoles; this new version has been moved to Unreal Engine 4 and sports a multitude of changes including completely reanimated characters, new lighting and cel-shaded art style, multiple new mobility options and skills, additional weapons and new alt-fires for all guns, a new save/checkpoint system and much more. (Apologies for missing the Steam drop for this remake, which is now a few months old.)
Why should I care? Wrack was part of the very first salvo of what are now known as "boomer shooters", but it did not receive any of the contemporary or even retrospective appreciation that other games of its graduating class were fortunate to receive — or, to put it more crudely, it just kinda sucked, for reasons far beyond any pretensions towards "old-school" design — and so one has to presume this version will be better, not just because they've had a decade and change to copy the homework of the many, more interesting and less flawed games that followed in its wake but because, like, how could it not be?
Useless fact: I cannot help but notice that the glowing pull-quote from Keiji Inafune is no longer a part of their press kit.
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (Japan)
- Price: ¥7480 (standard physical), ¥10,780 (special edition physical). ¥2860 (standalone digital games)
- Publisher: Edia
What's this? An emulated three-pack containing select console entries from, or adjacent to, the Telenet historical Japanese strategy sim series ZAN, originally developed for PC-98 series computers by Wolf Team and spawning some dozen entries between 1989 and 1994, mostly for PC-98 and other Japanese computers, but occasionally consoles: specifically, you're getting the Super Famicom versions of ZAN II & ZAN III (both marked with the "Spirits" subtitle), as well as the Super Famicom version of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms-themed spinoff Sangokushi Seishi: Tenbu, again marked Spirits, presented here with basic emulator functionality and some small enhancements like the ability to display certain hidden/invisible paramaters.
Why should I care? Frankly, I do not know: the appeal of this series, in contrast to more internationally-known competitors like Nobunaga's Ambition, is the almost analog nature of the system and the comparatively brisk pacing that can let adept players complete a campaign in an hour or so, but all the reactions I've seen to this announcement have been complaints about how few games are included and how the ones they're offering are the least interesting ones, so...?
Helpful tip: I'm specifically mentioning this Japan-only comp of very Japanese games because, unlike other recent Edia/Telenet collections, they've not given any advance notice about an English and/or global release, so if you're desperate to try these games, you may have to do so in Japanese.
