Retro Re-release Roundup, week of April 16, 2026
Welcome home, Spica.
Here's one more vintage-adjacent release for this week, for those who want something old in spirit: the digital release of ZPF, a crowdfunded Sega Genesis/Mega Drive game that released on cartridge a little while back, and a game that one might position as the European counterpoint to Earthion, for good and for ill.
ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2
Konami GT (RF-2 Red Fighter)
- 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 / Konami
What's this? A first-person, pseudo-3D racing game, originally developed by Konami and released in arcades in 1985, with an emulated reissue distributed via the Xbox 360 Game Room service; a sequel of sorts to the overhead driving game Road Fighter, this game tasks players with racing from checkpoint to checkpoint without running out of fuel, which requires one to not only dodge traffic and collect fuel pickups but to manage their gear-shift turbo, which sacrifices fuel for a burst of speed.
Why should I care? You'd like to bear witness to one of the rare '80s-era attempts to take a classic game into first-person that actually worked, or you're a hardware dork who simply appreciates seeing the Konami Bubble System fully represented on Arcade Archives.
Useless fact: Curiously, Konami partnered with Namco to distribute this game in Japanese arcades, with the game being designed for and primarily sold as a conversion kit for existing Pole Position cabinets.
CONSOLE ARCHIVES
Ishin no Arashi (Famicom)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster / Koei-Tecmo
What's this? The 1990 Famicom adaptation of the first game in Koei's "REKOEITION" sub-series of open-ended, character-centric simulation RPGs, adapted from the Pc-88 computer version which itself was something of a remix of the 1988 PC-98 original; themed around Japan's Meiji Restoration, players assume the role of any one of several key historical figures and seek to convert the nation to their particular political ideology, which sees one not only traveling the country and building their personal stats by training with scholars or at dojos but also gaining allies and influences via debates, accruing social currency and playing to public opinion, or simply trying to brute-force an outcome via military means. (This game is being presented in raw, untranslated form, with no NES version or other localized equivalent.)
Why should I care? The "REKOEITION" brand extends to other, more globally-known games like Inindo: Way of the Ninja and the Uncharted Waters series, so those who prefer their historical Koei games to be less tabletop war game and more free-scenario RPG might be interested to sample the origins of this particular format (not that you're going to get far nor enjoy yourself if you can't read it, mind).
Useless fact: This is not just the first Console Archives release with a hard language barrier, but also the first game that wasn't present on Hamster's existing list of upcoming titles, so one should brace themselves for more untelegraphed picks in future (with most of those being similarly language-dependent, I'd wager).
EGG CONSOLE
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $6.49 / ¥770
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Hertz
What's this? A side-scrolling action game starring a girl with psionic abilities, originally developed by Hertz and published for the MSX2 in Japan in 1988, with separate globally-released conversions produced by Sega for both the Master System and Game Gear in 1990, renamed to Psychic World. The player-character Lucia sets out to rescue her kidnapped sister from the clutches of a monstrous force that once served as test subjects for their scientist mentor; doing so requires one to not only explore and traverse each sprawling stage but to enhance and grow their repertoire of psychic powers, which must be strategically employed in order to traverse and clear a route through a given stage.
Why should I care? Psychic World has long been a cult favorite among Sega 8-bit afficionados and if you count yourself among their ranks, you might be excited to know that the MSX2 original is a substantially denser and more content-rich game, with richer cinematics, more stages and substantially larger and less linear stage design. More generally, it's also an understated technical showpiece for the MSX2, for which any degree of smooth scrolling was a luxury.
Language barrier? There's plenty of untranslated between-stage dialog, but no game-critical text.
G-MODE ARCHIVES+
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide), Nintendo Switch (Japan)
- Price: $15.99 / ¥1800
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Atlus
What's this? A prequel game to Atlus' PlayStation 2 Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga duology of demonic RPGs, originally released for Japanese feature phones in 2007 and reissued here in its final, complete and un-network-tethered form; this entry maintains the 3D dungeon exploration and signature "Press Turn" combat system, now with augmentations to the "mantra" skill system that allow for greater hybridization and customization, alongside an original story and some unique features that includes semi-randomized dungeons. (Again, this release is being presented in its original, untranslated Japanese state.)
Why should I care? One might have tended to generously grade previous polygon-heavy G-MODE reissues on a curve, but A's Test Server deserves no such condescension: it's every bit as mechanically engaging as its console counterparts, and its visuals (if not its audio) were wholly competitive with those seen on contemporary handheld game hardware like the Nintendo DS.
Helpful tip: G-MODE's taken the unusual step of adding an assist feature to this reissue: there's a toggle to increase experience gain and post-battle reward rates, should you care to use it.
OTHER
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (Japan)
- Price: ¥1280
- Publisher: Mebius / City Connection
What's this? An emulated reissue of the MSX version of Jaleco's horizontally-scrolling, transforming-robot shooting game Formation Z, which originated in arcades in 1984 (including an international release retitled Aeroboto) and was ported to both MSX and Famicom the following year; players must shoot and dodge across a variety of different environments, utilizing the two unique forms of their robot — the slower, grounded and energy-efficient robot form and the speedy, free-flying but fuel-guzzling ship form — in order to navigate various types of terrain and defeat the enemies and minibosses therein.
Why should I care? As with the other recent Mebius/City Connection MSX reissues, you're a hardware dork who's specifically interested in A/B'ing the technical limitations of the MSX vs. the Famicom: this adaptation offers no major design-side alterations, so you're essentially getting a lower-color, choppier-scrolling take on the Famicom game (which isn't available to play on Switch, for whatever that's worth).
Useless fact: Not only did this game get a retro revival late last year titled Final Formation, there's also a polygonal revival game by the R-Type Final devs titled FZ: Formation Z that's due out on modern consoles and PC in about a month.
Hiryu no Ken Collection (April 18)
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: ¥1780 or equivalent
- Publisher: NihonGame
What's this? An emulated collection of the four Famicom entries in Culture Brain's martial arts action series Hiryu no Ken, which originated in arcades and spanned Famicom, Game Boy, Super Famicom, PlayStation, Game Boy Color and Nintendo 64, with very occasional localizations under the name Flying Dragon and other titles; produced by Culture Brain successor company NihonGame, this collection offers a fairly basic suite of options that include button mapping, rewind and save states.
Which games are included? This collection includes the four Famicom entries — 1987's Hiryu no Ken, 1988's Hiryu no Ken II: Dragon no Tsubasa, 1990's Hiryu no Ken III: Gonin no Ryusenshi and 1991's Hiryu no Ken: Special Fighting Wars — entirely in their original Japanese, as well as the two NES versions — Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll, a localization of the first game, and Flying Warriors, an amalgamation of sorts of the second and third games — entirely in English.
Why should I care? Hiryu no Ken had a long and... well, not storied, but certainly curious, run as a series that sought to hybridize adventure and role-playing elements into combat action games, both before and after the establishment of the fighting game genre as codified by Street Fighter II, and while this collection seemingly does absolutely nothing to contextualize them whatsoever, just getting them onto global digital storefronts is as promising a first step as any (and the fact that they delayed this comp to add the two NES games is a second).
Useless fact: NihonGame's out-of-nowhere release of this collection comes alongside a renewed public presence that hints at further reissues, including from the Kung-Fu Heroes/Super Chinese and Baseball Simulator 1000 series and the NES/Famicom game The Magic of Scheherazade.
Spica Adventure & Parasol Superstars
- Platform: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox (worldwide excluding Japan)
- Price: $19.99 or equivalent (Spica) / $24.99 or equivalent (Superstars)
- Publisher:ININ / Taito
What's this? The first-ever home port of Taito's arcade sequel to the feature phone side-scroller Spica Adventure, originally released in Japanese arcades in 2005 and reissued for the NESiCA network service in 2011; announced by ININ/Strictly Limited Games several years ago, this new version is a fairly direct port of the arcade original, offering a mode that allows for various custom game settings and modifiers including cheats and stage select, a leaderboard-compliant mode with online leaderboards separated by difficulty and a basic gallery. (The game is optionally bundled with Taito's older PC Engine/Turbografx-16 umbrella-action game Parasol Stars under the title Parasol Superstars, and if you buy Superstars within the next week or so, it'll essentially cost the same as buying Spica on its own.)
Why should I care? Spica Adventure has long been touted as a swansong of sorts for Taito's classic style of cutesy arcade-action titles as typified by the likes of Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands, and while that comparison doesn't quite hold water — Spica's a more frantic and consciously input-intensive game, and one that doesn't trade on volume in the way classic Taito games often did — it remains an eminently charming and deceptively complex action game that ought to have been ported years ago. (As for Parasol Stars, which hit modern consoles years ago and has nothing to do with Spica Adventure beyond also featuring a character with an umbrella: it is entirely in the classic Taito tradition, up to and including touting itself as Bubble Bobble III, and where Spica feels most at home on consoles, Parasol's a console exclusive that always felt like an arcade game that never was.)
Helpful tip: The original feature phone version from which the arcade version was loosely derived got a reissue on the Japanese Switch eShop a year or so back, should you be in the mood for something a little more exploratory.
Warhammer Classics initiative (Steam)
Reissue specialists SNEG Games surprised the world with the recent announcement of Warhammer Classics, an initiative to secure and re-publish the many and various classic Warhammer-licensed videogames on Steam that launched with some nineteen games, including seven that had never been republished in the modern era and twelve that had previously been delisted from Steam... and I'd love to be able to offer any sort of insight on any of 'em, but I don't know that I've so much as laid eyes on most of these games, let alone played them. Which ones are the good ones? Are there good ones?
