Retro Re-release Roundup, week of July 23, 2026
Microsoft games, now on PC.
The stage has been set for a near-to-native PC port of Ninja Gaiden Black, under circumstances that make it completely impossible to enjoy. Figures.
ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2
Armadillo Racing
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X (worldwide, ACA2) / Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 (worldwide, ACA)
- Price: $17.99 / €14.99 / £11.99 (ACA2), $14.99 / €14.99 / £11.99 (ACA), $2.99 / €2.99 / £2.49 (ACA-to-ACA2 upgrade)
- Publisher: Hamster / Bandai-Namco
What's this? A wacky trackball-based racing game starring cartoony armadillos, originally developed and distributed in arcades (and allegedly quite scarcely outside of Japan at that) by Bandai-Namco in 1997, and never ported or reissued until now. Players guide their armadillo player-character through one of two race courses; the armadillo will initially begin moving via running but will roll into a fast-rolling ball if and when the player builds up sufficient speed, and if the player manages to win their race, they're rewarded with a bowling minigame. (This reissue allows one to play with a USB trackball or mouse, or Switch 2 joycon functionality when playing the Arcade Archives 2 version; the Arcade Archives 2 version also exclusively offers split-screen multiplayer for up to four players.)
Why should I care? You want to fully experience a game that, through its various television appearances and peripheral acknowledgements via music games and the like, has courted a certain amount of notoriety among communities of people who haven't actually played it, and you've made peace with the fact that said experience might begin and end within the span of five minutes.
Helpful tip: Gaming Hell's ever-useful Arcade Archives spreadsheet has begin maintaining a list of ACA-compatible peripherals, so if you have a USB trackball, mouse or other similar device and would like to register its compatibility or lack thereof on your console of choice, your contribution would be much appreciated.
Mouser
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, PC via Play Anywhere (worldwide)
- Price: $9.99 / €8.99 / £7.39 (ACA2), $2.99 / €2.99 / £2.49 (ACA-to-ACA2 upgrade)
- Publisher: Hamster / UPL
What's this? A current-gen Arcade Archives 2 version of Universal Playland's multi-stage, single-screen action game, originally developed and distributed in 1983, with its sole home conversion being a Sony-publish port for MSX. Players control the tomcat Nyanta on a mission to rescue their kidnapped girlfriend from a gang of mice; the player must grab the blue mice while avoiding the red mice in order to materialize the ladders that will allow them to reach their girlfriend at the top of the stage, while grabbing the fish grants them a brief burst of invincibility.
Why should I care? Of the many Donkey Kong clones out there, this one might be closest in quality to its source material, and the enemy variety's a little ahead of other contemporary games that borrowed this format.
Useless fact: This game was designed, drawn and composed by future Wonder Boy creator Ryuichi Nishizawa under orders to directly mimic Donkey Kong, and the programming was alleged to have been devised by directly reverse-engineering DK's code; it also happened to be the final game released by Universal Playland before their transition to UPL, and it has been suggested that this change was motivated by the workers getting fed up with being told to rip off other games.
CONSOLE ARCHIVES
THE CONVENI: Ano Machi o Dokusen Seyo
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 (worldwide)
- Price: $11.99 / €10.99 / £9.89
- Publisher: Hamster / Human Entertainment / Masterpiece
What's this? The Japan-only PlayStation adaptation of the first game in the long-running corner-store simulation series THE CONVENI, originally developed by PC developer Masterpiece and converted for PlayStation and Sega Saturn by Access and Human Entertainment in 1997, and reprinted via Hamster's Major Wave line of budget reissues in the early '00s; players are tasked with growing their store chain, a long process that involves controlling and modifying the flow of stock, laying out the premises, responding to supply and demand, battling for market share with rival chains and more. (As always, the Console Archives release is presented entirely in its original Japanese.)
Why should I care? The latter half of the '90s saw a small boom of Japanese commerce- and/or business-minded sim games in the mold of Maxis' Sim series and Artdink's A-Train, and THE CONVENI was perhaps the most popular and far-reaching of the second-tier games of its era, establishing a runway for the likes of modern-day studios like Kairosoft, so those looking to acquaint themselves with a specific strain of vintage sims could do much worse. Of course, the language barrier might completely compromise any degree of accessbility that would otherwise be evident, but that's Hamster for ya.
Useless fact: Hamster does have a modest development history outside of vintage game issues that legacy includes direct producion on certain post-'00s CONVENI titles, and they more or less control the series proper now that Masterpiece has withdrawn from active development, so there's a not-insignificant chance that this series may receive a new entry in the medium-term future.
EGG CONSOLE
Dragon Slayer Level 2.0 (PC88)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $6.49 / ¥990
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Nihon Falcom
What's this? The first entry in Nihon Falcom's influential and studio-building RPG series Dragon Slayer, originally developed and published for PC-88 and various other Japanese microcomputers from late 1984, with later ports to Epoch Super Cassette Vision and Game Boy and a remake for Sega Saturn as part of Falcom Classics Collection; utilising a quasi-real-time game system, the player will engage in rudimentary bump combat, manage a simple inventory, level their character by defeating enemies and successfully retrieving important items to their home and engage in basic puzzles on a quest to retrieve the four crowns guarded by a menagerie of fearsome dragons. (The "Level 2.0" version was the final content update and balance revision produced for PC-88, and every subsequent computer and console port was based on this particular revision.)
Why should I care? You want to pay respects to one of the forefathers of the Japanese action-RPG, and you're accepting of something that almost feels more like a Sokoban variant at times than what's now recognized as an RPG.
Language barrier? There's very little text, and the crucial stuff's in English.
G-MODE ARCHIVES+
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide), Nintendo Switch (Japan)
- Price: $7.99 / ¥800
- Publisher: G-MODE / Bandai-Namco
What's this? A quest-based fantasy RPG, originally developed and distributed by Namco for Japanese feature phones via the Namco Games subscription service in 2008; players guide their created character on a quest to protect and liberate their last remaining stronghold from an ever-encroaching, all-corrupting miasma, a feat achieved by taking on various quests and missions from the guild, exploring various environments, battling foes and targets and bringing back crucial resources that are used to strengthen and develop your home stronghold, and in turn progress the story.
Why should I care? This is one I know of purely by its reputation ("that one original Namco RPG that had a zillion missions"), so let's find out together. I do know it has nothing to do with the recently-reissued Namco Chronicle.
Helpful tip(?): The announcement of this reissue prompted a bunch of "do not kill the unicorns!" pleas from veteran players — whether this is a content-specific requirement or a simple moral position, I couldn't tell ya.
PLAYSTATION PREMIUM
July '26 update: Indigo Prophecy and Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (PlayStation 2)
What's this? The first-ever reissue of Midway's shlocky telekinetic third-person shooter Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, originally developed and published for PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2004 and ported to PC in 2005; players control amnesiac psychic soldier Nick Scryer on a mission to infiltrate a cabal of psychic terrorists, which can be achieved through a combination of stealth-tinged running-and-gunning and the manipulation of a suite of psychic abilities that include mind control, spontaneous combustion and telekinesis. (Also included is one of Quantic Dream's many embarrassing narrative pastiches, which is a simple re-up of the version that hit PS4 several years ago; it was broken then and is apparently still broken now.)
Why should I care? You want to experience a campy, unabashed Havok physics toybox whose charm transcends the very obvious constraints of its linear, by-the-number structure, or you somehow only ever played Free Radical's Second Sight and want to finally try the Matrix to that game's Dark City.
Standalone availability? You can buy Psi-Ops as a standalone for the equivalent of $20.
XBOX BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY
OG Xbox on PC: Blinx the Time Sweeper, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge and Fuzion Frenzy
- Platform:PC via Play Anywhere, Xbox Cloud Gaming
- Price: $9.99 each or equivalent
What're these: The opening salvo in Microsoft's just-announced initiative to bring their OG Xbox backwards-compatibility program to PC: a "4D" time-bending 3D platformer from the designer of Sonic the Hedgehog, the ill-advised remake of Rare's crass collectathon parody Conker's Bad Fur Day, the well-regarded console companion to Zipper Interactive's alt-history dogfighting sim Crimson Skies and the Xbox's four-player minigame-heavy launch title. (These PC builds offers toggleable vsync, resolution bumps, anisotropic filtering and more.)
Why should I care? On the one hand: neat! On the other hand: Microsoft's jangling the smallest set of keys they could find at a moment's notice in order to distract from an ever-cascading accrual of mavelolence, including but not limited to abetting genocide in Gaza, an insanely reckless overinvestment in AI and wave after wave of truly catastrophic industry-stunting layoffs whose victims include the steward of this very backwards-compatibility initiative, so fuck 'em.
Helpful tip: All of these games are included with Game Pass, and you can redeem them for free on PC if you've bought them digitally on Xbox.
OTHER
Final Fantasy X / X-2 HD Remaster Switch 2 Edition
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2 (worldwide)
- Price: $49.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Square-Enix
What's this? A Switch 2 port of 2019's remasters of Square's 2001 PS2 RPG Final Fantasy X and its sequel, 2003's Final Fantasy X-2, originally produced for PS3 and Vita and slowly rolled forward to PS4, PC, Xbox and Switch; enhancements include HD-ified models and backgrounds, an arranged soundtrack option, the inclusion of content from the International versions and "quality of life" features including a fast-forward option and the ability to disable random encounters.
Why should I care? Final Fantasy once prided itself on offering industry-leapfrogging 3D visuals, and my extremely casual and subjective impression is that FFX was the final game that lived up to that lofty ideal. Beyond that... iunno, Wakka memes? This is somebody else's series, not mine.
Upgrade path? As has become standard practice for Square-Enix: nooooope.
