Retro Re-release Roundup, week of July 30, 2026
A beloved multiplayer staple of the Saturn library leaves Japan for the first time.
Your not-old-but-aimed-at-oldheads revival game for this week: Truxton Extreme, (PC/PS5/Switch 2) the first new game in Toaplan's Truxton/Tatsujin series in 35 years, developed by a studio of Toaplan and broader shooting game developers that includes Truxton's original programmer and composer, Masahiro Yuge, and an oasis of competency among the past several months of abysmal shooting game revivals and remakes.
ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2
TX-1
- 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 / Tatsumi Electronics
What's this? An ultra-wide, pseudo-3D racing game, originally developed by Tatsumi Electronics (formerly romanized as "Tazmi") and licensed and sublicensed to Namco, Atari and/or Taito for global distribution in 1983, and never reissued until now; originally played on a triple-monitor cabinet and wheel/pedal setup, the player is tasked with reaching successive checkpoints within the alloted time, with each checkpoint punctuated with a fork that allows players to branch into different routes. (I might've overlooked something, but I believe these reissues do not support force feedback functionality for driving controllers... alas.)
Why should I care? You want to play a game that not only exhibits a great many technological and design firsts over its supposed peers (remember, this came just a year after Pole Position!) but has been largely forgotten in the context of historical discussion despite being quite successful in much of the world, and you don't mind that it becomes very difficult, very quickly. You might also appreciate this release in the context of being the inaugural reissue from the Tatsumi catalog, which is modest in number but boasts a handful of very impressive and noteworthy games (the most prominent of which being... Buggy Run, I suppose?).
Useless fact: This game originally featured in-game billboards advertising its many distributors, but they've all been genericized for this reissue.
CONSOLE ARCHIVES
Doraemon (Famicom)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster / Hudson / Shogakukan
What's this? Hudson's million-selling Doraemon Famicom game, originally developed and distributed in Japan in 1986; players proceed across three large stages, each themed after one of three contemporary Doraemon movies and offering a distinct game format, be it exploratory side-scrolling action, auto-scrolling shooting or underwater flip-screen exploration. (This game was given a code-in-a-box release in Japan a few weeks ago, but that specific version is a no-frills build for original Switch that's missing most of the typical ACA functionality.)
Why should I care? You're broadly supportive of any efforts to convince Japanese licensed game owners/licensors to reissue their games in accessible and affordable ways, and you're particularly fond of the specific era of licensed games that were very obviously constructed by mashing together disparate existing programs as quickly as possible and stuffing them with hidden content in the hopes that it create a veneer of depth.
Helpful tip: This game's microphone functionality is mapped to clicking the right stick by default, but you can also use a USB microphone if you really want to.
SATURN TRIBUTE SERIES
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $29.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: City Connection / Omiya Soft
What's this? An emulated reissue of the first game in Omiya Soft's cult deck-building fantasy digital boardgame series Culdcept, originally developed and published in Japan by Omiya Soft in 1997 and iterated on across PlayStation and Nintendo DS; in addition to emulator features like save states, rewind and button configs, this version offers the ability to display yours and your opponents' hands on screen at all times, a toggle for extra bonus reward cards at the end of a match and, most crucially, a first-ever English translation option. (There's also a demo, which is rather uncommon for emulation-based reissues.)
Why should I care? Your interest has been piqued by the just-released, brand-new Culdcept Begins (a prequel, hence the otherwise-confusing title) and you want to go back and experience the roots of a game that is not radically different or more complex than the latest entry, or you just want to see exactly what it is that classic fans say they're missing when they gripe about the new game's aesthetic. You might also want to try this one if only for the fact that it offers a local same-system multiplayer option, a feature bafflingly absent from Begins.
Helpful tip: The non-Japanese console versions received a last-minute delay to September, presumably due to complications with Clear River Games' physical versions.
OTHER
- Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch (Japan)
- Price: ¥8580 (set) / ¥3080 (individual)
- Publisher: Edia / Yanoman
What's this? A three-pack containing the Super Famicom entries in Yanoman and Japan Art Media's long-dormant RPG series Aretha, which found modest success in Japan in the 1990s; these Edia-produced reissues offer 1993's Aretha, 1994's Aretha II: Aretha II: Ariel no Fushigi na Tabi and the 1995 co-op action-RPG spinoff Rejoice: Aretha Oukoku no Kanata with save states, rewind/fast forward, various screen settings and galleries that include promotional art, music, commercials/promotional videos and a cutscene viewer. (These games remain in their native Japanese; Edia's usually 50/50 with localizing or not localizing their collections, and I haven't seen any indication as of yet that this one might leave Japan.)
Why should I care? This series cultivated a fanbase outside of usual RPG circles through their early adoption of female-centric narratives, attempts at user-friendly design features in the vein of what one might now classify as "quality of life" and a willingness to not take themselves too seriously; that said, that audience was definitely more focused on the earlier and better-remembered Game Boy entries and not necessarily these Super Famicom offerings, which occasionally veered in the direction of "real" RPGs to their own detriment, but rights holder Yanoman seems to believe there's a large enough audience who simply never made the jump from Game Boy and are itching to give these entries a shot, and I'm curious to see just how right they might be.
Useless fact: Yanoman creates and sells jigsaw puzzles by trade, but they're currently returning to games in a big way, with additional initiatives that include a second Yanoman Super Famicom three-pack that'll include the Shining Force-adjacent FEDA: Emblem of Justice, as well as a currently-active crowdfunding campaign to advance the future of the Aretha series, which may or may not eventuate in reissues of the original Game Boy Trilogy or even brand-new games for smartphones and/or consoles. As for the developer, Japan Art Media, they're perhaps best known overseas for their work on the post-Game Arts Lunar titles, but don't hold those against them.
- Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox, PC via Steam
- Price: $49.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Microsoft
What's this? The third(?) remake of Bungie and Microsoft's console-defining, genre-ruining first-person shooter Halo: Combat Evolved, originally released as an original Xbox launch title in 2001; there's new graphics, new/new-to-this-game weapons, it's on PlayStation now, yadda yadda.
Why should I care? I should hope you don't! Fuckin' Microsoft, dudes.
Keys? Not even jangled.
The Prince of Tennis: Sweet School Festival and The Prince of Tennis: Doki Doki Survival
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $49.99 or equivalent (Switch, PC) / $54.99 or equivalent (Switch 2)
- Publisher: Konami
What're these? High-definition remakes of Konami's romance adventure games based on the Prince of Tennis media franchise, originally released for PlayStation 2 in 2005 and 2006/7, respectively, and given expanded ports to Nintendo DS in 2010 and 2011, exclusively in Japan; these versions include brand-new high-definition art and a new/classic art toggle (where available; some art couldn't be recovered or adequately reproduced, apparently), a brand-new UI suited for modern widescreen displays, all of the enhancements and extra content from the DS versions and more, including mouse controls on PC and Switch 2.
Why should I care? I've not played either of these games, nor can I tell you the first thing about Prince of Tennis or whether it's even the slightest bit active in 2026, but I do know that these games were both originally made by the same Konami romance veterans behind '00s romance games like Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side and LovePlus and remastered by the teams behind the recent, well-received by Japan-only Tokimeki Memorial remasters, and their reputations have always positioned them as worthy of standing alongside Konami's best, so I would like to believe they have something to offer those who haven't heard hide nor hair about Prince of Tennis for the last fifteen years. I will also say that I strongly suspect the odds of any of Konami's original romance sims leaving Japan will be heavily influenced by the global reception to these remasters, so you might just wish to take one for the team.
Helpful tips: Firstly, the PC versions were initially announced to not include languages other than Japanese, but it seems they walked that back; secondly, the international eShop listings offer both Japan-only and multi-language SKUs and if you don't specifically purchase the multi-language version, you won't get the patch that adds non-Japanese languages, so take heed.
