Retro Re-release Roundup, week of September 3, 2026
Ufouria, plus four more.
Your actually-retro-and-not-vintage game tip for this week: the console versions of Angeline Era, a recent indie take that thoughtfully explores the and expands the design territory of both classic and more contemporary bump-combat action-RPGs in the grand Falcom tradition.
ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2
Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh
- 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 / Taito
What's this? The first full-fledged sequel to Taito's hit brick-breaker Arkanoid, originally developed and distributed in arcades in 1987 and adapted for Famicom (complete with paddle peripheral) and a variety of computers including Apple IIGS and Sharp X68000; this sequel plays it very straight, building upon the original with additional types of bricks to break, more (and more excessive) powerups, more boss fights and a larger number of stages, complete with branching stage progression. (As with several other recent Arcade Archives releases, this reissue allows one to use a USB mouse to simulate the arcade's paddle, or to use the Switch 2's joycon mouse functionality when playing the Arcade Archives 2 version.)
Why should I care? You want to play the single most essential game in what has proved to be the top-of-the-menu vanilla scoop of the brick-breaker genre — not the absolute best, necessarily, or the most innovative, but one that any appreciator of the genre can't not enjoy.
Useless fact: Coincidentally or not, this release falls on the birthday of the late Nobuyo Ohyama, the later actor famous for both voicing Doraemon and for being a public Arkanoid devotee and an elite-level player.
Wiz
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox, PC via Xbox Play Anywhere (worldwide, ACA2)
- Price: $9.99 / €8.99 / £7.39 (ACA2), $2.99 / €2.99 / £2.49 (ACA-to-ACA2 upgrade)
- Publisher: Hamster / Nichibutsu
What's this? A side-scrolling action game starring a cute little wizard, developed by Seibu Kaihatsu and distributed by Taito in arcades, with an adaptation for MSX released by Sony the following year and emulated reissues via Arcade Archives and, more recently, the Egret II Mini; players collect a variety of magic spells on a simple left-to-right journey across the land, sky and underground in the pursuit of a kidnapped princess.
Why should I care? As obscure as this game is, it's far and away the most well-known game from the early era of Seibu Kaihatsu, so if you're interested in sampling their pre-crosshair shooter, pre-Raiden output, Wiz is the game to start with... just don't hesitate to play it with the sound muted.
Useless fact: The dragon-like Miclus creature that appears as a hidden item in most Raiden games originates from Wiz — it's both a friendly summon and an end-boss.
CONSOLE ARCHIVES
THE CONVENI 2: Zenkoku Chain Tenkaida! (PlayStation)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 (worldwide)
- Price: $11.99 / €10.99 / £9.89
- Publisher: Hamster / Human Entertainment / Masterpiece
What's this? The second of Human Entertainment's Japan-only PlayStation entries in the long-running corner-store simulation series THE CONVENI, originally developed by PC developer Masterpiece and adapted 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; aside from the shift in visual depiction from birds-eye to angled quasi-3D overhead view, this sequel augments the retail chain simulator with a much wider number and variety of stages and rivals, more functional and customizable store interiors, game speed options and even the ability to, eventually, stock and sell video games, (As per usual, this Console Archives reissue remains entirely in Japanese.)
Why should I care? Your appetite for untranslated, moderately-popular-in-Japan business sims only extends so far, and so you'd rather dedicated whatever time you deign worthy to the most popular and influential entry in the series.
Useless fact: I can't guarantee they're still present, but the original release featured cameos from across Human's stable of games, including the Scissor Man from the Clock Tower series.
EGG CONSOLE
Borfes and the Five Demons (MSX)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $6.49 / ¥770
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Xtalsoft
What's this? An overhead, fantasy-themed real-time action-RPG, originally developed and distributed by Xtalsoft for MSX in 1987; players guide the apprentice wizard Borfes on an assignment to defeat a demon lord, which sees them exploring large, open environments and dungeons (rendered via half-width flick scrolling), acquiring various weapons and items and, upon defeating various demon bosses, gaining access to demon transformations that confer new attacks and abilities.
Why should I care? Much is speculated about the relationship between the Japanese computer scenes' prototypical action-RPGs and Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda, but this game represents a very transparent example of a computer game copying Zelda's homework, if not its care towards reasonable enemy spawns.
Language barrier? About as high as the original Zelda — that is, a line or two here or there from an NPC that may or may not be useful, written in hiragana — with the added complication that the font is, in my opinion, a little hard to read.
G-MODE ARCHIVES+
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (Japan)
- Price: ¥800
- Publisher: G-MODE / Bandai-Namco
What's this? The 2005 feature phone conversion of Namco's beloved 1993 arcade racing game Ridge Racer, known equally well by its launch-title port for the original PlayStation; this version retains the fully 3D underpinnings and camera-change options of the original and offers the four default vehicles from the PlayStation version alongside the requisite multi-opponent Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced courses as well as the 1v1 Time Trial mode.
Why should I care? You want to see what constituted a massive flex for the phone game devs of the era, and you're enchanted by the MIDI renditions of Ridge Racer's classic tunes.
Helpful tip: You'll be able to grab this version on Steam in a couple weeks.
NINTENDO SWITCH ONLINE
August '26 update: Ikari Warriors, Ninja Gaiden III and R.C. Pro-Am II (NES) plus Dragon Buster (Famicom)
What're these? The final, overtuned-for-America entry in Tecmo's classic cinematic ninja action trilogy, the four-player sequel to Rare's hit remote-control car racing game and the notoriously shoddy Nintendo conversion of SNK's hit arcade run-and-gun. (The Famicom NSO app also includes the home conversion of Namco's influential side-view action-RPG Dragon Buster.)
Why should I care? You don't own any or all of these games via other means, for one: Ninja Gaiden III just got a Console Archives reissue (complete with a more convenient way to play the Famicom version, which retains the intended game balance), R.C. Pro-Am II is present on the Rare Replay compilation for Xbox, Dragon Buster's included in the multi-platform Namco Museum Archives vol.1 (not to mention the Arcade Archives reissue of the original) and Ikari Warriors is present on the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection alongside the arcade original (which itself is also available via Arcade Archives).
Helpful tip: Note the "ABBA" overlay in the Ikari portion of the above trailer: Nintendo's giving you the respawn-with-lives cheat code and showing you when to use it, because they know (Why they didn't also think to, like, re-release something else, is beyond me.)
OTHER
Hashire Hebereke EX
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $22.99 or equivalent
- Publisher:Gravity Games Arise / CRT Games
What're these? A remake of Sunsoft's on-foot racing party game Hashire Hebereke, originally released exclusively for the Super Famicom in Japan in 1994; this remake, developed by South Korean studio CRT Games (Snow Bros. Special, Psychic 5 Eternal) ups the player count to 4 local players or 8 online players and adds extra playable characters, new modes including a rhythm game and a poop-themed tag mode, online leaderboards and an emulated version of the original Super Famicom game, among other niceties.
Why should I care? I have no idea what sort of profile this game may have had in South Korea in its day or whether this remake is representative of anything beyond the proclivities of the person heading the dev studio, but the original game is emblematic of a certain era of loosey-goosey couch party games and one that I'm sure people will appreciate being made aware of, even if its staying power is minimal. One might also choose to celebrate CRT Games' newfound commitment to including the old thing with the new thing, rather than allowing their remake to supersede the original, irrespective of whether it does or doesn't serve as an adequate substitute.
Useless fact: Yes, those are the same goobers from Ufouria: that game was the first in brief but prolific multi-genre series for Sunsoft in the mid-'90s, and to the average thirty-something Japanese game freak, the characters are more closely associated with multiplayer hijinks than side-view action-adventures.
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $9.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Com2us
What's this? A remaster of the first entry in Korean developer Gamevil's popular mobile phone action-RPG series Zenonia, which hit pre-smartphones in 2008 and migrated to iOS, Android, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo's DSiWare service and even Zeebo; this version largely maintains the look and mechanics of the original, with changes centered around adapting and modernizing the controls and UI for the PC environemt and keyboard and/or gamepads.
Why should I care? You have atypically fuzzy memories towards the absolutely grueling grind presented by this game and others of its ilk, which were once primarily and almost stereotypically associated with Korean-borne games and which some would argue are harder to justify to modern audiences than the five-frames-a-second, three-kilobites-big flip phones games people used to placate themselves just a year or two before Zenonia was hot.
Useless fact: They made six of these in seven years, which isn't that surprising in and of itself; it's more surprising that they haven't made a new one in a decade or so.
