Retro Re-release Roundup, week of November 5, 2026
Finally, an official, modern Melee remaster.
Dawn of the Final Week, Seven Da — wait, never mind, wrong game.
ARCADE ARCHIVES / ARCADE ARCHIVES 2
Exzisus
- 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? A horizontally-scrolling transforming-mecha shooting game, originally developed and distributed in arcades by Taito in 1987, with an initial release via a deluxe dual-monitor cabinet that used a half-mirror to reflect and composite the images from one screen onto the other in a faux-3D fashion, followed by a revised version distributed for standard single-monitor cabinets (which you may have played on one of a few '00s-era Taito arcade compilations); players control their mecha and/or its detachable options through four stages of tried-and-true shooting mayhem, with a variety of different pickups granting different shot types, autofire, a shield, the aforementioned options or the transformation of your mech into a fighter ship. (Both versions are included in this reissue, and there are mechanical differences that go beyond the presence or absence of the faux-3D effect, which are detailed in the digital manual; you're also able to simulate the reflection effect of the original dual-layer version by altering the transparency of the "reflected" layer.)
Why should I care? You're appreciative of the effort that's gone into simulating a rare analog visual gimmick and you have a soft spot for Taito's cadre of more casual, second-string shooting games — this one might look like a Darius but it's more at home with the likes of Insector X, Mega Blast and Cloud Master.
Useless fact: The final boss is not only heavily reminiscent of certain aspects of Konami's Salamander but is also straight-up named "Violet Salamander".
Elevator Action
- 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 / Taito
What's this? Taito's popular and influential side-view spy action game, originally released in arcades in 1983, with a multitude of reissues, ports adaptations and sequels in the ensuing decades, including vanilla Arcade Archives reissues for PlayStation 4 back in 2017 and Nintendo Switch in 2019. Players jump (and jump-kick) and shoot their way through each vertically-oriented stage with the goal of retrieving the secret documents stashed behind red doors and retreating to the basement for a getaway; one must not only use the elevators as direct or indirect means of transportation but also as active or passive means of dispatching enemies.
Why should I care? Elevator Action is one of the denser and more strategic side-view action games of its vintage and one that continue to credibly stand alongside later descendents like Rolling Thunder, and I'd posit that the visuals are a good bit more detailed than one might perceive them to be at a glance, too: less plain, more... ascetic, I suppose.
Helpful tip: A port of this game was included as an unlockable bonus in the Saturn port of the belated arcade successor, 1994's Elevator Action Returns — in case you missed it, that version's been availabe on PC and consoles for a few years now, and it lets you play the original from the get-go.
CONSOLE ARCHIVES
Elevator Action (NES/Famicom)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5 (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster / Taito
What's this? The first home port of the above game, developed by Micronics and published by Taito for the Famicom in 1985 and for the NES in 1987 and reissued across various iterations of Nintendo's Virtual Console service; read everything I wrote in the last synopsis, and then append "but slightly worse".
Why should I care? Insane timer rank aside, Micronics didn't screw this one up too badly, I guess...
Useless fact: Other, more notable conversions of this game include versions for Game Boy, Game Boy Color (reskinned in North America as a tie-in to the cartoon Dexter's Laboratory) and Game Boy Advance, all of which would be welcome on Nintendo Switch Online.
EGG CONSOLE
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $7.19 / ¥880
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Microcabin
What's this? The MSX-exclusive remix of Microcabin's lighthearted storybook-esque adventure game Harry Fox, originally published in 1986; this version reimagines the original game — an image-based adventure game with a command-input interface — as something of an RPG, with a freely exporable world displayed in top-down 2D format, a direct menu-based command system, a day/night cycle with corresponding time-centric events, a battle system, 3D dungeons and more.
Why should I care? You recognize that, change of format aside, this is still very much an adventure game with a RPG veneer, and one from before Microcabin made a conscious push towards making their cuter games less punishing than the average adventure game.
Language barrier? All of the text remains in Japanese, but this version mixes hiragana and katakana, at least.
G-MODE ARCHIVES+
Psycho Mystery Series vol.10: Ginmaku no Tengai
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: ¥800
- Publisher: G-MODE /And Joy
What's this? The tenth entry in Genki/And-Joy's Psycho Mystery series of paranormal mystery adventure games, which spanned roughly a dozen volumes, as well as radio dramas and e-books, from 2005 to 2007; this particular entry flips the format by having the player assume the role of the culprit — a film director who may or may not have murdered their lead actress — and attempt to evade justice, or at least stall the investigation, being pursued by Psycho Mystery's cast of regulars.
Why should I care? You respect the writers' push to shake things up, and the year between G-MODE Archives reissues has given you time to catch up on the prior games.
Useless fact: This game was positioned as the first "Eden Episode", an attempt at a branded sub-series that only saw one extra entry before the entire series came to a climax.
OTHER
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee Remastered
- Platform: PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Nintento Switch, Xbox, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $29.99 or equivalent
- Publisher:Atari / Pipeworks
What's this? A remaster of the first game in Pipeworks' '00s-era trilogy of Godzilla versus action games, originally developed for the Nintendo Gamecube and published by Infogrames in 2002, and given an expanded port to Xbox in 2003; this new version features the fuller character roster from the Xbox version (with some license-related changes, detailed below) and adds modernized visuals, cross-platform online multiplayer (limited to two players), a streamlined content-unlock system, more individualized single-player campaigns and more (including a digital deluxe version that adds Burning Millennium Godzilla 2000 and Black Mechagodzilla skins, among other extras).
Why should I care? You've been waiting a long, long time for a new/"new" dedicated Godzilla console game, and you accept that this is not an amalgamation of the Pipeworks trilogy or a stealth platform that will eventually transform into a massive kaiji playbox but a mechanically faithful remaster of a multiplayer-focused party brawler, and one whose moment-to-moment mechanics may not survive the scrutiny that will inevitably come from tacking online multiplayer to an ancient licensed game. (That said, it may or may not receive DLC down the line...)
Character changes: Due to licensing restrictions and/or corrections to continuity errors presented by the original release, the character formerly known as "Mechagodzilla 2" now sports the Showa-era Mechagodzilla design, and the somewhat generic "Godzilla 90s" (now just "Godzilla") seems to be specifically sporting the design from Godzilla vs. Mothra.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Platform: Nintendo Switch 2 (worldwide)
- Price: $59.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Nintendo
What're these? The second remake of Nintendo's series- and era-defining 3D action-adventure game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, originally published for the Nintendo 64 in 1998 (and reissued via Gamecube, Virtual Console and Nintendo Switch Online) and remade for the Nintendo 3DS in 2011; this new take reimagines the original game with high-fidelity visuals and audio and adds free camera control, a jump button, voiced cutscenes, the ability to sing and/or play your replica ocarina into the microphone to perform the in-game songs and many other changes (but not that many, it seems).
Why should I care? Whatever capacity I might've once had to evaluate this game has been utterly eroded by decades of interminable circular gushing that I have sought to avoid at every turn, so I think I'll sit this one out, but if you're someone who hasn't tired of Zelda-chat, remake-chat, review-chat and every other faithful standby topic of online "discourse" then I suspect this release will refuel you for another three decades.
I might be wrong, but... does this version not include Master Quest? I really just assumed it had to be there.
UPDATES UPDATES UPDATES
Brief Karate Foolish (PC) update
Some seven years after its last, very minor, update, the globally-released 2016 Steam version of D.C.S. 2003 unimpeachable digitized-actor fighting game Brief Karate Foolish has received a substantial overhaul that adds online multiplayer with rollback netcode, lobbies, ranked play, leaderboards, new controller/stick-friendly button macros and a plethora of technical tweaks that make the game much less of a hassle to play on modern Windows setups, when using Steam Deck or Steam-specific functionality or when interfacing with streaming sofrware... and what's more, it's still free!
