Retro Re-release Roundup, week of February 1, 2018
A fan-favourite Japanese RPG is finally available on the ultimate play-anywhere platform and more accessible than ever... plus, Final Fantasy XII's on PC!
コナミはマジで一体何を考えてるんだ！？ (This description is Japanese only and requires proficiency in the Japanese language to read.)
ARCADE ARCHIVES NEO GEO
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster
What's this? The sequel to SNK's hit weapons-based Neo Geo fighting game, featuring redrawn graphics, new systems including weapon breaks and a handful of new characters, including fan favourite Nakoruru.
Why should I care? The Samurai Shodown series was one of the first great 2D fighting games to offer a genuine alternative to Street Fighter II and Samurai Shodown II represents both the peak of Samurai Shodown's popularity and the emergence of SNK as a genuine rival to Capcom in the 2D fighting game space. It's also really fun and very beginner-friendly, especially if you soft-ban Ukyo.
Helpful tip: You've read this intro before, and you may have read it a couple months ago when this game was re-released elsewhere. Read it again. You know you want to.
- Platform: Playstation 4, Xbox One (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster
What's this? The third Samurai Shodown game, originally rushed to arcades in late 1995; this entry features a gritty, bleak visual overhaul, a revamped cast with several newcomers and fan-favourite omissions and one of the earliest examples of alternate character styles in fighting games with the Slash/Burst system.
Why should I care? Samurai Shodown III is an incredibly unbalanced game, with huge damage values for most attacks and broken techniques that guarantee quick kills for almost every version of every character ... but some might consider that an authentic reflection of the brutality of samurai combat, no?
Useless fact: The Korean version of SamSho III features several edits in order to address Korea's sensitivity to historical depictions of samurai, including a name change (Fighters Swords) and a redesign of newcomer Gaira into the Korean-friendly character Kim Ung Che, a character who would remain exclusive to that specific regional release until his inclusion as a bonus character in the console port of Samurai Shodown VI some ten years later.
VIRTUAL CONSOLE (WII U)
Battle Chopper (Mr. Heli no Daibouken)
- Platform: PC Engine (North America, Europe)
- Price: $5.99 / €5.99 / £5.39
- Publisher: Konami / Irem
What's this? A port of Irem's lighthearted arcade shooting game from 1987, released on PC Engine in 1989; this game never made it to Wii Virtual Console outside of Japan but it caught the last train to make it to Wii U.
Why should I care? Mr. Heli features several non-traditional systems not present in R-Type or other Irem shooters, like player-controlled scrolling and a shop system akin to Sega's Fantasy Zone, and the admirable PC Engine port adds a new "normal" difficulty mode that makes the game approachable to players of all skill levels.
Helpful tip: If you're struggling to beat the game even on the normal difficulty mode, press I, II, II, I and Select on the mode select screen to unlock the option to give yourself as many additional credits as you deem necessary.
- Platform: PC Engine (Europe)
- Price: €5.99 / £5.39
- Publisher: Konami / Irem
What's this? Irem's brutally unforgiving vertical shooter, released in arcades in 1988, on PC Engine in 1990 and on Wii U Virtual Console right now; blast through sci-fi environments with mechanical exactness lest your combat simulator unleash hell upon you and your entire bloodline.
Why should I care? Image Fight is quite possibly the toughest game Irem ever made (and this version doesn't even have the second loop!) and while the resemblances are slight, it was a primary influence on modern shooting games like Treasure's Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga.
Useless fact: The PC Engine version of Image Fight was adjusted to fit the system's default resolution but if you'd like to (attempt) to simulate the arcade game's vertical orientation, hold the I button when the Irem appears. Voila, black bars of indeterminate value!
Image Fight II: Operation Deepstriker
- Platform: PC Engine CD (Europe)
- Price: €5.99 / £5.39
- Publisher: Konami / Irem
What's this? A home-only sequel to Image Fight, released exclusively for the PC Engine CD in late 1992 and, once again, it's being released internationally for the first time on the Wii U Virtual Console right now, in TYOOL 2018.
Why should I care? It's Image Fight with of-the-era redbook music, (skippable) voiced anime cutscenes and a much-relaxed difficulty level... so, still quite tough, but within the grasp of non-diehards players.
Helpful tip: Once you clear the game, you'll be able to replay with a few different ships, including Gen-san, the star of Irem's platformer series Hammerin' Harry.
Necromancer (Jaseiken Necromancer)
- Platform: PC Engine (North America, Europe)
- Price: $5.99 €5.99 / £5.39
- Publisher: Konam
What's this? A gory Lovecraftian RPG in the Dragon Quest model, developed and released by Hudson as one of the first big role-playing games for the PC Engine in early 1988 and released internationally for the first time today on Wii U — and it seems to be completely untranslated, thus alienating a huge percentage of a tiny potential audience. (The screenshots provided with the press kit very conspicuously exclude any of the menu or dialogue screens... never change, Konami.)
Why should I care? Can you read Japanese? No? Then you probably shouldn't care because it's going to be extremely difficult to play. If you can read Japanese... well, I can't offer a first-hand appriasal of the game as I've never played it, but by all accounts it's very difficult and features 60-character passwords saves that span multiple alphabets and are prone to incorrectly recording your save data, so have fun with that.
Useless fact: Necromancer's Giger-esque box art is one of the few pieces of late-'80s game art that's actually officially licensed from H.R.Giger.
OTHER
Atari Flashback Classics Volume 3
- Platform: Playstation 4 (Europe, excludes Russia, UAE and Australia/New Zealand)
- Price: €19,99 / £15.99
- Publisher: Atari S.A.A.S.
What's this? The third collection of odds and ends from Code Mystics' ongoing series of emulated Atari compilations; the contents of this volume are still not 100% confirmed — they've announced and rescinded this release several times now and I'm not even sure it's actually out today — but it'll contain 50 games spanning late-70s black-and-white arcade games, Atari 2600 and Atari 5200 games, including a selection of rarely-represented 2600 games from Mattel subsidiary M-Network.
Why should I care? You can't fault these compilations for lack of volume, and at this point they're really scraping for deep cuts, so you're bound to see some games (or versions of games) here that you've probably never seen and may never see again. One for the curious, for sure.
Helpful tip: Some of the games included in this package — like Yars' Return, listed above — are not classic or prototype Atari games but recent, officially-licensed homebrew ports and sequels developed for classic hardware and included in products like the AtGames Atari Flashback plug-and-play consoles.
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age
- Platform: PC via Steam and GOG
- Price: $49.99
- Publisher: Square-Enix
What's this? The final mainline Final Fantasy game for PS2, enhanced, collated and remastered for PS4 last year and now ported to PC with additional features including support for 60FPS, ultra-wide and multi-monitor resolutions, a third selectable music option, immediate access to post-game modes and the option to immediately max out your License Points and Gil.
Why should I care? FFXII's open-world structure and quasi-MMO combat were divisive additions to the series but the game quickly established itself as a fan-favourite entry and one that would directly influence many other games both within and outside of Final Fantasy proper; The Zodiac Age adds a ton of content that was never accessible to international audiences until this remaster, as well as many modern conveniences that allow even impatient time-starved meanderers like myself to play at a comfortable pace.
Important reading: Herr Jeremy was able to interview the The Zodiac Age team not once but twice, so if you'd like a little more insight into the production of the remaster, have at it.
DISCOUNTS & DEALS
- Platform: PC via Humble Store
- Price: pay what you want for several classic Rockstar Games titles until February 14
"Infamous", "shocking", "ground-breaking"... all words once used to describe the open-world subversion sims peddled and popularised by Rockstar Games, and now's your opportunity to test whether those descriptors still ring true. A buck'll get ya the heavy hitters — GTA3 & Vice City, Max Payne and, if you're not Australian, Manhunt — with Bully, GTA San Andreas, Max Payne 2 and L.A. Noire thrown in for beating the average donation (currently $9.74) and GTA4 & Liberty City Episodes, Max Payne 3 & DLC and the L.A. Noire DLC thrown in at the highe-end $15 tier.
