Retro Re-release Roundup, week of December 26, 2024
Merry Macrossmas to everyone permitted to celebrate.
…it figures that the capstone to 2024’s roundups would be tainted by some decades-old cultural carcinogen that nobody ever anticipated would persist for so long, huh?
ARCADE ARCHIVES
Super Dimension Fortress Macross / Super Spacefortress Macross
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
- Price: ¥1500
- Publisher: Hamster / Banpresto
What’s this? A vertically-scrolling shooting game based on the popular mecha anime property Macross, originally developed by NMK and published by Banpresto in Japan and Fabtek elsewhere and never ported or reissued until now; based on the Do You Remember Love? film, players control Hikaru Ichigo and/or Maximilian Jenius in their war against the Zentradi, which is executed by shooting bombing, collecting shot-strengthening power-ups and transformation capsules that change the form and shot type of your mech, while also optionally grabbing medals and/or uncovering hidden Minmay heads for score. (The ACA version offers extended options to play the P2 character as P1 and vice-versa, starting on the second loop or adding on-screen rank and medal value display.)
Why should I care? This game only does this game present a lovingly-crafted digital tapestry of one of the most beloved pieces of Macross media but also reconfigures the format and feel of contemporary NMK shooting games like Thunder Dragon and Gunnail for a mass audience, which in practice means it’s way, way easier and bereft of most of the customary clunk that might have turned casual players away from their other games. (It’s also a game that nobody expected to ever be reissued, and the premium price reflects the exorbitant expense of the license.)
Annoying reality: While the chronically infuriating international Macross embargo, enforced by Robotech producers and eternal rent-seekers Harmony Gold, has eased in recent years, products and content from the pre-Flashback 2012 library are still a legal minefield, and so the odds of this reissue hitting global storefronts are incredibly low.
EGG CONSOLE
Babylon (PC8801mkIISR)
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $6.49 / ¥550
- Publisher: D4 Enterprise / Xtalsoft
What’s this? An exploratory action game with RPG trappings, originally developed and published in Japan by Xtalsoft in 1986 and ported to various microcomputers, including an internationally-produced Commodore 64 port, retitled Curse of Babylon and published by the short-lived Broderbund imprint Kyodai Software Marketing;
Why should I care? This game’s very slight (as reflected in the cheaper Japanese price, but not the global price) but, as with most of Compile’s earliest games, it does have a slightly-too-complex-for-its-own-good charm that’ll carry it for a few plays. I also want to say it was a one-person game made it a few weeks, so it’s hard to be too critical, y’know?
Language barrier? The majority of the in-game text is written in kanji-less Japanese.
JALECOLLE FAMICOM VER.
Pizza Pop!
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, (worldwide)
- Price: $7.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: City Connection
What’s this? A side-scrolling action gamev themed around ’50s Americana and pizza delivery, originally developed by Arc System Works and published by Jaleco for the Famicom in 1992; in addition to the standard Jalecolle feature set (save states, rewind, border options, speedrun mode, art galleries and the “Subtitle Guide” overlays for translated/augmented text), this reissue notabley offers a new “Extended Edition” of the game which expands the notoriously small hitbox on the player-character’s pizza peel weapon, as well as a gallery featuring an extensive collection of development documents that have never been published until now.
Why should I care? Compared to the other games released via this label so far, this is a fairly straightforward game and one that doesn’t necessarily need or warrant the heavy-duty augmentations seen previously, but a global debut for a charming and solidly-crafted late-era Famicom game is nothing to sniff at, and the optional hack addresses the game’s primary technical flaw.
Useless fact: The “Extended Edition” hack was produced by a heretofore-inactive games publishing label of the French book company Omake Books, and their future projects include a newly-localised international cartridge version of Ikari no Yousai 2, the Japan-only sequel to the Jaleco Game Boy game known globally as Fortified Zone.
OTHER
DoDonPachi Sai-Dai-Ou-Jou
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price::$34.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Live Wire / Cave
What’s this? An out-of-nowhere port of the final mainline game in Cave’s venerated bullet hell shooting game series DoDonPachi, which was originally developed and distributed in Japanese arcades in 2012 and ported to the Xbox 360 in Japan soon thereafter; this new Live Wire port is based on the X360 version, which presented the original arcade game (with high-definition source visuals) alongside a novice mode, challenge stages, a new 1.5 arrange mode, an arranged soundtrack and a story mode with constant voiced chatter, among other additions. (This port hasn’t been translated, but the basic menu options were in English to begin with.)
Why should I care? SDOJ was not only the final DoDonPachi game but also Cave’s final arcade game, and while the inclusion and prominence of overly moe characters was charitably excused as a desperate hail-mary, if not outright condemned by those who appreciated the series’ relatively hard-edged aesthetic, the game itself commanded a certain level of respect for coming for players’ throats from the jump and pointedly not offering any sort of on-ramping or period of acclimation for newer players (which they walked back to varying degrees for the home version). Now, I cannot currently speak to the quality of this particular port, but it must be said that the X360 version that underpins this port was plagued with its own issues that affected input response, game speed and general stability — Live Wire’s previous ports have taken measures to address problems or omissions from their source versions and I know they’ve endeavored to do the same here, but you may want to wait for reports on just how well the game has been reproduced on Switch.
Useless fact: This port seems like it was produced as a direct response to the massive online buzz generated earlier this year when, after almost twelve years, superplayer Sairyou managed the first ever recorded no-continue clears of the game and its unbelievably ruthless true final boss, both on the X360 version and, soon after, the authentic arcade original.
The Escape Room Chronicles ep4: The 24-hour TV Station
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $5.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: D3 Publisher / Intense
What’s this? A remaster of the ninth 3DS eShop entry in D3 Publisher’s SIMPLE Series escape room game series THE Misshitsu kara no Dasshutsu, which began life on DS in 2007 and ultimately spawned over 40 games across DS, DSiWare, 3DS, WiiWare, Wii U, PlayStation 3, feature phones, smartphones, Switch and now PC, including several that transcended the SIMPLE Series branding; in this episode, the player-character, who works as a production assistant on a TV variety show, finds themselves locked alone inside the TV station after filming has wrapped…
Why should I care? This particular entry is notorious for being perhaps the single most difficult entry in what’s generally a farly difficult series, so that’s somethin’.
Useless fact: The set and station design depicted in this game is extremely reminiscent of a Japanese variety show that was popular at the time of the original 3DS version’s release, titled Waratte Iitomo!
