Retro Re-release Roundup, week of October 31, 2024
Shadowman of the Damned, and so much more.
Before sinking your teeth into this week’s fleshy, well-nourished roundup, take note of a little somethin’ rolled out by Nintendo this week: the Nintendo Music app for iOS and Android, exclusively available for Nintendo Switch Online. Not only will this app let you stream an ever-growing selection of Nintendo series VGM with game-specific options like auto-skipping game-spoiling tracks or intelligent loop settings, it also portends an imminent and possibly neverending wave of copyright strikes against anyone who so much as hums a T-Square tune on Instagram. Wowie zowie!
ARCADE ARCHIVES
Riot
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
- Price: $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29
- Publisher: Hamster / Tecmo
What’s this? An over-the-top crosshair-shooting run-and-gun action game, developed by Tecmo in 1992 and never reissued, or even officially issued at all in Japan; a Japanese version was produced and tested on location but ultimately never released, with associates NMK picking the game up for distribution outside of Japan. Unlike the typical post-Cabal crosshair shooter, Riot requires to take out enemies in both the foreground and background, with dedicated buttons for shooting on either side of the screen, and takes place in large side-scrolling stages, whose scrolling is controlled by the player’s position and stance on screen, rather than static vistas.
Why should I care? The multi-plane shooting mechanic is so cool that it’s a small wonder nobody’s ripped it off, and the game’s aesthetic and tone — brought to us by many of the same folk behind other macho-excess arcade games like Ninja Gaiden and Wolf Fang — is gloriously silly and not at all afraid to veer wildly from its flimsy hard-military premise.
Helpful tip: Assign autofire to your shot buttons, immediately.
NINTENDO SWITCH ONLINE EXPANSION PASS (MATURE APP)
October ’24 update: Shadow Man and Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (Nintendo 64)
What’re these? The second and most beloved of Acclaim’s dinosaur-blasting sci-fi FPS Turok trilogy, and a grim and ambitious action-adventure game that also happens to have been developed by Acclaim and based on a Valiant Comics property. (Being mature-rated games, one must download the separate mature-rated NSO app in order to play ’em.)
Why should I care? You’re content to treat them as a free(ish) demo for the vastly more performant Night Dive remasters that have been available for years, or you’re a veteran who specifically wants to play the original versions, not just in a warts-and-all sense but also to experience the games as they were, without the many and occasionally arbitrary additions or cuts present in the remasters. (Most notably, Turok 2′s multiplayer mode is completely different in the remaster, and different again from the original PC conversion.)
Useless fact: Because Acclaim was one of many territorial co-publishers of Tecmo’s jiggly 3D fighting game Dead or Alive 2. certain versions of the game’s many revisions and regional variants across Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 include character costumes based on Shadow Man characters.
SATURN TRIBUTE SERIES
Wolf Fang Skull Fang Saturn Tribute Boosted
- Platform: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $29.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: City Connection / Paon DP
What’s this? An emulated two-pack containing the Sega Saturn ports of Data East’s autoscrolling mecha run-and-gun Wolf Fang (aka Rohga: Armor Force), originally released in arcades in 1991, and the variable-scrolling vertical shooting game Skull Fang, originally released in arcades in 1996; in addition to the emulator suite (save states, rewind, slo-mo, button configs, screen settings etc), this package includes a brand-new assortment of arranged BGM from a handful of acclaimed video game composers, including members of ZUNTATA and Super Sweep, as well as specific per-game enhancements that include a new selection of mecha palettes (Wolf Fang) and an easy-input mode (Skull Fang). (While the frontends offer English language support, the games themselves remain untranslated.)
Why should I care? Wolf Fang’s branching paths, abundate mecha media fanservice and unique, quasi-Atomic Runner autoscrolling gameplayer offer an exciting counterpoint to more stodgy contemporary mecha action games, and while the Saturn port is by no means arcade-accurate, those with no familiarity with nor attachment to the arcade version should be perfectly served by this version, potential emulation issues notwithstanding. As for Skull Fang… well, its hodgepodge of low-res pre-rendered CG sprites and experimental mechanics like special moves with fighting game-esque command inputs and player-controlled scroll speed are certainly interesting, and far more fully realized on Saturn than in arcades, and sometimes that’s enough.
Useless fact: These two games are #2 and #3 in a loose trilogy that began with the relatively conservative vertical shooting game Vapor Trail (Kuuga), and you can find arranged Vapor Trail music (well, the one song) stashed away inside Skull Fang.
OTHER
Aero the Acro-Bat: Rascal Rival Revenge
- Platform: PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox (worldwide)
- Price: $5.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Ratalaika Games
What’s this? An emulated reissue of the 2002 Game Boy Advance port of Sunsoft’s 1993 SNES/Genesis mascot platformer Aero the Acro-Bat, which was itself reissued just a few months ago; this release comes equipped with Ratalaika’s usual enhancements, which include save states, various cheat toggles, screen filters, a modest gallery of art/manual scans, rewind and more.
Why should I care? I wouldn’t dare deny Stuart the opportunity to tell you himself, if he hasn’t already.
Useless fact: This specific version of the game originally made it to Japan with some deceptively cute character art that, to my knowledge, is completely absent from this reissue.
Clock Tower Rewind
- Platform: PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $19.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: WayForward / Limited Run Games
What’s this? An enhanced emulated reissue of the very first entry in Human Entertainment’s cult cursor-guided horror series Clock Tower, originally released for the Super Famicom in 1995 and ported to the PlayStation in 1997, but never officially localized or published internationally until now. (The games released in English as Clock Tower and Clock Tower 2 were actually Clock Tower 2and a gaiden game, respectively.) In addition to the new translation and expected emulation features like save states and rewind, this release include an image gallery and music player, a video interview with original director Hifumi Kono, an animated intro and voiced motion comics, a new theme song performed by Silent Hill associate Mary Elizabeth McGlynn and the option to play the game as-is or via “Rewind Mode”, which implements several enhancements, fixes, alterations and implementation of cut and/or PS-exclusive content.
Why should I care? You wouldn’t know it from its complete lack of presence in the modern horror game discourse (owing both to the IP’s strange co-attachment to Sunsoft and Capcom, the commercial failure of Clock Tower 3 and Sunsoft’s long dormancy in the console gaming space) but this series once commanded a similar reverence to that of Resident Evil and Silent Hill, and one could argue that this specific game, more than the officially-localized 3D entries, helped cement its reputation —language barrier be damned, this game was a staple of importer and emulation hit-lists, and now new and returning players alike will not only be able to play it but, like, read it.
Useless fact: If the changes presented in Rewind Mode strike you as familiar, that might be because they’re largely derived from an existing fan enhancement effort that’s been available online for several years (with the cooperation of the original hacker, as far as I’m aware).
Red Dead Redemption
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $49.95 or equivalent
- Publisher: Rockstar Games / Double Eleven
What’s this? A long-awaited PC port of Rockstar Games’ massively popular open-world western adventure game, originally released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2010 and given a surprise PlayStation 4/Switch port last year, courtesy of Double Eleven; this PC port is derived from the recent console ports (which basically just slapped together the original game and the Undead Nightmare expansion, sans all multiplayer content, with virtually no enhancements) but does offer a greater array of resolution settings and up to 144FPS, as well as modern post-processing options.
Why should I care? Legacy Rockstar ports have historically been terrible, especially on PC, so you may want to put aside your quibbles about the lack of substantial touch-ups and simply relish in receiving a long-overdue port of a seminal game that functions as it should, without installing rootkits or layering every texture with inscrutable AI-mangled gibberish or whatever else plagues the ports of Rockstar (recent) past.
Helpful tip: Certain audio systems do seem like they haven’t been properly decoupled from game logic and thus don’t sound accurate at high refresh rates, with the horse’s gallop effects being particularly wrong when playing at a higher framerate.
Shadow of the Damned: Hella Remastered
- Platform: PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $24.99 or equivalent
- Publisher: Grasshopper Manufacture
What’s this? A port of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crass action-horror game, originally published by Electronic Arts for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2011; aside from a resolution/framerate bump and some small touch-ups like gyro aiming and a new game+ mode, it’s the same game it always was.
Why should I care? You’ve long made peace with the fact that this Shinji Mikami/Akira Yamaoka/Suda51 collab boiled down to “dollar-store Resident Evil 4 with abundant penis jokes”, and you don’t take the “hella remastered” subtitle too literally.
Helpful tip: The PS5 version apparently runs quite poorly, so you may want to play the PS4 on PS5 in order to stabilize the framerate.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Legends of the Zone Trilogy
- Platform: Nintendo Switch (worldwide)
- Price: $39.99 or equivalent (bundle), $19.99 each (individual games)
- Publisher: GSC Game World
What’s this? A trio of Switch ports of of GSC Game World’s oppressive alt-history post-Chernobyl FPS trilogy, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., originally released on PC from 2007 to 2008 and ported to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One earlier this year; these ports maintain all the magic of the recent consoles versions — which is to say, they work with relatively few technical or performance issues, which is not something that could be said of the PC versions for most of their existence — and include some Switch-specific enhancements like gyro aiming and touchscreen navigation where appropriate.
Why should I care? You want to experience, or revisit, a series that encapsulates he inflection point of several overlapping game formats (immersive sim, survival horror, open-world, FPS/RPG) as they used to exist, and not as the interchangeable slurry that now bears their name. You might also simply wish to marvel at these games, which would bring even the highest-spec PCs to their knees for a full decade after their release, running on Nintendo’s glorified pocket calculator.
Helpful tip: When these games were written, the geopolitical relationship between Ukraine and Russia was not what it currently is, to put it lightly, and the game’s dialogue and tone should be observed with that truth in mind.
Valis The Fantasm Soldier Collection
- Platform: PC via Steam (worldwide)
- Price: $5.99 each or equivalent (individual games, digital soundtrack, $7.99 or equivalent (digital artbook)
- Publisher: Edia
What’s this? A port of the first in a series of crowdfunded, emulation-based collections of games from Telenet’s classic anime-girl action series Valis, originally released for Japanese microcomputers and various consoles from the late ’80s to the mid-’90s and brought to Switch in 2022; this collection offers the PC Engine CD versions of Valis, Valis II and Valis III, enhanced with save states, rewind, button configs, newly-subtitled cutscenes and art/music galleries, among other things. (Strictly speaking, this collection’s being billed as a Valis series launcher, so you can expect another eight or nine games to show up before long.
Why should I care? The Valis series is one that almost knowlingly took an aesthetics-first, mechanics-second approach, and this trio of game strikes the strongest balance between audiovisual charm and design competency of any three games in the series, so the mildly curious could quite easily start (and stop) here.
Helpful tip: The PC Engine CD versions of these Vals games were not released in chronological order by title: in other words, the most recent and therefore most polished of these three games is Valis I.
