How exactly do you update Space Harrier of all things for the PlayStation 2 age? It's too famous to take apart and then rebuild from the ground up in the way the 3D Ages team did with Monaco GP two volumes earlier, but at the same time the entirety of the 1985 classic's gameplay can be pretty accurately summed … Continue reading Sega Ages 2500 Vol.4: Space Harrier
A quick word of warning before we begin: All of the English interpretations of Japanese text found here are for better or worse my own, and often paraphrased for brevity's sake. Please consider them general aids designed to convey the gist of what's going on or indicate the general mood of a scene rather than … Continue reading Descendants of the Light
The 3DS remake was... fine, I suppose, and the fan remake swiftly shut down by Nintendo's ever-vigilant lawyers was nothing short of fantastic, but what about the real Metroid II, the original monochrome Game Boy game? It doesn't have the historical significance of the NES classic that started it all, and neither is it as lush or eternally popular … Continue reading Samus’ spooky adventures on SR388
Unlike Monaco GP, which took a truly old game even by my retro-leaning standards and then made an honest attempt to update its fast-paced formula while still staying true to the spirit of the original, this remake of Sega's System 16 arcade hit Fantasy Zone - the one that first caught everyone's attention in 1986 with … Continue reading Sega Ages 2500 Vol.3: Fantasy Zone
I know reading an article about an old digital recreation of a traditional tabletop card game might not sound like the most exciting way to spend a few minutes of your precious free time but this is a good one (honest), and a longstanding personal favourite of mine. Card games are card games - nobody … Continue reading Finding fun in strange places
I promise I won't make a habit of this, but I would like to say it one more time just so I know we're all clear: Sega Ages 2500 began as a budget series on both sides of the publisher/consumer divide - nostalgic experiences intended to be cheap(ish) to make and cheap(ish) to buy. Monaco GP and roughly the … Continue reading Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.2: Monaco GP
Langrisser begins here. Not with the 1991 Mega Drive game of the same name (released in the US as Warsong), but in 1987, with Elthlead. This computer-born strategy game pits the familiarly named good King Sieghart against the dark forces of Böser, although the campaign here isn't a linear series of battlefields but a persistent overworld designed … Continue reading Before the beginning
This Spectrum/C64/Amstrad CPC Alien game (Spectrum version shown and played) debuted all the way back in 1984, making it perhaps the only official Alien game old enough to predate Aliens original cinema release. As if to help transport us back to those simpler times the manual opens with a nine page retelling of the first (or as … Continue reading The perfect organism
Vanillaware's 2011 PSP exclusive Grand Knights History is bursting with the developer's trademark visual splendour - and the game knows it. So proud is this strategic battle buffet of its good looks the team took the time to include an anytime, anywhere, screenshot function, making it easy to share direct captures of the game's warm tones … Continue reading A fighting fantasy
Taito's Densha de GO! series has often turned up in all sorts of places you wouldn't really think a train sim with a fondness for difficulty and rule-based realism would over the past twenty five years - arcades for starters. Nobody could seriously say the N64 was crying out for tightly scheduled locomotive action either. Or the Neo Geo … Continue reading Taito’s tiny trains
Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster 