BionicDodo

I am super excited for this! Without a doubt this is a day 1 purchase.

Just had a quick game on my Mega Drive using a Power Base FM and a flash cart. It worked perfectly and was really good fun! Thanks for the heads up.

The driver in that video would have racked up about 900 years in jail!

This looks great, I'm going to have a serious dig through the site when I have some time. Thanks for sharing!

I hate this style of 'poll', so I'll just say 3 SE.

I love the Wipeout series and it has such iconic design that it is well suited to a nice hardback book. I really want to like Read Only Memory, as I love books about classic games and buy basically every Bitmap Books release, but I have always been put off by their fondness for blank space. Every one of their books I have ever looked at has loads of pages with a single image at the top and then half a page of blank white space beneath it. The Street Fighter II book has pages that are mostly text (with a small cartoon of the person speaking) where the top half of the page is just empty white space. I've always found it quite jarring and it has put me off picking their stuff up.

Great article. I love Jeff's games, so it's a real shame this one never released. Moose Life VR is a favourite of mine.

I never owned an Atari back in the day and had no interest in this when it was first announce... but since then it has managed to sneak into my head and I now really want to get one. The impulse buy price tag helps.

@michaelf I'm guessing it will be like the two versions of the C64. As in essentially the same as the Amiga 500 Mini but in a full size box with a functioning keyboard.

Shame there wasn't an Atari Arcade 2 before this happened.

It's Metal Slug 8!

Really want this for Mega Drive, shame it's coming from Limited Run Games and their Japanese company, as I'm really not a fan.

I'm a sucker for a slide out keyboard, but I'm guessing I can't afford one of these and likely never will be able to!

As above I will remain reasonably sceptical about this until I see a more varied demonstration, but it is interesting news nonetheless. I'm also intrigued by a Retron FPGA console in general, as I've never been interested in their software emulation devices.

I had to vote for Ultima IV as the Master System version had a huge impact on me as a small child. My brother bought it (and boy was it pricey!) and the different classes and terrain and general size and complexity of it blew me away. Not to mention the books and maps that came with it! I bought Ultima Underworld 1&2 CD collection in the EA budget range for PC years later but they already felt a little old fashioned by then so were harder for me to really get attached to as an impatient teen. I also played some Pagan at that time but I mostly took the GTA approach and just messed about in the world, blocking people into rooms with items and getting in trouble. It was fun but never gripping or awe inspiring like Ultima IV was.

Nice idea. It would be nice if a single site had one section for old games that have received modern official localisations/remakes and one section for games that have received fan translations.

Oooh, now this has me interested. Wonder where they're going with this one...

That is amazing cover art.

I am loving mine so far. Have loved little clicky sticks since I first bought a NEOGEO Pocket Color way back when. Lovely.

I just wish someone would make a left Joycon with a clicky stick and built in battery/wireless, so I could play shmups on the FlipGrip with it. I would then be in shmup heaven. I guess the arrival of this means there's some scope for DIY projects...

I've nearly bought the original a few times. The expanded version looks great, but I really can't stand Limited Run. Preferred the original cover too, especially as this one has not only a huge Press Run logo on it, but also a big Limited Run one too!

I am hopelessly behind in the Yakuza series, but I now want to buy this game just for the arcades! SEGA are constantly re-releasing the 16-bit era content in ranges like SEGA AGES, can we please have some standalone releases from this era? Pretty please?

Er.. Japanese language has been what?! Haha.

This was always a nice game, but this 16-bit version is fabulous and continues to get better.

I love how this is nice and subtle, yet still pays perfect tribute. I have no interest in a really garish watch and I would actually wear this. That said, I don't really spend that kind of money on watches, and have a perfectly good one already, so can't really justify it. Good effort by Seiko though.

2D hand drawn artwork and pixel art are not the same thing. I do expect that pixel art will start to disappear as fewer developers (and gamers!) have nostalgia for it, but a beautiful hand drawn 2D image will always be beautiful and someone will continue to make them. It is however a much more expensive and time consuming way to work than using 3D models on a 2D plane, so I doubt we'll see a lot of it.

Two that still stick in my mind are...

Cheat mode in James Pond on the Acorn Archimedes: YNGWIE J MALMSTEEN (name of a Swedish guitarist)

Wonder Boy in Monster Land on the Master System: Pause the game 45 times to gain 45 gold. As the buttons in controller 2 could be used to pause/u pause the game, we used a Quikshot Python joystick in controller 2 with the auto fire switch on and a rubber band around the trigger. Wander off for a bit and come back to endless riches!

My first thought when I saw the picture of the dirty statue was "I could clean him up nicely in PowerWash Simulator!".

Definitely going to pick this up. I love that they're including all versions of the game.

As someone currently sitting less than a metre from copies of Choplifter for the Master System, Desert, Jungle and Urban Strike for the Mega Drive and Soviet Strike for the Saturn, this is right up my street! Thanks for the heads up.

I can't stand their big head art style, so I would really rather someone else take on Golden Axe or Final Fight.

I am delighted to have this wonderful game on more systems, but I was really hoping it would arrive as part of a Bubble Bobble collection, along with the original, Bubble Memories, Bubble Symphony and Rainbow Islands (preferably all on a single cart together).

I love rom hacks, so this is a fabulous idea for an article. I'd love to see more of these features in future, that gather together lots of hacks that are worth checking out.

Maybe one on your favourite hacks that have been kicking around for years could work too?

This is a day 1 purchase for me as I love clicky NEOGEO digital sticks. Please can we have Switch support too though?

I would kill (lots of naughty in-game baddies) for a left JoyCon with one of these sticks and wireless so that it worked with the FlipGrip for shmups.

I had Heroes of the Lance for the Master System when I was young and couldn't really get anywhere in it, if memory serves me well. Still got the cartridge kicking around. I always see these old D&D re-releases and instantly add them to my Steam wishlist, but I usually find that in reality they're too archaic for me to enjoy them much. I generally find the old games that hold up best for me are the simplest ones. Nowt wrong with Pac Man, Galaga, Mappy or Super Mario Bros. in 2023.

I love a good fan translation, and I love Samurai Shodown, but these things usually take many years to release, so I generally try to forget about them until they appear in fully playable form.

Mine finally arrived this week. Pre-ordered from Funstock, so no question of authenticity. The overall package is beautiful and made me feel like a 10 year old again!

Loving the EXP so far, although I do find the L2 button really gets in my way when I try and play in TATE mode. Would be good to get some rapid-fire options for the TATE games as trying to rapidly press the buttons in that setup gives me cramp quite quickly!

First I get an email this morning saying that my limited edition Evercade EXP is finally ready to ship, and then this gets announced. What a great day!

My first thought on reading this was "They were still taking pre-orders for this?!"

Sega are a funny bunch. For years they have been championed as the ones who support their retro communities (Sonic fan games etc), often favourably compared to Nintendo's approach. And then recently they've started shutting books like this down. I hope at the very least that it is because Sega is about to launch its own glossy coffee table book all about the Mega Drive/Genesis. Otherwise it seems an odd decision.

I'm intrigued by the legality of the whole access to your entire library via the cloud part. Do they legally have the right to share ripped games to various devices via the cloud?

Can't really argue with the top 3. Love this series. Think you're a bit harsh on RR64.

These look great, will definitely pick up one or two. The start button isn't ideal, but it's not something I use much in anger so doesn't bother me too much.

Any news of a UK release date? I had a quick glance but could only see imported Genesis versions at a marked up price.

How could they not know it had been released as an Arcade Archives title? I was aware of both versions existing and I'm not developing a port of the game or even particularly into it. Odd.

This is looking great! As a big Master System fan I will definitely check it out when it's finished. Until then we'll just have to stick with Master of Darkness!

I must add that 'dire' is a very harsh word to use to describe the MS port of Golden Axe. It may have been improved by a hacker years later, but it was a decent port for the time and was enjoyed a lot in my household.

Thanks for this, it was an enjoyable read. I actually like this game, and I'm not alone...

https://videogamecritic.com/snesdd.htm?e=89720#rev4743

Haha, that's brilliant!

Divisive before people played it maybe, but Post-released most agreed it was a good or great game. Zelda II is surely more divisive.

I enjoyed light gun games with the Wii Remote, but they never felt quite right. I'm still waiting for a truly great light gun that works with modern displays. There was a recent one (forget the name) but there seemed to be quite a lot of complaints about it.

@Spider-Kev None of those things are fast though. If you're a low cash flow company and you now have to produce a load of extra stock of a discontinued item to meet previous orders, all of that will have to be paid for before any insurance company pays out. If they have enough cash to tide themselves over until it all gets sorted then they should be fine long term, but many businesses go bust because of short time cash issues, or at least struggle to pay staff due to them (never good at Christmas). And all of that is just finances, there is also the issue of working hard to produce a product you genuinely care about only for it to get stolen before it reaches the hands of your most loyal customers... that must be quite distressing.

I was devastated when I got the email. Was really looking forward to playing this over the holidays. I mostly just feel for Blaze though as they can't be rolling in cash right now and I'm sure they didn't need to be ordering more of the (out of production) Limited Edition units from their supplier. People can be such scumbags.

I used to play R-Type on my Mega Drive all the time... using the Master System Converter! Seriously though, brilliant as the MS port was it would have been nice to get a native MD version (if just to lose all that sprite flicker!) back in the day, but better late than never I guess.