By 

Jesse D. Watson (North Dakota) –

  

  

= Fun: 

Retro Game Challenge is retro gaming bliss.

The best retro game collection released in decades is made up entirely of fake games, many outright clones of titles you may have grown up with. Scandal? Hardly. The brilliance, and at times abject parody, not to mention the quality of the designs, art, music, even the dialog (dialog in a retro collection? yes, and it’s great!), add up to what would have been my game of 2008 had it released mere months ago.

I find it hard to imagine anyone spurning such a joyful bundle of gaming goodness. Even those with no memories of the NES era will find plenty to enjoy. Each of the games feels complete and fulfilling on its own, and the addition of a framework of challenges and unlockables functions as a carrot to draw the gamer deeper. Where I found myself, in other collections, hopping from game to game aimlessly, here, I’m gently prodded into learning the intricacies of each selection, and it’s immensely satisfying. The freeplay mode, with its more subtle incentives, became a surprising favorite, but beyond that, the shell of sitting down, virtually, with a childhood pal, searching through fake game magazines (with great shout-outs to real life editors you might remember), even getting yacked at by your friend’s mom (“Are you two still playing? Control yourselves!”) adds up to one of the most charming experiences I’ve had in gaming.

As for the games themselves, they’re the best Famicom titles that never existed. The crown of the collection, at least for me, is the epic (10-15 hour!) RPG, Guadia Quest, but there is more than something for everyone, the focus being on action. In truth, I’ve never had so much fun with shooters before; I actually like Cosmic Gate more than, say, Galaga. To paraphrase Bono, “Even better than the real thing.” And that’s truly just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

The designs borrow happily from the past (each game’s influences can be dissected like the best of loving tributes) but never get bogged down in the tedium or problems of our actual retro libraries. In other words, they’re coated with enough modern game philosophy (but not too much!) that they don’t end up making you remember what you hated about the halcyon 8-bit days (hey, nostalgia covers over a multitude of sins).

I could write a lot more, but in the interests of aiming for less than 300 words (pff), I’ll cut it off here. Please, I’m telling you, just buy it! I want the sequel!

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By 

Eric L. Patterson “aka shidoshi” (Silent Hill, USA) –

  

= Fun: 

Retro Game Challenge is a title that can be enjoyed by all, but was made for one specific group of people.

Those people are the type to whom the woes of “sprite flicker” are instantly explainable, the type who remember the technique of blowing into a cartridge (or even understand what that means in the first place), and who fondly remember the days when dimensions, and buttons, came in twos.

Retro Game Challenge–a product originally produced as a companion title to the late-night Japanese gaming show GameCenter CX–is a collection of classic 8-bit games. Except, the catch is, these aren’t actual games that were produced back in the era of the NES, but instead are brand new creations that look and feel like something we might have been playing 20+ years ago. Sent back in time by Game Master Arino (the digital version of GC CX’s host, Japanese comedian Shinya Arino), your mission is to complete a set of challenges presented to you by the Game Master spread across a wide variety of games, all accomplished with the help of Arino’s younger (and not quite as sinister) self.

Why Retro Game Challenge works is two main reasons. First, the games presented here do indeed resemble titles we’ve seen and played before, but they have been crafted in such a way as to feel fresh and new while also honoring gaming’s past. Your first set of challenges will come via Cosmic Gate–a play on Namco’s Galaga–and though in many ways it is a Galaga clone, it also contains within itself some interesting ideas that keep it from feeling like a retread. Completing the challenges for one game unlocks the next of Retro’s eight “revivals”, such as the DragonQuest homage Guadia Quest, or the absolutely fantastic shooter Star Price. While the games themselves are not always what one might consider “full length”, these are in no way dumbed-down mini-games, and you’ll find yourself playing them in Retro’s freeplay mode long after you’ve finished their challenges through the storyline.

That storyline mode is the second element that makes Retro Game Challenge so great, as it is obvious that a lot of thought (not to mention a little love) went into its creation. Your life with young Arino provides the background for gameplay, and it is full of elements that play on the nostalgia many of us feel for the early days of gaming. Retro’s included games don’t just become unlocked; a new game is presented to you via young Arino coming home from the game store, new cartridge in hand. The games themselves all have visible Famicom-styled cartridges (with artwork), and digital instruction manuals can be viewed and read through at any time. Also available for perusing is GameFan, a “magazine” that Arino picks up from time to time that will give you tips and tricks for the games you’re trying to beat, previews of the games you have yet to unlock, and a host of other amusing bits of information that give Retro even more personality. For those of us who remember the days, back before the internet, when one would crack open a new issue of the real-world GameFan or EGM, and read about all the amazing new games that would be coming our way in the future, this little element of the game really adds to the atmosphere.

Anybody who has an appreciation for the simpler days of gaming will love Retro Game Challenge, as it is a fabulous product with a whole lot of gaming goodness to offer. Those of you who think of the “classic days of gaming” as time spend with Cloud and Sephiroth, however, may not get as much out of what Retro has to give as those of us who became gamers with an Atari 2600 joystick or Master System controller in hand will. For us, much like your virtual in-game self, Retro Game Challenge will send you back in time and have you feeling like a kid again.

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