Time for our regular roundup of the the mostly (but not strictly) retro-interest games releases on the way for the upcoming month, complete with trailers for everything and maybe a few snippets of fascinating information too! Surprisingly quiet this time though – between us, I worried about being able to fill December and January but they turned out just fine; March though… Having said that, in the main we’re talking quality if not so much quantity, so onwards and upwards!
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve decided I’ve had my fill of Dead Cells and deleted it, but here we go again! There’s no chance I can resist the new Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania DLC, arriving on the 6th in all the places the base game currently exists, and I think it’s £8.99. And for that you’re going to be getting a new story across two levels, Dracula’s Castle and the Castle’s Outskirts, and as you’d expect, they’re full of flame-lit corridors, beautiful paintings, gloomy tombs and secret rooms as you team up with Richter Belmont and Alucard to reach the throne room of the Dark Lord himself. It’s full of fan service, from the iconic weapons to the boss fights, but I’m most excited about the fifty-one tracks from the series also included, including twelve reimagined in a Dead Cells stylee! Time to re-install it again, I guess!
The 9th of March revives some ancient old Atari goodness from 1981 with The Caverns of Mars Recharged, releasing on everything and everywhere, including the Atari VCS, of course. This is a total revamp of the classic tunnel shooter, adding loads more gameplay, modern graphics and a thumping new soundtrack as you descend into fully destructible subterranean Mars. Great old game and this looks like quite the update, although I’ve still got so much of that Atari 50 compilation on my plate I’ll probably pass for the time being.
Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon comes to Switch on March 17th, with kid Bayonetta and her demonic stuffed toy searching for the power to save her mum in some dark and spooky forest. I’m not keen on the magical (non-)combat mechanics and I’m not keen on the art style and I’m especially not keen on the annoying voice acting, so I’m guessing this one’s not aimed at me. Certainly nothing like the original source material, which I’m not really that keen on either, so let’s move on!
There’s a game of the year contender raising its head on the 24th as a remake of my number three favourite game of all time, entitled Resident Evil 4 Remake, comes to Xbox, PlayStation and PC via Steam. It promises modernised gameplay, a reimagined storyline and a big graphical overhaul as Raccoon City survivor Leon Kennedy is sent to rescue the president’s kidnapped daughter, six years after the original biological apocalypse. Obviously, I think the original is incredible, and it’s not often I don’t have a game of it on the go on something, so the only other thing I’ve got to say is this had better be good!
I had no idea there was a Simon the Sorcerer prequel on the way until I was putting this together, but apparently Simon the Sorcerer: Origins is the official prequel to the ancient 16-bit point-and-click adventure game series which I think currently numbers five. I do know for sure that the original was an absolute stunner at the time though! This one is set a few weeks before that, in 1993, and may well answer some very old questions about how Simon ended-up where he did for the first game, with the help of modern visuals and gameplay mechanics. And there’s the problem – I really don’t like the “modern visuals” because it just looks like a generic cartoon to me, which would be fine if I hadn’t recently had the original on the go on the Amiga and been reminded of the literal magic it weaves in front of your eyes again! At worst I’m neutral though, and more than happy to give it a chance when it arrives on everything on the 28th.
That’s what I’ve picked out for this month! Hopefully we’ll get a couple of late surprises like last month – speaking of which, be sure to check out my reviews of Ninja JaJaMaru: The Retro Collection and Ninja JaJaMaru: The Great Yokai Battle +Hell! And there’s certainly some cool stuff on the horizon for next time, with stuff like Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp finally arriving, and Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection. A new Tron game and, of course, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor too, so I look forward to discussing all of those more with you next time!
Retro Arcadia 