Back again for our regular Sunday roundup of quick-fire reviews and impressions of everything under the spotlight at Retro Arcadia this week, old and new and a bit of both…

I’m not sure why it seems to be an unpopular opinion, but having just finished Sonic Blast on Sega Game Gear, I reckon it was a Sonic blast! As reported last time, I didn’t get on well with Knuckles’ Chaotix on the 32X at all, so I jumped to this, which was almost the last port of call on my journey through all the 2D Sonic the Hedgehog games. Reckon it will be in my top ten of those once the dust settles too… It’s a proper Sonic from 1996, obviously cut down in scope by necessity, with fifteen mostly breezy levels – although some do take a bit of puzzling out – with each area culminating in relatively simple but occasionally really creative boss fights. It’s not massively inventive apart from those but it’s fast enough, feels way better to control than its two Game Gear predecessors, and while there’s also the expected cutbacks in presentation, that’s as authentic as the gameplay, and I thought some of the colour choices, especially between levels, were excellent. Might not be for everyone but I liked this!

Flicking through the lovely PC Engine: The Box Art Collection from Bitmap Books the other day, I noticed the entry for Volfied and wondered… This is the 1989 Japan-only port of the Taito arcade game from the same year, which in turn was a successor to the 1981 action-puzzler Qix. The concept is similar, where your little ship has to draw rectangles to block out a certain amount of the play area while avoiding various nasties, but the aesthetic here is more sci-fi than geometry-based, and you’ve also got power-ups to unlock, bosses to beat and various bonuses at play. It’s also way harder, requiring you to fill in 80% of the screen before you can move to the next level, while the enemies hunting you down via the lines you’re drawing are way more aggressive too. And therein lies the original version’s problem! But much like the way the Game Boy port solved Qix’s colourblindness problems, the PC-Engine does the same for Volfied by offering far more balanced gameplay. And similarly, it’s brilliant as a result! It was never much of a looker to begin with, but the presentation here is fine, and I really like the creepy sounds. So glad I stumbled upon it!

Speaking of Qix on the Game Boy, I actually just picked up that cartridge but haven’t had much time to play it yet so I’ll report back on that next time. However, what I have spent plenty of time playing on there is Pinball: Revenge of the ‘Gator, which I bought at the same time, and it’s wonderful! It’s from HAL Laboratory in 1989, and is very much in the mould of another of their games, Pinball on the NES from 1984, although with way more complexity to make up for the loss of colour! That said, you almost forget it’s monochrome once you’re sucked in to the beautifully lit and textured table, made up of four flip-screens with three bonus tables to unlock as you pound away on all the animated cartoon alligator-themed targets and bumpers and other pinball stuff. Plenty of secrets to unlock too, and on top of this surprising depth there’s a real variety between the screens too. And the ball physics are excellent, with way more heft than something like Pinball Dreams on the Game Boy (or anywhere else for that matter)! I love a pinball game and I love this, and I think I might just do a deep-dive on it so watch this space!

A cool new port of the 1984 Data East one-on-one fighting game Karate Champ for the Commodore Amiga appeared from homebrew developer JOTD last week, and I’m pleased to report it plays really nice, as long as you’ve got 2MB of RAM and a CD32 joypad or two to hand! Do what you like on emulation though, and I’ve been playing half and half on the A500 Mini, with said controller, and while I’ve not played this ages, it came back very quickly, and two buttons, for left attack and right attack, plus the directions, do a fine job of replicating the two sticks on the arcade cabinet. As does the game as a whole, reverse engineered from the original Z80 code then rebuilt for the Amiga, so as ports go it’s a good ‘un. One you need to play too if you haven’t before because it pretty much started the entire fighting genre, and also because there’s no excuse not to when it’s s name your own price and available on itch.io right here.

Finally this week, of course I’ve been all over Starfield on Xbox Series X via Game Pass since it finally got released to the rest of us peasants last Wednesday, and I’m sure you’re either playing it as well or already sick of hearing about it, so just a few first impressions here! I’m sure I’m not the first to say it, but Fallout in space is the short version. It’s very Bethesda and to say it’s nothing new would be an understatement, including some very last-gen design… Or even the one before! The first few hours are bewildering, and from the very outset too, as you’re asked to choose traits for the character you’re creating based on factions, currencies, systems and more that you’ve not even been introduced to yet. From there, the narrative seems as shallow as the galaxies you’re literally fast-travelling around, with generally lifeless locations you’ll often struggle to find your way around, vaguely inhabited by strangely animated characters offering nonsense conversations or average FPS combat (which is also true of the space combat). And all those menus and all that stuff you don’t understand and your fancy spaceship you’ll never get to fly like you thought you would… I could go on and on! But despite all of that, and some occasional big scale jank, I’m actually quite enjoying it! There’s even a spark of something in there that might still turn into something I love, and hints of stories I want to see unfold, so as tempted as I’ve been several times to reclaim 100GB of Xbox drive space, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for as long as I’m at least having fun, and I’ll let you know how I get on next time!

And next time is, of course, Weekly Spotlight #100, and I did briefly rack my brains for something special to mark the occasion with but I’m still drawing a blank so probably business as usual. Maybe I’ll try and finish Diablo IV or something… Anyway, before that, be sure to check back next Wednesday for the pilot of a brand new regular feature, Retro Arcadia Gaming Pickups – Summer 2023 Edition, recapping all the retro games and related stuff I’ve picked up over the last three months. Bit of an experiment but it’s turned out alright so I hope you enjoy reading it! And in case you missed it, last Wednesday was one our regular deep-dives, this time into the very best of Saturday afternoon action TV from the eighties, my top 25 TV shows, and my life with Super Stunt Man on ZX Spectrum! Hope you enjoy that too, and see you next time!