Time for our regular roundup of the mostly (but not strictly) retro-interest games releases on the way for the coming month, with trailers for everything and a few thoughts of my own too! Not quite the monster that last month’s edition was (which honestly I’m grateful for!) but looks like some very decent stuff all the same, so let’s jump right in…

We begin the month with RoboCop: Rogue City, which comes to PC, PlayStation5 and Xbox on 2nd November. It’s a first-person shooter with a splash of RPG set in Old Detroit where you need to clean out the criminals, carry out investigations and even do a bit of regular police work. It’s built around an all-new storyline set between the Robocop 2 and Robocop 3 movies, with none other than original Robocop Peter Weller reprising his role! From what I’ve seen so far, the whole package looks just as authentic too, with precise recreations of familiar locations and reasonably good ones of familiar characters too, and fortunately tending towards the brutality of the second film rather than more kid-friendly third! One to keep an eye on for me. Credit to IGN for the video.

Something that’s undoubtedly kid-friendly the following day, when WarioWare: Move It! arrives on Nintendo Switch on the 3rd, together with a bonus lunchbox if you buy the physical copy! Having had no inclination to play one of these since I first tried one on the Game Boy Advance, I doubt I’ll be spending £40 on any version though, but all the same, I do see the attraction of two hundred micro games involving waving, punching, shaking, dancing and whatever else you can do with a pair of Joy-Cons if that’s your thing!

I’m going to combine the next two because they’re both old Double Dragon games and they’re both out on everything on 9th November for about a six quid. Super Double Dragon is the 1992 SNES game that has a really good-looking opening level but I always found to be a bit average in all other respects. Double Dragon Advance brought a remake of the original with a load of elements from various sequels to Game Boy Advance in 2003 and isn’t average in the slightest so I might well grab that one! Both come with a bunch of wallpapers to fill the blank space around the original aspect ratio screens and some kind of turbo option to speed up the gameplay, though I’ve no idea why you’d want to do that! I believe there’s also a physical Switch release the same day that collects both of these as well as Double Dragon, Double Dragon II: The Revenge, Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones and Double Dragon IV.

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered is very much my thing, and looks like it’s shaping up to be a faithful restoration of the Nintendo 64 first-person shooter from 2000, which you’ll now be able to play on everything on 14 November. It picks up right after the second game, bringing the trilogy to its big finale as you play either Joseph or Danielle Fireseed, both of Turok family lineage from the other games but each with unique traits, battling the titular antagonist Oblivion and its followers, the Flesh Eaters. Still looks delightfully old-school despite the hi-res textures and fancy lighting, and as long as I don’t need to mess around with motion controls I reckon I’ll be picking this up.

From Wario to his nemesis now, as Super Mario RPG also gets the remaster treatment on Switch on November 17. As usual, Bowser has kidnapped Princess Peach, but while trying to rescue her yet again, you’ve somehow unleashed a giant sword that’s smashed up the Star Road and caused all sorts of other commotion that you’ll need to put right, not by jumping about the place this time, but by putting together an unlikely group of heroes to travel the land and get rid of Bowser’s minions in rhythmic turn-based battles that reward perfect timing. Looks as polished as you’d expect, though I’m still to get to its original incarnation on the SNES Classic Mini so unlikely I’ll be splashing out on this at Nintendo’s usual full-price any time soon.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin launches on PlayStation, Xbox and PC on the same day, 17th November, bringing all the nerd-fantasy, tactical real-time strategy shenanigans you could ever wish for! You’re a warlord leading four unique factions across the Realm of Ghur in either a character-driven, cinematic single-player campaign, co-written by acclaimed Black Library writer Gav Thorpe, or all sorts of 1v1 and 2v2 cross-platform multiplayer matches. There’s also a procedurally-generated conquest mode and you can build and share your own maps, and being a sucker for all things Warhammer I’ll be keeping an eye on this one too!

If tactical role-playing is more your flavour then Persona 5 Tactica is yet another November 17 release on everything, and is a turn-based strategy game taking place concurrently with the events of the regular Persona 5 RPG from 2016, which I think involved taking on some kind of supernatural activity at a Tokyo school where you were also expected to get on with everyday student life. While all that’s going on, in this game you find yourself mysteriously transported to an alternate medieval Europe, where the action now involves up to three characters taking on enemies on a grid across a series of maps over three kingdoms, and honestly I’m losing the will to live trying to keep up with all this Megami Tensei nonsense it belongs to, so I’m just going to move on!!!

Seems to be all about remasters and RPGs and remasters of RPGs this month, which continues with Gothic 2 Complete Classic on Switch on 29 November. A remaster of the original arrived on there pretty recently too, and this is more of the same medieval-styled fantasy, continuing the story of The Nameless Hero as he fights evil and tries to find a magical artefact over a hundred or so missions featuring complex character interactions, tons of weapons and spells to master, and after all that there’s also the Night of the Raven expansion included too, totalling well over a hundred hours of gameplay. I’ve never played these but I remember them being well received at the time, so if the price is right I wouldn’t mind a go at the first one now I know it’s also there and see where that takes me!

There’s also the annual big hitters like Call of Duty and Football Manager on the way as usual in November but I don’t think any of them are really in my wheelhouse and if they’re in yours then you already know, so probably a good place to call it a day for this Retro Radar. Not really sure what’s coming in the next one for December yet though – I’m assuming no sign of Hollow Knight until next year now but I am still hoping for a Baldur’s Gate 3’s appearance on Xbox. There doesn’t seem to be much else new to report so far. But I’m sure we’ll find something, so see you a month from now regardless!