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…

The Home Computer Heroes Collection 1 cartridge arrived on Evercade this week, and I’ve been giving its seven “modern retro” titles for old computers a decent workout on both my Evercade VS console (connected to the TV) and the EXP (handheld), so I thought do a bit of a mini-review here, with a couple of sentences on each game. First up is Attack of the PETSCII Robots for the Amiga, a strategic top-down sci-fi exploration and action thingy. It looks (and jerks along) a bit like an old RPG but weirdly feels like Impossible Mission on the C64 (where it actually started out life) from a different perspective, which honestly I’m not really clicking with yet but I reckon there’s a big and very decent game still to be found there. Next we’ll move to said Commodore 64 and try again with Planet X2, which has you colonising a sci-fi world where you soon find you’re not alone! Really cool and pretty complex real-time strategy game that couldn’t be more C64 if it tried, as you explore, gather, build and fight for territory. Competing with that as the biggest potential time-sink on here, next up is a game I’m already familiar with on The C64 Mini, Farming Simulator: C64 Edition, and was actually my main reason for wanting this – I mean, how can you not want to have this on the go? It’s a very 8-bit but perfectly authentic version of the strangely lovable series, with you doing your farming thing to make money to do more of your farming thing, and it’s absolutely fantastic!

I believe The Sword of Ianna is the first MSX game on Evercade, and it’s quite the showcase for the machine (far more so than my rubbish photo of it) with atmospheric fantasy environments, surprisingly well fleshed-out character animation and some superb music! It takes a bit of getting used to but once you do you’re in for a very rewarding and very impressive puzzle-ish platform adventure, a bit like Dizzy meets Rygar! Back to the Amiga for the final three titles, two of which I have played before but very briefly; I assume all of these had standalone homebrew releases at some point in the recent past though. Citadel Remonstered is an enhanced and expanded take on Citadel from 1995, another very atmospheric showcase for a machine but this time a sci-fi first-person shooter not unlike Doom. Very impressive and unexpectedly smooth texture-mapped 3D visuals, great music, sharp controls and a very meaty campaign have got me hooked! Tanks Furry looks like Advance Wars but plays like a very old-school arcade tank game for one or two players in the campaign mode, or you can also play against three friends in versus mode. Fat chance of any of that for me, but what I can play is very polished and a lot of fun once it gets going, although I don’t think you’ll be playing it forever. Last game is Bridge Strike, a take on River Raid by the same dev as Tanks Furry, hence the similar vibe, but this time you’re vertically shooting your way up a river, keeping an eye on your fuel, the landscape and some all-new weather effects. It chugs a bit and the music is a bit weird but it’s fun enough for a quick go every time you’ve got the cartridge plugged in. And for the time being at least, that’s going to be most of the time for me! There’s only one game I need to spend a bit longer with but the rest I already want to, and what a fantastically diverse advert for the vibrant modern homebrew scene for all these systems!

Mario Kart 8 got the final piece of its Booster Pass expansion last week, with eight new tracks in two new cups making that forty-eight occasionally new but mostly remastered old tracks in total, all of which are included if you’ve got the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass. This drop also offers Funky Kong, Diddy Kong, Peachette and Pauline as playable characters, as well as a bunch of Mii Racing Suits and possibly some new vehicle bits, although I’m so conservative with my favourites on that front I’m not sure what was already available to me! Anyway, let’s quickly cover the new tracks I’ve been winning lots of cups or not on… Madrid Drive is pretty fast-paced and varied fun but there’s not a lot else memorable about the three mobile game tracks here, which also include one around Rome and an underwater one, Piranha Plant Cove. DK Mountain from GameCube Double Dash! is probably my pick of the bunch, with loads of big ups and downs, then there’s yet another take on Rainbow Road, this time from the Wii game, and Rosalina’s Ice World from Mario Kart 7, both of which are great inclusions, and finally there’s the angular excellence of Bowser Castle 3 from the SNES original. Glad to have most of them even if there’s not a lot massively mind-blowing this time… except the amount of stuff this incredible game now offers!

As first reported in my Weekly Spotlight Halloween Special, I’ve been playing through Resident Evil 4 Remake again over the past couple of weeks, and with increasing frequency the closer I got to the end… And having seen the end again a few days ago, let me quickly summarise my feelings on the third time around! This retelling of the story might almost be as familiar as the original by now but it really does move along at such pace that it doesn’t become so much predictable and repetitive as it does almost a familiar, changing landscape you’re travelling through. And what wonderful scenery to look at, whether a dark forest or demented village, gothic castle or spectacular mine, the depth of design and attention to detail is as staggering as it is atmospheric… And speaking of mines, that breakneck mine-cart ride will never get old! The sound design doesn’t get any less terrifying either, and in total contrast, the sheer relief when you see the Merchant’s blue lamps burning is one of its most successful carry-overs from the original! It’s a perfectly modern survival horror homage to it in pretty much all other respects too though, and as such, while it will never be in my top three favourite games of all time like the GameCube game is, it will definitely be in the running in my game of the year special here in a few weeks time!

Last up this week, I want to mention the absolutely stunning Castlevania AGA, an Amiga homebrew “demo” that remakes the 1986 original NES game but with visuals inspired by Castlevania Chronicles and other non-8-bit titles in the series; I particularly got Super Castlevania IV vibes but I guess that’s what an Amiga version would probably most resemble too! Whatever, it absolutely nails being a Castlevania, with its atmospheric environments, cruelly familiar enemies, tight controls and a fantastic take of the iconic soundtrack! I reckon the difficulty is toned down a bit, particularly in the boss battles (which are a visual treat all the same!) and it seems like continues are free to use as you please, and just send you back a bit to the last checkpoint, although I would have preferred to see a score reset when you use one. I did have one crash, there were a few little bugs, and some of the enemy AI can be a bit erratic, but overall this thing is incredible! It’s recently been updated to have fifteen stages (ending at the Grim Reaper boss), and while they are all cut-down approximations of the originals, I imagine more will keep coming because this is clearly a real passion project that’s been brewing for a while but is more than ready to be tasted into and admired! You can grab it here.

Right, that’s going to do it for this time. In case you missed it last Wednesday, please do have a look at my latest deep-dive – as well as my new original Game Boy – as we discover Pinball: Revenge of the ‘Gator. Then next Wednesday, be sure to check out the next one, which I had such a blast putting together, when we’re going to have a look at everything on SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 on PSP, which I reckon might just be one of the finest collections of games ever put together! See you then!