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…

A quick last update on The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages on Game Boy Color on Switch Online to begin with because I finally beat it! I think it took me around twenty-five hours, and it really felt like it, although business did pick up towards the end, with a couple of really cool dungeons that gave all the tools at your disposal by then a proper workout! The game’s main time jumping mechanic also came to the fore, with the fully-operational Harp of Ages now allowing you to jump from past to present and back again at will to influence what’s going on in each area, giving your brain a proper workout on top! That said, I do still think it went on a bit in the middle, when you’d pretty much already seen all it had to offer already, but it was a joy to look at throughout, and all your favourite Zelda tunes came out to play, and the storyline was a clever one. Just not sure I want to jump into its more action-focussed stablemate, Oracle of Seasons, straight away as originally planned, where I now have an equally clever game completion password to link (not Link) the two adventures. I will do sometime though, and will also report back here as soon as I do!

I’ve also just beaten Sonic Mania! My opinion from when I’d only played a few stages a few weeks back hasn’t changed at all – still absolutely marvellous! Just to recap, this is the 2017 2D Sonic the Hedgehog that’s very much in the spirit of the original Sega Mega Drive or Genesis classics, and also marked the 25th anniversary of the original when it was first released. There are thirteen stages, each made up of two acts, including remixes of eight old levels. Old or new though, their design remained consistently superb to the end, offering both wildly fast-paced, sometimes on-rails sections, as well as opportunities for exploration among masses of complex but intuitive branching paths, with little cause for frustration anywhere and loads of replay value, especially if you missed some of those Chaos Emeralds. The last stage took some working out though, really pushing your skills to hold on to your lives (and find more) over the two acts to even see the final boss, let alone learn it and beat it. Really tense and really fun when you do though! Unquestionably the best looking Sonic to date too, modern but authentic, and so quick and smooth! I never did get massively into the soundtrack though, but that’s only a taste thing, and certainly doesn’t hold it back from being a top three 2D Sonic the Hedgehog for me, and this Mirage Saloon stage in the picture here might also be my favourite of any of them! Now hopefully Santa will bring me the new Sonic Superstars next week and we can see where that fits!

I’m still having a great time with the Atari 50 compilation on Switch, especially it’s newly added Atari 2600 games (see mini-review here last week), but I’ve also had a great time going back to its 1981 port of Asteroids on there! However, I did come across that problem of not being able to get a decent screenshot because of the genius faster than the eye can see flicker technique used here to give the impression of way more going on at once than the machine was technically capable of, hence the crappy phone pic of my TV screen! What it does show, though, is just how much seems to be going on here, however it pulls it off! It went for full colour solid asteroids to shoot and break then shoot again rather than the arcade original’s vector graphics, but otherwise your ships inertia is all present and correct and you rotate and thrust your way around the screen, which also overlaps on each side. The box art boasts “66 video games” which means a ton of different game modes, as is often the case on the 2600, and you do need to play with them a bit to find the original’s frantic gameplay because if you just fire it up and press start, it’s going to take a while to get there! It’s also missing the UFOs as standard, but your risky emergency hyperspace jump, which can easily dump you in front of a lump of space rock, is on by default even if not elsewhere. Worth experimenting to find the version of the game that’s for you though because there is one here and when you find it it’s going to be fantastic! (Just for reference, number eight with UFOs on seems like a good place to be).

A couple of weeks ago, the 128K ZX Spectrum got a final version of Seraphima, a metroidvania of sorts from the modern-day masters of its art, ZOSYA entertainment. I think it first came out earlier this year but I totally missed it so I’m not entirely sure what this newly-enhanced version offers in addition but I can tell you this thing is the absolute stunner we’ve come to expect from these guys. Likewise, it also features another very busty female protagonist in a very tight and skimpy outfit, although once you’re past the very impressive all the same loading screen she’s still a very attractive but far more “practical” beautifully animated and surprisingly big sprite on an exquisitely varied and wonderfully detailed set of fantasy environments, moving through multiple layers of smooth parallax scrolling that really has no business being on the Spectrum! They’ve done a great job of minimising colour-clash too, taking a black box approach around the character sprites that occasionally distracts but is as good as you can hope for on the whole. There’s a game to play too, involving an eternal but invisible conflict between good and evil, and it takes place in a kind of funnelled open-world that demands a bit of concentration but won’t have you stumped for long, with plenty to explore and interact with, as well as loads of enemies to do away with. And quite likely be killed by too! If you’re into the Spectrum then prepare to be amazed right here!

I started here with one entry in a favourite series I’d never played before and I’m going to finish with another! It’s Batman: Arkham Origins, released on Xbox 360 (and elsewhere) in 2013, which I’m playing via backwards compatibility on Xbox Series X. I picked this one up a while back for next to nothing on eBay, although I’m not really sure why it took me so long as I am such a fan of Arkham Asylum and Arkham City in particular, which it acts as a prequel too; possibly because I don’t think it was quite as well received as those at the time, in turn possibly because I’m not sure it really offers anything they didn’t already. It does give you a new story though, set in the regular anarchy of a Gotham City Christmas Eve (which is why I saved it until now after I eventually did buy it), when a new to the crimefighting scene Batman already has a big price on his head and a load of assassins on his back thanks to the crime lord Black Mask. You also come across the likes of Joker, Penguin, Bane, Killer Croc and Deathstroke on your travels, which really do feel a lot like Arkham City, and the free-flowing combat system, detective mode and all the gadgets in your utility belt are also immediately familiar if you’ve played the other games. It’s got all their polish too, with Batman playing great and Gotham never looking better, but I can’t help but feel everything is a bit disjointed and somehow forced this time out, which was precisely my problem with the much more recent Gotham Knights. This one’s got Batman though, so was easier to stick it, and I did enjoy it, and the main story didn’t outstay its welcome even if I wasn’t that fussed with the side-quests. Not really a keeper though, so will be eBay-bound again when I get a chance!

That’s it for me this week so thanks as always for coming along for the ride! In case you missed it last Wednesday, be sure to check out our annual festive deep-dive, when this year we’re rediscovering the always-impressive Die Hard Trilogy on the original PlayStation, as well as my top ten Christmas movies! Then next Wednesday, it’s not only another annual feature but the one I always enjoy putting together the most… It’s the Retro Arcadia Game of the Year Top Ten Countdown 2023! Not a retro game in sight for a change either! Which won’t be the case this time next week, when there’s yet another annual favourite, the Retro Arcadia Weekly Spotlight Christmas Special, meaning I’ve got to find another bunch of old Christmas games to play this week, so wish me luck and I’ll hopefully see you then!