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’ve been a big fan of super-polished, old-school single-screen platformer Donut Dodo since it first appeared a couple of years ago, so was all over the demo for its new indie stablemate, Cash Cow DX, when it arrived during the recent Steam Next Fest, followed by the full game almost immediately after… Which I won in a competition! Once again, it’s an eighties-inspired arcade wonderland (“released 40 years late”), where this time you play Cash Cow, who’s had all her money nicked by Pig Pockets and needs to make it through five multi-screen levels (plus bonus stages and a few secrets) to grab it all back. It’s not quite the same but if you imagine playing Sonic the Hedgehog inside Bubble Bobble then you’re not too far off, and that’s quite the vibe! Absolutely brutal too, with non-stop, pixel-perfect leaps demanding fast-paced precision, which the superb controls will give you even if your reflexes don’t! And when you’re dead you’re dead with no continues allowed, but you don’t need them because even if you never got off the first screen you’d keep playing regardless! The pixel art style is joyful, modern-retro, full of character and colour, and the refined chiptune soundtrack couldn’t be better suited. Two speeds and three modes to keep you going too. These guys certainly know how to please!

The ZX Spectrum homebrew scene is a wonderful thing, and has never been in better shape, in no small part thanks to Jonathan Cauldwell’s Arcade Game Designer, or AGD for short. I could literally just talk about new Spectrum games here every week, and I reckon that’s how a significant proportion of them are being created, meaning it’s also hard for them to stand out, especially if they’re an action-platformer, which AGD seems to be particularly proficient at helping to generate, and to a very high standard too! Occasionally they do just jump out at me though, and that was the case a couple of weeks ago with Mushroom Soup for the 128K Spectrum, which I’ve just got to the end of for a third time and thoroughly enjoyed! Not that it’s a very long game, and seemed to be more of a learning experience in the eyes of its first-time creator, Ottersoft, but you’d never know it! You play a hungry little goblin who’s ventured into the nearby caves to collect all the mushrooms on each of the game’s fifteen or so screens while avoiding the nasties that like to gather there. And yes, it is another action-platformer but the twist here is your goblin is small and your mushroom bag is heavy, meaning you can’t jump and have to rely on timing, crouching and hiding instead! And that, in turn, means some really clever level designs that need some proper puzzling out to progress through. They look the part too, with wild use of colour and some really thoughtfully animated sprites that are full of character, helped on by some distinctive sound effects and a nice tune in the background. It’s short but very sweet and I can’t wait to see what’s next from Ottersoft! By the way, my friend Nick Jenkin did a video review of this the other day so have a look at that too!

Alien Crush is one of those games I can’t resist firing up whenever I come across it somewhere, so while giving it a run on my PC-Engine Mini is nothing unusual, neither was having a quick go which turned into not being able to leave it alone again! It’s Giger-inspired, Alien-infused, sci-fi pinball from 1988, spanning two flip-screens with a set of flippers at the bottom of each and all kinds of nastiness to whack balls at for points, as well as a bunch of bonus areas with bigger stuff to dispatch too. The ball physics still feel good and you soon forget it’s not scrolling as you’re sucked into the wordless but nonetheless captivating story of each game you play. Fantastic look and music too, with some really catchy, high-energy, multi-layered chiptune rock, all adding up to one of the all-time great video game pinball experiences.

Last time out here, I was making my way through Sega Mega Drive or Genesis Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist, one of an intimidating choice of mostly beat ‘em ups (and a couple of fighters) on The Cowabunga Collection, which I’ve got on Nintendo Switch, and not really knowing where to go next, a comment I made about the music in that game has now led me to its Turtles in Time arcade inspiration, released by Konami in 1991. And you know what? This is fast on its way to becoming one of my all-time favourite beat ‘em ups, alongside the god-tier (in my eyes) Alien vs. Predator and Growl. It’s just wonderful! This time out, the action begins with their news-pal April O’Neil being interrupted live on air by series bad guy Krang turning up in an exosuit and stealing the Statue of Liberty before his pal and born-again Timelord Shredder joins in too. Enter your choice of Turtle(s), setting out through ten stages, first on the streets of New York then across time as they’re sent back to prehistory and on to the age of pirates, the Wild West and the sci-fi future, fighting everything that moves, which makes for a fantastic array of appropriately-equipped familiar as well as new enemies and bosses! The combat is exquisite with animation to match, including some great use of sprite-scaling as you throw your unfortunate victims at the screen! It’s full of visual and audio slapstick throughout, and the whole package couldn’t be more Ninja Turtles, looking exactly the part and sounding like it too, with just the right amount of wacky sampled speech interspersed with a ton of crunchy and often level-specific sound effects, which is also true of the themed and always high-energy synth-rock soundtrack. The odds do get stacked against you later on playing solo but adding a credit any time will add a few more lives so you can carry on as seamlessly as you wish regardless. This thing is absolutely incredible and my only regret is not playing it last because I’m not sure anything else on this compilation can even come close now!

I went longer than planned with a couple of those, although I reckon they were worth it, but all the same, I think I’ll call it a day there! In case you missed it last Thursday though, be sure to check out my review of the brand new C64 Collection 3 on Evercade, with a look at every one of its thirteen classic (and more!) Commodore 64 games. Joking aside though, it’s genuinely one of my favourite carts on there! Then no worries about release dates next week, as we return to our regular Wednesday slot to travel back exactly forty years to find out what’s going on in gaming this month in Retro Rewind: March 1984 in Computer & Video Games, so I hope you’ll join me for a flick through the original magazine together!

As always, I’ll never expect anything for what I do here but if you’d like to buy me a Ko-fi and help towards increasingly expensive hosting and storage costs then it will always be really appreciated! And be sure to follow me on Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) or Threads for my latest retro-gaming nonsense!