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 was a big fan of the dark humour tucked away behind the Munch Bunch-cuteness of the original Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, a dungeon-crawling, puzzle-adventure thingy that made my Game of the Year Halfway Hotlist back in June 2022. Which is why I was really looking forward to its sequel, Turnip Boy Robs A Bank, launching on Xbox Game Pass a couple of months ago… Then I totally forgot about it! Anyway, we got there in the end and it turned out to be worth the wait! It’s evolved into more of a roguelike this time out, with you repeatedly robbing a bank, inevitably getting inundated once the alarm goes off, then trying to get out with the cash you’ve already grabbed and using it to get what you need to get further into the bank on your next run, which will get you more cash for more of what you need and so on. This ranges from regular bank-robber gear like explosives to blow safes, to special boots to walk through toxic waste further into the increasingly less bank-like depths, with loads of wacky guards to fight, even more wacky NPC quests to pick up and some disturbing bosses to take down. It’s fast-paced, has familiarly polished cartoon presentation and familiar but different gameplay all at once. Peak indie, impossible to put down and I love it!

I’ve had a really good time going back to Capcom’s undisputed classic 1989 arcade beat ‘em up Final Fight of late, which I’m playing on their first Arcade Stadium compilation on Xbox Series X. I’ve played more of the Mega-CD port in recent times, and while I don’t care about a few fewer colours, if it wasn’t for the totally unnecessary censorship of the Western release, I’d say I prefer it for the rearranged soundtrack alone. That said, the Western arcade version doesn’t escape being cut either, although as far as I know it’s only a small tweak in the intro… Who cares, incredible game with a choice of three distinct fighters to take across Metro City’s equally distinct districts in a bid to rescue kidnapped girlfriend Jessica from the Mad Street Gang. The combat is as smooth as the animation, with huge, gorgeous sprites knocking the hell out of each other in front of often-exquisite and painstakingly-lit environments, with some really cool up-close details that you just want to stop and look at but you can’t because the action is way too intense for sightseeing! You’ll get a decent scrap out of the various (but arguably not enough) different enemies too, each with their own “alternative” look and unique move-set, but while gameplay is tipped in favour of two players, it’s fair solo too and credits here are free! Just a great time however many of you there are, and I’ll always be grateful it turned into what it was rather than the Street Fighter sequel it started out as – more than enough of those already!

I’ve not covered a mobile game here for ages because I’ve really not had anything grab me, despite my ongoing best efforts, but Level Devil might have finally rewarded them! This is a minimally-presented platformer with equally minimal left, right and jump gameplay that only exists to tease, taunt and downright terrorise you across eighty of the cruellest levels! You just move your tiny stickman from his starting point to a door to reach the next one, and that door will often be just a few steps across a straight piece of platform with maybe a gap to jump or an obstacle to negotiate… Then the gap moves mid-jump or the controls reverse or the obstacle starts chasing you back the other way, so you tap to instantly restart, Super Meat Boy-style, and anticipate that moving gap this time, only to have another trap suddenly appear right on the other side because this game not only hates you but wants you to hate yourself too, which turns out to be surprisingly enjoyable! It’s free with occasional ads, and while later levels take some patience and puzzling out, it is a bit of a one-trick pony so will be short-lived, but that’s just fine when it’s this much fun!

Flying Shark on the ZX Spectrum might be scaled-back and toned down, totally monochrome and extremely yellow, but you really couldn’t ask for more of this 1987 conversion of the Taito arcade machine from earlier that same year! Wherever you play (and I also recommend the Atari ST port), it’s a military-themed, vertically-scrolling shoot ‘em up, developed by Toaplan and, I reckon, close to their pinnacle in the genre, with your lowly biplane up against swarms of enemy aircraft, tanks, ships, cannons and some big, bad bosses, as you cross tropical jungles, villages, sands and high seas, you against the world! There are power-ups along the way to turn your initially weedy shot into something faster and more formidable, and bombs too, for when things get a bit too frantic, cleverly managed by holding the joystick down with a prolonged press of fire (which works better than it sounds). It’s nowhere near as frantic as its arcade counterpart though, which is probably for the best because with just black on yellow, and so much detail in the backgrounds, it’s easy to lose track of what’s where on the screen. Occasionally iffy collision detection doesn’t help either! It moves beautifully though, with its smooth scrolling possibly only matched by some of the most sublime music you’ll ever hear coming out of a 128K Spectrum! A real achievement that I know was overshadowed by those new-fangled (and impressively early) 16-bit versions on release but is definitely worth your time today!

And with that, I’m going to call it a day here for this week! In case you missed it last Wednesday though, we somehow got to March already, meaning it’s time for the Retro Arcadia Gaming Pickups Winter 2023-24 Recap, the third in a new seasonal series covering all the retro games and related stuff I shouldn’t have been spending money on over the last three months! Then next Wednesday, we couldn’t get any more original PlayStation, as we face the horrors of Nightmare Creatures, as well as a bit of 8-bit colour clash side-chat on top! See you then!

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