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Blaze Entertainment continues to its Evercade ecosystem of devices with new cartridges, supplementing the library of licensed retro games with even more weirdness! We’ve been able to check out the 10 latest releases, so we can let you know what’s worth checking out and why!

The heavy hitters: Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain 6b1v2a

Tomb Raider has served as Blaze’s cornerstone release of the year, with the collection of three PS1 games included in the bundles for both the EXP-R and VS-R hardware revisions. Lara Croft might be the most recognizable mascot character it could hope to license, and even the earliest games in the franchise are more sweeping adventures than have been available in the Evercade’s quick-fun-focused selection. (It also probably didn’t hurt that Tomb Raider began its life at British studio Core Design; Blaze has shown a lot of love for its home.)

Blaze connected with Crystal Dynamics a second time, too, licensing Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver for a dual-pack. Of all five of these games, action-platformer Soul Reaver definitely holds up best for first-time players. The late-’90s theming that tries a bit too hard aside, the traversal and combat controls work totally fine today and it’s worth a play for Evercade owners! These two releases are the start of the “Giga Cart” line for the company. Essentially, these are cartridges with a slight price bump in exchange for higher storage capacity. That seems fine with us! Though we’re sure these games weren’t the cheapest to license either, and maybe that helps bring more publishers to the platform.

Japanese publishers redux: Sunsoft and Data East Collections 1jrh

Sunsoft Collection 2 arguably bests the first release’s lineup, starring NES platformer Ufouria: The Saga and Game Boy Color gem Blaster Master: Enemy Below. It even throws in some Evercade-signature weirdos, like head-to-head fighter Galaxy Fight and surprisingly compelling Game Boy puzzler Pri Pri Primitive Princess!, which in aggregate we think outweighs the first’s Mr. Gimmick.

We spent a lot of time playing Ufouria on this collection — it’s a great game — and were reminded how PAL games can cause some display issues due to their different resolution. As it stands, they’re stretched wider than they should be, and we wish there were a display option to force 4-by-3 and remedy this. Seems doable in a firmware update, right, Blaze?

Data East Arcade 2 offers a handful of fun Tate Mode options, as well as some great co-op beat-’em-ups. Edward Randy is a blast with unlimited credits, and stars an action hero that definitely isn’t Indiana Jones and why would you even bring that up? Trio The Punch brings a different sort of feel to the genre, with lots of super-short levels. Joe & Mac Returns tries a single-screen take on the caveman game, and can be fun to work through with a friend.

We have games at home: Piko Collection 4 1m4x62

Piko Interactive has embraced its niche of picking up licenses for games that feel like store-brand takes on big releases. But on Evercade, where their first-party siblings are likely never going to appear? That’s kind of appealing. Without Mario Kart, you may actually want to play Street Racer. Without a big-name puzzler, it doesn’t hurt to have Mermaids of Atlantis on the menu. Star X may be missing that F and O you’d want in the title, but it’s as close as you’re going to get here.

The centerpiece of this cart is Glover. We have a soft spot for the N64 platformer, and this version got a bit of development attention to make sure it works okay on the Evercade. It’s definitely a game that you want to play on the VS with a third-party controller so you can use an analog stick, but thankfully the system s that through an in-beta menu option.

Tate Mode showcases: Toaplan Arcade 3 and 4 486o2h

One of the coolest features of the Evercade EXP handhelds is the Tate Mode toggle, allowing you to play games vertically on the display. So it’s good to see some more Toaplan collections with a bunch of Tate Mode-friendly options. There are, of course, shooters — Batsugun, Truxton II, Dogyuun and more — but we’re particularly interested in games that use a vertical display and still offer genre variety.

Ghox is a take on the Breakout formula, with the sort of flash and intensity you’d expect from a developer that usually makes shooters. There are tons of collectibles falling at you, and it even starts with two balls to juggle by default! There are also Out Zone and FixEight, which are arguably still vertically scrolling shooters but on foot rather than flying around. This subgenre, perhaps most popularized by Pocky & Rocky or Shock Troopers, offers its own sort of fun and the ability to control the pace a bit more.

Old computer weirdness: Thalamus and Bitmap Brothers Collections 3ad3r

The selection in the Evercade library has always been tinted by the company’s UK origins, and nothing makes that clearer than the wide array of old computer game representation. Thalamus Collection 1 includes 11 Commodore 64 games from the late 1980s and 1990s. In our experience, the C64 library is a sort of “you had to be there” experience, with “there” meaning “Europe in the 1980s,” and it’s not the easiest to encounter for the first time today. Still, we did have some fun with action-shooter Retrograde.

The Bitmap Brothers Collection 2 offers a selection of Amiga games, which are certainly also quirky but a bit more palatable to modern sensibilities. The Cadaver games are isometric adventure games that take a bit of time to learn to control, but they’re charming. The Chaos Engine 2 is the top of the bunch for us, a top-down action game designed for co-op. And platformer Gods is worth it for the title screen music alone. Added to the collection, perhaps confusingly given the cart’s blue-line categorization, is a console game! The PlayStation port of real-time strategy game Z also makes the cut after missing out on the first, red-line compilation.

New-retro showpieces: Metal Dragon / Life on Mars 18682d

We’re on record saying that the greatest value of the Evercade is in giving modern retrogames accessible cartridge releases, so we’re happy to see that continue with the latest dual-pack. Metal Dragon is an ‘80s-inspired run-and-gun game that unfortunately makes the number-one mistake in games: falsely thinking it’s extremely funny. We wanted to enjoy its action levels and modern approach to controls, but its writing — a Metal Gear spoof seemingly penned by an “edgy” teen boy in detention — is pretty much insufferable.

Life on Mars fares significantly better, thankfully. It’s a Metroid-style exploration platformer, set on a Martian base where all the robots are attacking you as you land to re-establish communications and find out what happened. We wish the controls were a bit tighter — jumping in tight spaces can be particularly irritating — but there’s enjoyment to be found here.

Most of these Evercade cartridges are available now. The Metal Dragon/Life on Mars dual pack and Toaplan Arcade 4 are slated for release in December 2024. For more of Siliconera’s Evercade coverage, check out our archive.

The post The Best Evercade Cartridges of 2024 appeared first on Siliconera.

By taking a classic base-building/castle defense set-up and making it mobile, I feel Ark of Charon introduces some new quirks to a well-worn formula. But while it's certainly promising, it is also evident this Early Access title has some issues for Angoo and Sunsoft to work out if they want it to grow as strong and tall as the tree creatures within it.

The game itself plays as more of a colony-sim than its city-builder cousin The Wandering Village, and sees you taking care of a four-legged tree creature that is the sole offspring of the life-sustaining worldtree. As you travel the realm you'll need to defend it from attacking hordes of creatures, which you accomplish by building a bloody great fortress on the poor creature's back.

The building system looks simple, thanks to the side-on perspective, but each block you place has a weight and a bearing strength characteristic that prevents you building an enormous tower out of wood, or building too far out without . As you progress through the technology screen you'll unlock new materials to construct from, with sturdier materials letting you build taller structures as well as being better at withstanding attacks. You'll also get new crafting stations and defensive emplacements as you'd expect, though there's a few issues that can make progression unsatisfying or even tedious at times.

The first is that the tech tree is laid out kind of flatly, so you have basic techs like cooking and mining next to mortar emplacements and laser cannons without any pre-requisites. They each cost the same, too, so if you're not careful you could find yourself accidentally spending your precious technology points on something you won't have the means to construct for quite some time. It also just lacks that general flow tech trees usually have, telling you subtly what sort of things you ought to be starting with before building up to more complicated technologies.

The second issue is thornier, and involves those structure upgrades. Say you've just unlocked stone or steel buildings, you'll likely want to start putting the plans to use right away. Except before you can really get to expanding your base with them you're first going to need to go back and replace all your old wooden structures first so they don't collapse under the weight of your new ones. Pillars and tiles are easy enough to upgrade by simply building the new one over them, but buildings can only be upgraded like this if the new blueprint fits perfectly over the old, which they rarely do. So you end up having to deconstruct and mess around with your layout every time you unlock new building parts, which completely buries the joy of getting new stuff under a load of busywork. It's a neat idea, it just doesn't shake out mechanically and it only gets worse the more you have to replace.

The combat is a simple case of building turrets in good firing positions, with damage bonuses based on how high you can get them. You have to manage ammunition supplies as well, but you can also take manual control of one of your emplacements to do some shooting yourself. It's fairly spartan for now, but with a few more enemy and weapon types I could see this really influencing how you design your castle layout.

Then there's Ark of Charon's pack-up-and-move mechanic, which is fun not just because you're no longer confined to just the map you start on, but because different areas hold different resources in abundance. You can decide you need to stock up on stone, and make a bee-line for a rocky area with lots of deposits. Even the enemies you face can change, which is important because collecting the souls of downed foes is how you reconstitute more golems, with different soul types boosting the speed of certain actions.

The downside is thematic rather than mechanical, as I couldn't help but feel like a greedy swarm of locusts stripping an area of natural resources before moving on. It's just a little at odds with Ark of Charon's whole "save the big tree to reinvigorate life" setup, which isn't helped by how little the sapling creature really factors into things. Some bonuses for building affinity with the creature would be nice, especially after letting you name it. Mine's called "Shrubby".

So there are a few flaws in the foundation, and a few areas that need a bit more meat to them, but otherwise Ark of Charon has a lot of room to grow. Providing the developers can find a way to wrangle those issues, I'll looking forward to seeing how it shapes up after a period in Early Access.

Ark of Charon is immediately available for PC via Steam Early Access.

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Japanese game developer and publisher Sunsoft announced its return after a long period of hiatus. It will produce a new game for PCs while porting a couple of its classic games to current-generation platforms.

Sunsoft will release a new game titled Ikki Unite. The roguelike action game will feature a peasant uprising with multiplayer co-op of up to 16 players. The company has set up a Steam page for the game and opened applications for a closed beta test. The other two titles, Mr. Gimmick! and Ufouria The Saga, will be ports of the original NES games released in the early 1990s.

Sunsoft is also aware of the global audience as it publishes an English press release. It also ed another video separate from the Japanese version, where the mascot VTuber Sunsoft-nosuke explains the new games in English.

[tnm_video layout="mnmd-post-media"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx5QNoqR8dQ[/tnm_video]

Sunsoft is also best known as the original publisher of the 1988 NES game Blaster Master. While it still owns the IP, Inti Creates worked with the company to reboot the franchise with the Blaster Master Zero trilogy. The new games are available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Ikki Unite will appear exclusively on PC via Steam by the end of 2022. Mr. Gimmick! Special Edition and Ufouria The Saga will both come to PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in Winter 2022 and Early 2023, respectively. A physical demo version of Mr. Gimmick! will be available at Gamescom 2022 in .

The post Sunsoft Will Publish More New Games and Ports Throughout 2022 appeared first on Siliconera.

Another Blaster Master Zero game is on the way. One of Inti Creates’ NGPX 2021 announcement involved Blaster Master Zero 3. It is in the works for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC. People will see it rather soon too, as it will launch on July 29, 2021.

A trailer appeared to give an idea of how the sprite-based game will look this time. Once again, Jason is trying to assist Eve. That means heading into the G-SOPHIA SV and go through top-down areas. You can also see some of the new sorts of gameplay that will appear in this installment.

The Blaster Master Zero series comes to its epic conclusion in Blaster Master Zero 3! Hop abroad the all-terrain battle tank G-SOPHIA SV, blast your way through hordes of mutants across the planet Sophia using Jason's biggest arsenal yet, and save Eve once and for all! #BMZ3 pic.twitter.com/CozReNE5Yv

— NewGamePlusExpo (@newgameplusexpo) March 4, 2021

There whole Blaster Master Zero series is also on sale on Steam. Both the original and second one are $4.99. They’ll remain at that price until March 8, 2021. However, the discounts don’t extend to the Nintendo eShop or PlayStation Store.

Blaster Master Zero 3 will come to the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam on July 29, 2021.

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During the New Game Plus Expo games showcase, a new Blaster Master Zero 2 DLC was shown off that lets you raise Kanna, the Metal Attacker pilot you meet on the planet Stranga. During the livestream, a trailer for the DLC was released, with Kanna voiced by Cristina Vee. The DLC mini-game will release on June 29, 2020.

Check out the trailer below:

Kanna Raising Simulator Blaster Master Zero 2 DLC has different gameplay from the main game, and focuses on the top-down sections of the game. Your objective is to collect fertilizer for Kanna so that she can grow properly, and depending on how you grow her, she can grow into different forms, including forms that differ from her original design from the main game.

During the overhead sections, you control a cursor in order to shoot a mini black hole that can destroy enemies for points. These points will go towards a meter on the left which will turn into points to help Kanna grow. Try to collect all versions of Kanna!

Blaster Master Zero 2 is available on Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam. A PlayStation 4 port was recently announced, and will release on June 29, 202o. The last DLC to release for the game was Empress, a crossover character from Dragon Marked for Death.

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After teasing an announcement, Blaster Master Zero and Blaster Master Zero 2 PS4 ports have now been officially announced by Limited Run Games. Previously, the second game was listed on The PlayStation Network, and this makes things official. Both games will release on the PlayStation 4 on June 29, 2020.

While the teaser picture seemed to show both the games bundled together, it turns out that the games will be released separately. Additionally, physical copies of the two games will be released for both Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4. The physical releases will include all DLC on the game cartridge and will be available to preorder on May 29, 2020 at 10am ET.

Additionally, there is a Classic Edition for Blaster Master Zero 2 that will include a poster, the original soundtrack for the game, and a retro cover and cartridge sleeve. This will be available for both the PS4 and Switch.

For those who are more into the music, there will also be a vinyl release of the soundtracks for Blaster Master Zero 1 and 2. It will cost $37.99. It includes a booklet with notes by Ippo Yamada from Inti Creates, as well as a code for a digital version of the OST.

Finally, there is a grand Collector's Edition which includes a whole bunch of extra stuff, including posters, certificate, the OSTs, figures of Sophia III and Gaia Sophia, and commemorative non-functioning NES carts. It will cost $129.99.

All the above will be sold starting May 29, 2020 at 10am ET onwards and will be available for open pre-order for four weeks. This means that people won't need to fight for a limited amount of copies, as there's no upper limit and it is being made to order.

Blaster Master Zero PS4 will release on June 29, 2020 and is available for the Nintendo Switch, PC, and Nintendo 3DS. Blaster Master Zero 2 fires onto the PS4 on the same day as well and is immediately available for the Nintendo Switch and PC.

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Limited Run Games has teased a limited physical bundle of Inti Creates' Blaster Master Zero and Blaster Master Zero 2, and more information is set to be announced on Monday, May 25, 2020. The illustration released shows Eve from both her first and second game appearances, as well as Sophia-III and G-Sophia, the tanks from the two games.

The series is a reimagining of the original Sunsoft sidescrolling and top-down hybrid adventure game, incorporating both story elements of the American localization with lore elements of the Japanese version of the game, Metafight. The first game takes place on Earth in a subterranean region, where our protagonist Jason finds a tank called Sophia-III. Meanwhile, the sequel takes place soon after the end of the first game and is set across different planets in space.

While both games were released as digital-only games on the Nintendo Switch at first, the games were later released on PC. Recently, a PlayStation Network listing for the second game was also found, so it's currently unknown if the limited physical bundle will simply be for Nintendo Switch or include a PlayStation 4 version as well.

Blaster Master Zero is available for the Nintendo Switch, PC, and Nintendo 3DS. Blaster Master Zero 2 is immediately available for the Nintendo Switch and PC.

The post Limited Run Games Teases Blaster Master Zero 1 & 2 Physical Bundle appeared first on Siliconera.

In an interview with Gamasutra at the Game Developers Conference, Shenmue creator, Yu Suzki, discussed plans for a possible port of his current project, Shenmue Town, to smart phones, including iOS devices, in the future.

Currently running on DeNA’s Mobage Town platform, Shenmue Town is a sidestory follow-up to the two-game Shenmue series that debuted on the Sega Dreamcast. A free-to-play game that makes its revenue off micro-transaction purchases, Shenmue Town takes place in the city of Yokosuka, which is where the original Shenmue played out.

“From the start, I’ve been thinking of this as a multiplatform game,” Suzuki told Gamasutra. “So I’m thinking about smartphone strategies right now.” Interestingly, Suzuki has done part of the coding work on Shenmue Town himself at his company, YS Net.

The post Yu Suzuki Talks Shenmue Town For Smartphones appeared first on Siliconera.

MonkeyPaw picked up an intergalactic fighting game for this week's import release. Galaxy Fight from Sunsoft is coming to PlayStation Network.

Sunsoft's early fighting game has monsters, robots, a ninja, and Roomi who looks like an alien meets catgirl. The eclectic blend of characters is one of the game's highlights. But, don't expect a complex fighting game. Galaxy Fight is old-school, after all it was Sunsoft's first take on the genre, and to their credit Sunsoft added wall-less, infinite scrolling stages to the genre.

We're not sure if MonkeyPaw is releasing the Japanese version of Galaxy Fight or the English version that Europe got. The screens MonkeyPaw sent us were in English so we're getting in touch with them to find out. Galaxy Fight comes out on the import store in North America for PS3 and PSP tomorrow.

Update: We heard back from MonkeyPaw and we're getting the Japanese version of Galaxy Fight.

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SEGA recently held a Shenmue Town presentation in Japan, where they had original Sega Saturn mascot, Segata Sanshiro, on hand to help promote the game.

More importantly, Shenmue series creator, Yu Suzuki, was at the event, too, to discuss the game. Suzuki is no longer with SEGA, but he’s working with them and Sunsoft on Shenmue Town through his company, YS Net.

Famitsu got a chance to speak with Suzuki at length about Shenmue Town. What’s more, the very first question they asked prompted him to mention Shenmue 3.

Suzuki, like SEGA have in the past, acknowledged the demand for a Shenmue 3 that picks up where the second game left off. However, Suzuki feels that a new game that could live up to the scale of the previous titles would require immense preperation.

If he were to develop Shenmue 3, it would have to be in line with the two previous Shenmue games in of volume, Suzuki told Famitsu. He went on to say that he would like to work on such a game in the future.

The post Shenmue Creator Would Like To Develop Shenmue 3 appeared first on Siliconera.

If you're just getting caught up, Shenmue Town was originally announced as a digital PC game for the Yahoo! Mobage site -- a collaboration between DeNA's digital Mobage Town platform and Yahoo! in Japan.

So just what is Shenmue Town? For SEGA fans back in the days of the Dreamcast, Shenmue and its sequel were high on the list of gaming priorities. The games were open-world action-adventure titles with a heavy focus on telling a dramatic story.

The Shenmue games are now famous for being some of the most expensive projects undertaken by SEGA. If you're having a hard time drawing up an image in your head, think of SEGA's newer Yakuza series as a spiritual successor to the Shenmue franchise.

New details reveal Shenmue Town to be a "gaiden" (sidestory) game set in the city of Yokosuka, which is where the first Shenmue game took place. The game is being developed by YS Net under the supervision of SEGA and published, surprisingly, by Sunsoft.

Additionally, it appears Shenmue Town isn't just a PC game -- it's also a mobile game on the Mobage Town platform, although it's unclear as whether there will be any differences between the two versions. Like other Mobage titles, Shenmue Town is free-to-play with a micro-transaction model that relies on s buying items in the game with real money.

SEGA and Sunsoft are pushing Shenmue Town pretty hard, too. The game is being referred to as the long-awaited revival of the Shenmue franchise. The game's official Twitter feed indicates that pre-registration for Shenmue Town, set to launch this winter, has already begun.

The post Sunsoft Are Publishing Shenmue Town In Japan appeared first on Siliconera.

Nintendo updated Japan’s Virtual Console release schedule and one of Sunsoft’s RPGs is on it. Albert Odyssey, the first game in the series, will be available on the Wii shopping channel next month for 800 Wii Points ($8).

Hudson’s side scrolling Xanadu spinoff, Faxanadu, and Commando from Capcom are also on deck. Both of those are probably coming out in the West too. Australia’s Classification Board rated Faxanadu and Commando just a little while ago.

While he was at Working Designs, Vic Ireland localized Albert Odyssey: Legend of Eldean. He’s working with Sunsoft directly now.

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Clock Tower is coming to Japan’s Virtual Console on Tuesday. Nintendo lists Sunsoft as the “maker”, which is kind of interesting since Capcom bought the rights to the Clock Tower series and published Clock Tower 3.

The original developer, Human Interactive, closed down in 1999. Other titles from Human Entertainment include Kabuki Quantum Fighter and Monster Party. River City Ransom, another game from a defunct developer, lists Arc System Works as the “maker” even though it was made by Technos Japan.

Mario Tennis 64 and Spin Kid (aka Miracle Adventure) from the library of Data East developed Neo Geo games are also on deck for release in Japan this month.

Speaking of Sunsoft, Sunsoft asked us to remove the announcement about their “Wii Triple Play” Virtual Console announcement. According to an e-mail sent to Siliconera there was a “problem with Nintendo” and “Nintendo wants it [the announcement] corrected.”

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During the ancient age of anthropomorphic mascot platformers, Sunsoft released Aero the Acro-bat. Aero, a bat, runs, jumps, and tornado jumps through circus themed levels.

More memorable than the game was its advertising campaign. A two page magazine ad explained Aero’s story, something about saving a circus, and had a hidden giveaway. The first fifty people that mailed Sunsoft would get a free copy of the game for actually reading the ad.

Maybe Sunsoft will think of something equally creative when Aero the Acro-bat is re-released on Virtual Console. Australia’s OFLC just rated it as a Wii game with Nintendo as the publisher. Will Aero the Acro-bat be Sunsoft’s next release? Not so fast. We also found a rating for Ufouria, a NES game only released in Europe and Japan, inside the OFLC.

The post Aero The Acro-bat Swinging On To Wii appeared first on Siliconera.

Ufouria: The Saga (also known as Hebereke in Japan) is one of Sunsoft’s obscure Famicom games. The game starts with the snowman-like Bop-Louie losing his friends. You have to save them by jumping on enemies, tossing Puyo Puyo-like things, and whipping bosses with your head. That’s one of Bop-Louie’s special attacks.

Sunsoft never released Ufouria: The Saga in North America, but it could come here as a Virtual Console import. An English release exists. Europe got it. Also, Australia’s OFLC rated Ufouria: The Saga with Nintendo as the publisher hinting at a digital re-release, at least in the land down under.

Here’s a look at what we missed and could be playing in the future.

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