Vradark’s Sphere is a Roguelike fantasy role-playing game that was created by Aleksander Udotov, for 128K Spectrums, and first released in 2018. To me it is the epitome of what I would call “Modern Retro” (ie. a modern game, made to look old or be played on old hardware), and it looks and plays fantastically well.
Uncle Poo, Arcade
Now here’s a bizarre one from the dim and distant past… Uncle Poo, created by Diatec in 1983, is a weird old vertical screen game in which you play an old man who collects gems and money from a maze that is patrolled by monsters, and is slowly being flooded by water.
Chase HQ, PC Engine
The PC Engine version of Taito‘s classic car chase game, Chase HQ, is pretty decent. It was ported by Daiei Seisakusho for Taito , and is reasonably accurate, although it’s not quite as good as the arcade original itself. No surprises there, really, because the PC Engine (or the North American TurboGrafx-16 counterpart) is a small 8-bit console that was known for punching above its weight, but it wasn’t able to perform miracles.
Aliens: Neoplasma, ZX Spectrum
Aliens: Neoplasma is a homebrew ZX Spectrum game that was released by a Russian dev team called “SaNchez” in 2019. The game is for Spectrum 128K models only and is a run-and-gun shooter with platforming elements. It’s available in English, Russian and Spanish (each language is a separate download).
Fire Shark, Arcade
Fire Shark is a vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Toaplan and first distributed into arcades in 1989. It is the sequel to Flying Shark, which came out in 1987, and once again features biplanes that must blast their way through ten different stages of military mayhem.
Flying Shark, Arcade
Developed by Toaplan and first released into arcades in 1987, Flying Shark (aka Sky Shark in North America) is a challenging vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter with a military theme. You fly a biplane over jungle and sea and must blast your way through five increasingly more difficult levels.
Beyond the Forbidden Forest, Commodore 64
Beyond the Forbidden Forest is the 1986 sequel to 1983’s classic 8-bit survival horror game, Forbidden Forest. It was again devised and programmed by Paul Norman, and published by Cosmi Corporation in North America and US Gold in Europe.
Forbidden Forest, Commodore 64
Created by Paul Norman for Cosmi Corporation, Forbidden Forest is a legendary survival horror game from 1983 in which you play an archer trying to avoid attacks from a variety of hostile creatures inside a sprawling forest.
Dragon’s Curse, PC Engine
Dragon’s Curse is the American TurboGrafx-16 conversion of the classic Sega Master System game Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap. It was ported by original developer Westone and published by NEC in 1990 in North America and Hudson Soft in Japan in 1991. In Japan the game was confusingly released as “Adventure Island” (not to be confused with Hudson Soft‘s own Adventure Island series), and has a short intro sequence not seen in the American version.
Rainbow Islands, ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum has an excellent port of Taito‘s classic arcade game, Rainbow Islands, thanks to the developers at Graftgold. It was first published by Ocean Software in 1990.
The King of Grabs 