Tag Archives: Retro Gaming

Konami, Nintendo 64

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, Nintendo 64

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Set eight years before the events of Castlevania 64, Legacy of Darkness is a prequel to the first N64 Castlevania, featuring a ‘man-beast’ called Cornell who is trying to save his sister, Ada, from being used as a sacrifice to resurrect Dracula.

The game is set in 1844 and begins with Cornell arriving at his home village, only to discover that it’s been burnt to the ground by Dracula’s skeleton army. He finds Ada’s pendant on the ground and follows her scent to Dracula’s castle.

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Konami, Nintendo 64

Castlevania, Nintendo 64

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Developed by Konami‘s Kobe division and first released in 1999, Castlevania on the N64 (sometimes referred to as “Castlevania 64“) is a third-person 3D game – the first 3D game, in fact, in the popular horror/platform/action series.

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Homebrew, Modern Retro, ZX Spectrum

Vradark’s Sphere, ZX Spectrum

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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.

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Arcade, Diatec

Uncle Poo, Arcade

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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.

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Daiei Seisakusho, PC Engine, Taito, TurboGrafx-16

Chase HQ, PC Engine

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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.

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Homebrew, Modern Retro, ZX Spectrum

Aliens: Neoplasma, ZX Spectrum

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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).

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Arcade, Romstar, Toaplan

Fire Shark, Arcade

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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.

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Arcade, Electrocoin, Romstar, Taito, Toaplan

Flying Shark, Arcade

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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.

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Commodore 64, Cosmi Corportion, US Gold

Beyond the Forbidden Forest, Commodore 64

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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.

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Commodore 64, Cosmi Corportion, US Gold

Forbidden Forest, Commodore 64

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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.

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