Retro Gaming Australia

Today marks 14 years since the Dreamcast launched in North America. The 9.9.99 release date is one that will stick with Sega fans forever – it was a pretty damn magical day. The Dreamcast launch was more successful than many had believed, even with a really hot showing at E3 1999. We all know how the story ends, but it’s nice to remember the times when the Dreamcast was on fire.

Blue Stinger is quite an oddball survival horror game that was released as part of the Dreamcast launch lineup in North America and Europe. Originally released by Sega in Japan, it was picked up by Activision for its western release. Said non-Japanese release changed the game’s camera to a more standard 3rd person camera, which some felt removed some of the dramatic tension of the original version.

Seeing Starcraft 64 break 600 bucks again is making me question the sense of collectors. Real talk.

Streets of Rage 3 (Mega Drive)

Turbo Duo R

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (GameCube)

Mario Party (N64)

Saga Frontier 2 (PlayStation)

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Game Boy Advance)

Super Nintendo Bundle – 5 Game Pak (Super Mario All Stars + Super Mario World)

Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands have been released on just about every platform around. This particular ad was for the PC, PlayStation and Saturn release in 1996. This release is infamous for outing the fact that Taito had lost the original source code for Bubble Bobble – developer Probe was sent an original PCB and had to piece the game together from that.

Some good, albeit expensive stuff this week.

Grandia II (Dreamcast) – new and sealed

Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast)

Excitebike – Europa Version (NES)

Xbox Store Kiosk – NSW Pickup Only

Sega Saturn w/ 15 games

Mario Party (N64)

Mario Party 2 (N64)

A handful of you might remember a game called Bravoman in the arcades and on the PC Engine. It was a bit of a parody of Japanese superhero shows and video games, featuring the titular character who had stretchy limbs.

Now 25 years later, Namco has revived the Hero of Unequaled Excellence in a new game – Bravoman: Binja Bash! for iOS and Android. It’s an endless runner with some action and shooting components with a look styled after the Shiftylook comic series. It’s available free of charge.

The game is jam-packed with obscure gaming references, which will likely fly over the heads of most of us not familiar with some of Namco’s more obscure games.

Via Siliconera

Nintendo has put out a bunch of new information for the soon to be released HD re-release of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, along with a story trailer.

The company will be releasing a special edition of the game which features a rather neato Ganondorf figure. On top of that, there will also be a WiiU System Bundle which features a GamePad with a special Zelda themed decal, not unlike the 3DS console released alongside Ocarina of Time 3D.

Unfortunately, neither of these items will be released in Australia, so get your importing hats on.

Cross another off the list of untranslated Famicom/NES games – the Tower of Druaga prologue Kai no Bouken has been translated into English.

Released four years after Tower of Druaga, but set beforehand, Kai no Bouken puts players in the role of Ki, a princess who is on a quest to take back the stolen Blue Crystal Rod from the demon Druaga. As you’d expect from a Druaga title, the game is ridiculously big with 100 levels of platforming action. It’s not particularly easy either, as Ki has no offensive attacks.

The translation project for this title stretches back to 2001, when the script was completed by Tomato, but abandoned by the group which started by the project. Another ROM hacker by the name of Zynk picked up the abandoned project in May 2013 and set about finishing it. In addition to an English translation, Zynk also released another patch which gives the game more detailed sprites.

You can get the patch here.

Disney and Square Enix have debuted a new trailer at PAX Prime for the very-soon-to-be-released HD re-release of Kingdom Hearts.

The game will be available locally on September 12.

Sega Studios Australia is currently putting the final touches on what will be their final game – Castle of Illusion HD, but it was revealed earlier in the week that the studio tried to pitch Sega on making them into a full blown retro revival studio.

The pitch video, which you can watch below, was for a remake of Golden Axe, to be released under a label called Sega Reborn. The crazier part of the idea was that all of the games would take place in the one universe, effectively meaning Streets of Rage would theoretically be set hundreds of years after the events of Golden Axe.

Of course, the last time Sega tried making 3D versions of their classic games, we got the first dozen or so 3D AGES releases, and those were…not so good. Being pre-alpha, this Golden Axe footage looks pretty rough, but there was some promise in there.

Via Segabits