Retro Gaming Australia

Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles for the GameCube marked the triumphant return of the Final Fantasy series to Nintendo hardware after 5 years. It was quite the departure from the standard Final Fantasy fare – it was a multiplayer action RPG which required use of the Game Boy Advance link feature for the full experience, much to the chagrin of some at the time.

Mario’s Super Picross is a member of a rather exclusive club: Mario games that Nintendo never localised. As you’d expect, it’s very close to Mario’s Picross on the Game Boy, but the lukewarm market response to that title meant Nintendo passed on releasing the sequels outside of Japan until the rise of the Nintendo DS.

Hagane: The Final Conflict is one of those games which flew under the radar and now commands a ridiculous price on eBay and the like, owing in part to the North American release being a Blockbuster rental exclusive, and the European print run being tiny. The concept is pretty cool – Hagane is a ninja who survives a nearly fatal attack from a rival clan and is giving a new lease on life with a cybernetic body.

Conker: Live and Reloaded is a fantastic remake of the late N64 era release Conker’s Bad Fur Day, but it wasn’t particularly well received at the time. The reason? People expected big things out of Microsoft’s purchase of Rare in 2002, and they got precisely two games on the original Xbox, the maligned Grabbed by the Ghoulies and a remake. It’s one of the best looking games on the Xbox by far.

Before Crash Team Racing was released, many saw it as a soulless cash-in on the success of Super Mario Kart. Opinions were quickly changed when Crash Team Racing actually turned out to be good. Quality multiplayer racing action combined with a solid and beefy single player mode made Crash Team Racing one of the most popular games on the original PlayStation.

The Game Gear TV Tuner is exactly what it says on the tin: a peripheral that lets you watch TV on your Game Gear. Well, it did – unless you’re living in one of the few regions of Australia where analogue TV is still broadcast, the device is pretty much useless now. Still, it was a neat idea.

Tail Concerto is a pretty neat action-adventure released by Atlus in 1999. You play as an anthropomorphised dog who pilots a mech in his struggle against a race of evil cat people. Tail Concerto was not a hit on release, but gradually developed a cult following – enough for a spiritual sequel, Solatorobo: Red the Hunter to be made for the DS.

Before Act Zero came along, Bomberman Hero tended to be regarded as the worst game in the Bomberman series. The reason? It abandoned the series trademark multiplayer action, and focused entirely on single player. Bomberman Hero also abandons the maze based single player of previous games, playing a lot more like a 3D platformer.

Gran Turismo is one of Sony’s flagship franchises, and one of the best simulation racing series ever made. It’s amazing how much effort goes into each iteration – the development of the first game started in 1992! First released in December 1997 in Japan, Gran Turismo would go onto be the top selling game on the original PlayStation with over 10 million units sold. This is the Russian ad for the game, if you couldn’t tell.

Eternal Champions is Sega of America’s attempt at cashing in on the early 1990s fighting game craze. It’s an admirable effort, but ultimately falls short due to fiddly controls, frustrating AI and less than stellar character design. Cocky ads like this only served to make people snicker at Eternal Champions and go back to playing Street Fighter II.