If you were alive in the 1980s, and shunned the floppies and tapes of the Commodore 64 in favour of Japan’s consoles, Retro Game Challenge will tickle, tug on and otherwise stimulate your nostalgia bone. The game is full of retro-pastiches, faux Famicom cartridges and parodies of 8bit gaming culture, giving a whole new meaning to retro compilations.
You’re transported, by the insane host of Japan’s Game Center CX (A TV show where comedian Shinya Arino hilariously fails at rock-hard Famicom games) to 1985 and are subjected to a number of gruelling challenges in a collection of faked NES games.
Each game carefully pastiches a genre, and most clearly resemble a classic game; opening shmup Cosmic Gate is a spitting image of Galaga, while Haggle Man 3 is an ingenious knock-off of Ninja Gaiden. Almost all of the games are thoroughly enjoyable, and expand into full games after the initial challenges. Sprawling RPG, Guardia Quest, should offer up to ten hours of old school dungeon crawling, and a Star Soldier rip-off, Star Prince, is excellent and expansive.
It’s just a shame that, even with the massive selection of genres and franchises to parody on the NES, Retro Game Challenge doubles up a few of the games. Making fun of the competition carts, which merely replaced sprites with in-game advertising, you’re forced to play through top down racer, Rally King, twice. Platform-puzzle game Haggle Man also has a near identical sequel and while remarkably different, the two shooters take up spots that should otherwise be left for a mascot platformer, a falling block puzzle game or a ball-rolling labyrinth.
If you’re stuck on a game though, there’s no need to get frustrated. Throughout the course of the adventure your gaming companion (a pint-size version of Arino, for some reason) runs out and buys new issues of Game Fan magazine. These digitised monthlies slot seamlessly into the world’s canon; interviewing developers of your new games, spoofing American magazine editors, previewing upcoming titles and, most importantly, offering hints, tricks and cheat codes for all your games.
If that wasn’t enough concentrated nostalgia, your gaming buddy will also regale you with gossip from the school yard, doling out gaming wives-tales he’s heard and dropping references to The Wizard and gaming celebrity Takahashi Meijin. He’ll also be heartbroken at Guardia Quest’s constant delays, buy helpful accessories and avoid collecting his Mum’s groceries (we’ve just reached the best part!) The translation job by XSEED is mostly impressive, but leaving the red Famicom and its assorted coloured cartridges is a little lazy.
While Retro Game Challenge is hilarious, inspired and ever-so-appealing to old school nerds, it does lose its allure somewhat when repetition strikes. Those put off by Rally King will no doubt rip their hair out at its identical special edition, and RPG deterrents like myself will be put off by the abrasive “Grind to Level 7” challenge. Retro Game Challenge’s linearity is also disappointing, even asking you what upcoming game you’re most hyped about, but ignoring your preference.
Regardless, Retro Game Challenge has an unabashedly fascinating premise, and executes on its ideas with far more success than failure. In fact, you didn’t have to be alive in the 1980s, and you could have been typing in pokes and peeks instead of the contra code; you only need to have touched an NES controller for Retro Game Challenge to be not only relevant, but spectacular.
Note: Retro Game Challenge is not available in the UK, and there are currently no plans for its release outside of Japan and America.