Over the past few years, publishers have embraced their old school roots and released new titles with eight and 16-bit style graphics, much to the delight of gamers who grew up playing NES, SNES and Genesis in the 80s and 90s. Only a handful of companies have done this, and thankfully, it appears that this renewed art style won’t go away any time soon. Here now, are a handful of new games with some retro flavor.
Mega Man 9 (WiiWare, Xbox Live, PSN)
Capcom kicked things off with an excellent sequel to its long standing Mega Man franchise, released in 2008 for Xbox Live, PSN and WiiWare. This time, the blue bomber fights to prove Dr. Light’s innocence after Dr. Wily frames him for inciting a robot rampage. This means running through a new batch of robot masters and completing a series of incredibly tough stages. While we enjoyed the traditional gameplay, Mega Man 9 is sweet because it looks exactly like an NES title, complete with flickering; Capcom also composed 8-bit music.
Mega Man 10 (WiiWare, Xbox Live, PSN)
With the tenth Mega Man, Capcom stuck to what worked so well in the prequel, retaining those exquisite NES graphics and audio. With the gameplay, the publisher included an easy mode for players like us who need a tremendous amount of help, while also embracing downloadable content.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (August 10th PSN, August 25th Xbox Live)
Ubisoft, instead of trying to mimic the Scott Pilgrim film and failing miserably, created a 2-D side-scrolling brawler with 16-bit graphics. The premise, of course, is the same. Scott, to win Ramona Flowers’ heart, must defeat her seven evil ex boyfriends, except this is a four-player beat-em-up where you can choose to play as Scott, Ramona, Kim Pine, Stephen Stills and a secret character, each of which has signature moves and abilities that you learn over time. Think of it as a modern day Streets of Rage 2. We’re so there.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Preview
Rocket Riot
If you haven’t played Rocket Riot on Xbox Live, we strongly recommend doing so immediately. It’s an arena shooter where you hover using a jetpack and blow up enemies, except the environments are fully destructible. If someone hides behind something, simply blast through it. Doing so causes chunks of 8-bit graphics to fly all over the place, something that should satisfy your need to blow things up.
Contra ReBirth
In the late 90s, Konami tried (and failed) to bring Contra into the 3-D revolution with terrible games that lost the classic feel of those excellent 2-D efforts. Well, the publisher finally got back on track with Contra: Shattered Soldier on the PS2, Contra 4 on DS and more recently, Contra ReBirth on WiiWare. This quality action fest features 16-bit art that resembles Contra III: The Alien Wars on SNES. It’s also ridiculously hard, to the point that we want to chuck those Wii remotes across the room. Ah yes, the good old days.
N+ (Xbox Live, DS, PSP)
N+ keeps it real, as in Atari 2600. This game looks ancient, with its simple gray stages and tiny ninja. It takes us back (way back) to the early 80s and Chuck E. Cheese.
Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (WiiWare)
When it comes to predicting Final Fantasy sequels, most people probably put their money on FFVII. That said, Square Enix threw everyone for a proverbial loop with a follow up to FFIV, dubbed The After Years. You play as Cecil and Rosa’s kid, Ceodore, and explore a world chock full of monsters. Can’t say we saw that one coming, and we’re glad that the developers went with 2-D visuals instead of 3-D.
Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth (WiiWare)
Konami receives a lot of criticism and much of it’s deserved (Just how many Lost in Blue games can it make?), but at the very least, the company scored a knockout blow with Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth, which is the spiritual successor to a 1989 Game Boy classic. This time, you play as Christopher Belmont, who sets off to destroy Dracula. In the Castlevania tradition, you have a trusty whip, but there’s also sub weapons that make killing all those minions a bit easier.
Castlevania the Adventure ReBirth Review
Gradius ReBirth (WiiWare)
Gradius ReBirth is basically a remix of past Gradius levels and music, but with leaderboards and snazzy 16-bit graphics. There’s slim pickings on WiiWare when it comes to space shooters, so we strongly suggest you snatch up this bad boy.
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