Retro - Timeline
Thursday21st Jul 2022
News Forgotten Gem 'Avenging Spirit' Is Making Its Way To Nintendo Switch
Game BOOy Horror
Right, get this — you're out on a nice date with your girlfriend until, annoyingly, you get horribly murdered by a crime syndicate. Now you're a ghost, and you have to team up with your girlfriend's dad to rescue her from said syndicate, but wait! There's more! The syndicate are one step ahead of you, because they're researching...
Tuesday19th Jul 2022
Random See How The World's Biggest Working Nintendo DS Was Created
Supersize Mii
We've all heard of the phrase 'go big or go home,' right? Well YouTuber and all-round tech wizard, Bigrig Creates, seems to have fully embodied its message with his latest video in which he assembles the world's biggest Nintendo DS. Sharing the video on his YouTube channel, BigRig assembles the system's iconic dual screens by...
Monday18th Jul 2022
Soapbox Correcting A Horrifying 15-Year Mistake By Finally Playing Elite Beat Agents
They don’t make rhythm games as bizarre as they used to
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've got on their minds. Today, Lowell makes amends for a poor life choice and finally gets down with that funky, funky beat... Rewind with me all the way back to...
Random Have You Seen This Cute, Unreleased Precursor To The Top Loader NES?
What could have been...
The North American version of the top-loading NES-101 All the way back in 1988, Nintendo would show to the media a brand new piece of hardware that would eventually become the Super Famicom, or the Super NES in the West. It was an exciting time for the gaming community as Nintendo entered the 16-bit era, though it seems...
Friday15th Jul 2022
Review Pokémon Puzzle League - A Thrilling Puzzler And A Heavy Nostalgia Hit
Panel de Pokémon
This review originally went live in 2008, and we're updating and republishing it to mark the game's arrival on Switch as part of the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. For those who have dabbled with Puzzle League, this is obvious information, but please bear with us. Tetris Attack, the SNES game, was a westernized version of...
Thursday14th Jul 2022
News Namco Shmup Dragon Saber Is This Week's Arcade Archives Game
Dragon flight
If you love a good vertical shoot 'em up - Hamster's Arcade Archives collection has you got covered this week. The latest release for this library on the Switch is the 1990 Namco title, Dragon Saber. It's a sequel to Dragon Spirit, released in arcades back in 1987. In this game, the Huey and Siria, who have been transformed into...
Wednesday13th Jul 2022
News SEGA Genesis Mini 2 Confirmed For North American Release This October
Blasting to the West with SEGA CD games
Sega has announced that it's bringing the Genesis Mini 2 mini console to North America on 27th October. The mini console — which follows the original Mega Drive Mini and includes more Genesis titles and SEGA CD games to boot — was previously confirmed only for Japan, but we'll be enjoying the 50+ games it...
Random Voice Of Zelda In CD-i Games Would Love To Return To The Role
She's currently working on a homage to the CD-i series
The Legend of Zelda CD-i games might not have had much going for them, but one thing that was arguably impressive was the voice acting. Bonnie Jean Wilbur was the original Princess Zelda in the series - providing the voice for the character in the 1993 Philips CD-i releases Link: The Faces of...
Tuesday12th Jul 2022
Poll What's The Best Mario Kart Game?
Rate them Rainbow Roads
Some of us here at Nintendo Life Towers are convinced that your favourite Mario Kart game is simply the one you played first with three other players in the same room — or just one other player if you were there at the very beginning with Super Mario Kart on Super NES. We tend to think this because while we can all agree...
Friday8th Jul 2022
Random We Need To Play This Gorgeous Fan-Made Super Mario RPG Remake Now
A thing of beauty
Back in the '90s, whoever thought that Nintendo would team up with JRPG giants Square Enix (then known as Square or Squaresoft) to create a Mario RPG starring the Italian plumber, Princess Peach, and Bowser? Not us! But they did, and we're forever grateful for the existence of Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Despite...
Thursday7th Jul 2022
Random This Fan-Made Mini TV With A Built-In Super NES Is Totally Adorable
Bite-sized classic gaming with a TV to match
One of our favourite console peripherals is the Joytech GameCube screen, a little attachable screen for the little box-shaped console that turned it into a portable console of sorts. Lots of mods for other consoles have been inspired by this little add-on, but today, we have something extra dinky that...
Wednesday6th Jul 2022
Review Zero Tolerance Collection (Switch) - A Significant 16-Bit FPS That's Hard To Take These Days
Virtual neutrality
Thanks to ray casting, an early form of graphics processing that allowed the rendering of a 2D map as a pseudo-3D environment, Zero Tolerance, a true First-Person Shooter, arrived on Sega’s Mega Drive in 1994. What makes Zero Tolerance Collection significant — particularly for fans of the original — is its boast of...
News Creator Of Philips CD-i Game 'Hotel Mario' Talks Getting Approval From Nintendo
"They were pleased as far as I knew"
The Philips CD-i is one of the rare consoles that has the distinction of having played host to a few officially licensed Nintendo games. And not just any old Nintendo licenses, either, but Zelda and Mario. The latter of the two only got one game on the system — Hotel Mario, which is often considered one of the...
News Microsoft Renews Trademark For Rare's Classic N64 Game Blast Corps
Viva Piñata, too
Video game trademark renewals are always happening, and while they don't necessarily mean something is on the horizon, they do tend to create some excitement whenever it's a classic game or series we haven't heard about for some time. The latest ones, as highlighted by Game Rant, are tied to iconic British developer Rare - owned...
Tuesday5th Jul 2022
Random Witness The Star Trek DS9 Intro In Glorious 64-Bit, Zelda: Ocarina Of Time Style
It is not linear
A little while ago we covered the incredible work of @SpinaSanctuary and their Zelda 64-inspired, low-poly Star Trek creations. The last batch focused on the crew of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation, rendering them in brilliantly blocky 64-bit form with a variety of instruments — Data with his violin, Riker...
Random This Incredible Super NES Manual Archive Will Get You All Nostalgic
All 844 English language manuals
We really miss physical game manuals. There was always a particular kind of joy that came from opening the box of a brand new video game and flicking through the pages of a manual to find out what the game was going to be like. Some of our favourites would get dog-eared, and torn up, but they were always well-loved...
Sunday3rd Jul 2022
Random Here's A Look At Masahiro Sakurai's Retro Video Game Collection
That's some neat filing
If you're looking for new ways to organise your retro video game collection, you might want to read on. Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Kirby and director of the Smash Bros. series, recently shared an image on social media of his impressive library of retro games. As you can see he's got draws stacked with cartridges like...
Friday1st Jul 2022
Random This Browser-Based Version Of Mario Paint Composer Will Entertain For Hours
Face the music
What's the best part of Mario Paint? No, not the painting! The Composer mode! Who didn't spend hours on Mario Paint making tunes with fire flowers, mushrooms, coins, and boos? Mario Paint Composer has become something of an online hit in the years since the SNES game's release, with many budding musicians picking up their SNES mouse...
Wednesday29th Jun 2022
Movie Review GoldenEra - A Celebratory Examination Of GoldenEye 007's Creation And Impact
Worth its weight in gold
"A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." Ah, yes. The classic quote that may or may not have been uttered by Shigeru Miyamoto. With the gaming industry (understandably) experiencing an unusually high number of delays in recent years, the proclamation has been the subject of memes to the point...
Sunday26th Jun 2022
Feature Remembering Klonoa's Dreamy GBA Platformers - Empires, Champions, And Puzzles
It's not only a phantasy
The ‘90s and 2000s were a totally different era. I can’t tell you how many times I sat down playing the same demo discs over and over or replaying the same handful of games as a kid. Bandai Namco’s old mascot Klonoa — soon to return in the upcoming Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series — is the first-ever video game...
News Edia Crowdfunding Cosmic Fantasy Collection For Nintendo Switch
Campaign goal has already been met
Edia - the developer behind the recent Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Collection - has launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website Makuake for a special double-pack Nintendo Switch release. It's asking for 3 million yen (around $22,285 USD) to release Cosmic Fantasy: Adventure Boy Yuu and Cosmic Fantasy 2:...
Friday24th Jun 2022
Memory Pak After 20 Years, Eternal Darkness Really Deserves A Second Life
Being stuck on one system is pure insanity
Picture the setting. You’re walking around a grand mansion, testing out keys on locked doors, investigating every nook and cranny, and simply trying your best to figure out where you need to go and what you need to do. The rooms are well-lit and the furniture neatly positioned together. By all accounts,...
Review Pokémon Snap - Photo Fun That's Over Too Soon
Candid Camera + Pocket Monster
This review originally went live in 2016, and we're updating and republishing it to mark the game's arrival on Switch as part of the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack. There are moments during Pokémon Snap where — upon finding a hidden path — the game ditches the first-person perspective to show your...
Wednesday22nd Jun 2022
News Boss Fight Announces New Documentary Book Focused On GoldenEye 007
Based on "exclusive interviews with the developers"
Boss Fight Books are known as the publisher of multiple in-depth deep-dives of beloved video games, from Metal Gear Solid to The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, each one written by mega-fan authors, writers, and developers, often with interviews from the people who made the games. And Boss Fight...
Tuesday21st Jun 2022
News The Sega Genesis Is Getting A New 6-Button Controller, And It Will Work With Switch
Say hello to the 'Big6'
Back when the Sega Mega Drive / Genesis was first released, it came with a 3-button pad which – in 1988 – felt like the future. It wasn't square and boxy like the NES and Master System controllers but had a rounded, ergonomic shape which was more comfortable to hold, and it had one extra action button. Bliss! However, by...
Monday20th Jun 2022
News Never-Before-Seen Famicom Port Of Taito Arcade Game 'The Fairyland Story' Discovered
A fairytale of game preservation
Forest of Illusion, Hard4Games, and Gaming Alexandria have uncovered a pretty huge find in the world of retro arcade ports. Once upon a time, Taito's 1985 arcade predecessor to Bubble Bobble — The Fairyland Story — was due to get a Famicom port back in 1986. This version of the game was only ever spotted in
Saturday18th Jun 2022
Feature Need More Turtles After Shredder's Revenge? You Should Check Out These Underrated TMNT Gems
Heroes in a handheld
Hopefully you’re all enjoying the absolutely tremendous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, the latest addition to the TMNT video gaming canon from Dotemu and Tribute games. We know we are. It’s another blistering action game in the tradition of Konami’s NES and SNES beat-’em-ups. And that’s great — we...
Random F1 Star Lewis Hamilton Couldn't Find Mario Kart, So He Bought Super Monaco GP II Instead
"I went to get Mario Kart but they didn’t have it"
Seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he's digging back into the past to let off steam during what is proving to be a demanding season. Hamilton was infamously beaten to the title last season by Max Verstappen in controversial circumstances, but rule changes this year have...
Wednesday15th Jun 2022
Hands On WaterField 'CitySlicker' Analogue Pocket Case
Your dream case?
If you're lucky enough to own an Analogue Pocket then you might be somewhat intimidated by the sheer range of storage options available right now. Analogue has its own hard-shell plastic case, but WaterField Designs now has three different choices on offer: the Pack, the
Monday13th Jun 2022
News You Can Now Hang Nintendo's Biggest-Selling Console On Your Wall
Don't feel bad, there are 154 million other ones out there
While old-school Nintendo gamers might feel the NES, SNES or Game Boy marked the zenith of the company's commercial powers, it's actually the Nintendo DS which holds the position of the Kyoto firm's most successful hardware release. The entire DS family has sold a staggering 154 million...
