Retro - News
April2016
Feature ENKKO's Andy Vargas on Breathing New Life into the N64 Controller
Sticking it to the past
Did you know that it's becoming increasingly difficult to find a Nintendo 64 controller that's in good, working order? While the controller may have ushered in a new era of full-analogue control in video games in 1996, it wasn't without its flaws. Its unusual three-pronged design was enough to put off some people from even...
Video The Super Mario Bros. Speedrun World Record Has Been Broken Again
A whole 387 milliseconds faster than the last one
The world of speedrunning is one that is endlessly fascinating. People spend hours at a time practicing movements until they're pixel perfect, all in an effort to shave fragments of a second off of the currently standing best time. Super Mario Bros. is a popular game for speedrunners to challenge,...
Video New Earthbound Secret Discovered in Opening Chapter
20 years later...
Earthbound has been around for over two decades in the US and about a tenth of that time in Europe, but nonetheless it's an old game. Imagine our surprise then when a new as yet undocumented part of the game came to light; pun wholly intended. As you can see from the video below, by having a second controller connected you can...
Random This New Mod Gives GoldenEye A Feeling of Doom
See you in hell, James
GoldenEye 007 is a stone cold classic, even if modern TVs and wobbly N64 controller joysticks do it few favours. Credited by some as a vital release for the FPS genre on consoles, it stands as one of Rare's greatest games. Of course, the fact that licensing issues have left it in the annals of history is a pity, meaning we...
Poll The Utterly Charming Animal Crossing Series Is 15 Today, But Which Is Your Favourite?
Turning a new leaf or heading to the city? Let us know
The Animal Crossing series turns 15 today, and to celebrate this occasion Nintendo has released a special video. The first game in the franchise launched in Japan on the Nintendo 64 15 years ago, and since then we've seen entries on the GameCube, DS, Wii, 3DS and Wii U. The GameCube version was...
News Nintendo 64 Anthology Aims To Be The Ultimate Resource For Fans
An encyclopedia to honour Nintendo's beloved system
The N64 turns 20 this year and is regarded as one of Nintendo's finest machines, not only because it pushed technological boundaries and introduced numerous innovations, but also because it was home to some of the best games in the company's library. Author and fan Mathieu Manent is working with...
Random How to Turn Your Old NES Into an Electric Guitar
Turn it up to 8-bit
We suspect that many reading these pages have a good-old NES in their house, perhaps gathering dust as a treasured heirloom for future generations. Of course, some might still play their 8-bit system on a regular basis, or perhaps find another use for the iconic hardware. YouTuber Scotland Symons, who has shared a handful of...
Weirdness A New Animation is Found in Super Mario Bros. 3
It's only taken 28 years
It's amazing that still to this day, quirks and hidden information in the video games of yesteryear are still being surfaced from players around the world. The latest addition to this is NES classic Super Mario Bros. 3. For those accustomed with this title, you'll know that when our heroic plumber becomes Hammer Mario, he...
Video Check Out Nintendo's Early Connection With The World's Most Famous Sailor
How Popeye spawned Super Mario (kind of)
Popeye is one of the world's longest-running comic characters, and originally started life in 1929 - the same year as the infamous Wall Street Crash. His popularity has remained high even since, with TV shows, live-action movies and - of course - video games all bearing his name. As the world prepares itself...
Random A Bearded Man is an Unlikely Ally in Punch-Out!!
Beard power
Punch-Out!! on NES is one of the most iconic games in the 8-bit system's library, inspiring popular culture into its third decade. Little Mac's rise to the top of the boxing world is simplistic, brutally difficult and still huge fun to this day. Like so many of Nintendo's NES classics it has its secrets, and it seems that a keen gamer...
Random This Game Boy Zero Uses a Raspberry Pi for Lovely Retro Gaming
The Boy ate all the Pi
We've mentioned the Raspberry Pi before, a budget micro-computer that's gone through multiple iterations - its low price (typically $50 or under) means it's a wonderful educational tool or, alternatively, a side-project for enthusiasts. The Game Boy Zero is an example of the latter. As the name suggests this is a Game Boy...
News Nintendo Shuts Down Browser-Based '3D' Legend of Zelda Demo
"We're sad about that, but we get it"
Whenever a particularly neat Nintendo-based fan project arrives the dilemma is obvious - creators naturally want plenty of people to check them out, but attention increases the odds of a Nintendo takedown. Unfortunately that's happened to a rather clever voxel-based Legend of Zelda demo. Over at...
"SGI very nearly did another spin of the hardware to fix the issue"
The N64 was, for the time, a formidable piece of kit. Its chipset was developed in conjunction with Silicon Graphics and provided the console with power that put rivals like the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation in the shade. However, the complex nature of the chips involved resulted...
News Coleco Chameleon Saga Draws To A Close As Creator Finally Pulls The Plug
"In the end, I am the only one that has lost anything"
The Coleco Chameleon has a history so packed with twists and turns we imagine it would make for a pretty good movie. The venture started life as the Retro VGS, a system which would play games on good, old-fashioned carts and emulate the performance of multiple retro systems. When the...
Random Someone Hacked The Original Sonic To Include Sonic Boom's Annoying Chatter
"It's like they're drawn to me!"
Like the vast majority of gaming icons who appeared during the 16-bit era, Sonic the Hedgehog was a silent protagonist. However, his journey into 3D saw him gifted - if that's the right word - with a voice, and in his most recent outings, he rarely shuts up. As if to prove that less is most definately more, hacker...
Video Check Out This Banging Banjo-Kazooie Final Battle Theme Drum Cover
Not a banjo in sight thankfully
Banjo-Kazooie is a beloved N64 platformer from the legendary developers at Rare, aside from being a great game, it had an equally great soundtrack by the ever talented Grant Kirkhope. We recently featured a video of Mat Ombler drummer from the metal band Demoraliser doing a drum cover of the Mario underground theme,...
Video Let's Celebrate The Hot Mess That Was The GameCube's AV Output
Want the perfect setup? Watch this
As any video gaming veteran who lived through the early years of the industry will attest, we've never had it so good when it comes to AV output. Modern consoles support HDMI for a clean HD signal, and there's rarely a lot of effort involved in getting the right equipment - HDMI cables are cheap and plentiful, and...
News A 24-karat gold-plated NES-playing system can be yours for $4,999
If you need something to play Wall Street Kid on
Watches. Roses. Silver medals. Things just rise to a new level of opulent superiority when they're plated in gold. And if you prefer your NES and Famicom games to be played among the top 1 percent of ways, there's a limited edition gold-plated system for you. Analogue, the company that previously...
News Nintendo Is Ending DS Phat Repairs In Japan
Spare parts running out, says NCL
It's the end of an era. Not only have we recently had the news that DSiWare is shutting down and Nintendo is bringing DS cart production to a close, but we've now heard that NCL is stopping Nintendo DS console repairs in its homeland. Repair support for all colours of the very first DS (model number NTR-001, also...
News Here's A 3D Classics Version Of Zelda You Can Play In Your Web Browser
The stuff of legends
The Legend of Zelda turns 30 this year, and Nintendo has its own plans in place to celebrate this momentous milestone. However, some fans have the same idea, such as "Scott" and "Mike", the mysterious guys behind an amazing browser-based replication of the title that started it all on the Famicom / NES. Visiting...
Video Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Has a Surprising Number of Glitches
Still a classic, though
No matter how hard developers and quality assurance staff try, glitches are a normal part of gaming. They're unavoidable, but also potentially entertaining - after all, finding quirky moments and areas in game worlds can be highlights of a gaming experience. It can be fun learning about the range of glitches in classic...
News More Details Emerge on 80's Overdrive
Putting it in gear
A couple weeks ago, we found a new game coming to 3DS called 80's Overdrive. Though screenshots revealed that it was an old-school arcade racer, no more information was revealed or shown. While there's still a lot we don't know about the game, the developers recently lifted the lid on what we can generally expect out of it...
March2016
Weirdness This Has To Be The Most Underhanded Way Of Obtaining The N64's Rarest Fighter
The "old switcheroo"
ClayFighter is one of those series which can hardly be deemed classic, but the popularity of fighting games back in the '90s ensured that it sold pretty well, despite not being that much fun to play. However, by the time the N64 rolled around, the genre was on the wane and following the rather disappointing ClayFighter 63⅓,...
Video More Footage And Details Emerge For The Cancelled Bonk: Brink Of Extinction
Cave story
Bonk is one of video gaming's most unlikely mascots. Originally named PC Kid and seen as the PC Engine's lead character in Japan, he was renamed Bonk when that console was released in North America as the TurboGrafx-16. Bonk would enjoy three mainline adventures on NEC's hardware - all of which were very well recieved - as well as...
News Were It Not For Rare's Tim Stamper, Wave Race Would Have Featured Boats
Water difference that would have made
Back when Rare and Nintendo were partners, it seemed as if the two companies shared an almost unspoken rivalry, competing for recognition as the premier developer of the day - especially during the N64 era. In the latest issue of Retro Gamer magazine, several former Rare staffers have spoken about this glorious...
News World Video Game Hall of Fame 2016 Nominees Announced
Who will win?
Some of you may remember that the World Video Game Hall of Fame began last year, kicking off what will hopefully be a long term project to preserve gaming's greatest contributors. The first class consisted of DOOM, Pong, Pac-man, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and World of Warcraft, all genre defining or innovative in their own right. Now,...
News Unreleased SNES Game Starring Bill Clinton's Cat Could Yet See The Light Of Day
Letting the cat out of the bag
You have to wonder exactly what the guys at Kaneko USA were thinking when they began work on Socks the Cat Rocks The Hill, a 16-bit platformer featuring Bill Clinton's moggie. Boasting a risible plot which involves Socks saving the world from nuclear destruction and featuring bosses based on caricatures of former...
Random Here's Every Level In Super Mario 3 Played Simultaneously
Because why not?
One of the biggest selling points of Super Mario Bros. 3 when it originally launched was its sheer size; compared to other platformers of the period, this was a seriously epic experience with a multitude of stages to discover - many of which required multiple playthroughs to find. YouTuber Viktor Bohush has decided to show off the...
Random Runner Injects Flappy Bird Code into Super Mario World
An interesting work of sacrilege
The ability to practically program code into Super Mario World through the use of glitches opens up all sorts of possibilities, some definitely more bizarre than others. Just look toward speedrunner and tinkerer Sethbling, who managed to turn Mario into a Flappy Bird clone. Sethbling injected the code using...
Review Shodai Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-Kun
16-bit barf
If you were to ask kids in the late '80s and early '90s for iconic NES video game characters, alongside the usual gang of Nintendo, Konami and Capcom regulars, you would often hear the name "Alex". No, not our own Alex "Lovely People" Olney - this Alex was none other than the western version of Kunio, the short-tempered high school...
News TT Games Wanted To Include Mortal Kombat In The Lego Dimensions Midway Pack
"We had to take into account the typical age of our players"
The expansion of the core Lego Dimensions experience is continuing nicely, with the recently-released Midway pack granting access to an incredible selection of arcade classics. These include such coin-op hits as Gauntlet, Joust, Spy Hunter and Defender, but developer TT Games has revealed...
Feature Batman V Superman In The Battle Of The Nintendo Games
Which superhero comes out on top? Find out within...
This article was originally published on 25th November 2014, and has been re-posted to celebrate the cinematic release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Things are really heating up in the world of superhero movies, thanks to both Marvel and DC revealing their cinematic hands like two Texan...
News Video: Anki Overdrive Update Apes GoldenEye 007's One Shot Kill Mode
The car with the Golden Gun
If you've not seen it already, Anki Overdrive is a little hard to get your head around. It's a slot car-style game with no slots that's controlled via an app. The racing happens on the clip-together track but is augmented with the app that steers, shoots and triggers weapons. In the latest update t
Feature Ten Game Boy Advance Games You Should Play
Puzzle games, RPGs, action, platforming...
The Game Boy Advance just recently turned 15 years old, with that first model kicking off what would be the last Game Boy 'family' or systems, at least so far. It would be a platform that would take Nintendo's portable offerings forward in leaps and bounds, not just in terms of raw power but also...
Random Fan Ports Super Mario Kart to HTML5
Not exactly perfect, but it works
Though it can seem a bit basic by modern standards, Super Mario Kart was an innovative racer for its time, and it kicked off one of the most successful racing game franchises to date. It did have some unique mechanics that haven't completely been translated to the newer games, and there's certainly still a fan...
Video Looking Into The History Of Nintendo's Longest-Serving Video Game Character
Is this Nintendo's first mascot?
Nintendo's library of characters is the envy of the gaming world, with a history that stretches all the way back to the dawn of the industry. While many might assume that the company's first mascot is Mario, there have been several other individuals who can lay claim to being the Japanese firm's leading character...
News The Game Boy Advance is Now 15 Years Old
The last of an iconic family
The Game Boy brand was one of the most powerful in gaming during the 1990s with the original system and its iterations. Though the Game Boy Color offered some enhanced power, it nevertheless took an exceptionally long time for a true successor (aside from the ill-fated Virtual Boy) to arrive. The Game Boy Advance made...
Review Hyrule Warriors Legends
A Link in your pocket
The original Hyrule Warriors was a solid if slightly forgettable attempt at fusing the worlds Zelda and Koei Tecmo's Musou series, and despite its occasionally repetitive gameplay managed to alleviate fears that it would be little more than a shameless cash-in. Now, with the 3DS badly in need of top-drawer software as it...
News Tsunekazu Ishihara on the Difficulty of Naming Pokémon for Different Regions
Guess what Pikachu means in Japanese?
One of the aspects of the Pokémon games that gives them so much character is the creative names that many Pokémon are assigned. The name can make or break a Pokémon's reception, yet Game Freak has consistently managed to nail the naming with clever puns and plays on words that indicate attributes of the...
News Miitomo Continues Strong Run in Japan
Tops iPhone overall chart and climbs to second on Android
Just recently we reported on the first two days of download results for Miitomo in Japan. It made a storming debut across iOS on 17th and 18th March, and now we have information on more results and the earliest Android chart placings. Once again we've been checking up on App Annie, and what...
Weirdness Jackie Chan Backed A Motion-Controlled Fitness Console That Pre-Dated The Wii
Say hello to the XaviX Port!
The Wii was revolutionary in that it introduced the mainstream gaming market to motion controls and the concept of "keeping fit" through gameplay. However, it was by no means the first gaming platform to achieve this - in 2004, Japanese firm SSD Company Limited released the XaviX Port alongside a range of sports-focused...
News Meet The Famicom Machine Gun Peripheral That Never Made It Out Of Japan
Complete with realistic recoil system
It's easy to forget just how massive the NES was back in its glory days, but even that system paled in comparison to the near-domination that its Japanese counterpart - the Famicom - enjoyed in its homeland. Simply put, the Nintendo "Family Computer" was the only real game in town if you were a Japanese player,...
Review Fire Emblem: Mystery Of The Emblem
All Hail Prince Marth! (Yes, that Marth)
Ask any western gamer who Marth is and they will quickly reply something along the lines of "That cool sword-wielding guy from Super Smash Bros." - something that is understandable since the Fire Emblem series that began all the way back to 1990 on the Famicom only reached the West in 2003. But behind his...
Feature The Day Sega Took Over An F1 Race And Senna Lifted A Sonic Trophy
Welcome to the Sega European Grand Prix
Sega is still a key player in today's video game industry, but its position has diminished considerably over the past few decades. 25 years ago, it was one of the undisputed giants not only of the gaming arena, but of mainstream popular culture, having successfully taken on Nintendo with its popular Mega Drive...
News Renegade Kid Once Pitched A GBA Port Of Demon's Crest To Capcom, But Was Rebuffed
Poor sales of the SNES original to blame
Demon's Crest is one of the true underrated gems of the SNES library, yet it sold terribly upon its initial release back in 1994. In issue 100 of Nintendo Power it was even reported that the game had registered negative sales one week, as more people returned it for a refund than bought it. Thankfully, Capcom...
News Shigeru Miyamoto on the Development of Yoshi's Island
An oldie, but a goodie
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island was definitely something of a gamble for Nintendo when it launched back in the days of the SNES. The Super Mario series was only four (technically five) games long, and instead of making a safe sequel to the popular Super Mario World, a game was made starring his dinosaur companion, Yoshi...
Review Dragon Ball Z: Super Butoden 2
Just Saiyan
Dragon Ball Z fever was very much a real thing in the '90s, but this blonde hair, Kamehameha-throwing insanity hit the UK and America much later than the rest of Europe. As such, it might still not be common knowledge that all four of Super Famicom's Dragon Ball Z one-on-one fighting games received PAL localization and distribution -...
Weirdness Minor League Baseball Team Is Making Its Players Wear Game Boy Jerseys
Knocking it out of the park
Minor league baseball team Frisco Roughriders has something of a habit of getting its players to wear unique shirts based on pop culture icons, and this year the team is harnessing the power of Gunpei Yokoi's finest creation, the Nintendo Game Boy. The Roughriders - who play at the amusingly-named Dr Pepper Ballpark -...
Feature Poster Children - Your Guide to Collecting Nintendo Power's Awesome Classic Posters
A blast from the past
If you were a kid growing up at the end of the '80s and into the late '90s, you very well may have known that home console gaming was in its prime glory in the Bush Senior and Clinton era. The new and as-of-yet unexplored frontiers of companies like Nintendo and Sega were fertile planting ground for now-classic and beloved...
Weirdness You Can Now Play 3D NES Games In Your Web Browser
Wonders never cease
Next time you're bored at work you might want to try out this pretty incredible piece of programming which runs NES games via your browser in - wait for it - 3D. 3DNES only runs in Firefox and isn't operating at full speed at present, but as a technical feat it's pretty impressive. It takes original NES games and presents them...
"We wish them luck in the future"
Coleco has announced that it is walking away from the Chameleon console project after reports surfaced that the prototype shown off at the recent New York Toy Fair had a SNES Jr. inside it. The Chameleon was supposed to usher in a new era of cartridge-based gaming, and was billed as being able to emul
News The Original Mega Man Gets a Fresh Coat of Paint with Mega Man Redux
If only Capcom loved this series as much as the fans
Mega Man was the game that started it all, catapulting the Blue Bomber to fame and kicking off what would be a long and rich line of action games. Though the Mega Man games have all but screeched to a halt in more recent times, Capcom did decide to throw fans a bone and put out the Mega Man Legacy...
News Takashi Tezuka Began Development On Zelda: Link's Awakening Without Nintendo's Permission
Director wanted to "defy Zelda conventions" with Game Boy outing
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening might seem like the pint-sized sibling of the sublime Link to the Past, but many regard it as the superior release, despite the cruder visuals and sound. The 1993 Game Boy release was one of the first titles for the handheld which showed it could...
Review World Driver Championship
The N64's Gran Turismo?
Boss Game Studios off-loaded sequel duties to their dumb-fun hit Top Gear Rally in order to commence work on what would be an altogether more serious, authentic project – 1999's World Driver Championship. It would be the last significant output from the assured Redmond-based team, but remains amongst only a handful of truly...
News Synthwave Artists Celebrate N64's 20th Anniversary with Free Music Compilation
Two decades "synth" Nintendo's 64-bit powerhouse released
This June marks an important occasion in Nintendo history: the 20th anniversary of Nintendo's first 3D home video game system, the Nintendo 64, which released in Japan on 23 June 1996. To mark this momentous occasion, a group of artists has released a free unofficial synthwave compilation of...
Twenty years ahead of their time
When these games were released back in the late nineties, the air around younger Game Boy owners was one of excitement and rivalry. Nintendo is clearly trying to capitalise on the nostalgia factor for all of us who were within the target age group (and some who weren't) when these titles were originally released,...
Video Learn Some Fun Facts About Conker, His Descent to Badness and Nintendo's Naughty Side
Not cute and cuddly
Conker's Bad Fur Day is undoubtedly a cult classic on Nintendo 64, as Rare evidently decided all bets were off and turned a previously 'cute' project into a rather mature outing on the system. That history and transformation into one of the few mature Nintendo-published games - though there have been a handful over the years -...
Video Here's What A DJ Battle On Game Boys Looks (And Sounds) Like
Live from the Niche Nights ChipBattles event
Game Boy modder and chiptune master Joe Heaton is here to give us an official on-the-floor report from an amazing musical event - enjoy! On February 12th 2016, Niche Nights hosted the first ever ChipBattles event at Fab Cafe in Manchester. This is a brand new event within the scene of "Chiptune" music,...
Video Check out this footage of the SNES Super Disc Boot Software
Witnessing gaming history
It's a fairly little known fact that Nintendo was, at one point, working with Sony to develop a console. Back when CDs were all the rage, Nintendo was in the market to develop a CD add on with Sony, which was not affiliated with games at the time. It wasn't to be, unfortunately, and there was a falling out between the two...
Crows of Metal, Soldiers of Sorrow
War never changes. Unless someone replaces tanks with giant walking robots, then it looks much, much cooler yet is still quite tragic. That is exactly the point of Squaresoft's 1995 mech tactical RPG Front Mission. How does a man survive on the battlefield of the future? Canny strategy, pots of money and making...
February2016
Video The Incredible Tale Of The $50 Nintendo World Championships Cartridge
Stranger than fiction
Last year Nintendo resurrected the Nintendo World Championships, an event it first held back in 1990. As a result, interest in the special competition cartridges - handed out to winners
Video See The Beginning Of A Link To The Past Come To Life in Unreal Engine 4
Another one bites the dust
We've posted a fair share of fan-made projects taking our favourite video games and characters and giving them a HD graphical overhaul, from the Ocarina of Time's Master Sword cutscene to Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle frolicking in an open field. These have come from a range of creators, and while sometimes their...
Video The Truth Behind Factor 5's Pilotwings Game for GameCube
A nice idea that never took off
Pilotwings is a series that, after capturing hearts on Super NES, has failed to establish itself fully as a franchise. There was Pilotwings 64, and then after a long wait there was Pilotwings Resort, a 3DS launch title that took placed in and around Wuhu Island from Wii S
News ENKKO to Restore the N64 Controller to Its Former Glory with New Kickstarter Campaign
Keeping the generation alive
While renowned for popularising the incorporation of analogue joysticks into modern video game controllers, the Nintendo 64 Controller's joystick is, in fact, its biggest flaw. Those who played their N64 extensively back in its heyday will remember that the stick would become loose after extended use, so much so that it...
Video See How Pokémon on the 3DS Virtual Console Compares to an Original Cartridge on a Retron 5
The Game Boy doesn't do HDMI
The three first generation Pokémon games are nearlyavailable on the 3DS Virtual Console, and to celebrate just a wee bit we though it might be fun to see if there are any subtle performance or graphical variations between this version and the original cartridges. Using Pokémon Blue as a benchmark for no reason other...
News Merchoid Has The Perfect Clothing To Celebrate Zelda's 30th
For the Link (or Linkle) in your life
This year marks the 30th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, and online retailer Merchoid has announced that it is offering some officially licensed hoodies that are fit for the Hero of Time. These hoodies are available for both men and women and are designed to replicate Link's outfit - they even feature a...
News The Streets of Rage II Soundtrack is Getting a Vinyl Release
Collectors rejoice!
Streets of Rage II was an influential beat 'em up from the glory days of the SEGA Genesis, featuring brutal hand to hand combat and some seriously good quality spritework. Relatively recently, it received the 3D Classics treatment from M2 and saw a re-release on the Nintendo 3DS; gloriously reproduced in autostereoscopic 3D...
Video It's Fun To Learn About The Game Boy's CPU
'70s tech powering '90s dreams
The Nintendo Game Boy is without a doubt one of the most iconic gaming systems of all time, having shifted millions of units and turned countless individuals into Tetris addicts and prolific portable players. However, the console itself was actually seen as something of a weakling, even by the standards of the late...
News Super Famicom Satellaview Title Golf Daisuki! O.B. Club Translated To English
Birdie from Outer Space!
The Nintendo Satellaview was a visionary achievement - attaching a satellite modem to your Super Famicom and having scheduled game downloads was certainly something out of science fiction back in 1995. It achieved a moderate amount of success in Japan and has gathered a cult following among diehard Super Famicom...
The Legend of Alen
When you think HAL Laboratories, you immediately think Kirby. This is natural since it is by a long shot the most recognizable character ever to come out of the Chiyoda-based software house. Yet with over three decades producing video games, it goes without saying that HAL has a diverse back catalogue going all the way back to...
News Super Russian Roulette Is The Deer Hunter Video Game You Never Knew You Wanted
"I gotta get more bullets in the gun"
Michael Cimino's seminal 1978 drama The Deer Hunter may feature mesmerising performances from the likes of Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken and the late (and criminally underrated) John Cazale, but perhaps its most famous contribution to modern cinema is that scene where De Niro, Walken and John Savage's...
Chipping away
In the world of music vinyl is currently enjoying something of a resurgence, with the antiquated audio format coming back from the dead to take pride of place in any self-respecting hipster's living room. While it's unlikely that this trend has anything to do with the release of RIKI's 8Bit Music Power, parallels can nevertheless be...
Video Travel Back To 1990 For This Nintendo-Filled Birthday Event
Batman! DuckTales! Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom?!
Close friend and occasional Nintendo Life contributor Tyler Esposito is at it again - he's followed up on the Christmas video which saw him tearing off the wrapping to his shiny new NES back in 1989 with a birthday clip which shows just how popular Tim Burton's Batman movie wa
News The Virtual Boy's Design Was Influenced By The Fact That Ladies Like Wearing Make-Up
According to creator Gunpei Yokoi
Virtual Reality may be back in favour these days, but back in the mid-'90s the initial burst of interest in the technology was starting to wane, and for many players the straw that broke the camel's back was the much-hyped Nintendo Virtual Boy. Released in 1995 to almost complete consumer apathy, the console lacked...
News Cult SNES Hero Plok Stars In Another Action-Packed Comic Book
"It feels great to get fourth Plok book out there"
Plok is without a doubt one of the true hidden gems of the SNES library. Created by British coding siblings Ste and John Pickford, Plok originally starred in a unique platforming epic for the 16-bit console but has since gone on to become the lead character in a series of web-based comics, drawn by...
Video See How Many Faces You Can Name In This 101-Character Super Mario Kart Race
"And it's go, go, go!"
As we all know, Super Mario Kart on the SNES allows 8 famous faces from the Mushroom Kingdom to challenge one another in a no-holds-barred race to the finish line. Subsequent entries in the franchise have added more driver choice to the roster, but YouTube user Hat-Loving Gamer clearly feels Nintendo hasn't gone anywhere near...
Music Chronicles of Time, a 75-Track Tribute to Chrono Trigger, is Out Now
Over 200 artists contributed
Tribute albums play a notable part in the enthusiast gaming scene as talented musicians get together to celebrate their favourite games. Often not-for-profit ventures, they help breath new life into classics while tapping into lovely, fuzzy nostalgia. Chronicles of Time seems to tick all of those boxes - it's a 75-track...
Review Gundam Wing: Endless Duel
Bringing a Gundam to a fist fight
Mobile Suit Gundam Wing made quite an impact in the West, with the forty-nine episode anime series getting aired by Cartoon Network which would ensure it became one of the most recognizable entries in the iconic Japanese science fiction mecha series in our part of the planet. Predictably, video game adaptations...
Video Meet The Early Sega Mascots That Time Forgot
Say hello to Professor Asobin and Dr. Games
Yesterday, we reported on the news that the limited edition version of SEGA 3D Classics Collection would come with a sheet of decals comprised of logos and other old-school Sega imagery. One of these stickers stood out from the rest as it featured a character who is practically unknown to modern Sega fans:...
Review Crystal Beans From Dungeon Explorer
Do NOT shoot the food
Gauntlet remains a dear memory among many retro gamers. After all, Atari's revolutionary dungeon crawler was one of the best co-op arcade games ever produced and it certainly was no stranger to Nintendo owners with several conversions making their way to NES, Game Boy, Nintendo 64 and GameCube. You will notice a strange...
That's not effective
Well-known Pokémon fan project Pokémon Reorchestrated - a channel dedicated to orchestral covers of music across the Pokémon games - has had its full Kanto Symphony playlist removed from YouTube by The Pokémon Company. Channel creator Braxton Burks covers this in detail via the video below, but the key notes to take away...
Random Don't Forget to Celebrate Mewtwo's Birthday
For he's a jolly good genetically engineered lifeform
February 27th is a big day for Pokémon, marking the series' 20th anniversary since its début games in 1996. However, information contained within those games mentions another special day too - February 6th is Mewtwo's birthday! Players of Pokémon Red/Green/Blue/Yellow/FireRed/LeafGreen will...
Video Reliving the Memories of the Original Announcement for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Out of time, into Twilight
With the release of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD just around the corner we thought it was about time we looked back at the fantastic reveal that the original game received. Much controversy surrounded the art direction of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and many people wanted a more realistic Zelda game...
News Overheating Computers Almost Cost The World The Original Pokémon Games
"I sure am glad I fixed those computers back then"
Pokémon turns 20 this year, and to mark the occassion Game Freak's Junichi Masuda has posted a video online in which he shares some of his strongest memories regarding the creation of this iconic series. Masuda - who served as a programmer on Pokémon Red and Green and created the music and sound...
Video Check Out This Amazing Blindfolded Completion of Super Mario Bros.
Three months of practice, cleared in less than 15 minutes
We've seen some hugely impressive speedruns and game clearance feats in recent times, whether it's beating games with unconventional controllers, clearing multiple games at once or setting record times. Blindfolded runs are also fantastic to watch, and Japanese YouTuber...
Heaven and Hell
There are hundreds of amazing games for the Super Famicom that remain a mystery to Western gamers. Dark Half is one such game, published by Enix in 1996. It is a late generation Super Famicom title that at first glance seems to be your typical JRPG, with the player taking control of Falco, the Paladin (not to be confused with the...
January2016
Video Catch Up on Yet More Legend of Zelda Easter Eggs
Linking to the past
The Legend of Zelda is one of Nintendo's most important franchises and celebrates its 30th Anniversary this year. It's going to get a lot of focus, then, including plenty of fan-created content to celebrate its history and idiosyncrasies. It's taken a little while, but Did You Know Gaming has continued its series that looks at a...
Hardware Classics Bit Corp Gamate
From Taiwan with love
Given that we've covered pretty much every retro console of note in our Hardware Classics series, it was almost inevitable that we'd be forced to investigate systems which could hardly be considered noteworthy from a commercial or critical standpoint. That's certainly the case with Bit Corp Gamate, a handheld console...
Video Behind the Scenes of Battletoads with David Wise
Blast from the past
Rare is a studio that's known for putting out multiple classics on Nintendo's older hardware. Though the studio is arguably best known for its Nintendo 64 games and its work on the Donkey Kong series, it also put out Battletoads way back on the NES. Known for being a great example of 'Nintendo Hard' gameplay – especially with...
News It Looks Like Michael Jackson Did Write Some Of Sonic 3's Soundtrack After All
Doesn't matter if you're black or white (or blue)
Back in the early '90s when Michael Jackson was arguably the most famous person on the face of the planet, he started working with Nintendo's rival Sega on a series of video game projects. Sega was quick to exploit Jackson's natural love of video games with Moonwalker being perhaps the most...
Ninterview The History of Gaming, In Oil Paint
We have a chat with Randy Gallegos about his gaming art
If you've ever seen our Instagram account you'll know we love a bit of gaming art here at Nintendo Life. The majority of the art we come across is digital, however we recently came across the work of an American artist who does things a little differently. Artist Randy Gallegos has been...
Video Check Out the Introduction to the Jet Force Gemini Game That Never Was
What could've been...
Some of you may remember Jet Force Gemini, a Nintendo 64 classic from the golden days of Rare. Though Banjo-Kazooie and Goldeneye 007 may be games that are mentioned more, Jet Force Gemini was nonetheless a lovely third person shooter that positively oozed of Rare's charm and quality. It was also a one-off game, though...
Weirdness Super Mario 64 Expert Collects a Star in 0.5 'A' Button Presses
"We need to talk about parallel universes..."
The recent Awesome Games Done Quick marathon served as a fantastic example of speedrunners demonstrating their practiced skill with impressive results. In the wake of its conclusion earlier this month, we've got just the video for anyone still needing their fix of game-breaking talent on display. While...
Feature Why We're Still Playing... GoldenEye 007
Steven Smith revives the laser watch on N64
In the latest entry in this series we have Nintendo Life newcomer Steven Smith (@N64Memories) talking about GoldenEye 007; no, not that one on Wii, but the N64 original. GoldenEye 007 was my first true experience of a first-person shooter (FPS). Yes, I had played Doom – a classic, o
Hardware Review We Look at a Definitive GameCube HDMI Mod
Crystal quality
Long-time fans of Nintendo have often harped on about the GameCube controller being one of the best controllers in gaming history, and the console it attached to first was certainly not shy of some spectacular releases. It's a shame that we have to have a television the size of Snowdonia just to be able to appreciate the system...
Hardware Classics Sega Game Gear
Getting into Gear
It's easy to see the thinking behind the Game Gear, the machine Sega positioned as a Game Boy-beater in the early '90s. The firm's Mega Drive / Genesis platform was doing a fine job of stealing away market share from the aging NES, and Sega no doubt assumed it could do the same in the portable arena with hardware that was more...
News Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time Gets CD Quality Audio Hack
Cowabunga doesn't even begin to cover it
Prolific hacker DarkShock strikes again, increasing his already impressive list of similar enhancement hacks in the past, this time adding MSU-1 high quality PCM audio support for Konami's stellar SNES title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time. In place of the already quite impressive SPC music,...
Video See the GameCube HDMI Mod Thrash Cheaper HDMI Converters in Video & Audio Quality
Goodbye lag, goodbye blur
We've been raving about the GCVideo HDMI mod for the GameCube for a little bit now, but what we haven't yet done it compare the quality to that of your average AV to HDMI converter; a common option for those trying to get older systems and games onto modern screens. These cheap devices present all sorts of issues with...
News Hardcore Gaming 101's Next Book Focuses On Taito's Arcade Legacy
From Elevator Action to Liquid Kids
Video game site Hardcore Gaming 101 has become something of a goldmine for retro gamers, with its staff tirelessly uncovering gems from the past that everyone else has all but forgotten about. The site also produces a line of excellent books which feature both new and re-written content, and the latest offering...
Video Check Out Super Smash Bros. Melee Running Through a GameCube HDMI Mod
Modded hardware with practically zero input lag
While many work on emulators to boost resolutions of retro systems, genuine hardware mods are arguably the truest way to enjoy older games with a crisper, clearer picture. With that in mind we're always interested in mods that can apply a digital HDMI output to retro consoles and, as a result, improve...
Retro - Features
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The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past SNES
- 21st Nov 1991 (JPN)
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Super E.D.F. Earth Defense Force SNES
- 25th Oct 1991 (JPN)
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- 29th Oct 2010 (UK/EU)
- 11th Jan 2011 (JPN)
- 14th Jul 2011 (NA)
- 21st May 2015 (NA)
- 3rd Apr 1993 (JPN)
- 10th Aug 1994 (NA)
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- 20th Oct 2016 (NA)
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island SNES
- 5th Aug 1995 (JPN)
- 4th Oct 1995 (NA)
- 6th Oct 1995 (UK/EU)
- 19th Mar 1994 (JPN)
- 18th Apr 1994 (NA)
- 28th Jul 1994 (UK/EU)
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- 14th Apr 2016 (NA)
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- 4th Jun 1994 (JPN)
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- 8th May 2013 (JPN)
- 23rd May 2013 (NA)
- 25th Jul 2013 (UK/EU)
- 27th Aug 1992 (JPN)
- 1st Sep 1992 (NA)
- 21st Jan 1993 (UK/EU)
- 9th Jun 2009 (JPN)
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- 19th Jun 2013 (JPN)
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- 6th Aug 2014 (NA)
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- 21st Dec 1990 (JPN)
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- 1992 (UK/EU)
- 21st Aug 2009 (UK/EU)
- 28th Dec 2009 (NA)
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- 4th Jul 2013 (UK/EU)
- 4th Jul 2013 (NA)
- 14th Apr 2016 (UK/EU)
- 21st Nov 1990 (JPN)
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- 1992 (UK/EU)
- 19th Nov 2006 (NA)
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- 4th Oct 2002 (UK/EU)
- 4th Oct 1991 (JPN)
- 28th Nov 1991 (NA)
- 10th Dec 1992 (UK/EU)
- 20th Feb 2007 (JPN)
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- 27th Apr 2013 (JPN)
- 16th May 2013 (UK/EU)
- 16th May 2013 (NA)
- 23rd Jun 2016 (NA)
- 20th Oct 2016 (NA)
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time N64
- 21st Nov 1998 (JPN)
- 23rd Nov 1998 (NA)
- 11th Dec 1998 (UK/EU)
- 23rd Feb 2007 (UK/EU)
- 26th Feb 2007 (NA)
- 27th Feb 2007 (JPN)
- 2nd Jul 2015 (UK/EU)
- 2nd Jul 2015 (NA)
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker GCN
- 13th Dec 2002 (JPN)
- 24th Mar 2003 (NA)
- 2nd May 2003 (UK/EU)