Alwa's Awakening Gets A NES Physical Release And Unique 'Digical' Version

I haven't gotten around to Alwa's Legacy yet but Awakening was a great game. Really captures the NES feel and a fun challenge.

Is it possible to order the collection cartridge alone? I really dont want or need all that other stuff.

They're both great, but I actually kinda prefer the first one. It has a charming simplicity to it.

@Yorumi
Me, too. Have both games already on the Switch - so no need for the physical edition. But the Nes version has also some extra rooms

Wait a minute. So it's not a real NES cartridge? And didn't we already own digital games as long as we didn't delete them or the console broke?

@DoesWhatSegaint Hello! One the devs here. It's a bit more than just "the game on a stick". We took a Steam/Switch game that is almost 300 mb big and rewrote every single line of code, redrew the graphics, and remade all 450 rooms in the game as well as added 2 new areas, 1 large dungeon and two new tracks. And all of this we squeezed into 512 kb on a NES game. Then because we know everyone doesn't have an NES hooked up we also put the "game on a stick" so everyone could easily and affordably get the game and play without any of the hassle of trying to find an old NES

@Arckadius No, the NES cartridge release is the game and manual in a box but it also comes with some nice prints. They were just a bonus and I don't think they really factored into the pricing. It would probably have been priced the same without the prints since they aren't that expensive to print. The box, cartridge and box was the most expensive parts I think.

@Steel76 Lots of people really enjoy the bonus content in Limited releases, that's why we put it in. Both games are already available as digital releases without anything added to them. But we are also releasing a standard edition on Switch but that comes with stickers but that's it. So if you want to get that you can always throw the stickers out

Edit: Changed the wording a bit.

@Yorumi But then there isn't a working cartridge that people can insert into a real NES, right?

@Yorumi OK, thanks. That "digical" joke is confusing as hell.

@Moroboshi876

Only if they are DRM Free and you can store them as you wish, as on Gog.
Steam also sells Games without DRM, Psychonauts for example.
Noahs Super Ark 3D or how its called comes with the SNES Rom for example, Mega Drive / Genesis Collection also includes the Roms free aviable.
So you can actually use them on a Everdrive on OG Hardware.

@MikaelForslind

Great Work, imo really nice Solution with the Stick.
Will definitivly get it, saw that Dragonbox sells it.

Also, i't doesn't take so much space away

Since Mister and other Devices exists, i like the possibility to purchase Roms itself

On a side note Alwa's Legacy is on sale for 50% off currently. Been waiting for a sale for a minute.

I loved Alwa’s Awakening when I first played it on PC; now I’m replaying it on the Switch, which is nice due to the portable factor. These physical versions are nice. I might get the game-on-a-stick as a physical collectible. I’m not really the type to emulate games (if you know what I mean), so I may need to get a NES emulator to play this NES version. Definitely want to see what was added/changed.

So I don't want to nitpick here, but am I correct in parsing out that the Collection doesn't include the extra areas from Awakening's 8-bit version? I can see both the technological and marketing reasons for them to be limited to the latter, but it's a bit troublesome to have a bundle that's missing content like that.

@Fath Hello! We created new and exclusive material for the NES version, which we call the 8-Bit Edition (2 new areas, 2 new tracks and a whole new dungeon). These areas were created just for the NES version and they were made with the tools from the past (Assembly code etc), they wouldn't work in the regular Switch version without a lot of work.

We realize people would ask about this but we talked about this and for us it wouldn't make sense to take a Switch game, spend 6 months porting it to NES and then go back again to take the NES game and port it back to the Switch

If many people request it we can always consider it of course.

Am I the only person that finds it strange that this is being released by BOTH Strictly Limited and Limited Run Games? Both sites are hocking the game and at slightly different prices.

@MikaelForslind Will the NES cart work in systems like the Hyperkin Retron5. I own one and it does not play well with after market / emulated carts.

@Bearzilla823 Alwa's Awakening 8-Bit Edition is being released by Retro-Bit and no one else. And Alwa's Collection is being released by Clear River Games and no one else. Limited Run and other vendors are just selling the games. I'm not sure exactly but I think each vendor can set their own prices.

It'll work on the Retron5 yes!

@MikaelForslind Thanks for the clarification; with a little bit of programming experience myself, I respect the work that went into the NES port and the impracticality of considering backporting (frontporting?) individual features. You should be proud of what you've accomplished here, and deserve to have it viewed only as a positive, not as something missing!

As a consumer, it's just unavoidably unfortunate. It would've been awesome if the USB drive as part of the Collection limited edition could've just included the ROM for the 8-bit version as a bonus, but I can understand how that would've essentially devalued the product from a sales side and cut the legs out from your separate publishing deal for it. Ah well, wishful thinking.

In any case, congrats on your games and all their physical permutations.

This reminds me to get on with Alwa's Legacy soon.

let's hope that my order will be here soon - can't wait to play that on my original NES. =) Love the Alwa games on the Switch

I won't get one but this is so cool. Both cracking games! Now all we need is the Alwa's Legacy Snes cart.

cannot wait to receive my NES version.