Red Art Games has announced a partnership with Sunsoft to launch a new collection for Nintendo Switch, dubbed Sunsoft Is Back! Retro Game Collection.
The compilation will launch digitally on 6th September for $9.99 / €9.99, with a physical edition to follow via the Red Art Games website on 4th October for $34.99. It will contain three Famicom classics: The Wing of Madoola, Firework Thrower Kantaro’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido and Ripple Island, all three of which have been localised for the first time for Western audiences.
The collection will also come with a bunch of modern conveniences such as save states, a rewind function, a gallery, a CRT filter, aspect ratio options, and 3D models of the original Famicom carts.
Let's take a look at the three games included:
- Firework Thrower Kantaro’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido (Action, 1986): As fireworks maker Kantaro, prevent evil merchants from turning his creations into weapons!
- The Wing of Madoola (Action, 1986): Help fierce warrior Lucia retrieve the powerful Wing of Madoola from the evil King Daltos. Directed by Kenji Sada (Blaster Master), with music from Naoki Kodaka (Albert Odyssey, Super Fantasy Zone).
- Ripple Island (Adventure, 1988): Play as Kyle, a young boy dreaming of a better life, who answers King Dotella’s call for help against the nefarious Emperor Groaker. Directed by Atsushi Sakai (Atlantis no Nazo, Ikki), with music from Naoki Kodaka.
What do you make of this retro collection from Sunsoft? Will you be picking it up? Let us know with a comment.
Comments 22
Love to see retro game collections with quality-of-life features, galleries etc. and even more so considering these games have never been released outside of Japan before!
Ooh. Ripple Island looks like Deja Vu or Princess Tomato. I love those NES-Friendly point-and-click adventure games!
I've only ever tried Wings of Madoola but never even heard of the others. I'm tempted to buy this solely because I love Sunsoft and I want to support them as much as possible. They are like neck and neck with old-school Konami to me, both releasing killer games with killer soundtracks back in the day.
Hey, these look nice!
From the few clips, Madoola kind of looks like Zelda 2 but with smoother gameplay
I'm all about obscure Japanese games getting localized for the first time 👍👍 but i feel like they kind of wasted the title "sunsoft is back!" on this🤔
We really need the licensed Sunsoft games... Gremlins 2, the two Batman games and Fester's Quest
@Scapetti
Agreed, I want the Looney Tunes games as well.
I'll wait and see if the Japanese release will include English as it's considerably cheaper than the Red Art Games release (and they don't seem to have the Switch version on their website at present anyway).
The Japanese physical release works out to be only AU$40 (US$26) via Play-Asia, which I think is reasonable (almost no Switch game retails for that price locally) and that's inclusive of shipping provided that I meet the minimum spend requirement.
I guess Uforia 2 is already projected to be a success if they've already got another localization deal going, and those are all fresh new translations too, but WOW that is a steal jump in price. And that's coming from the guy who'd rather be boiled alive in marmot blood than spend money on a digital copy. I get "production costs of physical goods" and "switch tax" but even the PS4 version is that price. And that's BEFORE I have to pay import tax cause this doesn't have a FREEDOM print confirmed yet.
@SillyG it will not. These are fresh localizations made by Red Art.
@Scapetti Batman is the only one they still have partial rights too. Everything else was held by Sunsoft America which no longer exists
@Zeebor15 : I've just confirmed via the Japanese eShop, which indicates otherwise.
EDIT: Red Art has no plans to issue their own physical release for the Switch anyway.
$10 for a trio of retro games I’ve never heard of but it’s in a slick package? Sure. I’ll bite.
There's a bizarre oversight in the article that seems to indicate that there's a Switch release on the way by Red Art Games, which does not appear to be the case (they've stated that they have no plans for Switch/Xbox physical releases on Twitter). They are only releasing a physical edition on PS5, at least for the time being.
Sunsoft themselves will be issuing their own Japanese physical release, which is due for release on 10th October 2024, and the Japanese eShop indicates that it includes English support (it was already issued a digital release back in April).
Ah, Lipple Island. Always in the shadow of Linkle Liver Story as far as great Engrish titles go, but a fun one nonetheless.
Arino played two of these three on Game Center CX. I would almost consider purchasing Ripple Island if it was standalone. Wing of Madoola IIRC is also not half-bad.
It's great to have never-released-in-the-West-before titles with proper localization and other features. It's a very reasonable price (digital edition). The kind of collection that deserves support!
I have never heard of any of them. I'll hafta take a look. Sunsoft made some fun games with killer soundtracks for NES. Just imagine what they could do for a new game. Hopefully the games will have a proper difficulty balance. I'm assuming Inti owns Blaster Master these days. Would be down for Journey to Silius. I was never much for Batman.
One kinda reminds me of a cross between Monster Party and Faxanadu. One is a point n click. Cool.
I love the B-tier-ness about Sunsoft games that make them so endearing to me. We've got point n click NES style that I like, an almost Zelda II clone which seems very playable, and another action game that's offbeat and quirky, but looks fun for a few rounds. It'd be nice if GameFly could pick up the physical copy.
Sunsoft = amazing NES OST. Sign me in.
Sadly, when it comes to Sunsoft I only want the games they’d be unable to give me. Batman, Fester’s Quest, and Looney Tunes.
@BanjoPickles
And Batman: Return of the Joker
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