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Retro Fresh! 👾

Limited Run Games Under Fire for Burning Games to Low Quality CD-R

Limited Run Games Under Fire for Burning Games to Low Quality CD-R

Limited Run Games, a company known for its collector editions of games, is currently facing backlash for its decision to use low-quality CD-R disks for its releases on the 3DO console, rather than the standard high-quality pressed disks. Pressed disks, which are produced from a glass master copy, are typically employed in software distribution because of their durability and reliability. However, critics have pointed out that the CD-R disks used by Limited Run Games are… Read more

Kabrutus Launches DEIDetected Website to Expose Games with DEI Influence

Kabrutus Launches DEIDetected Website to Expose Games with DEI Influence

Kabrutus, the creator of the controversial "Sweet Baby Inc. Detected" Steam curator, has launched a new site called "DEIDetected".   DEI, which stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, is an organizational framework that proponents claim is meant to encourage the participation of historically underrepresented groups in society. However, in recent months DEI has become a catchall term for progressive policies and in the context of media has come to refer to censorship and design choices… Read more

Boom Shakalaka! Tim Kitzrow’s Epic Journey in Gaming

Boom Shakalaka! Tim Kitzrow’s Epic Journey in Gaming

Tim Kitzrow is an American voice actor, comedian, and TV host best known for his energetic and iconic commentary in the classic video game series, NBA Jam. Born on August 17, 1960, in Illinois, Kitzrow discovered his passion for entertainment at a young age. In a panel at the 2023 Retro Game Con, Tim Kitzrow discussed his early career and the video game industry. https://youtu.be/wegBnE_eeCQ In the video, Tim Kitzrow discusses his early career and experiences in… Read more

Game Informer is Back with Physical Copies!

Game Informer is Back with Physical Copies!

Game Informer is back with physical copies shipped directly to your mailbox! As fellow gaming enthusiasts, we know the joy of flipping through the pages of a gaming magazine, and we're counting on your support to ensure the survival of this beloved publication. Subscribe for Just $19.91 and Receive a Full Year of Gaming Goodness For only $19.91 (a tribute to the year of GI's founding), you can subscribe to a full year of… Read more

Diversity Can’t Save This Reboot: ‘Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead’ Gets a Woke Makeover

Diversity Can’t Save This Reboot: ‘Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead’ Gets a Woke Makeover

Hollywood's Recycling Racket: The Babysitter's Dead, But the Cash Grab Lives On In the land of Hollywood, where originality goes to die and reboots reign supreme, the latest victim of the unoriginal machine is the 1991 cult classic "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead." Yes, you read that right – a reboot of a movie that wasn't even a massive hit in the first place. But hey, why come up with fresh… Read more

Keio Flying Squadron [Sega CD] Review and Longplay [1992]

Keio Flying Squadron [Sega CD] Review and Longplay [1992]

Introduction to a Cult Classic "Keio Flying Squadron" emerged on the Sega CD in 1993 to the delight of gamers looking for a fresh, vibrant take on the shoot 'em up genre. At a time when the gaming market was saturated with titles, this game managed to stand out with its stunning anime-style graphics, captivating music, and a storyline that was as charming as it was quirky. Developed by Victor Entertainment, a… Read more

No Continues: Joe Lieberman dead – ‘Night Trap’ Crusade Ends. Arcade Closed.

No Continues: Joe Lieberman dead – ‘Night Trap’ Crusade Ends. Arcade Closed.

Former Senator Joe Lieberman Passed Away Former Senator Joe Lieberman passed away on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at the age of 82. His family announced that he died in New York after suffering complications from a fall, with his wife Hadassah and other loved ones by his side. Joe Lieberman: The Senator Who Waged War on Video Games As a passionate video game enthusiast, I can't help but feel a mix of emotions upon learning about the… Read more

NES themed enamel pins coming to Kickstarter on March 30 th

NES themed enamel pins coming to Kickstarter on March 30 th

This is a post at request of a friend. NES themed enamel pins coming to Kickstarter on March 30th If you grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, you probably have some of the iconic game art from the NES era burned into your memory banks. The art varied from pixel representations of the actual game to fantastical imagery that set your imagination in motion. Dave Andersen, the streamer behind Pure Retro… Read more

Interviews 🎤

Chris Sawyer Interview: Transport Tycoon, RollerCoaster Tycoon, and the Joy of Simulation

Chris Sawyer interview collage with his portrait and Transport Tycoon, RollerCoaster Tycoon and Locomotion screenshots

Interview by David, Retro Replay. A little train following a track was enough to suggest a whole game. For Chris Sawyer, the pleasure of watching a system work came before the business figures surrounding it: the acceleration of a locomotive, the movement of a vehicle through an isometric landscape, or a park guest deciding which ride to try next. Those small interactions grew into worlds that players could build, manage, and happily… Read more

Console: The VGM Band Interview — Bringing Game Music to the Stage

Console: The VGM Band interview cover with band members and live performance photos

Interview by David, Retro Replay A boss theme can follow you long after the battle is over. For Console: The VGM Band, those melodies became a reason to pick up instruments, find other musicians, and discover what happens when music written for a game has an audience standing in front of it. A familiar tune is the starting point; the groove, the arrangement, and the energy of a live band are where… Read more

Chris Beatrice Interview: Impressions Games, Caesar, and the Art of Building Living Cities

Chris Beatrice interview cover with his portrait and Caesar II, Caesar III and Pharaoh screenshots

Interview by David, Retro Replay. A wheat field had to move inside a tiny tile. A Roman city had to feel alive without burying the player in detail. An aqueduct had to look convincing while being assembled from just a handful of graphics. For Chris Beatrice, the art of those early strategy games was inseparable from finding practical solutions that made a world readable, appealing, and enjoyable to inhabit. Beatrice joined Impressions… Read more

Louis Castle Interview: Building Westwood, Command & Conquer, and Blade Runner

Louis Castle interview collage with his portrait, Red Alert gameplay, and Kane

Interview by David, Retro-Replay. Before there was Tiberium, before Kane stepped in front of a camera, and before players began building bases on Arrakis, there were two friends in Las Vegas finding out what they could make together. Louis Castle was working at a computer store when he met Brett Sperry. An invitation to use a printer led to a conversation about computer art, then to a creative partnership. In 1985, that… Read more

Philip Oliver Interview: Dizzy, the Oliver Twins, and a New Chapter in Adventure

Philip Oliver interview cover with the Oliver Twins, early computers and Dizzy cover art

Interview by David, Retro Replay Dizzy began with a problem small enough to fit inside a sprite: how do you give a game character a face that can actually express something? Philip Oliver's answer became one of the most recognisable figures of the British home-computer era. With his twin brother Andrew, he built a world of enchanted forests, peculiar objects, needy neighbours, and puzzles that could turn a humble bean into a… Read more

Steve Ince Interview: Broken Sword, Beneath a Steel Sky, and the Art of Game Writing

Steve Ince interview collage with his portrait, Broken Sword, and Beneath a Steel Sky

Interview by David, Retro-Replay. An adventure game can begin with a painted cityscape, a conversation, or a mystery the player cannot leave alone. Steve Ince has helped shape all three. Across his career, he moved from creating artwork to organising production and then writing and designing the stories players would uncover for themselves. Ince spent eleven years at Revolution Software, moving from artist to producer to writer and designer. His work on… Read more

Emulator News 📰

PS5SX2 Lets Jailbroken PS5 Consoles Dump and Play PS2 DVDs

PlayStation 5, PlayStation 2 and DVD in a PS5SX2 homebrew editorial collage

That stack of PS2 cases beside the television has a new reason to come off the shelf. Swordpdf’s PS5SX2, a homebrew port of PCSX2, now offers a way to insert a supported PS2 DVD into a jailbroken PlayStation 5, copy the game to storage and launch it through the emulator. The disc supplies the game data, while the PS5 runs the resulting copy. This is a community project for modified consoles, not… Read more

The Week in Emulation: October 5–12, 2026

October 5–12, 2026. The week’s clearest emulator releases were a Dolphin hotfix, a substantial SameBoy update, and a new FCEUX version. Igir also expanded the way collections can be named and sorted. Across the four monitored categories, we found 166 notices; most of the console entries were successive development snapshots. The full dated log groups them below.Console and handheld releasesDolphin 2609a fixes the first 2609 releaseDolphin labels 2609a a hotfix for its… Read more

The Week in Emulation: September 28–October 5, 2026

September 28–October 5, 2026. This week brought a substantial shadPS4 release, a fresh DOSBox-X build, and a coordinated set of Gear emulator updates. There are 162 notices, many of them successive development snapshots of the same project. The dated log below groups every notice; the analysis here covers changes confirmed by project releases or source repositories. The releases that matter shadPS4 0.19.0 moves PS4 compatibility forward shadPS4 0.19.0 is a tagged release,… Read more

The Week in Emulation: September 21–28, 2026

Week of September 21–28, 2026. This is Retro Replay’s first weekly emulator briefing: one place to follow meaningful releases, nightly builds, arcade work, classic PC changes, and library tools. We reviewed this week’s release notices, then checked the highlighted changes against project release notes and source repositories. A dated build in the log below is a development snapshot, not necessarily a stable release. The week at a glance The four feeds carried… Read more

Eden Version 0.2.1

Eden Version 0.2.1

Eden 0.2.1 is now available as a stability-focused hotfix for the open-source Nintendo Switch emulator. Rather than introducing a huge new collection of features, this release focuses on problems discovered after Eden 0.2.0, including large-library crashes, issues affecting 12th-generation Intel CPUs, Windows updater problems, a Mario Kart 8 Deluxe controller-related freeze, and several smaller stability bugs. If you are looking for general information about Eden rather than this specific release, visit our… Read more

ES-DE Version 3.4.1

ES-DE Version 3.4.1

ES-DE 3.4.1 is a substantial update to the popular multi-platform emulation frontend, expanding Android system support, adding experimental Linux AArch64 support, improving multi-user compatibility and adding a long list of new emulator configurations across Android, Linux, macOS and Windows. Android users searching for the ES-DE 3.4.1 APK or EmulationStation APK 3.4.1 should note that ES-DE's Android release is distributed through the project's official Android channels rather than Google Play. If you are… Read more

Editorial Reviews 🌟

Brütal Legend (2009): When Double Fine Was Metal as Hell

Brütal Legend (2009): When Double Fine Was Metal as Hell

Remember the days of yore, when Double Fine made great games instead of blowing budgets on their latest vanity projects? When Jack Black was more interested in entertaining us than lecturing us? These days, Black and Double Fine's Tim Schafer look like twin gray-bearded hobos arguing over which one smells worse. But the 2000s were simpler times. Back when somebody could pitch a video game that looked like an Iron Maiden album… Read more

Rayman Review: Beautiful, Charming and Brutally Hard on PlayStation

Rayman — Retro Replay PlayStation review thumbnail with neon city, green falling code and colorful Dream Forest artwork.

When people remember the original PlayStation, they usually remember polygons. Tekken. Ridge Racer. Resident Evil. Tomb Raider. The entire industry was racing toward 3D, and suddenly traditional 2D games were starting to look like something from the past. And then there was Rayman. Released in 1995, the original Rayman completely ignored the rush toward polygons and instead delivered one of the most beautiful hand-drawn platformers of the entire generation. Bright colors. Huge… Read more

Crazy Taxi Review: Pure Arcade Chaos on Sega Dreamcast

Crazy Taxi — Retro Replay Dreamcast review thumbnail with neon city, green falling code, yellow taxi and the game logo.

Some games take a while to explain. Crazy Taxi is not one of them. You drive a taxi. You pick up passengers. You drive as fast and as recklessly as humanly possible. And somehow, more than twenty-five years later, it's still ridiculously fun. Originally released in arcades before making its way to the Sega Dreamcast, Crazy Taxi is one of those games that perfectly represents Sega during that era. Fast. Loud. Colorful.… Read more

World of Illusion Review: Disney Magic on the Sega Genesis

World of Illusion — Retro Replay Sega Genesis review thumbnail

During the 16-bit era, Disney games gave Sega owners several memorable platformers. World of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck belongs beside Castle of Illusion, QuackShot, and Aladdin as an example of a licensed game with care behind it. Developed and published by Sega, it builds an adventure around a magic show gone wrong: Mickey and Donald discover a mysterious box, climb inside, and find themselves trapped in a fantastical world.… Read more

Shining Force CD Review: An Essential Sega CD Tactical RPG

Retro Replay Shining Force CD review thumbnail with neon Sega CD and Review labels, the game logo and a throne-room gameplay scene.

The Sega CD is often remembered for full-motion video, but Shining Force CD shows how much stronger its traditional games could be. This tactical RPG rebuilds two Game Gear adventures and adds content made for the CD release. Sega’s official game overview identifies it as a remake of two handheld installments. The result is a generous, battle-focused Shining Force package. Its defining change is the removal of most traditional exploration—a choice that… Read more

Super Mario Kart – Horizons SNES Romhack Review | The True Sequel Fans Deserved

Gameplay of Super Mario Kart on Super Nintendo

What if Super Mario Kart got the sequel we always dreamed of on the SNES? Horizons delivers 20 new tracks, new music, and pure nostalgia. From grassy plains to abandoned mines, Super Mario Kart – Horizons takes the SNES classic to new places. It feels like Mario Kart 2.0… and you can play it today! Super Mario Kart – Horizons: The Romhack That Feels Like a True Sequel. Watch the video or… Read more

Satire & Humor 🤡

Nintendo Wants You to Spend $150 on Mario Galaxy Again, and You Absolutely Will

Super Mario Galaxy game covers with characters.

Nintendo has announced the boldest, most innovative move in gaming history: charging you up to two hundred dollars for the privilege of replaying a pair of Wii games you already own. Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 are officially coming to the Switch 2, and the bundle clocks in at a cool $150, edging toward $200 once you factor in collector’s editions, amiibo, and whatever random plastic accessory they force… Read more

Childhood Ruined: Mario Was Always Punching Yoshi in the Head

Mario interacting with a distressed Yoshi cartoon

An Innocent Gesture with a Dark Twist For more than two decades, fans of Super Mario World believed Mario was simply pointing forward when Yoshi stuck out his tongue. It looked playful and harmless. Mario gave the signal, Yoshi obeyed, and the duo worked together as partners. That illusion shattered in 2017, when Nintendo veteran Shigefumi Hino, the designer who created Yoshi, revealed that the original concept was very different. According to… Read more

Every Controller I Have Smashed In Rage, Ranked By The Quality Of The Meltdown

Every Controller I Have Smashed In Rage, Ranked By The Quality Of The Meltdown

Every Controller I Have Smashed In Rage, Ranked By The Quality Of The Meltdown There are difficult games, and then there are the ones that melt your brain until the only solution is to weaponize the nearest controller. We tell ourselves it’s just a game, but anyone who has stared down Alma in Ninja Gaiden Black, crawled across spikes in Celeste, or been betrayed by the blue shell in Mario Kart Wii… Read more

Leonardo DiCaprio Refuses to Play Final Fantasy IX After It Turns 25

Leonardo DiCaprio Refuses to Play Final Fantasy IX After It Turns 25

A Consistent Cutoff Leonardo DiCaprio has built a reputation for consistency in his personal life, and it appears that this rule now extends to his gaming habits. According to sources close to the Hollywood actor, he has officially stopped playing Final Fantasy IX after the game reached its 25th anniversary. Released in 2000 for the original PlayStation, Final Fantasy IX is widely regarded as one of the greatest entries in Square Enix’s… Read more

Nintendo Threatens Legal Action Over $20 Garage Sale Copy of Super Mario Bros. 3

Man holding Nintendo letter outside with video games.

A Garage Sale Becomes a Legal Battlefield What began as a quiet Saturday morning in Saratoga, New York quickly escalated into what some neighbors now refer to as “the day Nintendo declared war on suburbia.” Local resident Robby Thompson held a simple garage sale in his driveway, offering old household items, clothing, and a box of retro video games. One of those games happened to be a sealed copy of Super Mario… Read more

Joy-Con Drift Marketed as “Immersive Gameplay Feature”

Three upset children playing video games indoors.

A Feature Masquerading as a Flaw Since its release in 2017, the Nintendo Switch has been celebrated as one of the most successful consoles of all time. It blended handheld convenience with home-console performance, revitalized franchises like Zelda and Mario, and sold over 140 million units. But along with this success came something else: the infamous Joy-Con drift. What began as a flood of user complaints, characters walking off cliffs without input,… Read more

Recent Posts

From Kanto to Kalos: Pokémon’s Leap Into 3D

Pokemon X Y

I've played plenty of Pokémon over the years, but the original games are still my favorites. Maybe it's nostalgia, maybe it's the simplicity, or maybe there's just something special about those first adventures through Kanto. Whatever the reason, none of the newer generations have quite replaced them for me. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate how far the series has come! On 12 October 2013, Pokémon X and Y launched for… Read more

Top 20 1990s Video Games That No One Remembers

Top 20 Forgotten 1990s Games — ornate collage of authentic gameplay screenshots

You remember the mascots, the blockbuster sequels, and the games every friend seemed to own. But the nineties also left behind toxic-slime scientists, clay adventurers, transforming police machines, and a tiny hero from the world of Lemmings. This countdown revisits twenty games that deserve another look. “No one remembers” is our affectionate exaggeration: these games still have fans, and some have devoted followings. Our picks favor distinctive ideas, memorable presentation, and adventures… Read more

Epona’s Origins: The Horse Mario Never Got

Distressed Retro Replay collage reading Epona Changed Games, with an original chestnut horse illustration, saddle, controller and countryside.

Before Epona carried Link across Hyrule, Nintendo had talked about giving Mario a horse in Super Mario 64. Picture that for a moment: the plumber, the cap, the overalls, and a horse waiting outside Peach’s castle. Yoshi would have had questions. It never happened. But Yoshiaki Koizumi hadn’t lost interest in the idea, and when he worked on Ocarina of Time, he was determined to make horse riding happen there. Mario went… Read more

Serious Sam II: Sometimes You Just Want to Start Blastin’

Serious Sam 2

Sometimes I don't want a deep story, complicated mechanics, elaborate character progression, or moral choices that will come back to haunt me twenty hours later. Sometimes I just want to grab the biggest gun I can find and start blastin'! And that's exactly why I've always had a soft spot for Serious Sam. On 11 October 2005, Serious Sam II arrived on PC and Xbox, delivering another ridiculous helping of oversized weapons,… Read more