Retro Replay Retro Gaming History, Reviews & Emulation

The video ended up being close to 24 hours so I had to split it in two parts. Unlike most of my compilations this one is limited to screenshots at times because a lot of these games are just so obscure. Enjoy our comprehensive retrospective as we showcase each and every one of the classic games developed for the MS-DOS in this captivating video journey. part 1: https://youtu.be/tXx_5a5oSZk The Legacy of MS-DOS:… Read more

Enjoy our comprehensive retrospective as we showcase each and every one of the classic games developed for the Gameboy Advance in this captivating video journey. The Game Boy Advance: A Look Back at a Handheld Legend The Game Boy Advance (GBA), released in 2001, is a hallmark of handheld gaming, remarkable for its significant leap in power and capabilities from its predecessors. As we delve into the specs, history, and a general… Read more

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES - An Underwater Challenge of Epic Proportions The 1989 NES classic, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," brought the pizza-loving, crime-fighting reptiles from the sewers of New York City to the screens of eager gamers everywhere. While this title brought a lot of joy, it also brought immense challenge, particularly the notorious water level that tested the patience and skill of many. A Test of Turtle Power The… Read more

Ninja Gaiden for NES - A Test of Skill with a Story to Tell In the pantheon of NES classics, "Ninja Gaiden" stands out as a shining example of storytelling prowess and gameplay that tests the limits of even the most skilled gamers. Released in 1988, this action-packed platformer introduced players to Ryu Hayabusa, a ninja on a quest to avenge his father's death and uncover the mysteries of a cursed artifact.… Read more

Dear Sega,   I hope this letter finds you riding the wave of nostalgia and innovation that has always been your hallmark. I am one of the countless fans whose voice has longed to see Sega leap back into the console hardware race, even though the timing never seemed quite right. The landscape of gaming has evolved, with future consoles setting their sights on a digital-only horizon. Yet, in this shift, there… Read more

I played through for the first time. Gunstar Heroes – A Genesis Gem Sparkling with Action Platform: Sega Genesis / Mega Drive Developer: Treasure Release Date: September 9, 1993 "Gunstar Heroes" burst onto the Sega Genesis like a comet, delivering an explosive experience that has since become a benchmark for run-and-gun shooters. Developed by Treasure, a team formed by former Konami developers, this game was not just a debut title for the… Read more

To clarify the situation regarding Billy Mitchell's high scores in classic arcade games, it's important to stress that Twin Galaxies, the organization known for tracking and verifying video game high scores and world records, has not reinstated Billy Mitchell's previously removed high scores as current legitimate records. The controversy surrounding Billy Mitchell's achievements began when Twin Galaxies conducted an investigation in response to allegations that some of his performances were achieved using… Read more

The Legendary Axe Review Forget Keith Courage. The Legendary Axe was a good reason to own a TurboGrafx-16. The TurboGrafx-16 era brought us many titles, but none so memorable as "The Legendary Axe." It's 1989, and what we have here is a game that not only looked like a treasure trove with its crisp graphics but played like an epic saga too. Meet Gogan, our barbarian hero, larger than life on your… Read more

A broken font in Full Throttle brought Eugene Sandulenko to ScummVM. Fixing it revealed a larger problem: the bike-fighting sequences were not implemented. Someone needed to work out how they worked. Sandulenko already had years of reverse-engineering experience, so he took a look. It was quite a look. For the wider story, read The Complete History of ScummVM: 25 Years of Adventure, from the project’s early days to the games and engines… Read more

The Moon theme from DuckTales already sounds as though it has somewhere wonderful to take you. David Ortiz heard a trumpet carrying that melody, violins chasing the runs, and guitars and bass filling out the rhythm underneath. In 2015, he called in some friends to read the arrangement. That first experiment became Mariachi Entertainment System. The San Antonio ensemble brings familiar game music to a full mariachi lineup: trumpets, violins, flute, guitars… Read more

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

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

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

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

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

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 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 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

Sonic is a little blue streak in a world of dead forests, burning streets and monsters that look delighted to see him. The momentum is familiar. The enormous scythe coming his way is considerably less familiar. Hellfire Saga takes the feel of Sonic 3 & Knuckles and throws it into a gothic action game. Castlevania and Ghosts ’n Goblins are obvious neighbours, but this is more than Green Hill with red grass.… Read more

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

I recently received a gift that left me with one very serious question: how have I been missing this in my life? The gift was a handful of issues of Old School Gamer Magazine. Actual magazines. Covers you can hold, pages you can turn, and articles that stay put while you read them. I opened one expecting a pleasant little dose of nostalgia. What I found felt like somebody had reopened a… Read more

The coaster looks magnificent. It climbs above the trees, twists through the park and has enough loops to justify the money you borrowed to build it. The test train makes it back to the station. You open the ride, sit back and wait for the queue. Nobody wants to get on. Welcome to RollerCoaster Tycoon. You may own the park, but the little people wandering around it have opinions. Some want a… Read more

Before Jill Valentine had Nemesis chasing her through Raccoon City, Resident Evil 3 was supposed to take place on a luxury cruise ship. HUNK would be the star, trying to bring back a sample of the G-Virus. Capcom was planning to put the next numbered Resident Evil on a boat. It’s a pretty good place for something to go horribly wrong. In a mansion, you can at least dream about reaching the… Read more