Through its Evercade and HyperMechTech lines, UK-based manufacturer Blaze has not only done a commendable job of keeping retro games alive, but has also made them financially viable in an era when the vast majority of players are hooked to their PC or Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft-made games consoles.

The Evercade range has delivered a wide selection of physical carts, and its hardware now spans handheld, console and even tabletop arcade machines. Meanwhile, Blaze's HyperMegaTech sub-brand has given us the cheap-and-cheerful Super Pocket series, which are Evercade-compatible and ship with pre-loaded games from the likes of Atari, Capcom, Data East and Taito.

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Have game development experience and ever wanted to develop your own Dreamcast game? Now's your chance.

Following last year's successful Dream Disc '24 game jam event, preparations are now officially underway for its follow-up, Dream Disc '25, with the event shaping up to be yet another excellent showcase for the Sega console's homebrew community

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The Microsoft of today might be guilty of dropping a few clangers when it comes to its Xbox strategy, but back when the 360 was launched, the company got (almost) everything right; it had a robust system with good online infrastructure and some amazing exclusives.

However, the one thing that really stands out in my mind when I think back to the Xbox 360 era is the controller. After the decidedly lukewarm response I had to the OG Xbox pad, I was absolutely blown away by the one that shipped with its successor. To this day, it remains one of my favourite controllers, and, alongside Sony's DualShock range, has done much to shape what people expect from a gamepad in the modern era.

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An unofficial Mega Drive / Genesis port of the RPG Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (otherwise known as Mystic Quest Legend in Europe and Final Fantasy USA: Mystic Quest in Japan) is currently in the works, from a couple of fan developers named NicoMegadrive and Laurent Crouzet.

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, as many of you will no doubt already know, was a Final Fantasy spin-off that Square developed for the SNES back in the early '90s, and was designed to introduce more North American players to the RPG genre. However, despite some fairly enthusiastic reviews from places like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Electronic Games, it ultimately went on to fail in its mission, earning a reputation in more recent years as one of the series's weaker entries, due to its simplicity compared to other games in the series.

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Earlier today, the Japanese studio Artdink announced a new 'Game Log' initiative to release some of its older titles on Nintendo Switch & PC (as spotted by Gematsu), with the first couple of reissues that were revealed being based on games created by Doshin the Giant creator Kazutoshi Iida.

While primarily associated in Japan with its work on the long-running A-Train series, Artdink arguably has one of the more eclectic back catalogs in gaming. Over the course of its 40-year history, it has done everything from original titles to work-for-hire projects and licensed adaptations of popular anime series, and has also worked across various gaming platforms spanning from early Japanese computers to several generations of PlayStation consoles.

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Following last week's foray into the '90s with the release of Namco's 1996 title Tokyo Wars, Hamster Corp, the company behind Arcade Archives, has decided to return to the '80s this week, announcing the upcoming release of Konami's mech-based fighting game Galactic Warriors.

Released in arcades in 1985, Galactic Warriors is a 2D fighting game that supports one to two players and is set in a futuristic world where robot fighting events using giant mechs have become popular across the galaxy.

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Evercade maker Blaze has expanded its cartridge-based ecosystem in some interesting ways over the past few years, but the one that has hooked me the most personally is the 'Alpha' line of bartop arcades.

We've already had Mega Man and Street Fighter-themed units, and now it's the turn of Taito to get its very own Alpha offering.

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Kazuki Motoyama, the Japanese artist and writer behind Kodansha's Super Mario manga, has passed away aged 69, as recently confirmed by his sister on Instagram.

If you happen to be an avid fan of Nintendo's world-famous mustachioed plumber, beyond just his appearance in the video games, it's quite possible that you may have come across Motoyama's work in the past while looking for Mario artwork or scanning Nintendo wikis or websites online.

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While the Philips CD-i titles Zelda: Faces of Evil and Zelda: Wand of Gamelon are relatively well-known, the third outing on the system – 1996's Zelda's Adventure – is less famous, and some would argue that's for a good reason – it's pretty terrible.

However, that hasn't stopped John Lay from giving the title a new lease of life as a fully-fledged (but obviously unofficial) Game Boy port. "Zelda’s Adventure looked interesting and I thought it would be fun to play on a portable system," he says. "I chose the Game Boy because of the existing Zelda games on the system."

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Acclaim, the publisher behind some of the biggest commercial hits of the 1990s, was recently resurrected – but, as many people were at pains to point out when the announcement was made a while back, the name is the only thing that's back, as Acclaim's IP was sold off when the company went bust over 20 years ago.

Acclaim was responsible for bringing licenses such as Mortal Kombat, The Simpsons and WWF/WWE to home consoles and handhelds, but those properties were never owned by the company, so don't expect to see Acclaim returning to any of those commercial cash cows in the near future.

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Shinichi "Touma" Higashi, the former Sega artist perhaps best known for creating the character Fang the Sniper in the Game Gear title Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, has teamed up with Sega to create a bunch of new vinyl figures based on Sonic and friends.

Higashi, in case you're unfamiliar with his career, first joined Sega in 1993 and went on to contribute to a ton of Sonic games as an artist during his time at the company, including Sonic Chaos, Sonic Drift, Tails Adventure, Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island (the Saturn version), Sonic Jam, and Sonic Adventure; that's in addition to several notable non-Sonic-related projects like NiGHTS into Dreams, Burning Rangers, and Skies of Arcadia.

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Leicester might be globally famous for being the burial place of the last English king to die in battle – and, to a lesser extent, the scene of football's most unlikely underdog story – but the city has also become something of a hotbed of cool indie stores of late.

We've already reported on Super Game Shack and Leicester Vintage & Old Toy Shop as part of our Retail Therapy series, and now we've got another Leicester-based retailer to add to the ranks – and it's one with a strong Japanese flavour.

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When Nintendo secured home console exclusivity for Street Fighter 2 in the early 1990s, it sent shockwaves through the gaming world.

Capcom's one-on-one fighter was the world's biggest game at the time, and whichever home system got the first port was going to benefit massively – and I imagine many people picked up the SNES purely to play the game.

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A new native fan port of Konami's 1988 NES action platformer Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is currently in development for the Super Nintendo, as spotted by VideoGameEsoterica.

The port of the game is being created by the ROM hacker and NES-to-SNES developer Rumbleminze, who previously released a similar port for the original Castlevania back in July of this year.

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Evercade's collaboration with SNK has already delivered one top-tier collection in the form of Neo Geo Arcade 1, and the two companies have followed it up with this second helping, again made up of six AES / MVS classics from the early '90s.

Neo Geo Arcade 2 features Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Art Of Fighting 2, Metal Slug 2, Crossed Swords, Ninja Commando and Sengoku 2, delivering a nice mix of genres – no mean feat when you consider how many one-on-one fighting games there are in the Neo Geo's library.

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Taito, one of the video game industry's most significant companies, is seeking assistance to locate a crucial piece of its history.

The item in question is the Crown 602 crane game machine, released 60 years ago in 1965. This mechanical device is ultimately what set Taito on its path as one of the formative figures in the world of arcade video games.

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Hey, stranger. Pssst. Over here, I want to tell you a secret. You've seen the film Bloodsport, right? Where a group of international warriors battle it out in a secret underground kumite tournament to discover the best? Well, did you know the Vectrex community has its own secret underground annual kumite? Apart from just about everything, it's literally exactly like Bloodsport. Honest!

Between 1st and 8th November, the Vector War XV took place, with this past Sunday the final scores and rankings being collated.

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Back at the start of 2024, fan-translation and ROM hack sharing site CDRomance was forced to take its operations 'underground' following threats of legal action.

Then, at the close of the year, it was announced that the site was effectively dead and would no longer be updated with content. "The reason for this change is that the landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years, and we could benefit from reduced exposure," said webmaster Spike at the time.

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If you grew up playing the games of The Bitmap Brothers, then there's a good chance you'll be keenly aware of the brutal difficulty level of most European action titles in the late '80s and early '90s.

In an era when save games and multi-button controllers were a rarity, many games were incredibly difficult – which was great news if you were determined to extract the maximum amount of challenge, but not so good if you lacked the skills (and perseverance) to finish things.

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AYANEO has just revealed its flagship Windows handheld gaming system, the NEXT 2.

Boasting a "top-tier" screen, TMR sticks and an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chipset, the NEXT 2 is shaping up to be one of the most potent gaming handhelds on the market – but then again, I feel like I'm saying that on an almost monthly basis these days, such is the rapid pace of these announcements.

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The popularity of retro gaming has given us a steady stream of hardware to purchase, from the NES Mini to the Analogue Pocket, but one thing all of these devices have in common is that they allow you to play decade-old games – and not entirely new 'retro' titles.

Clyde Shaffer aims to change that with GameTank (thanks, Retro Dodo), which, on the surface, resembles a forgotten Famiclone from the late '80s, but is in fact a brand-new 'retro' platform that runs unique hardware and will be home to its own range of exclusive games.

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American fashion and lifestyle brand Kith is producing a range of Marvel vs. Capcom products, kicking things off with hardware collaborations with Arcade1Up and Super Pocket maker HyperMegaTech.

"We partnered with Arcade1Up to create a retro arcade machine that features eight games: Marvel vs. Capcom, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men: COTA, War of the Gems, and X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse, as well as an exclusive co-branded start-up screen that will never be seen on any other arcade machine," explains Kith on social media.

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Back in 1997, the PlayStation was very much in its stride, offering up a whole world of games all built around 3D graphics. It was also a very inclusive platform that changed games forever. However, one of its formative games, Armored Core, has often been overlooked – at least until very recently.

In fact, it wasn't until 2023, with the release of Armored Core VI – some 26 years after the release of the first Armoured Core – that the series was even taken seriously by gamers the world over.

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WipEout is one of the most famous racing franchises the world of video gaming has ever produced, so it's little wonder that superfan Joseph Hallam was keen to transform it into a real-world product.

"For many years, I wanted to try and make WipEout slot car racing using Scalextric or Carrera sets, but could never quite get it to work," he explains. However, with the release of Carrera's Hybrid racing system, Hallam's dream has finally been able to take flight.

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In hindsight, it's easy to see why Tassei Denki's G'AIM'E Light Gun was so successful when it was crowdfunded earlier this year.

Light gun gaming has somewhat fallen by the wayside since the humble CRT TV was consigned to history by modern flat-panel HD displays, so there's been an understandable hunger for its return for some time now.

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