So the setup's hardly award-winning material, but Retro Game Challenge is all about the games: eight fictional 8-bit titles that are intrinsically simple, yet impressively polished. From arcade shooters to challenging racing games to competent platformers, each one's awash in NES-era sensibilities. And as far as the localization's concerned, most of the games are basic enough to not need a lot of translation work. In some cases, keeping broken English in the games is even more faithful to the time period.
The one game that did need a full localization treatment is Guadia Quest, the collection's uncannily accurate take on classic Japanese role-playing games. This Dragon Quest look-alike's got all the same trappings as early localized JRPGs, from a retro, pixelated font to truncated item names that rarely go above eight characters. Thankfully, the game's also got some modern touches, like dialogue-skipping and autobattle options.
Between game challenges, you'll receive instruction manuals (they even include cartridge-safety precautions!) to help you along, and your companion, the adolescent Arino, frequently provides new issues of GameFan Magazine. The mag's got plenty of coverage on the games you're playing, including both entertaining (if nonessential) reviews and Q&A sections and valuable tip and cheat-code write-ups. While the Japanese version used staff from Game Center CX as GameFan's frequently rotating roster of editors-in-chief, Retro Game Challenge features "cameos" from a few well-known Western game journalists. Expect to see columns from "Dan Sock," "Milkman," and "Johnny England" -- and, though this GameFan's got no relation to the fondly remembered '90s gaming mag of the same name, what would it be without a certain "Dave H."?
Looking at the game list, I'm most anticipating Guadia Quest and the Haggle Man titles.