Product Description

Thrown back in time to the 1980’s, you are turned into a young boy and forced to play video games by an evil self-proclaimed “Game Master”, Game Master Arino. Game Master Arino will test your gaming skills by throwing various challenges at you in a wide-variety of retro games including shooters, racing, action and even an epic role-playing game - your only way to return is to defeat him in every retro game challenge he throws at you. But you are not alone in your quest – armed with access to gaming magazines, cheat codes can be found to warp to later levels, receive unlimited continues or even become invincible! A young Arino is at your side to keep you company during your challenges, quite amused at the fact that he grows up to be so evil in the future to be the cause of your current predicament. Test your skills with the awesomeness of the 8-bit era and prevent the retro games from exacting their revenge! An original game based on the popular Japanese GAME CENTER CX TV series, Retro Game Challenge reinvents how classic games are played by having the player complete short challenges in a wide-variety of games to keep the game play fresh and rewarding. Specific challenges in shooters, racing, action and a role-playing game are integrated into the story, while the in-game magazines offer cheat codes as well as fake 80’s news stories paying tribute to the rich history of the gaming industry. Whether it’s 80’s nostalgia for the seasoned gamer or experiencing classic 8-bit game play for the first time, Retro Game Challenge has something for everyone.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4229 in Video Games
• Brand: Xseed
• Model: 80813
• Published on: 2009-02
• Released on: 2009-02-10
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .61" h x 5.44" w x 5.73" l, .25 pounds

Features

• Based on the popular Japanese Game Center CX TV series.
• Integration of gameplay into a storyline provides a new angle on compilation gaming. Rather than just playing the games, each is played in spurts to accomplish specific story-driven goals.
• The wide variety of classically themed games, from shooters, to racing, ninja action to epic role-playing ensures that players are always engaged.
• Every retro-flavored game that is introduced is available as a full, original game once the initial challenges of the story have been completed.
• In-game magazines provide cheat codes, entertainment and virtual history of the video game industry via fake 80¿s news stories covering software and video game trends.

Amazon.com Product Description
An original single player game for Nintendo DS based on the popular Japanese Game Center CX TV series, Retro Game Challenge reinvents how classic games are played, and how you look at game compilation releases. In it the player is immersed in a story which requires he/she to complete short challenges imposed by a villain named Arino in a wide variety of 8-bit games. These games are not licensed titles, but originals designed to look, sound and play like classic arcade games from the 80s. Survive this series of challenges and you will never look at classic gaming the same again.

Endure the challenges of Arino. View larger.

Battle ninjas in Haggleman. View larger.

Take to the track in Rally King. View larger.

The Story
Thrown back in time to the 1980's, you are turned into a young boy and forced to play video games by an evil self-proclaimed "Game Master." Game Master Arino will test your gaming skills by throwing various challenges at you in a wide variety of retro games including shooters, racing, action and even an epic role-playing game. To escape you must defeat him in every retro game challenge he throws at you. But you are not alone in your quest - armed with access to gaming magazines, you can find cheat codes to warp to later levels, receive unlimited continues or even become invincible. In addition a young, pre-evil, Arino is at your side to keep you company during your challenges and he is quite amused that he grows up to be so evil and becomes the cause of your current predicament. Test your skills with the awesomeness of the 8-bit era and prevent the retro games from exacting their revenge.

The Games
Although the challenges that players will have to succeed in only feature portions of the games that pack Retro Game Challenge, each of these games is a full-fledged game that is playable from beginning to end. See a sampling of the games included below.

	A fixed shooter in which the player must shoot down invading enemies with a spaceship that can only move left and right along the bottom of the screen. Use cheat codes to warp or to reveal hidden stages.
	Stun enemies with ninja stars, and step on them or close a trapdoor on them to kill them. It's an old-fashioned side-scrolling action game with many new elements.
	Can't leave out a racing game. The player controls a racecar from a birds eye view and uses techniques such as drift and drift boost to achieve the shortest lap time.
	A good ol' RPG joins the family. The player is a descendant of a hero who is given an order by the king to form a party to embark on an adventure to defeat the rival King of Darkness.
	This shooter features a flying battleship that can move left, right, forwards and backwards. It can also transform into 4 different forms, allowing for a range of battle plans.

Key Game Features:

• Experience Games in a Whole New Way - Rather than simply playing a game straight from start to finish, each game is played in short spurts to accomplish specific goals.
• Wide Variety of Games to Keep Players Engaged - From classic shooters to racing, ninja action to epic role-playing, gameplay variety ensures there's something for everyone.
• Entire Games Available for Free Play - Every retro game introduced in the story is available in its entirety once the initial challenges have been completed.
• Experience the 80's Gaming Culture - Not only do the in-game magazines provide cheat codes, they are a source of entertainment and a virtual history lesson about the video game industry. Fake 80's news stories cover actual emerging 80's gaming trends, evolution of software, and even the video game crash of 1983.

Customer Reviews

The Best Games You've Never Played
Retro Game Challenge is retro gaming bliss.

The best retro game collection released in decades is made up entirely of fake games, many outright clones of titles you may have grown up with. Scandal? Hardly. The brilliance, and at times abject parody, not to mention the quality of the designs, art, music, even the dialog (dialog in a retro collection? yes, and it's great!), add up to what would have been my game of 2008 had it released mere months ago.

I find it hard to imagine anyone spurning such a joyful bundle of gaming goodness. Even those with no memories of the NES era will find plenty to enjoy. Each of the games feels complete and fulfilling on its own, and the addition of a framework of challenges and unlockables functions as a carrot to draw the gamer deeper. Where I found myself, in other collections, hopping from game to game aimlessly, here, I'm gently prodded into learning the intricacies of each selection, and it's immensely satisfying. The freeplay mode, with its more subtle incentives, became a surprising favorite, but beyond that, the shell of sitting down, virtually, with a childhood pal, searching through fake game magazines (with great shout-outs to real life editors you might remember), even getting yacked at by your friend's mom ("Are you two still playing? Control yourselves!") adds up to one of the most charming experiences I've had in gaming.

As for the games themselves, they're the best Famicom titles that never existed. The crown of the collection, at least for me, is the epic (10-15 hour!) RPG, Guadia Quest, but there is more than something for everyone, the focus being on action. In truth, I've never had so much fun with shooters before; I actually like Cosmic Gate more than, say, Galaga. To paraphrase Bono, "Even better than the real thing." And that's truly just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

The designs borrow happily from the past (each game's influences can be dissected like the best of loving tributes) but never get bogged down in the tedium or problems of our actual retro libraries. In other words, they're coated with enough modern game philosophy (but not too much!) that they don't end up making you remember what you hated about the halcyon 8-bit days (hey, nostalgia covers over a multitude of sins).

I could write a lot more, but in the interests of aiming for less than 300 words (pff), I'll cut it off here. Please, I'm telling you, just buy it! I want the sequel!

A must have for fans of old school
The Nintendo DS is one of my favorite handhelds, but one thing that strikes me as sort of a disappointment is the sparse selection of retro ports and compilations. Sure, the DS has ports like Chrono Trigger, Kirby Superstar, and a couple compilations. Compared to the retro ports and collections on the GBA and PSP, however, the DS seems kinda lacking in fulfilling the retro gamer in me.

Alas comes Retro Game Challenge, a very unique pseudo-compilation that consists of eight homages to some of the most noteworty games of the NES era of gaming. It's far more than just a compilation as it's story-based; the gamers' have to play through four challenges for each game in order to be unlocked in Free Play. Even though it is story based, this game gives pretty informative manuals and magazines to not only keep with the pacing of the story, but it also greatly aids gamers' through those challenges. There is even a memo to write on with the touch screen.

Here's the breakdown of the eight games:

Cosmic Gate - An homage to Galaga.

Robot Ninja Haggleman - A combination of homages to games like Bubble Bobble, Super Mario Bros., and an obscure Japanese Nintendo game, Ninja JaJaMaru-kun.

Rally King - An homage to the early 80s top down racing games.

Star Prince - An homage to Star Soldier.

Rally King SP - A parody of those special edition games that were popular in Japan.

Robot Ninja Haggleman 2 - A sequel to Robot Ninja Haggleman that sport a much bigger playfield and tougher enemies.

Guardia Quest - An homage to Dragon Quest.

Robot Ninja Haggleman 3 - A sequel to the previous Haggleman games that has vastly changed in its appearance and gameplay. Now it's an homage to games like Ninja Gaiden, Metroid, and Castlevania.

All of the games here are quite fun, even the worst ones(the two Rally King games) are interesting.

This game might not be for everyone, but I would very easily recommend this game to anyone that has a DS and loves gameplay from the 1980s; it would also serve as a brilliant introduction to gamers who have never played 8-bit games before.

Go back to the past with Retro Game Challenge
Retro Game Challenge is a title that can be enjoyed by all, but was made for one specific group of people.

Those people are the type to whom the woes of "sprite flicker" are instantly explainable, the type who remember the technique of blowing into a cartridge (or even understand what that means in the first place), and who fondly remember the days when dimensions, and buttons, came in twos.

Retro Game Challenge--a product originally produced as a companion title to the late-night Japanese gaming show GameCenter CX--is a collection of classic 8-bit games. Except, the catch is, these aren't actual games that were produced back in the era of the NES, but instead are brand new creations that look and feel like something we might have been playing 20+ years ago. Sent back in time by Game Master Arino (the digital version of GC CX's host, Japanese comedian Shinya Arino), your mission is to complete a set of challenges presented to you by the Game Master spread across a wide variety of games, all accomplished with the help of Arino's younger (and not quite as sinister) self.

Why Retro Game Challenge works is two main reasons. First, the games presented here do indeed resemble titles we've seen and played before, but they have been crafted in such a way as to feel fresh and new while also honoring gaming's past. Your first set of challenges will come via Cosmic Gate--a play on Namco's Galaga--and though in many ways it is a Galaga clone, it also contains within itself some interesting ideas that keep it from feeling like a retread. Completing the challenges for one game unlocks the next of Retro's eight "revivals", such as the DragonQuest homage Guadia Quest, or the absolutely fantastic shooter Star Price. While the games themselves are not always what one might consider "full length", these are in no way dumbed-down mini-games, and you'll find yourself playing them in Retro's freeplay mode long after you've finished their challenges through the storyline.

That storyline mode is the second element that makes Retro Game Challenge so great, as it is obvious that a lot of thought (not to mention a little love) went into its creation. Your life with young Arino provides the background for gameplay, and it is full of elements that play on the nostalgia many of us feel for the early days of gaming. Retro's included games don't just become unlocked; a new game is presented to you via young Arino coming home from the game store, new cartridge in hand. The games themselves all have visible Famicom-styled cartridges (with artwork), and digital instruction manuals can be viewed and read through at any time. Also available for perusing is GameFan, a "magazine" that Arino picks up from time to time that will give you tips and tricks for the games you're trying to beat, previews of the games you have yet to unlock, and a host of other amusing bits of information that give Retro even more personality. For those of us who remember the days, back before the internet, when one would crack open a new issue of the real-world GameFan or EGM, and read about all the amazing new games that would be coming our way in the future, this little element of the game really adds to the atmosphere.

Anybody who has an appreciation for the simpler days of gaming will love Retro Game Challenge, as it is a fabulous product with a whole lot of gaming goodness to offer. Those of you who think of the "classic days of gaming" as time spend with Cloud and Sephiroth, however, may not get as much out of what Retro has to give as those of us who became gamers with an Atari 2600 joystick or Master System controller in hand will. For us, much like your virtual in-game self, Retro Game Challenge will send you back in time and have you feeling like a kid again.