Have you been playing Retro Game Challenge for the Nintendo DS? It’s a remarkable game compilation. The central conceit of the game is that you as the lead character of the game have been transported back in time to the 1980’s—specifically to 1984-1989—and have been given the opportunity to play some of the best games of that era.
All of these “retro” games are fakes though. I suppose they’re real enough in a way, seeing as you can play them and all that. They’re not old, they just look like they could be.
The attention to period detail is spot on. Of the eight games playable in Retro Game Challenge three are in the same series. Robot Ninja Haggle Man, purportedly released in 1985, is a simple platformer more in the vein of an Elevator Action or a Lode Runner than a Super Mario Bros. It looks like it might be an arcade port, which is presumably the idea.
Later on in the game a sequel is released that follows the same basic rules but adds a bit more polish, difficulty, and abilities. It feels so much like an authentic sequel from the era. The level intro screens from the second game have a Mega Man feel to them where the first game had a bare-bones screen that had little more than a level number. The additions are a bit more than the original Super Mario Bros. 2 but less than Mega Man 2.
I really like this game. It’s clearly made by a group of people that grew up with the Famicom and love it dearly. Even the localization is spectacular, with appropriate misspellings for the year the game was supposed to be released—one game contains the text “You shooted ## asteroids” at the end of a bonus stage.
This morning I threw together a cross stitch chart for Haggle Man from the first two Robot Ninja Haggle Man games. Download it and make your own star of one of the best games you never played as a kid:
