Review #202: Retro Game Challenge

 This one's a real charmer!

 Y'know about the fantastic Game Center CX, right? Y'don't? You are missing out. It's a video-game themed show starring comedian Arino as he is challenged with beating certain games, sometimes under certain conditions, it's also filled with visits to Arcades, game developers and with interviews to said devs. It's a pretty funny show. For some reason, someone thought it'd be a good idea to make a game out of it. Whoever that guy is, give'im a medal.

 In this game Arino is the bad guy and the sidekick. At the same time. Arino's role as the villain has him becoming the 'Game Master', a disembodied head that takes you back in time to 1985 and tasks you with fulfilling certain challenges on certain games. However, the place in 1985 to where you are taken to is kid Arino's home, and him being a good sport, lets you play his videogames. As you clear the four challenges per game, the story moves forward by months of years until a 'new game' gets released, it's a pretty neat set-up.

  The game really goes out of its way to sell you on its premise. For instance, every time you press 'continue' on the main menu, you'll be taken to Arino's room, where you'll see both your avatar and Arino slowly walk in front of the Famicon look-alike and sit down to play. As the in-game time moves forward, by clearing challenges, issues of the videogame magazine 'GameFan' get released, and Arino being a nice kid, lets you read them. These issues contain 'fake' interviews to 'fake' game developers, 'fake' previews and reviews of games, notes from the 'fake' editors and even cheats for the games in the game! Not only that, each game has a 'fake' cartridge mock-up, alongside a 'fake' instruction booklet. It's a very charming game. Furthermore, whenever you play a game, it's played on the DS's top screen, while you see both Arino and your Avatar play below, with Arino egging you on as you play. You can also press R+X at any time to 'look below', allowing you to look up on the magazines, or on the in-game note pad for cheats or tips on how to get through a certain part. It's these little details and small touches that really sell you on the game.

 The game selection tries to ape other popular games. There's:

 Cosmic Gate: A Galaga/Space Invaders homage, it's pretty fun. Has 64 stages, but there are numerous warps to jump around faster.

 Haggle Man 1 & 2: In Haggle Man you play as a Ninja Robot that must stomp on every enemy of each stage to clear it. You can go inside doors to flip them, and every door of the same color as the one you went in will flip alongside you, killing every enemy that's standing in front of them. Haggle Man 2 is the same game, but more refined, enemies are harder, stages are larger and other tweaks. Both of them are pretty good. Haggle Man has 8 stages and Haggle Man 2 has 9... but you must go through each game twice in order to 'complete' them, in the same vein as games like Ghost and Goblins which would make you play through the game again, this time harder, in order to attain the true ending. Cheap!

 Rally King & Rally King SP: Top Down racers, I didn't like them very much. Making the car turn feels pretty stiff, luckily there are cheats to make the other racers disappear and make yourself invulnerable! Both of them have 4 tracks. Rally King SP is based on the many 'promotional' Famicom re-releases that would slightly tweak the game, often times for promotional purposes. Easily the worst games of the bunch.

 Star Prince: A vertical shooter, it's pretty fun. There's many different weapons that you can outfit you ship with, and later down the road, Arino gets a 'turbo controller', letting you use Y to rapid fire. It has four stages, but just like Haggle-Man, you must go through it twice in order to 'complete' it.

 Guadia Quest: A bite-sized RPG styled after Dragon Quest. You play as three characters, that must save the kingdom. It has a little gimmick in the form of Guadias, monsters that you can recruit to aid your heros. Probably among my favorites, it tries a bit too hard to be like RPGs of olde... which means a lot of grinding is involved, even Game Master Arino mentions it. Even the damned magazines lampoons it!

 Haggle Man 3: A Ninja Gaiden-meets-Metroidvania game. It's the best of the bunch. It probably plays on the 'darker and edgier' trope, as the cutesy Haggle Man characters have been badassified, and the gameplay is much better. Sadly, it's only three stages long, but they are pretty lengthy, and at times a bit labyrinthic. It also has grinding in the form of nuts, the game main's currency, since the mandatory items that you need to advance must be bought.

 It's a pretty decent game selection, with a little bit of everything. You've your shooters, your racer, and RPG and some platforming for good measure, it's everything 80s! The game progresses in a very linear manner, Game Master Arino will send out the challenges one by one... which can be a bit annoying, as you have to start from scratch(Except in Guadia Quest, one of the only two games that allow saving.) each time, even if you could've cleared the new challenge on your previous run through the game. It's specially annoying in the Haggle Man 3 challenges, since the levels are kinda long, and having your progress deleted is a bit annoying(Haggle Man 3 only saves when you clear a stage). There's four challenges per game, and after you finish the last one, Haggle Man 3, Arino challenges to beat all 8 games... but you can use cheats to aid you. Besides Story Mode, there's also Free Play, which does away with Kid Arino's shouts, and the progress in the games in these mode is kept separate from Story Mode, plus it keeps track of more minutiae, like how many times you pressed A or B buttons!

 The game tries to emulate NES/Famicom games, so naturally it doesn't really look as good as it could. That said, it looks better than any NES/Famicom game of the era, thanks to the wider variety of colors available and smoother animations, plus, no flickering! The music is not particularly memorable, but it fits each game pretty well.

 Retro Game Challenge is a real gem of a game. It has an original premise, a huge amount of charm a and the execution is top-notch, at times a bit too good, there was no need to emulate the tedious grinding a lot of NES demanded! Sadly, it didn't do too well over here, which made Game Center CX2 a Japan exclusive. Woe is us.
 8.5 out of 10.