Sam's Journey NES Review by Thermoptic! Will this be another HIT game?

As a kid growing up with the Nintendo, every time you got your hands on a new game, it was an exciting moment. Back then, time seemed endless, but the choices of games were limited, each game from that era became a treasured gem. Over the years, a handful of games remained etched in our memories - titles like Mega Man, Duck Tales, Metroid, and of course the iconic Super Mario Bros series. They all shared something special: vast worlds of levels to explore, challenges to conquer, and a selection of abilities, equipment, or power-ups to aid you in your adventure. Even today, we still play these classics, but finding new ones in the same style as Super Mario Bros. 3 or Kirby's Adventure is a rarity. However, this is about to change. This year brings forth a fresh, epic adventure to the Nintendo Entertainment System - the name to remember is Sam's Journey!

New Super Mario Land - A SNES remake of the original Super Mario Land appears!

It was only just recently a new Super Nintendo game called New Super Mario Land had appeared on the net from an anonymous developer. When we first read that this was a remake of the original Super Mario Land with new amazing graphics and animations, plus 4-player support it was hard to believe that this actually was true. But it is, and the game is released and available to download right now!

Cat Quest II out now on Steam - Thermoptic reviews a NEW release!

I am a big fan of the original indie game Cat Quest that was released back in 2017 by The Gentlebros, and now the sequel is finally here! Cat Quest is a fast paced open world action RPG that is super easy to pick up and play. It features gorgeous visuals, a great soundtrack and a lot of quests. Fans of Cat Quest won't be disappointed at the sequel as it gives you all the best things of the original game but adds new and exciting features and a new world to explore!

Romhacking Spotlight - New Weapons, Reinforcements and Juggling!

Welcome to the Romhacking Spotlight! This time we are going to look at a couple of hacks that will really do some amazing upgrades! Have you played these hacks or have any romhacks to recommend then please tell us about them in the comments. Enjoy the hacks!

Romhacking Spotlight - The DX Edition posted by Thermoptic

This segment of the Romhacking Spotlight is all about DX! You might remember that Nintendo has re-relased a number of titles for the Gameboy with the added letters DX at the end. These were games that first were released for the original Gameboy - in its fabolous limited monochrome colors - later enhanced and upgraded in full color for the Gameboy Color. Some great examples of these were Tetris DX, R-Type DX and of course The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX. The most notable changes of the DX games where the addition of a color pallet but there were also other tweaks and features added making it a Deluxe version, or "DX".

Orange Island - 8-bit action-adventure for Pc and Nes

Orange Island is a new 8-bit action-adventure platformer game that is currently up on Kickstarter and was successfully funded within the first 24 hours of its campaign. Orange Island draws inspiration from side-scrolling NES games like Legacy of the Wizard, Kirby's Adventure and Zelda II and mixes this with puzzles and RPG elements similar to Wonder Boy and Mother. The game is being created by former SEGA designer Ted Sterchi and you can tell that a lot of time has been put into Orange Island – not only does it have amazing pastel pixel art and music but also an interesting story and characters.

Misplaced - A new Megadrive release from RetroSouls

RetroSouls that are known for many great homebrew games just released a new title for the Megadrive/Genesis called “Misplaced”. RetroSouls describes Misplaced as a small experimental puzzler. The goal is to collect crystals and placing them on altars to progress to the next level. To help the character to collect all the crystals that sometimes are located on hard to reach places you can use your very snazzy magical glasses that lets you record your steps and then with a press of a button you can replay the path you just recorded. If you liked the puzzle part of RetroSouls game Alter Ego then you should definitely check this out!

Sam's Journey Coming to the NES! Exclusive Screenshots

When Knights of Bytes released Sam's Journey for the Commodore 64 back in 2017 it was a huge hit! Indie Retro News awarded Sam's Journey game of the year 2017 as this game really surpassed all our expectations, delivering us a huge epic adventure that really pushed the limitations of the C64. Despite being a home computer title, the game has very strong console vibes to it, and it plays very much like its counterparts on, for example, the NES.

Romhacking Spotlight - Contra, Sor2 and Bubble Bobble

Contra Hard Corps - Hit Points Restoration Hack

If you were a Megadrive/Genesis owner back in 1994 you were probably as glad and surprised as I was when Konami released a Contra game for the system. And what a game!. Contra: Hard Corps features 4 different characters with 16 unique weapons, a total of 14 levels with 6 different endings and 38 different bosses to fight!

But when Hard Corps was released outside Japan something was changed. In the original Japanese version of the game each character actually had a health meter letting your character take two extra hits before being killed. This was removed making the game a bit harder as you could only take one hit. So let's fix this and bring back the healthmeter using the power of romhacking!

Romhacking Spotlight - The Rainbow Realms. Interview with Bluecrush

This year Super Mario Bros 3 celebrates its 30th Anniversary, yes believe it or not but it was exactly 30 years ago Nintendo released this amazing game and i remember it like it was yesterday. I was walking home from school listening to the track Summertime with DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince on my Sony Walkman and just when i was about to have a relaxing time watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on our VHS when my parents walked in holding this shiny yellow box, it was Super Mario Bros 3 and i couldn't believe it! Well the rest is history, the game was a huge hit and is still considered today to be one of the best Mario games in video game history.

A two player Super Mario Bros hack is finally here!

Amazing news in the romhacking community! 33 years ago Super Mario Bros was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System and just a couple of days ago the romhackers Corpse Grinder and Ti released a two players simultaneous mode for Super Mario Bros! Most of us have forgotten that the original Super Mario Bros actually has a 2-player option, the reason for this is that it is turn based. It is just like paying the game single player, so nobody really cared about this option. If the two player mode would let us play simultaneous, that would be the dream! And now it has come true! And it just works so well!

GoldenEye 007 for the N64 gets a cool inverted aim RomHack!

Multiplayer deathmatch in GoldenEye 007 for the N64 was just amazing! Screencheating, Slappers only, Golden Gun, Oddjob, Proximity mines, so much fun so fond memories! Oh and if you are a big fan of the game and have not yet watched the amazing parody clip made by College Humor called GoldenEye Stand-Off then go watch it right now!

Citrouille - A new retro style game coming soon to Steam and itch.io!

If you are a fan of classic one-screen platform arcade games like Bubble Bobble or Lode Runner then you you should take a look at the upcoming game Citrouille! The basis of the game is to plant flowers of each of the grassy platforms by running over them, when all platforms has flowers you instantly clear the level. But the tricky part is that you cant jump and your weapon can only stun the enemies for a couple of seconds. If you have played Lode Runner you know that some situations can get really stressful and this is exactly how Citrouille works! Luckily these witches has some powers that can help you out in tricky situations. You can always create a ladder that you can use to ascend or descend one level, and there are special power ups to collect during the levels.

Micro Mages: A gorgeous nes game for the NES - Currently on Kickstarter!

Micro Mages is a new NES game that is currently up on Kickstarter. The game is already finished and the developers are running a Kickstarter campaign now to raise funds for producing the actual cartridges, boxes and manuals. At first glance Micro Mages is a gorgeous looking platform game with some really amazing pixel graphics but what's really exciting about this game is that it supports 4-players! Yes that's right, its time to dust of that old FourScore multiplayer adapter that so very few Nes games had support for.

Skatemasta Tcheco - Upcoming NES inspiration with a new trailer!

Tcheco is back, and this time he brought a skateboard! Skatemasta Tcheco is an upcoming game from the game developer Marcelo Barbosa that also created “Tcheco in the Castle of Lucio” that we previously mentioned here on Indie Retro News.

Romhacking Spotlight - Hacks that adds a second player!

The hacks that impresses me the most are hacks that makes a significant change to a game, that adds an element that changes the way we were used to play the game. And an example of this are these amazing hacks that adds multiplayer to a game that originally just had support for one player. We played this amazing game and just wished there support for a 2 player mode, but sadly the developers only made it a solo game. But thanks to these talented hackers they somehow managed to change so much in the rom that they added support for a second player! In this segment of the Romhacking Spotlight im going to talk about three hacks that does this and we are going to start with Tetris.

Romhacking Spotlight - Mario Hacks

Welcome back for another segment of the Romhackig Spotlight! This time we are going to take a look at some really nice Super Mario Bros hacks for the Nes. It seems that most hackers picks Super Mario Bros 3 when they want to hack a Mario game and that's understandable, but there are constantly appearing some amazing hack for the original Super Mario Bros game that we all know and love.

Super Mario Bros 2 - The official romhack by Nintendo

You were probably just as shocked as i was when you first found out that something wasn't quite right about the way Super Mario Bros 2 looked and played when you started it for the first time back in 1988. It feels like another game! Yeah by now we all know that it's just a reskin of the Famicom Disk System game Doki Doki Panic. If you are not familiar with this at all, then I recommend this fabulous video from Guru Larry that explains it all.

Romhacking Spotlight - Enhancing The Legend of Zelda

There are many romhacks of the original The Legend of Zelda for the NES that gives you a complete new adventure with a new map and challenges but in this Romhacking Spotlight segment we are going to look at romhacks that enhances the original game. Some of you might still want the game unchanged for nostalgic reasons but if you played the game many times before and want to play it again I would recommend these hacks with updated graphics and improvements to the map.

Treasure Adventure World - And epic Zelda/Metroidvania adventure! Sale on Steam (20% off!)

Back in 2011 a game called Treasure Adventure Game was released for free that I downloaded and played, and I was blown away of how fun and amazingly designed this game was! It instantly became one of my all-time favorite games. Later I got a mail from the developer Stephen Orlando that he decided to do a remake in HD with new updated gorgeous graphics, new soundtrack, new added levels and challenges.