A Very Retro LRG Vault Drop
A Very Retro LRG Vault Drop
Party like it’s 1999 with this magnificently classic games selection.
It’s a new month, and you know what that means: another Limited Run Games Vault update has dropped upon an unsuspecting world. This month, the Vault list is heavily weighted toward classic games. Remakes, compilations, reissues, you name it! If it’s old, chances are good that it’s back in circulation... though for a limited time only. You know how it goes. Commerce giveth, and it taketh away.
The Making of Karateka
Switch & PlayStation 5 / Standard & Collector’s Editions
From our friends at Digital Eclipse, The Making of Karateka offers an absolutely ludicrous museum experience about one of the very first fighting/brawling games, a punch-em-up that took cues from classic action movies and gave its dust-ups a sense of fluidity and visual grace. Many, many different versions of the game appear here as part of a playable interactive museum that provides context to the evolution of several different genres and styles of game. An essential pick-up.
Cyber Citizen Shockman Collection
A compilation of four classic 16-bit action games produced by NCS/Masaya in the ’90s. Only the second game in the series showed up in the U.S. back in the day (as Shockman for TurboGrafx-16), and the fourth entry (somewhat confusingly called “Shockman Zero”) had only ever been released as a download for a long-defunct Japan-exclusive satellite service until it resurfaced a few years ago! If you like Mega Man (or were one of the few to snag Shockman late in the TG16’s lifetime), you’ll find plenty of new (old) action to enjoy here.
Snow Bros.
Genesis, NES, & Game Boy / Standard & Deluxe Editions
This is not the Snow Bros. collection for modern consoles—it’s a set of cartridge reissues for the original NES, Genesis, and Game Boy ports of the arcade game. The original cartridges sell for stupid money these days—like, “I looked at eBay’s sold listings and threw up in my mouth a little” money—so these are worth snapping up for your collection to save some cash without dipping into the unsavory world of unlicensed repro carts. Ours are on the level! Ask nicely and we might even show you the publishing contracts. [Editor’s note: our legal team has advised us not to do this.]
Aero the Acro-Bat
The original 16-bit carts for Aero the Acro-Bat also sell for a lot more these days than they did at retail, so these Sunsoft-sanctioned reprints will fill your shelf with games, flood your heart with joy, and elicit an approving nod from your financial adviser.
A whole lot of Yakuza
PS4, Xbox, & PC / Standard & Collector’s Editions
That is, in the words of Led Zeppelin, “a whole lotta love.” Assuming that you, like all people with great taste, love games in which you slug your way through the seamy world of the Japanese criminal underground to promote your burning sense of justice and champion the innocent. Look, just because you work outside the law and deal in organized crime doesn’t mean you’re a bad guy. Open your mind. Stop thinking so rigidly. Currently, you can find Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami 2, Yakuza Kiwami 3, and Yakuza 3 Remastered in the Vault. That’s a pretty solid foundation for a criminal empire of your own.
Rendering Ranger R2 Rewind
Switch, PS4, PS5 / Standard & Armageddon Editions
One of the most impressive games ever created for Super NES (well, technically for Super Famicom, since it never came to the U.S.), Rendering Ranger was basically Turrican meets Thunder Force—the coolest Treasure game that Treasure never made. And the resale price of the original cartridge makes the sticker price on Snow Bros. look like chump change. Pretty cool that you can buy it for modern consoles for actual chump change, eh?
Puyo Puyo Champions
Switch / Standard & Collector’s Editions
Yes, Puyo Puyo Champions isn’t technically retro. It’s a new Puyo game for modern systems. But you know, we never got to enjoy Puyo for itself back in the day. Compile always licensed it to other companies, who gave it facelifts to turn it into a Sonic or Kirby spinoff. So the series has years and years of catching up to do here in the U.S. Look, just give us this one? Cataclysmic multiplayer blob-matching and garbage-piling mayhem is a good time in any era.
As always, this month’s Vault goodies are first-come, first-serve, while supplies last, act now, etc. etc. Hit the Vault and grab any of these (and a bunch of other new additions) that you may have missed their first time around while you can! There won’t be a third time around. This is it.