January 17th, 2008

If you own a farily new video game console and love retro gaming then chances are you’ve indulged in at least one of the many old school gaming compilations that have hit the consoles in recent years. There really has been an impressive slew of titles. Some of the best include:

As well as a never ending slew of arcade compilations by Midway, Capcom, Namco and other developers from the 80s. The compilations just never seem to stop.

Why Retro Compilations?

Retro game compilations took off a few years back and became hugely popular in a short matter of time. Its no surprise really as they:

are easier, cheaper and quicker to develop than a full production game

are also easy to market

are tempting to players who have never experienced the franchise as they can buy one game and be up to date(italics)

generally speaking the price of the compilation is cheaper than the sum of the individual games

bonus content

What Could Stop the Greatness Retro Compilations?

There is only one thing getting in the way of retro compilations becoming even more popular, that is digital distribution games. Every next generation current generation home console has a service where individual retro games can be downloaded from an online store. Because gamers buy each game individually game publishers can ramp up the price and get away with it. So far developers seem to support both options which is the best outcome for the consumers as it gives us more choice.

DP’s Retro Compilation Wishlist

There is no denying that there are plenty of great Retro Compilation games that I could (and after this) will dream up. But more importantly, I want to see some already existing compilations be released in PAL regions. Now I know that this isn’t going to happen as many of these games came out years ago. But thats why its a wishlist right?

PAL Wishlist

Street Fighter Anniversary Collection

MegaMan Anniversary Collection

Megaman X Collection

Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection

Ninja Gaiden Trilogy

Its absolutely ridiculous that Capcom won’t bring these games out into PAL territories. We ‘ve got Street Fighter Alpha Anthology so it makes no sense for them not to release Street Fighter Anniversary Collection . What this means is that the only legal means that anyone can play a PAL version of Street Fighter III in PAL territories (the UK, Australia and New Zealand) is to either play it on a Dreamcast or in the Arcades. So lets see, the Dreamcast is extinct and the price of playing in the arcades is 10x the price that it was fifteen years ago (and then you need to find the actual machine). This is just ridiculous.

As for DarkStalkers and Megaman well they also should make the jump, its just common sense.

I’d also like to know what happened to Ninja Gaiden Trilogy. I’m not sure if this had a PAL release or not but I can’t find a PAL version of the game so I assume that it didn’t.

General Wishlist

Sega Saturn/Dreamcast Collection

Sega Megadrive Collection was an absolutely awesome compilation of Sega’s brightest titles for the Megadrive. With 27 top titles and only a few duds, this was essential gaming. So, if Sega can make a compilation for the Megadrive then why not the Saturn and Dreamcast as well? Sega have already proven to us that they like to re-release their old games. For example the re-release of Nights for the PS2 in Japan, Crazy Taxi 1 + 2 on the PSP, Sonic Adventure 1 + 2 on the Gamecube and now House of the Dead for the Wii. So you get my drift. With the massive size of a Blu-ray disc and Sega’s obsession of re-releasing old content it all makes sense.

Any Sort of Nintendo Compilation

Something which doesn’t make any sense is Nintendo making any sort of game compilation. The last decent compilation that they made was Super Mario All Stars on the SNES (Game and Watch Galleries don’t count). Remember how awesome this game was? Such value for money. Its a pity that the Virtual Console and the stacks of dough they can make from the GBA/DS re-releases practically ensure that we will never see a Nintendo game compilation ever again.

Just for the sake of it a Mario/Metroid/Zelda compilation would obviously be fantastic. But what I think would even better is a compilation of all of the Japanese Nintendo Wars and Fire Emblem games that never saw a release out side of Japan. This would be an absolute dream for the fans of both game series.

TMNT Collection



TMNT are awesome and furthermore their video games were some of the best licensed games ever made. Some sort of compilation of all the great TMNT games like Turtles in Time, The Arcade and Tournament Fighters would be absolutely sweet. Most of these games go for ridiculous prices on eBay or are just too hard to find.

Theres only one problem with this dream. It would take multiple game publishers to team up in order to get this compilation out on the shelves. There are far too many implications for this to be worth the effort for publishers.

Others

Theres a few more ideas that I have for the wishlist but I can’t write much about them so heres a list:

A SNK Arcade Essentials Compilation

A SNK Fighting Essentials Compilation

Essential Shmps Compilation

Resident Evil Missing Titles (RE 1.5, RE GBC and RE2 GBA tech demos, alt RE4 versions)

Capcom CPS-2 Best of

Conclusion

So after reading this you probably have a few ideas of your own compilations that you’d like to see be released (well, you must because I could go on for days ^_^). So go ahead and let me know by posting in the comment box.