Retro Game Challenge Review

Retro Game Challenge is a gooey love letter to the NES era, giving nostalgia junkies and fans of classic gameplay plenty to chew on. Based on the Japanese TV show Retro Game Master, players tackle challenges in a variety of fictitious NES games covering several genres. One minute you might have to score 200,000 points in a Galaga clone, the next you're tasked with finishing in the top five in a racing game. There's even an RPG to slog through. Each of the games is rendered with blocky sprites and accompanied with a symphony of bloops and beeps.

Between challenges you can read fake magazines for editorials, codes for making challenges easier, and previews of upcoming games. There's a neat sense of progression between those games, with sequels adding features, graphical upgrades, and everything else you'd expect in real life. Robot Ninja Haggle Man in particular goes from a relatively simple ''slam the doors on the bad guys'' kind of affair to an item-filled action game during its three iterations.

Once you beat all the challenges on a given game, it's unlocked, allowing you to play it whenever you like. The games are definitely infused with tons of retro appeal, but more importantly they're fun to play on their own merits. Even if you're not old enough to remember blowing on carts, Retro Game Challenge is interesting and varied enough to entertain for hours.