SUNSOFT is Back! – PS5 Review

SUNSOFT is Back! is a retro compilation featuring three games from the kind-of-legendary-ish Japanese arcade and console developer.  Okay, we’re not heaping a ton of praise on them but, they were never up there with Capcom, Namco and others but they did have some moments.

Now, while their work might not be very well-known outside of Japan, this collection offers up a really strange collection of games.  Instead of any of their coin-op titles or SNES output, what you get here are three incredibly obscure NES games.  We’re not sure why this compilation exists but fans of these games will no doubt be thrilled at the chance to revisit them some four decades later.

First up is Firework Thrower Kantaro AKA Tōkaidō Gojūsan-tsugi which is a 1986 run and gunner of sorts.  Except that instead of shooting people, your character (a firework maker named Kantaro) throws fireworks at the enemies.  If you ever played Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins, you might remember the firebomb weapon.  That was the worst weapon in the game and with that being your one and only option here (with no upgrading), this clunky action title isn’t the most fun to play.

The visuals are pretty cute for a NES game and this is the best game on the compilation but it’s not exactly enjoyable in 2024.  The enemies can be very hard to hit and they are fast enough to kill you at really any time so even hardcore retro gamers might struggle with this one.

Then you get Ripple Island (Rippuru Airando) which is a 1988 adventure game that sees you traveling through a small island on a mission to rescue the King’s daughter from an evil Emperor.  The game uses a very clunky and clumsy point and click interface to get around but with the icons not being labelled (and the manual being in Japanese) this one is a real slog to get into.   We hated it and didn’t get very far and with the genre being reasonably well represented on PSN, we’re not able to recommend this one at all.

Last up is The Wing of Madoola, an action-adventure game from 1986 which plays a little like Atari’s Pitfall games.  With items to find that power you up, this offers a little bit more than Firework Thrower Kantaro and has a much more interesting game world.  That said, your sword is pretty pitiful against multiple enemies and everyone seems to move a little faster than you so this game can be a real challenge.

The fact is that none of these games were ever regarded as classics in their day and time hasn’t been kind to any of them.  However, if you’re desperate to play this very obscure bit of Japanese gaming history then this is the best way to do it as the emulation here is well done.  Sure, emulating NES games is no struggle on a PS5 but the addition of quick saving and, a very easy to access rewind feature, takes the sting out of the imposing difficulty of the two action games here.  There are also some visual filters but you won’t want to use any of those as there’s really no point applying a Game Boy filter or, worse, a VirtualBoy one.

So, we’re not exactly sure what this compilation is for.  These aren’t Sunsoft’s best work, they’re not classics, they’ve aged as badly as anything we’ve ever reviewed and the basic price of £8.99 feels too much for what you’re getting here.  But the quality of life features the emulation brings does improve them a bit.  So as an emulation exercise, we’re happy to give this compilation an average score.  We’re just not sure why they chose to emulate these games.