A more polished version of the original games, Pokemon Yellow is a less-glitchy and better-looking experience and one that features characters from the hit TV show, mainly Pikachu. Away from that, it’s virtually the same experience as its predecessors. 

The largest difference in Pokemon Yellow is the fact that Pikachu is your starter Pokemon and not Charmander, Bulbasaur or Squirtle. The fact that he follows you around Kanto and you can talk to him to see how he’s feeling adds another emotional to the game that wasn’t available in Red & Blue. However, the coolest part of Pokemon Yellow is that you’ll have the opportunity to pick up all of the original starter Pokemon along the way and build a powerful and diverse team of Pocket Monsters. Perfect for more of a loner-gamer, Pokemon Yellow allows you to get the team of your dreams, simply by playing, while Pokemon Red and Blue basically forced you to trade with friends to “catch em all.”

For that reason alone, Pokemon Yellow is the best version of the three recently-released Pokemon games and one that younger games will find a beefy, yet old-school version of their favorite series. At the same time, it’s a far different game than its far sexier two-screened children on the 3DS. Just like Pokemon Red & Blue, there’s no experience share, meaning there’s far more strategy than today’s version of the beloved RPG. Simply put, it takes a ton of time to get your team to Level 100 and battles are longer and far more stress-inducing, Even a wimpy Pokemon like Metapod can be a huge annoyance if battled incorrectly, especially early in the game.

However, by the end of this adventure, although not nearly as deep as today’s Pokemon games, the same feeling of success and accomplishment remains. You’ve traveled the world, originally by yourself, then joined by friends, who you’ve grown to love and nurture along the way and in the process, became something you’ve never dreamed possible. An experience like that doesn’t necessarily need widescreen support, 3D graphics or sexy gameplay. What it does have, in spades, is an emotional story and tried and true gaming mechanics that have been copied a hundred times over. That’s why the world and everything in it is still magical. In the end, even after all this time, Pokemon Yellow is the most refined version of quite possibly the best RPG series in gaming history.

Pros:

Fun: While Red and Blue were marvelous games, Yellow added just a few more refinements and a connection to the hit TV show that dedicated gamers at the time loved. Almost 20 years, later, it’s still a solid game that’s just a tad bit better than Red/Blue.

All About Pikachu: Unlike Red/Blue, having Pikachu walk around with you makes you form the type of relationship the future Pokemon games thrived on. While he’s not the strongest Pokemon, he’s a fan favorite for a reason. This is kind of where his legend started.

Still Challenging: Just like Red/Blue, if you’re not a master of strategy, you can and will be defeated. After all these years, balance is still key to defeating any team you face.

Cons:

Slow: The sheer amount of random encounters and lack of an experience share slow down the development of your team incredibly, making you wish a few updates could have been made to speed up gameplay.

Final Thoughts:

Of the first three Pokemon games, Yellow has the least amount of glitches and has the best visuals. More polished and refined, it’s probably the best option among the three for those that have never played them before.

The post Retro Review: Pokemon Yellow: All About Pikachu appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Inspired by Contra, Metal Gear and Predator, Legionnaires combines run-and-gun action with environmental puzzles and two protagonists whose actions affect each other’s journey.

The project features exclusive box art by comic artist Romano Molenaar, known for his work with Marvel and DC, and is being developed for original NES hardware. The team also won the NESmaker Emissary Award at the 2026 Midwest Gaming Classic.

DEMO

KICKSTARTER

Two soldiers jump.

The mission quickly turns into something far darker.

The deeper you explore…

the more reality begins to fracture.

The island is alive.

Something is watching.

It has been waiting and it doesn’t want you to leave.

From Christmas Lights to Fractured Nightmares. We are a father-and-son team from Germany making games for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. When we released our first game, Christmas Crisis, my son was only 14. Now, at 16, he has grown as a developer and wanted to create something darker, more ambitious and more mature. Legionnaires is the result of that desire — our first step into a grittier, more personal direction. Together we combine:

• Military-inspired storytelling and atmosphere (inspired by films like Predator)
• Classic 80s run-and-gun action and military action  (Contra, Metal Gear)
• Modern puzzle design on real NES hardware

 FEATURES

• Authentic NES-style experience
• Brutal difficulty – no hand-holding
• Dark, oppressive atmosphere
• Puzzle mechanics integrated into gameplay

The post LEGIONNAIRES – A Brutal 8-Bit NES Game appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

INTERVIEW WITH Stephen Kick of Nightdive 

Q: What made now the right time to bring SiN back with SiN Reloaded, and how did the project first come together?

A: SiN has always felt like unfinished business for us. We originally re-released the game as SiN Gold back in 2014, and over the years our technology and experience have evolved to the point where we felt we could finally give it the treatment it deserved. It’s a game that has lived in the shadow of some of its contemporaries for far too long, and Reloaded is our opportunity to remind people just how ambitious SiN really was.

Q: How do you balance modernizing the graphics, controls, and overall presentation while preserving the feel of a late-1990s first-person shooter?

A: We want to remove the limitations of the era without removing its character. Higher resolutions, better controls, improved models and modern rendering can make the experience more accessible, but the movement, level design, combat and personality are what make SiN feel like SiN. Whenever we’re faced with a choice between changing something because it’s old and preserving something because it’s part of the game’s identity, we tend to err on the side of preservation.

Q: What were some of the biggest technical challenges involved in taking a game built around technology from the Quake II era and adapting it for modern hardware?

A: One misconception about this kind of work is that you simply drop an old game into KEX and everything starts working. Every title has its own assumptions, quirks and modifications to the original technology, and SiN pushed the Quake II engine particularly hard. A tremendous amount of work goes into understanding those systems, recreating their behavior accurately, and then getting them to operate reliably across modern PCs and consoles without losing the characteristics of the original game.

Q: The original SiN has developed a cult following since 1998. What elements of the original game were considered untouchable when developing Reloaded?

A: The personality of SiN was absolutely untouchable. The characters, humor, level design, interactivity, weapons and that slightly exaggerated late-’90s attitude are all fundamental to what makes the game memorable. We never wanted to sanitize those qualities or reinterpret SiN through a modern lens—we wanted to preserve what Ritual created and present it in the best possible way.

Q: For someone who has never played SiN, what do you think separates SiN Reloaded from both modern shooters and the growing number of other remastered 1990s FPS games?

A: SiN comes from this wonderful period where developers were discovering just how much more an FPS could be than running through corridors shooting enemies. There are interactive environments, alternate routes, objectives, consequences to your actions and an incredible amount of variety from one level to the next. It has this ambitious, experimental quality that can still surprise you today, even if you’ve played hundreds of shooters since.

Q: John Blade, Elexis Sinclaire, and JC are memorable characters from the original game. Did you make any changes to their presentation, dialogue, models, or characterization for SiN Reloaded?

A: One of the mandates I proposed to the team was bringing the in-game character models closer to their appearance in the cinematics. There was a dramatic difference between the two in the original game, largely because of the technical limitations of the time, so this felt like an area where we could make a meaningful improvement without changing the characters themselves. I think the new models make a huge difference to the overall presentation while still looking unmistakably like the characters people remember.

Q: How much attention has been given to the game’s AI, enemy behavior, weapon handling, and environmental interaction? Were these areas preserved closely or substantially improved?

A: Our starting point is always preservation, particularly with systems like enemy behavior and weapon handling where seemingly small changes can dramatically alter how a game feels. We’ve fixed issues and made improvements where appropriate, but we aren’t trying to redesign SiN’s combat to behave like a modern shooter. The environmental interaction in particular is one of the things that made SiN remarkable in 1998, so preserving all of those little details and making sure they work correctly was incredibly important to us.

Q: What is your favorite part of this game that you were involved with?

A: My favorite part was reaching out to the original developers and hearing their stories about making SiN—their inspirations, their ambitions, what went right, what went wrong, and everything in between. These people were trailblazers, and I don’t believe they’ve received enough credit for the artistry and influence they left behind. That’s become one of the most rewarding parts of what we do at Nightdive: not simply preserving the games, but shining a light on the people who created them during an extraordinary period of passion, experimentation and creativity in this industry.

The post appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Limited Run Games and Telltale Bring The Expanse: A Telltale Series To Physical Media On PlayStation®5 and Nintendo® Switch

Pre-orders for the critically acclaimed sci-fi narrative prequel are open now!

Limited Run Games, a premium publisher of physical video games, announced today that time-limited pre-orders for the sci-fi narrative adventure The Expanse: A Telltale Series are still open for PlayStation®5 and Nintendo® Switch, with the time-limited period ending on October 4th.

Beloved storytellers Telltale has upped the excitement and intrigue in this mysterious series of expeditions, set in the unforgiving brutality of space. Within these five episodes of atmospheric sci-fi, players will don the spacesuit of one of the beloved show’s key characters, Camina Drummer, voiced by returning show star Cara Gee. Hop aboard spaceship The Artemis and embark on a perilous adventure set before the events of the television series.

In this narrative-driven title the universe has yet to experience civilization being flipped on its side by The Ring, a massive, alien megastructure that acts as a stable wormhole portal to a vast network of star systems.

In the hostile, zero-g environment, players will need to make difficult, world-changing decisions that decide the fate of their crew and everyone around them, while at the same time embarking on scavenging missions and combating terrifying pirates who have their eyes on your precious loot.

There are no easy choices in a Telltale title, but every decision will have consequences…and players will have to guide Camina through a landscape shaped by the choices they make.

To commemorate the physical edition of The Expanse: A Telltale Series Limited Run Games has included the game case, with special cover art, the game disc or cartridge, and an eight-page booklet for an MSRP of of $39.99  / £40.00 / €44.95 / $56.99 CAD.

Pre orders for The Expanse: A Telltale Series are open right now and will finish on October 4, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET (3:59 AM UTC October 5, 2026) at https://limitedrungames.com/products/the-expanse-a-telltale-series-standard-edition-switch-ps5

-Brave space and buckle up, beltalowda because it’s gonna be a wild ride.

The post Limited Run Games and Telltale Bring The Expanse: A Telltale Series To Physical Media On PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Captain Barrel is available now! A must get for anyone looking to recapture the good ol’ days of the NEO GEO and classic arcade gaming!

CLICK HERE

Captain Barrel combines classic arcade platforming with an unique treasure hunting twist! Slash your way through enemies, trap them in barrels then kick them across the stage! Utilize precise movement in order to navigate the colorful levels that is packed with both hazards and secrets.

With hidden treasures to uncover, challenging stages to conquer, and a gameplay loop that’s easy to pick up but rewarding to master, Captain Barrel has something to offer both newcomers and longtime retro gaming fans.

Ready for some old school arcade action? Pick up your physical copy of Captain Barrel today!

FEATURES:

• Fast Paced Platformer
• 32 levels across four worlds
• 8 difficulty levels
• 2-player alternating competitive modes

TO ORDER

Captain Barrel is just one of the many games included in our recent wave of Dreamcast reprints and new physical releases. We’re proud to help preserve the legacy of the Dreamcast by continuing to produce physical games for the system more than 20 years after its original release.

The post INTRODUCING CAPTAIN BARREL, AN ACTION PACKED, NEO GEO INSPIRED PLATFORMER GAME FOR THE DREAMCAST! appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Earlier today Bitmap Books confirmed via their website that their new title The Arcade 1971–1999: The Stories Behind Classic Coin-Ops, Told by Their Creators by Paul Drury will be available for purchase on October 1st. A source close to the publication has also informed Old School Gamer Magazine that a pre-order window will open a couple of days before the official launch for those interested readers who want to be sure they’re at the front of the queue. As Paul Drury, and Bitmap Books, are both located in the United Kingdom, readers in other parts of the world will likely have to wait a moment in any case to receive their copy.

Now confirmed for a length of over 400 pages, The Arcade 1971–1999 profiles 120 classic coin-op titles. Among the many stories discussed, Drury identifies via interviews with original developers the answers to questions such as who actually created Donkey Kong, how Q*bert learned to swear, what really happened on the night when the very first Pong machine was placed in Andy Capp’s Tavern, and why Ms. Pac-Man was originally a man called Otto. Personal photos, design sketches, coding notes and all manner of ‘behind the scenes’ material are also included in the book which has been developed in a high-quality lithographic print.

Among the industry luminaries giving firsthand information are Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell and Eugene Jarvis of Defender and Robotron, who wrote the foreword and afterward respectively. The Arcade 1971–1999: The Stories Behind Classic Coin-Ops, Told by Their Creators is being sold on the Bitmap Books website for $48. Purchasers will also receive a free full PDF copy as they wait for their physical book to arrive in the mail.

The post The Arcade 1971-1999 by Paul Drury to release next week from Bitmap Books appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Retailing for $49.99, the game is currently available for pre-order on the Strictly Limited Games website, which promises “more vibrant levels and classic platforming action.”

The first game in the series developed a cult following amid the mascot platform made of the mid 90s, but the sequel was never released on the Genesis.

What do you think of the news? Will you pick up Mr. Nutz: Hoppin Mad physically when it’s available? Sign off in the comment section below and let us know!

The post Genesis/Mega Drive to Get Physical Edition of Mr. Nutz 2: Hoppin Mad in Early 2027 appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

IGN admitted they weren’t too excited about the project, but now find themselves as big fans.

“Having seen the entire first season, I can say that Golden Axe is certainly doing what you’d expect, as it takes the characters and concepts from the 1989 SEGA game and its sequels and remixes them into a decidedly wacky, high energy cartoon,” IGN’s Eric Goldman said in his review. “But after some initial bumps in the road, the series gradually grew on me through its ten episodes thanks to some solid laughs, great voice acting, and its overall good nature.”

Just like IGN, JoBlo wasn’t a fan through the first few episodes, but that’s not the case anymore.

However, as the plot progressed, the method to the madness became clear,” JoBlo’s Steve Seigh said. “By the mid-season mark, the show had fully found its footing and had me completely along for the ride.

Of all of the praise though, Grant Hermanns from Screen Rant was the most positive.

“Arguably, the best way that Golden Axe incites its gut-busting laughs is through its meta humor and Easter eggs from the classic SEGA franchise,” he said.

Have you watched Golden Axe on Paramount+ yet? If so, what did you think? Sound off in the comment section below and let us know!

The post Golden Axe Cartoon Getting Rave Early Reviews appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

According on a release on Plaion UK’s X account, the console won’t be available until September 27, 2027.

That ten-month delay comes due to supply chain issues, thanks to high-demand and a shortage of necessary Ram chips needed to support the device.

Arguably considered one of the best consoles for 2D fighters and arcade ports, the release of AES+ will eventually be a moment tons of gamers have waited for. For their patience, Plaion has promised a “Founding Supporter Bonus,” to those who pre-ordered the system.

How do you feel about the news? Will it impact your decision to purchase the console? Sound off in the comment section below and let us know.

The post Supply Chain Issues Delay NEOGEO AES+ Console Release appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

Highlights
Definitive Franchise Chronicle A complete, richly detailed exploration of the Resident Evil series, covering every mainline game, spin-off, remake, and key piece of lore from 1996 to the present day.
Exclusive pictures, Includes a selection of high-quality screenshots, rare promotional images, and previously unseen photographs sourced from collectors, influencers, and content creators across YouTube and Instagram.

Comprehensive Character & Creature Bios, Features detailed profiles of every major hero, villain, B.O.W., as well as supporting characters.
Collector’s Essential Companion The perfect reference guide for long-time fans, newcomers, and collectors.
Voices of the Community Features contributions from major Resident Evil fans, YouTubers, and Instagram influencers sharing their favourite games, moments, and characters.

Step inside the world’s most iconic survival horror video game series, Resident Evil, From the eerie halls of the Spencer Mansion to the decaying streets of Raccoon City. From the isolated Spanish mountains to secret underground labs, Resident Evil has reigned supreme for the last 30 years. This book covers every major entry, spin-off, and remake across the long running franchise. Exploring, characters, creatures, and unstoppable bioweapons.
Featuring exclusive images, rare promotional material and unseen photographs from fans and collectors worldwide, a book by fans, for fans. Inside, you’ll uncover detailed character bios, timeline breakdowns, and insights drawn from first-hand interviews with leading Resident Evil influencers. Every page celebrates the imagination, desire, and enduring legacy of Capcom’s bestselling survival horror saga.
Whether you first faced the shambling undead on the original PlayStation back in 1996 or survived the nightmare years later. This book is the ultimate love letter to the games, the lore, and the fans who continue to keep the flame alive.
So, grab that green herb, pick up that shotgun and don’t forget your lockpick.

NEW BOOK RELEASE
RRP: £29.99
ISBN: 9781036113353
200 PAGES   ·   HARDBACK
PUBLISHED: SEPTEMBER
2026
WHITE OWL

It’s time to enter the world of… RESIDENT EVIL!
About the Author
An avid gamer of over 30 years Tommy’s passion for gaming started from an early age, something he is still fascinated by. When he’s not gaming or writing he enjoys, creating and recording his own music as well as flying drones, working out and going on adventures with his beautiful dog Indy. When that’s all said and done, there’s nothing better he likes doing than sitting down and getting lost in the world of video games!

The post The History of Resident Evil appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.