Sega Mega Drive owners rejoice: El Viento and Sol-Deace are the latest games to get physical releases on cartridge. And in boxes.
Retro-Bit, a company which has form when it comes to dusting off games from the past, has announced that two more titles are getting a physical re-release for the Sega Mega Drive or Genesis.
El Viento and Sol-Deace, both titles from plucky Japanese developer Wolf Team, will be reissued later this year (or early next) as separate cartridges. Each will get the now familiar Retro-Bit treatment, with the Mega Drive’s classic clamshell cases, reversible sleeves, manuals, slip-cases and even a double-sided poster in the case of Sol-Deace.
Of the two, El Viento is perhaps the best known. An action-platformer in the Strider mould, it was released in Japan and the United States but never made it to Europe. The Japanese version was marked out by some eye-catching, manga-style cover art by Kazutoshi Yamane – something conspicuous by its absence on the gaudier US cover. This was, remember, back when western marketing types thought that nobody outside Japan liked manga or anime. How wrong they were.
Credit: Retro-Bit Games.
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Sol-Deace, meanwhile, is a no-frills side-scrolling shoot-’em-up, confusingly released as Sol-Feace for the X68000 computer in Japan. It was later ported to the Sega Mega-CD, and then converted to cartridge format for the Sega Genesis, where it was mysteriously renamed Sol-Deace.
Both games are solid if a little rough around the edges, and they’re a left-field choice of re-releases from Retro-Bit. Its previous releases, including Mega Man: The Wily Wars, Gaiares and a quartet of Toaplan shooters, were all genuine cult classics. Sol-Deace and El Viento don’t quite have the same aura around them, though the latter is certainly sought-after by collectors, partly thanks to that manga artwork and its goofy, Lovecraft-meets-1920s-gangsters premise.
Retro-Bit Mega Drive releases always have something going for them, though, and we’re particularly taken by El Viento’s shocking pink translucent cartridge.
El Viento and Sol-Deace are available to pre-order from Retro-Bit and Limited Run Games for $54.99 (€69,99, £43-ish) each. Orders are open until 30 July.
