Bargain game publisher Majesco released a version of the classic game Frogger for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1998. By then, every other publisher had moved on from the 16-bit game platform to shiny new CD-ROM systems like PlayStation. Frogger was the last game released for the Super Nintendo in America.
Until now.
Some enterprising companies have released new games for the old system, feeding the growing market for classic games. The most prominent of these new releases is Nightmare Busters, a two-player action game created in 1994 but unpublished until last month. Super Fighter Team opened up preorders and processed everyone’s $68 payment in February, 2012, and it took until now to finally ship out the games.
As one of those early customers, I finally got my copy in the mail and I’m pretty happy with the final product. The box, instruction manual and liner tray look and feel pretty damn close to an original Super Nintendo game’s packaging. I have some bootleg game releases with boxes printed on white cardstock, but Nightmare Busters uses brown cardboard like legit SNES boxes, so that when you look at it from the inside it looks identical to the real thing. It’s the smallest detail but it makes a big difference. The cartridge itself is shaped so that it fits into any region SNES or Super Famicom system.
Nightmare Busters is an interesting product of an increasingly globalized game culture. It was created in Europe, and the leprechauns and trolls that populate it are drawn in a distinctly continental comic art style. But the gameplay is clearly an homage to the Japanese run-and-gun shooter, something more along the lines of Gunstar Heroes or Contra. You pound on the Y button to fling a rapid-fire spray of playing cards at your enemies, and you’ve got to constantly be shooting if you want to survive.