Play Asia

Taito EGRET II Mini Arcade – It’s So Awesome

March 15, 2022 By ausretrogamer

When the Taito Egret II Mini was announced in 2021, our collective jaws dropped at this cute and awesome little arcade unit. The Egret II was packed with Taito’s greatest arcade hits, which was a good start. But that wasn’t all! To differentiate itself from the Sega Astro City Mini and any other mini arcade unit on the market, Taito’s offering had a rotating screen (just like its big brother), so you could play games in either TATE (portrait) or landscape (horizontal) orientation – how clever and awesome is that?!

You turn me on!

The games menu is quite intuitive. The orientation of the game is also depicted, which is a great feature

The downside to all this great news was that the Egret II Mini was only going to be available to a limited set of countries for pre-orders. But, we managed to get our hands on the Taito Egret II Mini, and we must say, this thing is so cool and oozes quality – everything looks and feels top notch! The rotating screen is something to behold and feels industrial grade, which is a relief. The other great feature is the ability to switch and lock the joystick in 4-way mode or the usual 8-way – this makes a big difference for games that only have four directions of play!

8-Way or 4-Way – another neat feature!

Taito’s Egret II Mini comes pre-installed with 40 games (see list below), from platformers, shoot’em ups to puzzle, beat’em ups and fighting games to keep you entertained. There are bound to be games you like in Taito’s stable of arcade hits that come with this mini arcade unit. We absolutely love Bubble Bobble, Tatsujin (aka: Truxton), Elevator Action Returns, Rastan Saga and The New Zealand Story to name just a few.

Horizontal? No way!

You spin me right ’round, baby, right ’round

Vertical – that’s much better!

Taito Egret II mini vs Sega Astro City mini: Both are darn cute & awesome!

An essential purchase with the Egret II Mini is the paddle and trackball games expansion set, which incudes the aforementioned paddle and trackball controller and an additional 10 games on an SD card! Speaking of which, we can’t wait to see what the clever modders out there will do with the SD card slot on the Egret II.

It is still early days playing on our Egret II Mini, but so far during this honeymoon period, we love it. This mini arcade unit is packed with great games and feels pretty good to play on. Let’s be honest, this thing is great, but its price does cause a wince. The standard Egret II mini is approx. AU$280 and above (depending on the exchange rate) and that is without shipping. If you want the limited edition (blue joystick top and blue fire buttons), then you pretty much double the price of the standard unit, but we reckon save your dollars and stick with the standard if you really got to have the Taito Egret II mini.

For anyone in Australia looking to get the Taito EGRET II Mini, check them out on Play Asia!

We love the little extras we got with our Taito EGRET II mini

Egret II specs and features:

40 pre-installed games, including arcade classics
Special in-game features like: Save states, adjustable lives and rapid-fire
5-inch 4:3 rotating monitor (1024×768 resolution) for horizontal and vertical alignment and an optimal adaptation to the selected game
6-button arcade layout and joystick that is individually adjustable for each game – easily switch from 8 directions to 4 directions
HDMI output to also play the games on newer TVs
SD card slot to add more games
Own integrated sound through stereo speakers
Two USB Type-A controller ports for the additional, optional EGRET II mini controllers
Power Source: Above 5V/2.4A (12W)

Games:

image source: ININ Games

1/12 Retro Upright Arcade Cabinet TAITO Set

June 2, 2020 By ausretrogamer

We are suckers for anything that gives us a hit of nostalgia. This officially licensed 1/12 Retro Upright Cabinet TAITO Set has certainly hit our nostalgic spot! These 1/12 scale arcade cabinets definitely bring back that familiarity in playing these machines back in the day.

The awesome bit of kit comes complete with wooden cutouts for the arcade cabinets, cabinet colour artwork, game screens and control panel cards for three of TAITO’s arcade games; KiKi KaiKai, Bubble Bobble and Elevator Action. These are so darn cute!

Product: 1/12 Retro Upright Cabinet TAITO Set
Store: Play Asia
Price: US$17.99 / AU$28.34

image source: Play Asia

The Mid-Year Sale Madness

June 1, 2020 By ausretrogamer

We love this time of year as it is the start of the month long mid-year sales! So get your wallets, purses, credit and debit cards ready!

Amazon Australia has kicked off their mid-year sale with discounted products across many categories, including video games, toys, electronics and computer & accessories that scratch our mid-year sale itch.

If you are anything like us, then you keep one eye on eBay every day just in case you find that item you’ve been searching for (for) ages or some bargain deal that satisfies your sales hunger. During this last month of the tax year (June), eBay will be running their The Best of EOFY Sale – with their top EOFY Sale picks here.

Ah yeah, Play-Asia always gets our buying heart racing! Their daily and weekly deals are pretty good, but it is their massive range that gets us excited. Their current sale of in stock items is worth a look, and if that doesn’t thrill you, then perhaps their awesome retro gaming range will – it is full of intoxicating nostalgia!

Next cab of the sales rank is Ozgameshop! They have a lot of perpetual sales, but it’s their clearance sale across all of their departments that has captured our attention.

Ah yeah, Catch.com.au! Catch is another one that loves their perpetual category sales, so you have to be vigilant when great savings are advertised, like the EOFY (End of Financial Year) Home Office blow-out sale – perfect for those that are working from home! The other one that caught our eye is their Heroic Brands up to 50% off sale.

Last but not least, it is Etsy! There are plenty of retro gaming or pinball related sales on right now. We love Etsy, as most sellers make unique items that are hand made and exudes coolness. Hit Etsy now, as you may find something awesome and help out a creator in the process.

Old School Gaming is Back On Your SNES and Super Famicom!

July 10, 2018 By ausretrogamer

There is no stopping the retro gaming renaissance!

If you still have your Super Famicom or Super Nintendo (SNES) handy, then you’ll be happy to know that there are games being re-released on Nintendo’s 16-bit powerhouse!

First cab off the retro gaming rank is the side-scrolling beat’em up, Super Double Dragon / Return of Double Dragon. This exclusive title is available in Japanese (Super Famicom) and English/US (SNES).

This legendary series follows the young twin brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee, who run a martial arts dojo. Their friend Marian disappears, so we reckon you know the rest of that story of what they need to do to save her.

The player controls either of the (suped-up) Lee brothers. There are seven stages including a strewn of extra stages so your fighting reflexes will need to be sharp. Don’t fret, as your fighters have 30 special moves with power gauges to engage in powerful techniques. Oh yeah, if fighting cleanly doesn’t work, then you can throw items such as barrels, stones, knives, bombs, and boomerangs – woohoo, we love dirty fighting!

If you want some action for your Super Famicom / SNES and you are ready to rescue Marian, go ahead and pre-order Return Of Double Dragon!

Pre-Order Links:

Super Famicom – Return Of Double Dragon (Expected to ship: Jul 19, 2018)
SNES – Return Of Double Dragon (Expected to ship: Aug 21, 2018)

image source: Play Asia

Japanese Game Localisation: English games releasing in Asia

January 5, 2018 By ausretrogamer

image source: Play-Asia

We often think about localisation of video games being one-way, Japanese to English, but what about localising English games to Japanese? There is also ‘Culturalisation’ of video games to consider too. All this and more is discussed in this excellent blog post on Play-Asia. Take a read!

The Retro Freak: It’s Freakin Awesome

November 25, 2016 By ausretrogamer

When we received the Retro Freak console from Play-Asia, we put our thinking cap on to try and find a way to review the unit objectively. Our thinking cap must’ve worked, as we came up with an ingenious idea – take the Retro Freak to the biggest gaming expo in the southern hemisphere, PAX Aus 2016!

By having the Retro Freak available to play at PAX Aus, it gave us the opportunity to observe attendees playing on the console and gauge their unfiltered and objective feedback. With thousands in attendance, we weren’t short of people having a go. There were youngsters and older players, families and couples all having a go. The overwhelming responses from players was, “What is this console?”, “Where can I get one?” and “How much is it?”.

Play your old school carts on the Retro Freak!

For those that are not aware, this awesome console from Cyber Gadget allows you to play your original game cartridges/cards from your Famicom, SNES/Super Famicom, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16, SuperGrafx, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. By supporting these legacy systems, the Retro Freak ensures that you only need the one console setup in your games room to play all of your favourite classic titles! Hooray, you can finally declutter!

Let’s put on scanlines!

We love the clean and easy-to-use interface

The Retro Freak pumps out its audio visuals via HDMI, supporting 720p upscaling, which makes your old school games look great on newer TVs – so no more needing that 20 year old CRT TV! Well, we would suggest that you still hold onto your CRT TV *winks*. The other cool features that will freak you out (in a good way) include; filters, backing up of games from cartridge onto the console (on MicroSD card), instant save states and cheat codes (for certain games).

For control, there is the pack-in SNES-style controller, which does the job well, or if you prefer, modern gamepads such as the DualShock 3 and DualShock 4 can also be used (via USB). The Retro Freak Premium pack ships with a controller adaptor that supports Famicom/NES, Super Famicom/SNES, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, and PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 controllers. If you prefer bluetooth control (perhaps you dislike wires!), you can procure the 8bitdo Retro Receiver, plug it into the controller adaptor and use any one of your PS3, PS4, WiiMote or Wii U controllers you may have lying around. Oh yeah, you can re-map controller buttons to suit your style! We love the flexibility that the Freak provides!

The pack-in controller does the job! At least the USB cable is 1.8M!

One side of the Controller Adaptor – connect your fave gamepads!

Other side of the Controller Adaptor reveals more classic controller ports!

So how does it compare to playing on the real hardware? We threw all kinds of games at the Freak, and it ran them without a hitch. We didn’t encounter any incompatibility issues, which ensured we didn’t rage quit and turn off the console. The transferring of original game cartridge data to MicroSD is as easy as breathing, thanks to the user friendly interface. One niggle we did have was with Cyber Gadget’s support page being in Japanese – it made it difficult to ascertain the firmware and application updates required to ensure the Retro Freak was up to date. Google did came to the rescue here by pointing us to a forum that had the instructions in English on how to upgrade the firmware.

The elephant in the room is the obvious comparison to the RetroN5. With quality issues hampering the RetroN5, we know which system we would prefer to use – if only the Retro Freak was as good looking as the RetroN5! If you want to be able to archive your original game carts and declutter by only having one console to play your classic games on, then you can’t go wrong with the Retro Freak!

If you are keen to check out the Retro Freak console, then head to Play-Asia now.

Play Operation Wolf straight from the PC-Engine HuCard, OR…