Last week, Blizzard released the Blizzard Arcade Collection on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. It includes three retro titles for a surprisingly high price.
Retro game compilations are not always as good of a value as, say, Rare Replay, which includes an impressive number of high-quality games. Some of them carry a premium, especially when they are limited physical editions. For instance, Turrican Flashback includes four games for $30, but it is a physical edition from Strictly Limited Games.
Retro game re-releases tend to be even more expensive when hardware is involved. For instance, the Game Gear Micro costs about $45 a piece for four separate models that include only four games each. (Currently, it’s only available in Japan.) Nintendo launched the Game and Watch: Super Mario Bros. with one game for $45. And, of course, Sony found out the hard way that the $100 PlayStation Classic was overpriced.
So it’s not like $20 for Blizzard Arcade Collection is outrageously outside of the norm, but it is still overpriced in my book. You’re only getting The Lost Vikings, Rock N Roll Racing, and Blackthorne. None of these are even close to the same level of notoriety as classic Nintendo, Sega, or even PlayStation games, either.
A little history
The Lost Vikings was first released back in 1993 on the Super Nintendo. It was later ported to the Sega Genesis. It was popular enough that a sequel, The Lost Vikings 2, came out in 1997. This is probably Blizzard’s most notable console release of the 1990s.
Rock N Roll Racing is a racing game with vehicular combat. It also came out in 1993 for the SNES and was ported to the Sega Genesis. The game includes songs like Steppenwolf’s Born to be Wild and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid.
Perhaps the least notable of the three games in the Arcade Collection is Blackthorne, which is known as Blackhawk in Europe. This platformer came out in the mid-90s on SNES, Sega 32X, MS-DOS, and Mac. Game Boy Advance ports for all threes games were released in 2003.
It’s worth noting that none of these games were released in arcades. So I’m not exactly sure why it’s called Blizzard Arcade Collection.
‘Enhanced’ editions
To be clear, Blizzard Arcade Collection does offer some enhancements. For instance, they include both the original and “enhanced” versions of the games with special effects and higher resolutions. Rock N Roll Racing also has new songs while Blackthorne has a new level map. As a bonus, you get digital manuals, classic artwork, and interviews with the developers.
Is that really enough, though? It isn’t for me.
