Retro Moments - April 2003

Want to say thanks to who did check out last months go at a monthly retro themed thread, I don't think it was that good looking back as like I said I was multi-format guy and have been since the 5th gen that my knowledge on just NGamer or whoever is not the best and not sure where the best place to find all the info, that I'm trying something a bit different .

April 9th saw a few releases involving cars with Midnight Club II for PS2, 2 months before the Xbox version of the racer from Rockstar San Diego, the excellent Burnout 2: Point of Impact made its way to GameCube 8 months after the PS2 release but a month before the Xbox version. I waited for the Xbox version for me is the second best Burnout behind Paradise and to keep Cappa happy Crazy Taxi came to GBA with Catch a Ride, I hear it's bad.

Moving forward a week we got the game pictured at the start Golden Sun: The Lost Age for GBA, which I really want to see a comeback for Switch. A Dreamcast classic ported to the GameCube with Ikaruga and we saw Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee come to Xbox, this I played on Cube and it often got played along with SMASH and Double Dash.

Rounding out the month we got a Siren AKA Forbidden Siren on PS2 from Project Siren AKA Team Gravity, this is one of the few Survival Horror games I've not played and one that I'd like to give ago and very much the sort of thing I picked up a PS2 for recently even with it being on PS4 via PS2 Classics. We also got Ninja Cop AKA Ninja Five-O on GBA from Hudson and it seems it was well received critically but I've never heard of it.

Much like this months games of 2018 not lot came out but what did was pretty decent also PEGI ratings started in April that year.

As soon as I beat Golden Sun on the Wii U VC, I downloaded The Lost Age. I might even have played it up to the first opportunity to save... but very much not beyond that.

Ikaruga - What a game! I did have it on the gamecube but had to punt it at some point (something I've always regretted) & I'd do god knows what to have it on the Switch.

I don't think I played Midnight Club II, but Midnight Club 3 was a game I enjoyed a lot. It had all that NFS Underground customisation but was actually fun to play.

Had Burnout 2 on the Xbox too - brilliant game that was quickly overtaken (or taken down?) by it's sequel. The crash mode levels are still something I remember.

I played Ikaruga on the Dreamcast but it's a game genre I've never had the talent or patience for. Would love to try Ninja Five-O or Golden Sun but don't think I was heavily in to the GBA at the time.

Ikaruga is something I really should own on my Dreamcast but I've not got many Japanese imports for the system in general. I do have it on Cube but a Switch version would be cool as could play it easily in tate mode.

Ikaruga was one that I checked out on XBLA when it was ported across to that back in the day. Brutal, but cracking.

Funnily enough, my first exposure to it was through its boss battle theme being used in that stupidly tough indie platformer I Wanna Be The Guy.

Apparently a re-release is on it's way to ps4, I still hope it comes to Switch.

https://www.vg247.com/2018/03/27/ikaruga-ps4-german-rating-board/

You might be in luck Jas