Sony stole the nostalgia thunder at E3 this year by finally announcing the Final Fantasy VII remake that fans have been waiting for since approximately the dawn of time itself, but each of the big three has pulled on their share of nostalgia strings since Sunday—and Nintendo’s not even done yet—so let’s take a look at our favorite blasts from the past.
There it is—in all its glory—looking like a sequence straight out of the original’s CGI sequel, Advent Children: the Final Fantasy VII Remake. It looks like that’s the working title at this point, but that can (hopefully) still change. It also looks like the game will be coming to Xbox One and PC as well, since the text at the end reads (emphasis ours) “Play it first on PS4.” I’m sad for Sony that this won’t be an exclusive, because that could be huge for the PS4, but I’m definitely not sad for the fans who might be able to save some money if they’re not on the PlayStation train in this console generation.
Over the years, as fans have begged for this game to happen, Square Enix representatives have mentioned that they’d have to put great care into this remake, and we can’t help but wonder exactly how they’ll update the game’s decidedly old-school RPG mechanics. It did come out 18 years ago, after all.
The Nintendo World Championships on Sunday night—last held 25 years ago—was an event to behold in its entirety with tons of Nintendo games and Reggie finally getting the Smash Bros. match he called out pro-Smasher HungryBox for at last year’s Smash Bros. invitational (and getting his butt kicked), but upcoming Wii U game Super Mario Maker brought the nostalgia like no other with a punishing take on Mario Bros.‘ world 1-1. Check it out in the video above, where you can also watch the entire event if you’ve got the time.
Microsoft had maybe its most “how could Nintendo let Rare get away” moment in the years since they acquired the game developer in the announcement of Rare Replay, a compilation of 30 classic Rare games including fan-favorites Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, Battletoads, and more—all for only $30 on August 4. Microsoft also announced that the Xbox One would be getting backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games, and considering that console hit shelves ten years ago, that feature will bring nostalgia all by itself.
Also on Sunday, Nintendo announced that they’d bring the previously Japan-only NES title known commonly as “Earthbound 0“—Mother in Japan—to their US eShop as Earthbound Beginnings. Its sequel, Earthbound (Mother 2), has become a rare classic on the SNES with bigger visibility in recent years with its main character, Ness, being included as a fighter in Super Smash Bros. Hopefully, this means Earthbound‘s relatively recent sequel, Mother 3, which Nintendo joked about at last year’s E3, will finally be coming stateside as well.
Do you remember the Dreamcast? Sega’s failed 2000 console that was their last before departing the hardware game? It still had some classic games, and Shenmue was one of them. A slow moving genre all its own, Shenmue‘s fate seemed mostly tied to the failed game system as it managed only a single sequel after Dreamcast‘s death that left fans to wonder forever where the series’ cinematic story was actually going.
Wonder no more! Shenmue 3 was revealed as a Kickstarter during Sony’s E3 conference last night, and it’s already attained 1.25 times its original $2 million goal, in case anyone doubted that gamers would buy another Shenmue sequel.
Of course, with so many sequels and other announcements, there’s no doubt that if you’re reading this, there were a few more games that set off some nostalgic feelings. Let us know what they were in the comments!
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