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Castlevania, Contra and Arcade Classics Collections are coming to PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch courtesy of Konami, celebrating 50 years of arcade gaming!
First up, the Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection is released on April 18th (Euro price only given so far: €19.99) which contains eight ported titles along with an in-game Bonus Book showing concept sketches from the development of each titles, and the first ones up are:
- Haunted Castle
Typhoon (aka A-Jax)
Nemesis (also known as Gradius)
Vulcan Venture (also known as Gradius II)
Life Force (also known as Salamander)
Thunder Cross
Scramble
TwinBee
The Castlevania series follows the epic story of the Belmont Clan and their struggle with Dracula and his cadre of sinister minions. The Castlevania Anniversary Collection will contain titles from the series including Castlevania, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, Super Castlevania IV, Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge with more to be announced. As part of the collection players can access an in-game Bonus Book that includes early developer notes and an interview with Adi Shankar, a producer on the animated series.
Last but not least, after more than 30 years since its debut, the Contra franchise has defined the run-and gun genre. The Contra Anniversary Collection will bring classic Contra titles previously released on arcade and console units including Contra (arcade version), Super Contra (arcade version), Super C, Contra III: The Alien Wars and more. In the collection, fans can access an in-game Bonus Book documenting the history of Contra and see how the franchise rose to prominence over the decades and became the beloved series it is today.
These latter two will be released in early Summer 2019, and more info will come soon including news of additional titles, celebrating Konami’s 50th anniversary.
Sadly, there’s no physical release for any of these, as I’d love those, but you will be able to buy them digitally from the respective online stores.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.