Starshi, developer of the fan-made Mario game Super Mario & The Rainbow Stars, has announced that a second chapter is coming in 2026. The announcement follows two years of teasers and previews for the project. The new chapter introduces a character called Ralle. The game itself is a PC fangame that has been in development for several years and has built up a following among Mario fans. via timeextension.com
A new "Under the Microscope" feature looks at Ecco Jr., the 1995 Sega Genesis game aimed at younger players, to see whether it hides debug functionality behind cheat codes like the mainline Ecco the Dolphin titles. The article notes that cheat codes for the main Genesis Ecco games have been known for decades, while codes for the PC and Dreamcast entries were uncovered more recently. Ecco Jr. was a simplified spin-off of the Ecco the Dolphin series, designed to be more accessible for younger players than the original games. via segabits.com
Footage purporting to show an unannounced remake of Atlus' Revelations: Persona has surfaced online this weekend. The two-minute clip shows reimagined cutscenes, world exploration and battle scenes drawn from the original 1996 PlayStation RPG, the first entry in what became the Shin Megami Tensei: Persona series. Despite a polished presentation convincing enough to initially pass as legitimate, the video reportedly contains several shortcuts and inconsistencies suggesting it may not be genuine. No remake of the game has been officially announced by Atlus. via timeextension.com
The NESCD project adds CD-ROM functionality to the original Nintendo Entertainment System through a custom hardware add-on. It allows the console to play CD-ROM based games as well as handle music, video experiments, and standard audio CD playback. The add-on effectively turns the classic 8-bit console into a disc player, expanding its capabilities well beyond its original cartridge-only design. via console-classics.com
Swedish woodworker Love Hultén has built a custom sound station for Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor that combines an analog synth rig with a working Atari 2600+ console. The one-off unit features a cartridge slot on the front panel and a small monitor mounted on top, letting the console run alongside the synth hardware. The Atari 2600+ is a modern reissue of Atari's classic 1977 console, designed to play original cartridges. via yankodesign.com
Homebrew developer Kaffeeware has released a playable v0.1 demo of a SNES port of Konami's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, originally released in 1997 on PlayStation and Saturn. The developer says the conversion is being done "by eye" without AI assistance, though they are looking at decompilation sources to improve accuracy. Kaffeeware intends to keep native SNES specs but expects to need a larger ROM size to fit the full game. The demo has drawn attention online for how polished it already looks at this early stage. via timeextension.com
A new version of the AmiKit X Workbench distribution, X13.2, has been released for Amiga and Amiga emulation setups. It includes Wet 7, a revamped weather utility that shows local conditions via a desktop AppIcon, and PlayKIT, a tool that lets users adjust JIT, speed and control settings per game or demo before launch, with those preferences remembered for future runs. The update also folds in ShareKIT, a network file-sharing tool that lets Amiga systems swap files with other computers regardless of operating system, plus an updated mpega.library 3.1 audio component. AmiKit X is a preconfigured Workbench package aimed at making classic AmigaOS easier to set up and use. via amiga-news.de
Ján Zahurančík, creator of the AmiKit Workbench distribution, has released a new tool called ShareKIT. It allows direct data exchange between Amiga, Windows, Mac and Linux computers over a local network, without needing a cloud service, internet connection or USB stick. A connection is set up by launching ShareKIT on one machine and entering the displayed network address in a browser on the other, after which files can be transferred by drag and drop to multiple computers at once. The tool also supports clipboard sharing for text and file transfers of up to 4GB, though folder transfers are not supported. via amiga-news.de
Pokémon Phoenix Red, a fan-made ROM hack, has been updated to version 2.0, announced by its creator on PokeCommunity as a major update to their first-ever hack. The update adds 54 new Pokémon to the roster for a total of 386, gives TMs unlimited use, and lets players choose two of Professor Oak's starter Pokémon instead of one. It also reworks the intro, moving much of Oak's speech into an optional in-game journal, and adds new sprite designs for Red and Blue's children. The hack is built on the Generation 1 Pokémon games for Game Boy. via pokecommunity.com
Games That Weren't has published research into Psychasm, an unreleased action game that was in development at Inscape around 1995. Inscape was the studio behind CD-ROM titles such as The Dark Eye, Drowned God and Bad Day on the Midway, but almost nothing had previously been documented about Psychasm before it disappeared without release. The project came to light thanks to researcher JomSpoons, who uncovered rare references to the game and tracked down composer Glenn Scott Lacey, who had worked on its music and audio. via gamesthatwerent.com
A new menu has been released for 3DO optical disc emulator (ODE) devices, covering Fixel's internal FZ-1 ODE as well as the external XPort unit. These ODE solutions let 3DO owners load games from USB or SD card storage rather than original discs, with reports of good compatibility and reasonably quick load times. The new menu software aims to improve how users navigate and select games on these setups. The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer was a multimedia console released in the 1990s that relied on CD-based media, making ODE mods popular among current owners for faster and more convenient game loading. via retrorgb.com
Dirk Hoffmann has released the final version 5.0 of vAmiga, his Amiga emulator for macOS. The update includes updated API documentation and introduces a new "CPU_START_DELAY" option, which lets users offset the CPU start relative to the beam. vAmiga is a cycle-accurate emulator aiming to faithfully reproduce classic Amiga hardware behaviour on modern Macs. via amiga-news.de
