Very late game releases

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

I just learned of this one for the NES/Famicon that was released in 2021

And of course Shantae is a pretty solid example. What are some other ones? I'm genuinely curious, I might check them out.

 

[Glimbo]

Homebrew and aftermarket games get released fairly often. Most of them can be found on itch.io and Steam. I made a post in this thread with some interesting ones.

There's also Earthion which is coming out soon for Sega Genesis. Looks great.

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

Kirby's adventure and most mega man nes games

 

[sijaab]

the ONLY good theatrical pixar spin-off planes: fire and rescue was supposed get a ds game... IN 2014!!!
it got canned but we did get a seemingly complete prototype

 

[Zerohour2k12]

There's a lot and a whole series of Game Sack eps on these but what keeps coming up is XenoCrisis.

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

You can use Gamefaqs for this.
Advanced search https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/search_advanced
Put nothing on the search box.
Add a platform like NES
Add a sort "Release Date (Newest top Oldest)"
Might need to go to page 2 or 3 to skip the "Cancelled" ones but eventually...

 

[sun0wl]

Funny you bring this up as I just learned about this new Sega Saturn RPG/VN on this episode of RetroRGB!

Red Moon Lost Days by Neuromage Studio

A Sci-Fi RPG/visual novel for the Sega Saturn about Kyou, a pilot who set off on a journey to Egypt to investigate.

neuromage.itch.io

Haven't seen anything like this since Pier Solar, I really wanna check it out.

 

[UnDubious]

Yeah I think we should distinguish between homebrew and nostalgic indie games being released for the niche retro market and normal commercial late releases. The first "retro release" I was personally aware of was Beggar Prince for the Genesis around 2006, which was an English localization of a Taiwanese RPG released in 1996. It was already considered a release on a long-dead platform; wild to think it had only been 10 years and people are still doing that, 19 more years later.
If you look at late commercial releases, they're often some of the best games a console will ever have, and always the most technically impressive, but may get overlooked. At least that's how it was before everything came out on 20 different platforms.

 

[sun0wl]

Yeah I think we should distinguish between homebrew and nostalgic indie games being released for the niche retro market and normal commercial late releases. The first "retro release" I was personally aware of was Beggar Prince for the Genesis around 2006, which was an English localization of a Taiwanese RPG released in 1996. It was already considered a release on a long-dead platform; wild to think it had only been 10 years and people are still doing that, 19 more years later.
If you look at late commercial releases, they're often some of the best games a console will ever have, and always the most technically impressive, but may get overlooked. At least that's how it was before everything came out on 20 different platforms.

Absolutely, an important distinction. I can think of a lot of great late-console-lifecycle games that were incredible, but I'm not sure if that fits the bill. Are late commercial releases usually (console) games classified as such because they are released during the subsequent console cycle? Or does a certain amount of time need to elapse before they're considered truly "late" to their console's party?

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

Absolutely, an important distinction. I can think of a lot of great late-console-lifecycle games that were incredible, but I'm not sure if that fits the bill. Are late commercial releases usually (console) games classified as such because they are released during the subsequent console cycle? Or does a certain amount of time need to elapse before they're considered truly "late" to their console's party?

More like well after that console was at its prime

 

[Aisf]

This game got delayed so much. It supposed to at the furthest time once it got delayed like 5 times to be released on the Nintendo 3ds.

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

Over 20 years in Dev Hell, came out in 2025.

Straight Outta Dev Hell - Captain Blood Review

I am impressed with myself with how quickly this review turned up, as I have been quite excited about this game, I wanted to review it as soon as possible, and give it a little extra push. You see, this game has had quite the troubled development cycle. This game began development, in 2003...

retrogametalk.com

 

[silver9000]

Am I wrong in thinking the SNES doesn't receive quite as many homebrews as other systems?

 

[UnDubious]

Are late commercial releases usually (console) games classified as such because they are released during the subsequent console cycle?

Typically, yeah. The late years of one console are the early years of its successor. Let's say 1995-1996 for the Genesis, for example. mobygames has 149 Genesis games released in 1994, 104 in 1995 (still a lot, and some still got some attention), then 45 in 1996. Lots of good games released during these two years. 1997 is the last year where it get normal commercial games (10), but they're almost all yearly sports games, there's a bit of shovelware (some chess sim), and there's The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
Also, story-heavy Japanese games are less likely to be localized during that time period. We saw that with the PSP, for example - early on every RPG was being brought over, even complete garbage like Blade Dancer or Valhalla Knights, and then almost everything 2010 and on was passed over, including much better games.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

Fire Emblem 5 is the worst selling game. The moment you look at the console and release date, you'll see why

Post automatically merged: Jun 14, 2025

Am I wrong in thinking the SNES doesn't receive quite as many homebrews as other systems?

The majority of home-brew games seem to be for Game Boy due to GB Studio, so no
But really that can apply to others as well