“Too many ports!” consumers cried as they looked at the list of upcoming 3DS games after the system’s launch. With titles like Street Fighter, Ocarina of Time, and Star Fox taking most of the spotlight, it seemed the handheld’s early life would be devoid of truly new content.

But there sat Nano Assault, hiding away in the shadows during the busiest gaming season of the year, just waiting to be picked up by lovers of score based, arcade style action.

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Are you one of the many gamers who have fallen in love with Castlevania music over the years? If so, you’ll want to check out Jake “virt” Kaufman’s score for Wayforward’s new downloadable title Bloodrayne: Betrayal.

It’s no coincidence how much the music has in common with Castlevania as Kaufman reveals that early versions of the game used tracks from Symphony of the Night as a placeholder. Three months later, Kaufman finished his original score based on this inspiration combined with his own flavor. Then he made an 8-bit version as a bonus (unlockable after finishing the game). Why not? Everybody knows NES music is the coolest.

But rather than run it through a filter, all the music was painstakingly recreated in FamiTracker for the 8-bit version. This retro conversion process has created some sort of crazy neo-nostalgia that will no doubt threaten the space-time continuum.

Until that fateful moment when reality collapses in on itself, you can get both versions of the soundrack (that’s 30 tracks!) for the low, low price of free. Of course, if you are the kindhearted type and would like to reward an artist for the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the album, you can pay any price you want via Bandcamp.

Buy the Album: Bandcamp

I picked up Monster Tale because I’ve been getting tremendously annoyed at Jesse flaunting his progress in Monster Hunter Portable 3rd. As the guy probably most responsible for getting me into the series, it tears me up to hear about his stories of Ice Barroths and Poison Royal Ludroths. I keep seeing all the fancy new equipment and armor dancing around in my head at night. I had to do something, anything, to tear in and bash up some monsters. I had to get my fix.

It turns out Monster Tale has absolutely nothing to do with Monster Hunter, but it’s still a really good game.

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"A whimsical journey at a budget price."

I’ve always loved the concept of A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobonia for the NES. The problem is, between the confusing map, limited jelly beans, and unforgiving hit detection, I could never get anywhere in the darn thing. Wayforward (developers of the fantastic Contra 4) decided to take that fascinating concept and “re-imagine” it into a more accessible and modern game.

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