The third GCCX game was handed off to a different developer, and the result is… different, but by no means bad.

After indieszero’s two instalments, G.rev handled the third game. They’re mostly known for shooters, but they do a decent job here; the games generally aren’t as inventive, the challenges are sometimes more tedious, and the framing sequences don’t have the same charm but you still get a good set of faux-retro games plus some bonuses.

This time, the modern Arino has been reverted to childhood—I think—and the king from the intro of the show gives you challenges. You’re still a kid who does all the gameplay while Arino verbally interjects, but they open up the premise a bit by tying in more integration with the show. For example, you build up a database of catchphrases and famous sayings from the broadcast history. There’s also a little town full of locations to visit, full of appearances by the show’s ADs (playing roles as Arino’s childhood friends) and other staff, with lots of interactions and dialogue.

Rather than magazines, I assume these conversations are the vector for delivering tips… but considering my poor fluency in Japanese (and this game has not been localised, either officially or by fans), I sped through them and tried to muddle through. There’s one thread on the GameFAQs board that helped by spelling out each challenge, but for more in-depth help I had to find Japanese written guides and auto-translate them, or skim through full playthroughs on Youtube. This was necessary for me because sometimes game mechanics are obscure; the game itself doesn’t help much either.

There aren’t really manuals this time either. There are some bland explanatory screens, but—in what’s the most glaring poor decision imaginable—these and the challenges themselves can’t be viewed while playing any of the games; you have to shut it down first. Very badly done. Unlocking games is also a convoluted process, sometimes requiring choosing the right dialogue options at certain points in the story… boo.

As for the games themselves, there’s 8 main ones: a Mario Bros./Lode Runner mashup, a Sky Kid pastiche shooter, a Tower of Druaga-style maze game, a Wonder Boy/Adventure Island knockoff, a dodgeball-themed Pong/Arkanoid hybrid, another decent Compile-type shooter, a bland 16-bit Final Fantasy ripoff, and a stage-based top-down Zelda homage. The games occasionally try and inject an innovative mechanic, but usually they’re a bit uninspired. The dodgeball and Zelda clone were the highlights, but unlocking the latter means getting through the rest of the game’s challenges, which can take a while.

As well as the 8 challenge games, there are unlockable extras that evoke other styles of retro gaming: LCD handhelds, primitive pre-NES consoles, a simple paper-scissors-rock arcade redemption game, and even vintage analogue coin-rolling games or wooden ball-maze toys controlled using the 3DS gyro. These are cool ideas, but finding them requires a guide in itself that I just couldn’t find, sadly.

Speaking of 3DS gimmicks, the main games are also playable in 3D mode in free play, which kind of works like Nintendo or Sega’s 3D Classics on the eShop. I didn’t try this much. But either way, they attempt to evoke 8- and 16-bit games, but the feel and visuals are inconsistent between them; some of them just feel like low-budget throwbacks rather than authentic retro experiences… wait… that’s exactly what they are. I guess some are just better at hiding it, and in this matter the first two games did a much better job. And the framing story’s visuals are just plain ugly, which on top of its structural problems makes it a poor replacement to its predecessors.

I’ve seen a lot of people online dismiss this third instalment outright, even saying it’s a good thing it wasn’t localised because it’s so bad. This attitude irritates me; to so smugly write off this effort does it a great disservice. There’s few enough games attempting this sort of nostalgia-tinged collection of fabricated games, so its successes should be celebrated, even if there are some rough patches and questionable choices here. Of course, the language and region locking barriers make it difficult to appreciate, but I was glad to overcome them to experience this.