Homebrew Side Quests is back, and this one’s all over the map: fresh carts, PC recomp magic, lost ports, and the Amiga scene refusing to act its age.
Zion: Advanced Mission is a brand new vertical shoot‑’em‑up hitting actual Game Boy Advance cartridges in Japan this March. It runs on original hardware and focuses on short, aggressive stages, big bullet patterns, and a scoring system built around chaining enemy kills while managing a limited stock of powerful bombs. There’s also a gallery and music player included on the cart.
Capcom never brought the Rockman.EXE mobile duology to modern systems, so fans did it instead. Greiga Master’s new native PC port of Rockman EXE: Phantom of Network runs at a locked 15 fps, cleans up audio stutter, adds HD text, and supports both the original Japanese and the existing English fan translation. You still need to legally source the original i‑mode assets yourself, but once you do, this spin‑off finally plays like a real game instead of a barely‑preserved phone relic.
BanjoRecomp, the native PC port of Banjo‑Kazooie built on MrWiseguy’s N64 recomp toolchain, just got a huge glow‑up. A new extended draw‑distance mod slashes pop‑in across levels, while an HD texture pack by Granvillimus upscales the entire world without blowing up the original art style. Combined with Recomp’s widescreen support and high framerates, this is rapidly becoming the definitive way to replay Banjo on a handheld or living‑room box.
On the concept-only side, a fan has rebuilt a chunk of God of War 2 in Unreal Engine 5. DSOGaming reports it is a bespoke demo using new assets and modern lighting rather than a full remake, meant to show how the PS2 classic could look with current tech. It is more proof‑of‑concept than a playable project, but here’s hoping we get something of similar quality when Sony officially remakes the trilogy.
Next, Parodius is getting a fully-formed Sega Genesis version. A fan port of the SNES/arcade parody shooter with the infamous box art is now running on real hardware, complete with full boss fights, power‑up bells, and Konami weirdness, and the dev says each new build tightens performance, graphics, and sound further.
IndieRetroNews highlights a new PC remake of the 1980s 8‑bit blaster REX, bringing its side‑view shooting and exploration into a modern engine while keeping the original’s encounter and map design intact. Think sharper pixels, smoother scrolling, and quality‑of‑life options layered on top of old‑school difficulty.
Locomalito’s Ghosts ’n Goblins‑inspired Maldita Castilla is heading backwards: the arcade‑style indie is being ported to both Genesis and Master System by homebrew devs. Sprites and stages are being carefully reworked to fit each machine’s limits, and early footage already looks startlingly close to the PC original while still feeling authentically 16‑bit and 8‑bit.
An artist is slowly de-making The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker as a Game Boy Color game, and the early footage is absurdly charming. The camera, movement, and UI all lean into GBC constraints while still communicating Wind Waker’s island-hopping vibe, giving us a glimpse of the top‑down portable Wind Waker Nintendo never made.
Rounding out the non-Amiga portion: Tony Do It is a new C64‑style puzzle game where you guide Tony across compact stages, collect items, and avoid hazards in Sokoban‑adjacent layouts tuned for quick retries on real hardware or emulators. Trap is a newly unearthed prototype originally planned for the C64 that has finally been recovered and made playable, giving preservation nerds a look at what could have been if it had actually shipped.
And finally, the Amiga scene, as usual, is doing too much:
- Pjusk is a Zooperdan puzzler about pushing blocks and manipulating limited spaces, emphasizing planning over reflexes.
- Mega M.I.L.V. is a high‑intensity bullet‑hell shooter for accelerated Amigas, throwing dense patterns and flashy effects around.
- The Gate is a work‑in‑progress action-adventure with atmospheric visuals and exploratory combat across interconnected maps.
- Cyberblast X riffs on Hired Guns and Space Hulk with a sci‑fi, squad‑based, first‑person tactical experience.
- Project Horizon is an Alien‑inspired blaster with side‑scrolling gunplay and heavy atmosphere.
- Cake Rush is a high‑speed arcade game about delivering cakes under pressure, tuned for quick score‑chasing sessions.
- Zippy Race is a port of the classic arcade racer, reworked for Amiga hardware.
- Operation Steel Rain is a WIP old‑school shmup with a downloadable prologue focused on tight patterns and chunky sprites.
- Kaboomania is a Bomberman‑style multiplayer game headed to both Amiga and PC, with a Kickstarter in the works and early footage already showing chaotic local battles.
For a scene supposedly obsessed with the past, homebrew keeps making the present a lot more interesting. Let me know in the comments if I missed anything!
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