Retro Recap All The Classic Gaming News From The Past Week (July 12th 2026)

Welcome to Retro Recap, a regular feature we run each and every weekend which rounds up all of the best retro gaming news and content of the past week in one place.

The Story Of Hudson Soft's Bizarre Super Mario Bros. "Spin-Off"

Super Mario Bros. Special, for the uninitiated, is a little-known version of Super Mario Bros. 1, developed by Hudson Soft — the first third-party developer for the Nintendo Famicom. Thanks to having helped develop FamilyBASIC, it ended up signing a cross-licensing agreement with Nintendo, allowing it to create versions of Nintendo's games for Japanese computers.

We spoke to Takashi Takebe and Ichiro Sakurada about this oft-misunderstood title.

New Activision-Themed Super Pocket Handheld Announced

Blaze's HyperMegaTech sub-label has announced a new addition to the Super Pocket hardware lineup.

Launching on September 28th, the Activision Super Pocket comes pre-loaded with 34 games (all Atari home console titles) and costs £59.99 / $69.99 / €69.99. Pre-orders are open now.

It's not all good news, sadly, as it was also confirmed that Evercade carts and Super Pocket handhelds are increasing in price.

Super Mario Sunshine Is About To Get A Whole Lot More Relaxing, Thanks To This New Mod

A new mod is about to be released for Super Mario Sunshine, giving the game a relaxing sunset-themed visual makeover, alongside introducing new music, sound effects, and refreshed secrets.

Super Mario Sunset is a mod for the 2002 platformer [Note: an earlier version of this article stated 2001; please direct all of your spoiled vegetables and rotten fruit to the comment section below], developed by the modding team Super Mario Elements, who previously worked on projects such as Super Mario Sunshine Tropical Freeze, Super Mario/Luigi Sunburn, and a Super Mario Sunshine Randomiser. The lead on the project is an individual going by the name Sean.O, who is reportedly using JoshuaMK's Better Sunshine Engine, to unlock "camera, FPS/aspect ratio, and physics enhancements."

This Disney-Inspired PS1 RPG From The Creator of Disgaea Is Making Its Way To Nintendo Switch 2 & PS5

We have some interesting news for fans of Japanese role-playing games. Nippon Ichi Software's PlayStation RPG Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure is coming to PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2 this week, as part of Console Archives.

Released in Japan in 1998 and in North America two years later (courtesy of Atlas USA), Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure was a game designed by Disgaea creator Sohei Niikawa, who was reportedly working in the company's sales & marketing department at the time.

Someone Used The Game Boy Accessory To Take A Picture Of Jupiter

We get a lot of emails here at Time Extension. For the most part, these fall into two categories: nuisance emails from individuals trying to inject predatory, unrelated gambling links into some of our articles, and spam messages from PR companies we've never heard of, who have never read the site before and want us to cover their latest AI & loot-box-infested MMOs.

Every so often, though, we'll find gold: an email from someone who clearly understands what we're all about, the latest of which is from the director, musician, and video game fan Chris Graue, whose SNES tripod project we've previously covered on the site.

As Graue states, since we last covered his latest project, he's been a busy chap, and is now "back with more dumb Game Boy Camera BS," having created a telescope adapter for the rudimentary Game Boy camera, to let him take a picture of Jupiter.

This Power Bank Has Become A Daily Driver For My Switch, AYANEO And Steam Deck

While handheld gaming has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, with devices like Switch 2, Steam Deck and AYANEO 3 offering AAA performance in the palm of your hand, there's been one big limiting factor across all of these products: battery life.

The shiny new INIU Cougar P63 is one of the roomiest power banks yet seen – and here's why you should give it a look.

Infamous Kickstarter 'Project Phoenix' Is Alive, But It Might Not Be Out Until 2031

Back in 2013, a Kickstarter campaign was launched for the ambitious Project Phoenix, a JRPG helmed by Hiroaki Yura. It would smash its funding goal and earn $1,014,600, yet, over a decade later, it remains unreleased.

Amazingly, Yura has confirmed that the game is back in production – although it won't be launching any time soon.

Speaking in an interview with VGC, Yura goes some way to explaining exactly what went wrong with the campaign.

Fans Aren't Impressed With Metal Slug's "Explosive" 30th Anniversary Announcement

Last week, the publisher Pix'n Love Games shared a tease for an "explosive" upcoming announcement related to the Metal Slug series, telling its followers to "Get ready to head back into battle with Marco, Tarma, Fio, and Eri..."

With little more to go on than that, fans online inevitably got hyped about the possibility of a new game announcement, with many hoping for a fresh Metal Slug Anthology Collection for modern platforms, ahead of the new game's release.

It seems, however, that they were way off base with their predictions, with this "explosive" announcement turning out to be a new tabletop board game, based on the run 'n gun series that will be heading to crowdfunding sites in the future.

I'm Really Not Sure How I Feel About Sony Killing Physical Media

As you're no doubt aware, Sony has caused quite a kerfuffle with the announcement that it is ending the production of physical media for its PlayStation 5 console in 2028, and intends to make its next machine a totally digital proposition.

The fallout of this news has been dramatic, with petitions appearing online in the vain hope of convincing Sony to change course – but sadly, the chances of that are almost non-existent, as the world of video gaming is now dominated by digital distribution.

In this piece, Damien explains his conflicted feelings on the sunsetting of physical media.