The Nintendo Famicom/NES homebrew Changeable Guardian Estique is heading to Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S next year, its publisher AMATA Games has revealed.
Developed by Takayuki Komabayashi and his company, Cat Hui Trading, the 8-bit-style shoot 'em up was originally published on the Nintendo Famicom/NES in December 2024.
It was created by a team that included former developers of games like Zanac, Aleste, and Gunhed, and impressed us enough at the time to receive a 9/10 from our reviewer, John Szczepaniak, who described it at the time as "a wonderful showcase of highly skilled legacy programmers combined with a fresh take on 2D side-scrolling shooter design".
Pitched on Steam as "the ultimate 8-bit shoot 'em up", the story of the game takes place in the year 2413 and sees players take control of the eponymous Estique, embarking on a quest to rid the Earth's major cities of space pirates. The plot and graphics differ slightly depending on which version of the game you're playing (Famicom or NES), with both of these editions set to be included in these upcoming Steam and console releases.
According to this latest announcement, the Steam and console releases will also feature a bunch of other additional features, also, with the majority of these aiming to make the game more accessible to modern audiences.
For instance, these new versions will come with options for quickly saving and loading the game, as well as a rewind function, and other bonuses such as full controller support for Steam, CRT filters, and a gallery mode to let you take a closer look at the game's manual and packaging.
If you're tempted, you can wishlist the game now on Steam. We'll also be sure to let you know when a more specific release date is revealed.