Having grown up playing games on most every home system dating back to the original Pong home units, retro gaming and in particular retro compilations are always at least interesting. While it can sometimes be difficult to go back and play games from previous eras, it can be fascinating to be reminded not just of how various older games were played, but then to see how far our favorite leisure activity has come over the years. With its very different 3 included titles, the Sunsoft is Back collection at least provides some diversity.

Starting with what I’d consider to be the weakest of the bunch, Ripple Island is a pretty early console take on the point-and-click adventure genre that had been flourishing on early PCs at the time. While I do give credit to the developer for obviously trying to use an on-screen cursor you’d moved with the D-Pad to stand in for a mouse, helping to do their best to make the experience work, this is a pretty primitive affair. In particular, the very rigid (and not necessarily intuitive) simple puzzles you’ll need to solve to progress even early on can be irksome, but as a window into early console adventures it’s at least interesting.

Next, we have Firework Thrower Kantaro’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido… which is quite a mouthful. This is a much simpler side-scrolling arcade kind of affair, with you needing to lob your firework bombs at a variety of rivals as you run to save your fiance Momoko. It isn’t terribly complex, with the main challenge being on top of the arc of your throws to try to be accurate, but it does at least manage to be a bit of a challenge as different enemies can require slight changes in tactics at least.

Finishing out the trio of titles there’s The Wing of Madoola, which plays out somewhere between a more primitive version of a game like Zelda 2 and an old-school arcade side-scroller. You’ll need to jump around and defeat enemies on the surface, but then will periodically encounter openings you can go into that will sometimes just lead to new gear or to other contained areas filled with more enemies of different types. It’s not terribly complex, though some of your enemies can be a real pain to deal with, so it can feel a bit cheap and it absolutely doesn’t compare well to the likes of better-made games from that era.

In order to help add to the appeal, modern features like rewind, save states, and the ability to tweak some visual aspects of the presentation have been included, so those do at least help make everything a bit more approachable and streamlined for enjoyment. I wouldn’t say it’s a collection that would clearly appeal to everyone, but for preservationists or people who appreciate being able to see where we’ve come from, these titles being available for the first time in English may be enough of a hook to make them worthwhile.