Long story short, some guy named Arino was being humiliated by his friends in all the current gen multiplayer games, and his obsession with dominance in gaming spawned a digital version of himself inside of his Nintendo DS to haunt players world wide with retro game challenges. Upon meeting Arino, he sends you back into the past (to the 80's more specifically) to play video games and complete challenges so that you can be returned to your own time. It might sound uninteresting, but it does turn out being pretty cool.

RGC (Retro Game Challenge) features a total of eight games that are all based on popular games from the 80's. Galaga fans will enjoy Cosmic Gate, while Ninja JaJaMaru-kun fans will dig Robot Ninja Haggle Man 1 and 2. Ninja Gaiden fans will appreciate Robot Ninja Haggle Man 3, and fans of Dragon Quest can look forward to playing Guadia Quest. Along with these games, there are also manuals and magazines that are unlocked throughout the course of the game that contain information and cheat codes. Not only that, but you can also check these guides while you're playing the games! Cool huh? Oh, and one last bit of information: all of the games aren't unlocked from the get-go. You actually have to complete enough challenges to unlock the games, and the games can only be unlocked in sequence.

One of the things that you'll probably notice is that the games in RGC seem nerfed in terms of difficulty. Old-school games were notorious for being insanely difficult, so by rights, RGC should also be difficult. Well as I've previously stated, the RGC games are not nearly as difficult as the games they were based on, and while this does not follow the mold of old-school games, I have to admit it's a change for the better. It actually allows you to play the games and enjoy them without having to break something after you see the words "Game Over".

One of my favorite parts from RGC would be the inclusion of cheat codes that don't work. During the 80's and early 90's, each game usually had a few cheat codes that did work, but there was always at least one that didn't work. Nine times out of ten, that would usually be the most the beneficial cheat code (such as Invincibility, Infinite Lives, etc). It's one of my favorite parts because it accurately captures one of the worst aspects of gaming from back in the day. It really gives RGC a rather...well...Retro feel.

If you've read my other reviews, you've already heard my complaints about the DS reaching it's limitations in terms of audio and video quality. Well I'm actually proud to announce that RGC doesn't even come close to the typical "capped" feeling presented by other titles, and this probably has a bit to do with the fact that all of the games are designed to sound and look like games from the 80's. So you get to enjoy all that old school goodness, without any lag or slowdown whatsoever.

Overall, Retro Game Challenge is a great game, and for old-school gamers it's a must buy. My only real complaint would be that the included games weren't the games they were based on. I really would have loved to have seen Ninja Gaiden appear in an un-tampered form on the DS. It would have also made the game manuals and magazines more entertaining, because then they could have used the real Ninja Gaiden manual and a real magazine about Ninja Gaiden.