Do the Mar10

Good news for all you penny-pinching gamers out there... Nintendo has dropped the price of several of its most popular Switch games in anticipation of March 10th, recognized by the company as Mario Day. Usually I roll my eyes at such fabricated, corporate-sponsored holidays (don't even get me started on May the 4th...), but for twenty dollars off games that almost never see such hefty discounts, I'm willing to play along just this once. Games on sale include Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Luigi's Mansion 3, and Super Mario 3D World, the latter of which I grabbed for myself. You'll find more games right here on Nintendo's sales and deals page, and there are rumors that even more titles will see price cuts on the tenth of the month.

Speaking of recent deals, there are two different bundles on Itch.io (just say that name and try not to scratch something in response!) raising money for the war-torn country of Ukraine. One bundle is a bit more humble than the other, with fewer games, but it's also less expensive, with a five dollar minimum. Buy one or buy them both... whatever you decide, it's for a good cause.

The warmly received Genesis port of
Ghouls 'n Ghosts had a lot of detail removed to
squeeze the game into a smaller cartridge.
This WIP hack by aMaru puts a lot of it back.
Note the roots bursting through the rock
formations and the more smoothly sloping hills.

What else? Oh yes. Thanks to the Sega Genesis Development Kit, especially devoted fans of the system are fixing arcade ports that missed the mark when they were first released, either due to small cartridge sizes or publisher indifference (cough cough Acclaim cough). Of special note are Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Sunset Riders. The former is getting a facelift, with tons of details added to the foreground and background, and the latter is being redesigned from scratch, since Konami's shaky port was frankly beyond help. Is all of this necessary now that we have a half dozen ways to play the real arcade games at home? Not really. Is it fun to see what the Genesis can do without ROM constraints holding it back? Oh yes, definitely. Special thanks to the always helpful Master Linkuei for spilling the tea on these projects.