Entertainment Electronics Blog

Nintendo had a ton of new games and demos to demonstrate the 3DS at E3 this week, but one particularly curious demo reel showed off not just a lot of older games, but really older games — all from the NES and SNES era.

As Kotaku reports, this reel included Mega Man 2, Castlevania, Urban Champion, Kid Icarus, Yoshi’s Island, Smash Ping Pong, Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Tennis, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Mystery of Murasame Castle. They all were shown with 3D effects that gave them a “pop-up book feel,” and when asked whether they were all actually planned for eventual release on the 3DS, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said that yes, yes they were.

He also said not to think of them as full-blown “remakes,” but that they might be “potentially getting more than just ported over.” Other than that, there weren’t any other details on this gaggle of planned old-school rereleases, so there’s no telling when or how they’ll be coming (this is pure conjecture, but perhaps they’ll be released as downloadable games, like the Wii’s Virtual Console?).

Meanwhile, you can read our impressions of all of Nintendo’s other 3DS games and demos shown at E3 this week right here. No official price or release date for the 3DS has been announced yet.

You may not have noticed this, but Capcom has made a lot of Mega Man games. Between all the disparate series and spin-offs, it would have been easy to miss the four (yes, four) Mega Man Zero games for the Gameboy Advance. Capcom is ready to remedy that hole in your gaming history with the Mega Man Zero Collection for the DS. The collection, due out this summer, compiles all of the games in the series, which takes place 100 years after the Mega Man X series.

The Zero games were praised for carrying the torch of old-school (read: hard) Mega Man platforming while Capcom buttered its bread with the profits from the Mega Man Battle Network games. This will be the third Mega Man series compilation, after the Mega Man Anniversary Collection and Mega Man X Collection. These three compilations will account for almost half of the total number of Mega Man series in existence, so at least we’re making progress. Now cross your fingers for an official homage to Mega Man Legends.