UFO 50 came out for the Nintendo Switch last week, having been available for Steam since late last year. What’s surprising to me… is that nobody told me about it before!
It’s not exactly a secret around these parts that I’m a big fan of retro gaming, even though I’m not so much of a fan of some of the seedier aspects of the hobby, especially some of the nonsense that happens around sealed games… but I digress.
Retro games, I like them, case closed.
So last week, when Nintendo held one of its periodic Directs, this time focused on Indie developers, I tuned in. Lots of goodness there, some interesting titles… and, as per the headline, UFO 50, a “collection” of “retro” games for a console that never actually existed.
No, that sentence does make sense, at least of a sort. UFO 50 is a collection of 8-bit style games, developed by some of the indie scene’s best developers over a 7 year period, with the central gimmick being that they’re all the product of a single 80s-era development studio for a “legendary” system covering a whole host of genres.
Missed opportunity: A robotic voice that says “Play a while. PLAY FOREVER”
It would be somewhat futile for me to cover them all off, partially for reasons of length but mostly because this isn’t a new title and there’s already plenty of reviews out there, both written and in video form if you have the time.
Rail Heist: It’s about… rail heists. That’s not a spoiler (I hope).
One spoiler here: Don’t read the reviews, or at least not the in-depth ones.
Trust me, this is good stuff, but a big part of the fun is in the discovery, and working out which games work for you and your particular gaming tastes.
I am going to highlight a few that I’ve liked, but they might be the ones that you bounce off hard, while some of the efforts within the set of 50 haven’t particularly enthralled me… or at least not yet.
One trend I did notice in online commentary on this particular collection was to compare it to the godawful-but-legendary Action 52, a low-budget actual-NES-era collection of 52 woeful titles sold to unwitting American parents back in the day.
That’s grossly unfair to UFO 50, because while Action 52 was excreted out back then to try to turn a swift profit, it’s so very clear that UFO 50’s developers have taken their time and come up with some unique spins on classic game formulas. The vibe I get here is more akin to the classic 8-bit million seller collections of genuinely good games, a trend from back in the day that you really don’t see any more. I miss them.
OK, four games being a “giant compilation” is perhaps stretching a bit, but still…
Some of them are (or would have been) genuinely surprising back in the day, while others are more just refined takes on classic games that wouldn’t quite have been able to run the way that they do on the hardware of the time – hence the need for a fictional retro system, rather than trying to claim that these were all NES or Master System titles.
The charm here will definitely vary depending on your tastes in games. Right now, I’m rather hooked on Son Son styled game Ninpek, seriously hardcore Lemmings-like Mortol (there’s a sequel here too, but I’m trying to work through the first game before starting that) and deep sea exploration shooter Porgy.
Ninpek is simple, but also simply excellent. I’m not very good at it… yet… but I will persevere.
Plus a hat tip to whoever came up with the name for the game about fighting insects, which is of course called Combatants.
A Hill To Die On… and a pun I heartily approve of.
Do I have complaints? I’m me, so of course I do.
While the central idea of being dropped into a library of game disks is a cute one, it’s one that leverages the idea of discovery hard, and not always to best effect.
With 50 titles to choose from, decision paralysis can set in, as can the desire to switch to something else if a game is being difficult (which many are) or somewhat inscrutable.
Suddenly having 50 more games to play is a LOT. It can be hard to settle on a game (but it’s worth it)
I 100% lived through the era of these games so I’m well aware of how skimpy some game manuals were back in the day, but in some cases there’s titles here that would benefit a LOT from proper in-game instructions just so you can get your bearings.
Sure, the Internet exists and you can look up guides for these games, but that rather defeats the purpose of having such a strong focus on discovery within each game. You really do need to give them time to sink their hooks into you…
But honestly, my biggest complaint here is that UFO 50 came out last year, and the first I heard about it was last week.
Why did NOBODY tell me about this before???
Ethical disclaimer: This not-quite-a-review is based off the Steam version of the game that I paid for with my own money, because, yeah, I still haven’t bought a Switch 2, in accordance with Kidman’s Law. Works a treat on the Steam Deck, by the way.
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[kofi]
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The problem is that it’s so buggy. It’s currently 10/13/2025. I’m having problems on steamdeck lcd where the game crashes or controllers switch order. It’s very frustrating. I would not buy this game until the developer fixes the problems.
I’ve been playing it a lot on the Steamdeck (albeit the OLED version, but I don’t believe there’s a hardware or software difference under the hood) and haven’t experienced that at all — which doesn’t invalidate your experience, but just to be sure, you’re on the most updated version of the app (and Steamdeck OS?)