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In today’s email:

• Dacholer & Kick Boy Kick Down the Door to PS4 and Switch!

• Fear in Your Pocket: Silent Hills P.T. Gets a Game Boy Demake

• Sorry, No Robot Lara Here: Aspyr Pulls AI-Voiced Lines From Tomb Raider Collection After Legal Pushback

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Dacholer & Kick Boy Kick Down the Door to PS4 and Switch!

Release Date: September 25th, 2025
Platforms: PlayStation 4 | Nintendo Switch

Why This Release Matters

Two cult-classics that once lived only in Japanese arcades are finally coming home. Dacholer (1983) and Kick Boy (1985) carved out a place in collector lore, but never had an official Western release—until now. This isn’t just preservation—it’s resurrection.

A Look Back

Arcade Origins

• Dacholer mixed overhead shooting with maze-dodging strategy.

• Kick Boy leaned into wacky side-scrolling brawls and chaotic co-op.

Preservation Push

• First official release outside Japan.

• Save states, rewind, and CRT filters modernize the experience.

Gameplay Highlights

• Short & Punchy: Perfect for Switch on-the-go sessions.

• Multiplayer Madness: Kick Boy’s co-op mode hasn’t lost its charm.

• Modern Quality-of-Life: Rewind, customizable controls, and leaderboards.

Regional Exclusivity

Quick Trivia

• Developer: Nichibutsu (Crazy Climber, Terra Cresta)

• Lost Port: A Famicom version of Kick Boy was rumored, but never surfaced

• Cabinet Oddity: Dacholer featured twin-stick control years before it was standard

• Preservation Win: Until now, only playable on fragile arcade boards

Should You Play It?

📊 Retro Revival Verdict

Final Word: If you’re into quirky, chaotic history lessons from gaming’s golden age—this is an easy “yes.”

Closing Kick

On September 25th, the vault finally opens. Whether you’re revisiting arcade legends or meeting them for the first time, Dacholer and Kick Boy are proof that no classic should be left behind.

Fear in Your Pocket: Silent Hills P.T. Gets a Game Boy Demake

What if one of the scariest horror games ever made could fit in your pocket? Thanks to indie developer mizusushi, the once-infamous Silent Hills P.T. is now haunting Nintendo’s classic handheld in the form of a fully playable Game Boy demake. Yes, you read that right—Konami’s canceled nightmare teaser has been stripped down, re-imagined, and lovingly rebuilt for a console that predates it by nearly two decades.

From Photorealistic Terror to 8-Bit Dread

The original P.T. (“Playable Teaser”) dropped on PlayStation 4 in 2014 and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Directed by Hideo Kojima with horror master Guillermo del Toro and starring Norman Reedus, the demo was meant to tease a new Silent Hills game before Konami pulled the plug and delisted it forever.

The Game Boy version, simply titled P.T. GB, takes that same looping hallway formula—walk, turn, repeat, descend deeper—and squeezes it into monochrome sprites and crunchy chiptune soundscapes. The result is less “photoreal nightmare fuel” and more “haunting lo-fi fever dream.” Somehow, the tension still works.

Gameplay Highlights

• Looping Hallway Mechanics: The Game Boy’s tiny screen captures the repetition brilliantly, with sprites shifting subtly each cycle.

• Pixelated Lisa: The infamous ghost makes an appearance in blocky, jittery form that’s somehow even creepier.

• Atmospheric Sound Design: Instead of ultra-realistic footsteps and whispers, players get distorted bleeps and eerie tones that feel straight out of a corrupted cartridge.

This isn’t just a novelty—it’s a legitimate reinterpretation of P.T.’s mechanics through the lens of retro hardware.

How to Play

The demake is free to download and play via itch.io. While it was designed for emulators or flashcarts on real Game Boy hardware, keep in mind:

• Region: No regional restrictions. If you have a way to run a ROM, you can experience it worldwide.

• Hardware: Best played on emulator for accessibility, but hardcore fans can flash it onto a cartridge for the real experience.

Quick TLDR: P.T. GB Edition

• Developer: mizusushi, known for quirky retro experiments and horror reimaginings.

• Release History: Original P.T. was removed from PSN in 2015, making physical PS4s with it installed absurdly valuable.

• Standout Feature: Lisa’s pixelated manifestation feels like something out of a haunted bootleg.

• Fun Fact: Demakes of P.T. exist on multiple platforms (Unity, Dreams, even calculators), but this is the first proper Game Boy port.

In The End

Silent Hills P.T. may never return in its original form, but this Game Boy demake is the next best thing—a pixelated echo of one of gaming’s most chilling “what could have been” stories.

👉 Grab it while it’s hot on itch.io, dim the lights, and let your Game Boy whisper horrors from a timeline where Silent Hills never existed.

Sorry, No Robot Lara Here: Aspyr Pulls AI-Voiced Lines From Tomb Raider Collection After Legal Pushback

The removal of AI-generated vocals from Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered isn’t just a patch note—it’s a statement. What seemed on paper like a savvy cost-saving localization trick quickly ignited a full-blown controversy when Françoise Cadol, longtime French voice of Lara Croft, pursued legal action against Aspyr for allegedly replicating her performance without consent. Now, the AI lines are gone—and the industry is watching.

Why the Removal Actually Matters

This is a rare case in which fan outrage, creative ownership, and AI ethics collided over a remaster. For many fans, part of the appeal in revisiting the 3D golden age of Lara Croft is hearing her voice—familiar inflections, tones, and emotional nuance. The fact that Aspyr replaced some French-language lines with AI-cloned vocals (apparently by an external partner, without Cadol’s knowledge) felt like crossing a line.
By removing the AI work, Aspyr is implicitly admitting that the substitution was improper—and tacitly acknowledging that player investment in original talent still matters.

The Remaster, the Mechanics, and the Misstep

A Walk Through Tomb Raider IV, V & VI

Aspyr’s Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered brings The Last Revelation (TR4), Chronicles (TR5), and The Angel of Darkness (TR6) under one roof, with quality-of-life improvements, enhanced visuals, and resurrected cut content.

• In The Angel of Darkness, Aspyr restored previously cut voices, reopened certain backtracking paths, and revived Kurtis Trent’s alternate gameplay segments.

• Graphical upgrades aimed to polish textures, lighting, and effects without deviating wildly from the originals.

• New features, like togglable enhancements and UI tweaks, were offered to modernize the experience without "breaking" the classic feel.

Launch Strategy & Regional Notes

• The collection launched on February 14, 2025 across platforms: PC (Windows), Xbox One / Series, PlayStation 4 / 5, and Nintendo Switch.

• One sticking point: the AI-voiced lines issue appears most salient in the French dub, where Cadol’s voice was cloned and used in restored tutorial and gameplay lines.

• Suspicions also swirl around Brazilian Portuguese and other localizations—Brazilian voice actor Lene Bastos claimed her lines were similarly replaced via AI.

• Aspyr’s patch (often called “Patch 2 hotfix”) rolled out to remove all AI voiceover content while retaining fixes and enhancements from the prior update.

• Aspyr maintains that the AI work was inserted by an external partner without their knowledge or proper oversight—the controversy became public only after fan scrutiny and Cadol’s legal letter.

Gameplay Highlights & How the Remaster Preserves the Classics

• Exploration & Puzzles remain central: hidden switches, inventory juggling, rope arrows, and pillar leaps are all intact.

• Combat & traversal tweaks help modern players (slightly tighter lock-on, optional camera fixes) without undermining classic limitations.

• Cut content restored: lines and areas removed in original builds are now back (especially in TR6), improving narrative cohesion.

• Voice lines & localization: The controversy centers exactly here. It’s a reminder that remasters are more than visuals—they revitalize (or mishandle) a game’s soul.

Quick Developer Notes

• Developer & Publisher: Aspyr, now under the Embracer umbrella, co-manages the remasters alongside Crystal Dynamics (originators of the franchise)

• Original Releases:
   – Tomb Raider IV (1999)
   – Chronicles (2000)
   – Angel of Darkness (2003)

• Local Voice Legacy: Françoise Cadol voiced Lara in French for both games and films (she dubbed Angelina Jolie’s Lara in the film series)

• The Hotfix Timeline: After public outcry and legal action, the second patch released in September 2025 removed AI-generated lines.

• Reception Note: Reviews of this remaster collection have been mixed – praised for nostalgia and polish, derided for control issues and technical stumbles.

Final Word & What This Means for Future Remasters

Look, you can’t just Frankenstein a voice actor’s legacy with AI and expect the community to shrug. The fact that one voice actor’s resistance forced a full rollback is a win—for creators, for players, and for respecting legacy work in the AI era. Aspyr’s patch is late, but necessary.

If you’re diving into Tomb Raider IV–VI Remastered now, rest easy: all known AI vocals have been scrubbed, and the original—or appropriately redone—voicework remains. That said, keep your game updated, and monitor regional patches (especially if you play in French or Portuguese).

Stay tuned to this space—we’ll be watching how this legal fight shapes voice acting, AI policy, and remaster ethics across the gaming world. And hey, if you fire up Lara’s classic adventures this week, drop me a line: which restored line surprised you the most?

Until next time—see you in the tombs.