The late 80s and early 90s – as the 8-bit consoles gradually made way for the 16-bit machines – were an incredibly exciting time for gamers, yet not all territories were treated equally.

Japanese players often got their hands on genuinely brilliant titles that didn’t always make their way West; if they did, sometimes they only went as far as the US, never arriving on European shores.

However, canny specialist retailers would often import Japanese and US games, along with the consoles to play them on – or the converters that would allow you to use them on your UK/EU consoles.

Sometimes, you’d see a review of a game that you’d want to get hold of – only for it to prove prohibitively expensive to import.

You might find yourself lustily checking out game titles and prices from various retailers; simply the title of a game can often provoke nostalgia among gamers of a certain age, thanks to this practice of only ever seeing games in the pages of magazines such as Mean Machines or Super Play.

So when the Renovation Collection was announced, it was genuinely thrilling.

Here was a cartridge full of games whose names I have had on the back burner in my brain for decades, yet have barely seen more than the odd screenshot of in the years since they first released.

So was it worth the wait?

Spoiler alert: yep, it absolutely was.

Without wanting to ruin the vibe or usual format of my reviews – well, the Renovation Collection 1 is absolutely one of the strongest Evercade cartridges overall and is almost unquestionably the best reason to own an Evercade in the first place.

You see, though there are numerous other Evercade collections that feature absolutely unmissable games, for the most part they’re not actually difficult to get hold of and play on other machines; especially now, with the Antstream Arcade game streaming service going beyond the PC and appearing on the Xbox, most Evercade titles can be played there, for example.

Yet the Renovation titles still seem relatively rare and difficult to get hold of; acknowledging this, the Evercade team even cheekily calculated how much it’d cost if you wanted to buy each of the game’s featured in their original cartridge format at the time of this collection’s release.

That value was $1400! So having them all on one cartridge represents absolutely incredible value for money.

That wouldn’t mean much if the 12 included games weren’t great; however, though a few are a little weak in comparison to the others (and Beast Wrestler being the only outright stinker on here, despite an intriguing premise), that isn’t an issue.

The Valis and El Viento action platformers are a highlight for me, with brilliant level design, great anime-style premises and presentation – and excellent gameplay too.

There’s a few RPGs/action RPGs included; Arcus Odyssey and Exile being my favourites.

Shoot ’em up fans won’t be disappointed, with numerous scrolling shooters – but my recommendation, not being a straight shmup fan, would be top-down tank shoot ’em up Granada, which has an impressively open, non-linear feel to its levels.

As a pinball fan, I’ve also got to single out the superb Dino Land – which might not make it to the list of the best games here for most players – but it’s one I’ve found myself going back to repeatedly!

So there’s little more to say about this absolute gem of a collection, except this: if you have an Evercade, whether you’re a new owner or a veteran of the device, you really should have the Renovation Collection 1 in your library.

It’s a truly unmissable compilation and deserves to be on the shelves of every Evercade owner!

You can purchase the Renovation Collection 1 cartridge from Amazon here.