The only previous dual cartridge game – Xeno Crisis/Tanglewood – felt like a bit of a letdown for me, after ten previous cartridges with much bigger collections of games.

Yet there’s no denying that modern retro titles – that is to say, contemporary games designed to work on old consoles – can often be the best of both worlds, with more modern design elements sitting comfortably aside retro audio and visuals.

Though Xeno Crisis was a great example of a modern retro game, I found Tanglewood to be less engaging; on a cartridge featuring just two titles, if one of them doesn’t measure up it’s very difficult to recommend it, no matter how good the other game may be.

So I was apprehensive when it came to the announcement of a new dual, modern retro cartridge, featuring the 8-bit Edition of Alwa’s Awakening and Cathedral.

Even more worryingly is the fact that they’re both Metroidvania games; one of the best things with any Evercade cartridge is the fact that they often offer a variety of experiences and genres.

Not so here; if platforming action adventures – in which you gradually power up your character and gain access to new areas as you expand your abilities – aren’t of interest to you, well you can safely skip this cartridge entirely.

However, you’d really be missing out if you did.

That’s because both Alwa’s Awakening and Cathedral are superb.

Alwa’s Awakening – just like the best modern retro games – feels like a lost classic from the NES; it’s a sprawling game that’ll sink its claws into you very quickly.

The real star here is Cathedral, however.

It’s a beautiful looking game – and the version included has been fully created to work natively on the Evercade, without being emulated.

It feels responsive, smooth and just a little bit more punishing than the usual fare on Evercade, given that you can’t save scum your way through it – being natively run on the console, it doesn’t use the typical six slot, save anywhere system that emulated games use.

It’s a huge, incredibly compelling game that’ll take a long time for any player to get through.

Cathedral would likely be worth the price of the cartridge alone; however, the fact that Alwa’s Awakening is also on the cartridge and is a great Metroidvania in its own right, means that I can unequivocally recommend this cartridge – as long as you really don’t have an aversion to this type of game, of course.

You can purchase the Alwa’s Awakening/Cathedral cartridge from Amazon here.