The fourth collection of new ‘retro’ indie titles for the Evercade shows that publisher Blaze have really hit their stride when curating these cartridges.

The mix of genres and styles in general is as eclectic as ever, but it does feel as if quality is up across the board.

That said, it doesn’t quite reach the stratospheric high of Donut Dodo, on Indie Heroes Collection 3. However, Indie Heroes Collection 4 does feature Murtop, a game from the developers responsible for the sublime Donut Dodo.

As a mashup of two familiar retro titles (Dig Dug and Bomberman are the clear sources of inspiration here), Murtop isn’t quite as pure or intuitive an experience as Donut Dodo, and its gameplay isn’t quite as compelling either. Yet it’s still good fun, even if I didn’t gel with it as easily as I did with the Dodo-based collect ’em up.

Flea! 2 is another highlight, and a great addition to the previous Lowtek titles on the Evercade (Flea! and Tapeworm Disco Puzzle, featured on Indie Heroes Collection 1 and 2, respectively).

Batty Zabella is a fun point and click adventure for the Game Boy, with some amusingly Elvira-style shenanigans. It could probably have used a more detailed and colourful source platform than the humble, four-shades-of-green Game Boy, but it’s straightforward enough in any case, with a fun script too.

There’s a nice mix of platformers included, with spooky Saturday cartoon-inspired The Curse of Illmore Bay and Nyghtmare: The Ninth King (the nemesis of spell checkers everywhere); the highlight, however, is the cute Jane Austen’s 8-Bit Adventure, which sees the titular author trapped in a video game, battling characters from her own books!

Collie Defense is a simplistic, but genuinely fun tower defense title and Starseed is another basic, but enjoyable game (this time an 8-bit shoot ’em up).

Finally, puzzle games Block ‘Em, Sock ‘Em, Block Droppin’ (both apostrophe-sportin’, but quite different, block puzzlers) and Soko Banana (a cutesy, simian take on box-pushing title Sokoban) round out the collection nicely.

Though the Evercade is often thought of as a console which allows players to revisit games from the past, it’s rapidly become an excellent way to try new, if retro-styled, games. These indie collections, as well as the dual game cartridges such as Goodboy Galaxy/Witch N’Wiz, are quite often really good value, full of great new experiences, and Indie Heroes Collection 4 is no exception.

You can buy Indie Heroes Collection 4 from Amazon.

Hi! I’m Jason, and I write for midlifegamergeek.com, every single day. If you’re interested in supporting original, regularly published, human created content (which has never been plagiarised or otherwise copied from the hard work of other writers), you can donate and help me to keep this site running.

Not only do I earn no income from my writing here (though I may earn small fees from affiliate links posted on my pages; as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from these links), but it seems that my work has, at times, been stolen and re-used by lazy, morally bankrupt idiots.

There’s no pressure of course, but I’d be truly grateful for any support that you could offer – and it’s easy to do so at either of these links: Ko-Fi.com/geekmid or PayPal.

Any donations are truly appreciated – and I also appreciate you taking the time to read my articles. Remember: this whole article was by Jason Brown, and appeared on midlifegamergeek.com. Take that, Skynet!