This Month in Retro April 2023
Hello all and welcome to This Month in Retro! The year is 1992 and we are faced with April, a... surprisingly uneventful month when it comes to company happenings. Usually I start an article like this with the start-ups, mergers, and defuncts, but nope, nothing like that happened during April. Which would make for a pretty short introduction... but there was at least something that happened. This month, our favourite pink puffball was born! Or at least, in Japan. Kirby's Dream Land released this month and was the first in a beloved ongoing franchise that still very occasionally sees multiple games per year. Although we won't be covering this game today due to the western release being later in the same year, it goes without saying that Kirby is a very important franchise to Nintendo that is often in the spotlight, and for good reason as it is a high-quality franchise that consistently pumps out hit after hit. It's a franchise I too love a lot, marking this as an important month to me.
And Kirby wasn't the only important game that released this month--although to find out what I mean by that, feel free to continue on reading. This month has seen a plethora of games, so as usual, I will be covering the games that released for the first time in the West, as well as games released that have never left Japan to this day. If applicable, I'll also cover the reviews and sales numbers, but do keep in mind early 90s documentation can be relatively poor and not too accurate. Also uh, MobyGames changed their website and it's too much of a hindrance to make an average of reviews only made around the time so I just grab the average instead. Initially I didn't want to include reviews from at least 10 years and later, but it is what it is. Regardless, the most important aspect is covering the games themselves and their achievement sets, so let's get on with it!
So remember reading that introduction 1 minute and 32 seconds ago? Where I mentioned that there was another important game release? Yeah, that's coming up right now. In total I have three favourite games of all time that usually take first place depending on my mood. What the other two of them are, wait and see I suppose as they are all very much possible to appear on This Month in Retro. Regardless, one of them we'll be talking about today, and that honour goes to none other than...
| Game |
|---|
 Legend of Zelda, The: A Link to the Past (SNES)
|
| Release dates | JP: November 21, 1991 |
| NA: April 13, 1992 | |
| PAL: September 24, 1992 | |
| Sales | 4.610.000 |
| Average score | 92% (GameRankings, 15 reviews) |
| 94% (MobyGames, 43 reviews) |
My first ever The Legend of Zelda game, and one that remains the undefeated champion that I don't ever see being surpassed. I absolutely adore this game--so much so that, including the awesome LTTP Randomizer, my total playthroughs are far closer to the triple digits than to the single. That's because it simply lends itself to a lot of freedom with a vast open world to explore that keeps delivering new secrets every time items from dungeons have been obtained. While the route to the end goal is fairly straightforward, there is so much to do that makes it feel like no playthrough is ever the same. And even then, most of the latter dungeons don't even have to be done in the order the game wants you to--although it will certainly make your life easier. My love for this game knows no limits, and I am clearly not alone. Not only does this game often contest its own entire franchise as the best game of it, but also for being one of the best SNES games... or even games in general. And don't just take my word for it either; critics- and players alike have an almost universal acclaim for this game, with practically no scores lower than a 7 to be found... anywhere. It simply is that good.
The achievement set doesn't really need an introduction as it is one of the most mastered games on the website. It's simple yet effective, and yours truly here has made an Achievement Guide if necessary. Talks about a subset have been going around and a revision is wanted by many players to include even more, but that's something future Nepiki will tell you about. In the meantime, there are also a bunch of hacks based on the game that you can try out, and although it has no RetroAchievements implementation, I highly highly HIGHLY recommend giving the LTTP Randomizer a go. It has been one of my most favoured fanmade experiences ever, and it truly would be a dream for me to ever see this on RetroAchievements in one way or another.
No games released this month have achievement sets other than the above mentioned.
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| Game |
|---|
 Fullmetal Alchemist: Stray Rondo (Game Boy Advance)
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| Release dates | JP: March 25, 2004 |
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