The failed Clockwork Aquario, a gem of platforming games from the early90s – a time when fighting games took over arcades around the world – was developed for the Sega System 18 and tested in arcades before it was taken off the market in 1994. For us, preserving the original style has always been a priority, and we think the game looks great as it is. So we are convinced that the graphics of Clockwork Aquario will please not only the fans of retro games, but also all the fans of colorful arcade games. But we think that there are fans of games that go to the arcade and want to play not fighting games, but other games. That’s why we tried to make a strange action game genre, which is our strong point, competing with fighting games. But since it was originally an arcade game, I don’t think I wanted to change anything, because the game takes all the advantages of the hardware and displays them so accurately that it’s hard to believe that the game was developed on the old hardware of that time. At the time, the gaming industry was experiencing strong growth in fighting games, and arcade games took up most of the retail space. Ryuichi Nishizawa, the game’s creator, said: “The purpose of slot machines is, of course, performance. Developed by Wonder Boy creator Ryuichi Nishizawa, the source code for this “lost” game was partially recovered, and a team of employees restored, rebuilt and brought the game back to life as faithfully as possible. I don’t think anyone could have imagined that games from the past would resurface, and as someone who has been developing games since the 8-bit arcade era, this is really surprising to me. Arcade games were becoming more and more “fighting arcades,” and we entered an era where fighting games were the strongest genre. As a game developer, I couldn’t be happier that people, as adults, want to return to the games they played as children. We’re excited to finally be able to officially release this game, which is about to be lost forever, but we want to avoid ruining the game at all costs; honestly, when we started the rebuild, we didn’t expect to have so many missing graphics. We had a chance to talk to original creator Ryuichi Nishizawa, original programmer Takanori Kurihara, and Dennis Mendel and Benedict Breitsch of Strictly Limited Games to learn more about this amazing history of archaeology and digital preservation, and how they brought this gem of an arcade game back from oblivion. As conservatives try to preserve video game history before it’s too late, one such program has thankfully emerged from oblivion through the combined efforts of passionate programmers and editors, as well as former Westone employees who worked on the original game. Not only is it a great arcade game, but it’s also part of Japanese video game history, which can’t be overstated given the popularity of the Wonder Boy series in the West. But if people like the game as much as we do, and there is a demand for it, there will undoubtedly be a way to develop a new version or even a sequel with the Westone team, given the current material.