Compilation Rerelease

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Publishers will often bundle several previously released games on one disc and sell it as a Compilation Rerelease, usually several years after their initial releases and on a new console. The games usually are part of the same series or genre.

May count as a Revenue Enhancing Devices if you're cynical, or as a way to avoid keep old media accessible if you’re more of an optimist. Updated Rerelease is similar, but it's usually just one game and more polish rather than a package.

Examples of Compilation Rerelease include:
  • The Legend Of Zelda: Collector's Edition for the Nintendo GameCube featured slightly updated ports of Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, the original The Legend of Zelda, and Zelda II the Adventure of Link, plus a trial version of Wind Waker. It was packaged with new GameCube systems for a short time, and the only other ways to get it were to register at least two Nintendo-published games and a GameCube console on Nintendo's website or subscribe to Nintendo Power.
  • Sega Genesis Collection on PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.
  • The Midway Arcade Treasures trilogy on PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Cube and PC collected many well-known and obscure Arcade Games from the Midway Games, Atari Games and Williams libraries. This was preceded in the 1990s by the Arcade's Greatest Hits compilations for various consoles; the Atari Collection volumes actually included pre-Crash Atari games which Midway otherwise didn't have the rights to.
  • Sonic Mega Collection on GameCube collects Sonic the Hedgehog's entire Mega Drive (Genesis in America) library (including all three Sonic & Knuckles lock-ons) as well as Sonic 3D: Flickies' Island's ancestor Flicky and the unrelated classic Ristar. It also had an Updated Rerelease in Sonic Mega Collection Plus for Playstation 2 and Xbox, which added half of the Game Gear Sonic titles, The Ooze and Comix Zone (the latter two were formerly exclusive to the Japanese release of the original Gamecube collection because Sega of America was originally worried about the ESRB rating).
  • Rare same-console examples: Sonic Classics: 3-in-1 for Sega Genesis (Megadrive across the pond) contained Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2 plus Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, and the Sega Six Pack, that sported Sonic the Hedgehog, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Super Hang-On, Columns and Altered Beast.
    • These were used as pack-in games with the system, back when a free game was expected with a console, and three or six free games sounds much better than one. There were several variants, but they tended to use the same pool of early Megadrive games, mostly to keep the cartridge ROM size down. Another version was a Streets of Rage, Revenge of Shinobi and Golden Axe 3-in-1 cartridge. There's also a Mega CD 5-in-1 disc (Sega Classics Arcade Collection) as well which had the same as the 3-in-1 mentioned, plus Columns and Super Monaco GP, again a pack-in disc.
    • The Japanese Mega CD had the two-volume Game no Kanzume compilation of games that were originally released in Japan through Sega's Meganet download service, including all the Phantasy Star II text adventures.
  • Super Mario All-Stars is a Video Game Remake compilation of these for the Super NES. It has Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3 (And both the completely different American and Japanese SMB2s, even!) but with updated graphics and sound as well as a save feature to allow players to play the games in smaller sittings (The Lost Levels saves each level of the worlds to make it easier to progress through the (very hard) game, while the other, less difficult games in the compilation only save the world and not each individual level). It, too, was often packed with the system, and a later edition even included Super Mario World to boot. Years later, it was ported to the Wii for the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. This edition lacks Super Mario World due to it already being on the Virtual Console, but it has Feelies instead, consisting of an artwork book and a soundtrack CD.
  • Nintendo pulled the Updated Rerelease variant of this trope again with the Metroid Prime Trilogy for the Wii.
  • Some compilations don't even bother with a console. Some are stand-alone devices that run on batteries, package the game system into a controller, and connect to the TV over AV cables directly, and sell under $20US. Midway, Namco, and a few other old-school arcade brands have licensed their old catalogs for this treatment, most of them by the toy company JAKKS Pacific for their "TV Games" line.
    • In a similar vein, Atari has released 2 Flashback consoles, which each have 20-30 Atari 2600 games built-in to them. Interestingly enough, the Flashback 2 is actually based on the 2600's hardware, and, if you're handy with a soldering iron, it's quite simple to add a cartridge slot to play old 2600 cartridges.
    • Sega have done the same thing with the Megadrive/Genesis- it's got a bunch of built in games, and a cartridge slot to play all your old ones.
  • Command & Conquer: The First Decade had every C&C game up until the Generals expansion Zero Hour. Now they've got C&C Saga which is the above and C&C 3 wrapped together with a paper insert and shrink wrap.
  • The Orange Box, which has Half-Life 2, the two pseudo-expansion episodes, Team Fortress 2, and Portal.
    • Interesting due to the fact that this started as a compilation, and is now sold as separate titles.
    • Also interesting because it was originally announced as "The Black Box," which just had the new stuff, and "The Orange Box." When the Black Box was cancelled, angry nerds accused Valve of making them buy the games twice, though they went quiet when it turned out any games you already own from the Orange Box can be sent to friends who don't have them as gifts.
  • Grim Fandango, the first LucasArts Adventure Game to lose money but which still achieved cult status, was eventually repackaged with three other cult adventure games of theirs: Full Throttle, Sam and Max Hit The Road and The Dig.
    • In the late '90s, the company also had "the LucasArts collections", five or more games along with a demo disc for another half a dozen more, arranged in rough genre. For example, volume II was dedicated to Star Wars games (and included TIE Fighter and the Rebel Assault games), while volume III was for adventure games (including the first two Monkey Island games and the aforementioned The Dig and Full Throttle).
  • The LucasArts Archives series of PC/MAC releases (from the 90's) included most of the company's early titles (including Full Throttle, Maniac Mansion, Sam and Max Hit The Road and others) and most of their Star Wars offerings (including X-Wing, TIE Fighter and Dark Forces), not to mention several games which haven't been released since then (including the Rebel Assault series and the Star Wars Screen Entertainment desktop utility). The games are incompatible with modern operating systems, but can still run on the Scumm virtual console.
  • The Diablo Battle Chest, which includes both the first two Diablo games and the second game's expansion pack Lord of Destruction.
  • Interplay released the Bhaalspawn Saga; or as it's known, Baldur's Gate, Tales of the Sword Coast, Shadows of Amn, and Throne of Bhaal.
  • The Hitman series has as compilation release of the second (Hidden Assassin), third (Contracts), and fourth (Blood Money) games. The reasons for the first game (Codename 47) not being included are that it was a PC-only game (while the rest are PC and Console titles) and also that the third game is essentially a remake of the first in the form of an extended flashback with better graphics and gameplay.
  • The various Namco Museum collections. The most complete version, on the PlayStation, besides including many classic 1980s arcade games, gave such titles as The Return of Ishtar, The Legend of Valkyrie and The Genji and the Heike Clans their first-ever Western releases.
  • SNK Playmore compilations include:
    • Metal Slug Anthology (Wii, PSP and Playstation 2)
    • Samurai Shodown Anthology. (Wii, PSP, PlayStation 2)
    • Art of Fighting Anthology. (PlayStation 2)
    • Fatal Fury Battle Archives Volumes 1 & 2. (PlayStation 2)
    • SNK Arcade Classics Vol. 1 (Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP), a compilation 16 Neo Geo titles that left fans waiting for a Vol. 2.
    • SNK Arcade Classics 0 (PSP), including 20 pre-Neo Geo games from the 1980s.
    • The King of Fighters Collection: The Orochi Saga (Wii, PSP, PlayStation 2) a compilation made specifically for the overseases market (developed by Terminal Reality, who also made Metal Slug Anthology) that bundles all of the KOF games from '94 to '98.
      • A separately developed compilation was released exclusively in Japan titled The King of Fighters: Orochi Hen for the PlayStation 2 (developed by G1M2, the same company that did the Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and World Heroes compilations), which only includes '95 to '97 (since '94 and '98 were given stand-alone remakes in Japan). However, some fans actually prefer the Japanese compilation despite having two games less due to the lack of loading times and extra features missing in the overseas version such as a character palette editor, an online versus mode, and the choice to play each game with the remixed music from the Neo-Geo CD versions (the overseas version only allows players to use the cartridge soundtrack).
      • There was also The King of Fighters: NESTS Hen, which includes the Neo-Geo and Dreamcast versions of '99, 2000, and 2001. So far, its Japan only.
    • World Heroes Anthology. (PlayStation 2)
    • SunSoft Collection, a Japan-only compilation that contains Waku Waku 7 and Galaxy Fight: Universal Warriors. (PlayStation 2)
    • ADK Tamashii, another Japan-only compilation that includes Aggressors of Dark Combat, Ninja Combat, Ninja Commando, Ninja Master's Haoh-Ninpo-Cho, and Twinkle Star Sprites. (PlayStation 2)
    • Fu'un Super Combo, yet another Japan-only compilation that contains Savage Reign and Kizuna Encounter. (PlayStation 2)
    • Bakumatsu Roman Gekka No Kenshi 1 + 2, another Japan-only compilation that has both games in the Last Blade series. (PlayStation 2)
    • Sengoku Anthology (PS2 and PC)
      • Not only that, SNK Playmore released two boxsets that contained most of these compilations. Again, only in Japan.
  • Capcom had release quite a few compilations since the PlayStation/Saturn days.
    • Street Fighter Collection for the PS and Saturn, a two disc compilation containing Super Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo on one disc and Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold on the second. It was followed by Street Fighter Collection 2, which includes the original Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Street Fighter II′ (Dash): Champion Edition, and Street Fighter II′ (Dash) Turbo: Hyper Fighting.
    • Five volumes of the Capcom Generation series for the PS and Saturn, which covers series such as Ghosts N Goblins, 1942, and Commando. The first four volumes were released as a bundle in Europe titled Capcom Generations, but only Vol. 5 (aka Street Fighter Collection 2) got a stand-alone release in America and Europe.
    • The 16 games in the Capcom Generation series were later rereleased again in a new compilation titled Capcom Classics Collection for the PS2 and Xbox, which also included other games such as Final Fight and Forgotten Worlds. This was followed by Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2, which included Super Street Fighter II Turbo (skipping the original Super Street Fighter II) and Strider, plus a ton of other games.
    • There was also Capcom Classics Collection: Remixed and Reloaded, which more or less contain the same lineup of games as its console counterpart (missing only Trojan and Super Turbo), as well as Capcom Classics Mini-Mix for the GBA, which includes the NES versions of Strider, Final Fight, and Bionic Commando.
    • The Mega Man series has had quite a few compilations as well. The earliest one was Mega Man: The Wily Wars (aka Rockman Mega World) for the Sega Genesis, a Super Mario All-Stars-style compilation of the first three NES games that was released in Japan and Europe only. The six Famicom games were given individual rereleases for the PlayStation as part of the Rockman Complete Works series, along with a two-in-one compilation for the PS2 of the arcade games Power Battle and Power Fighters, although westerners got a better deal in the end by receiving the Mega Man Anniversary Collection, a compilation of Mega Man 1-8, with the arcade games as hidden extras. There was also the Mega Man X Collection, a compilation of Mega Man X 1-6 as well as the Japan and Europe-only Battle & Chase. Recently Mega Man Zero Collection for the Nintendo DS was released, compiling the four GBA games and bringing the previously Japan-exclusive Zero 3 features outside of Japan.
    • Street Fighter also had the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for the PS2 and Xbox, which was a two-in-one compilation of Hyper Street Fighter II (a pseudo compilation of the Street Fighter II series) and Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, both of which were originally given individual releases for the PlayStation 2 in Japan and Europe.[1] There was an actually Street Fighter compilation later released titled Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, which included most of the Alpha games (including Alpha 2 Gold and Alpha 3 Upper), as well as Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix.
    • There was also Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection for the PS2 in Japan only.
  • Xbox Live Arcade Unplugged is a collection of games from the Xbox 360's Arcade library.
  • Taito Legends 1 and 2 compile a bunch of Taito arcade games.
    • There was also a Japan-only series called Taito Memories, four releases in total that contained all but five of the games that Legends did, plus about 30 or so more. There is a discussion of the differences and a complete list of games here.
  • Space Invaders Anniversary had various incarnations of the first game, upright and tabletop versions of Space Invaders Part II, and a new 3D version of the first game.
  • Final Fantasy has had several compilations depending on whether you're in North America, Europe or Japan. In North America, there's Final Fantasy Anthology (Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI), Final Fantasy Origins (Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II), and Final Fantasy Chronicles (Final Fantasy IV and Chrono Trigger, which, strictly speaking, is not a Final Fantasy game), all for PlayStation. Of these, Europe received Final Fantasy Origins and an edition of Final Fantasy Anthology which contained Final Fantasy IV instead of Final Fantasy VI, whose PlayStation version was released individually in Europe. There was also a Japan-only two-in-one Famicom cartridge containing Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II together, and there was the Final Fantasy Collection (IV, V and VI) for PS. Most of the games were updated slightly, mainly with FMV scenes and a bestiary and/or art gallery. There's also a GBA compilation of FF I and FF II called Dawn of Souls, and a PSP remake of FF IV compiled with The After Years.
  • Activision Anthology on the PlayStation 2 and PC gathers nearly all of Activision's Atari 2600 library. It also goes the extra mile in putting you in The Eighties with its 80's gamer's room interface and licensed songs from the era playing in the background during gameplay if you want to. The PC version even includes some homebrew games in the list.
  • Guitar Hero: Smash Hits can be considered a variant of sorts, as its setlist consists entirely of fan favorites from the first three Guitar Hero games
  • After the smash success of Fallout 3 in 2008, Interplay re-released Fallout 1, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics, optimized for modern operating systems and fully patched. What did they call this bundle? The Fallout Trilogy. Never mind that each of these games have totally independent plots. And that there was another game in the series not included.[2] And that one of the games in the "Trilogy" is a Gaiden Game....
  • To tithe players over until the release of God of War III, an Updated Rerelease of the first two games were rereleased in a Blu-Ray compilation disc, with full Trophy support and anti-aliased 720p visuals running at a constant 60 frames per second. There's also a Play Station 3 rerelease of the two PSP titles (Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta), titled God of War Origins Collection.
  • Raiden Fighters Aces for the Xbox 360 is a compilation of all three Raiden Fighters games, released in 2008 in Japan and 2009 in North America, 10 and 11 years, respectively, after the newest game in the compilation, Raiden Fighters Jet. This is after two failed attempts to port the series—once for the Sega Saturn in 1997, and once for the original Xbox and PC in 2003.
  • Humongous Entertainment did a LOT of these. Let's see, there's the Humongous Classics Collection, Super Duper Arcades 1 and 2, the Junior Field Trips Collection, the Triple Treat Packs, Backyard Sports Three pack, the three double packs for Putt-Putt, Freddi Fish, and Pajama Sam...do we need to go on any further?
  • R-Types for the original PlayStation, and more recently, R-Type Dimensions on XBLA.
  • The DS and PSP remakes of the first two Ys games were combined into one package for the North American release, despite being released separately in Japan. The Windows versions they were based on had been bundled together in Japan as Ys Complete.
  • Famicom and NES pirated carts did it very often, having 2 to 50 games per cartridge. Action 52 wasn't one of these, though it was inspired by them.
  • Sierra released compilations for many of their popular adventure games such as King's Quest, Space Quest, and Quest for Glory.
  • Raiden Project for the original PlayStation, which regroups the first two games of the Raiden series.
  • Subverted with Retro Game Challenge, where none of the games you play actually exist outside of the game itself.
  • The Gundemonium Collection consists of three Bullet Hell Shoot'Em Ups (Gundemonium Recollection, GundeadliGne and Hitogata Happa) originally independently developed by Platine Dispositif, and then published by Rockin' Android for PC (its original platform) and the Playstation Network.
  • Sega Ages 2500: Phantasy Star Collection for the PlayStation 2, but not in America, which brings together the Master System original and Genesis sequels. Similarly, the Sega Saturn received a Phantasy Star Collection with the same four games, and another was released for the Game Boy Advance that omitted Phantasy Star IV due to cartridge space.
  • Video Game/MOTHER 1+2, a Game Boy Advance port/compilation of MOTHER 1 and EarthBound. Considering what franchise we're talking about, No Export for You ensued.
  • Both Dragon Quest I and II were compiled for the Super Famicom (Japanese SNES), and later again for the Game Boy Color, based on the Super Famicom version. The GBC version got an American release.
  • You Don't Know Jack has had a ton of Compilation Rereleases over the years.
  • In addition to a number of collections that EA and Origin put out combining unrelated games that they had release together on Compact Disc, there was also the Wing Commander Kilrathi Saga collection: The first three games, re-released for Windows 95, with remastered audio and music. For the first two games, it was pretty much the only way to play the games on modern computers (aside from the MS-DOS issue, the original games played ridiculously fast on a Pentium computer). After the game went out of print, copies were known to sell on EBay for $100 or more. At least one copy sold for $300. Despite this, Electronic Arts declined to do a rerelease because they were unsure of there being enough demand for it.
    • They may be learning from their mistakes. In the summer of 2011, EA made several older games of theirs available on GoodOldGames; whether these are among them is yet to be seen.
    • Prophecy and Secret Ops were released in the compilation Prophecy Gold, with an expanded, combined manual for both instead of just putting the two manuals (one of them originally electronic). However, they did not include the fiction from the Secret Ops site, due to copyright concerns from EA's German branch.
    • The Amiga CD32 had a pack-in CD that bundled Dangerous Streets with an enhanced version of Wing Commander.
  • Since Infogrames bought (and then became) Atari, they've released many compilations of arcade and Atari 2600 games, largely featuring the same games. The first were two PC collections of six arcade games called Atari Greatest Hits released when Atari was still the intellectual property of Hasbro. When Infogrames bought the company, they packaged the 12 games into one compilation called Atari Anniversary Edition for the PC, PlayStation 2, Dreamcast and Game Boy Advance. Then, several years later, Infogrames/Atari released a compilation for the PC, PlayStation 2 and XBox called Atari Anthology which featured 18 arcade games and 62 Atari 2600 games. Finally, in 2010, Atari released the two-part Atari Greatest Hits series for the DS, which splits the contents of Atari Anthology into two different DS compilations (one came out in 2010, the other in 2011) with 9 arcade and 30-something 2600 games on each (some of the 2600 games are exclusive to the DS games, but the 18 arcade games are the same ones that are on Atari Anthology).
  • Gears of War has the Triple Pack, which bundles the first and second games, as well as all their DLC.
  • Bit.Trip SAGA is a compilation of all six BIT.TRIP games for the Nintendo 3DS. BIT.TRIP COMPLETE, likewise, is a compilation for Wii that takes the original WiiWare games and gives them Difficulty Levels, online leaderboards, challenge modes, and Unlockable Content. Notable that this will be the first time the games have gone retail.
  • Gradius Collection on PSP in 2006. This is particularly significant for North American players, because it is the first official NA release of Gradius Gaiden (first released in 1997 in Japan only) and Gradius II (first released in 1988 in Japan AND in Europe, yet no NA release for eighteen years!).
    • Salamander Portable, which had Salamander, Life Force, Salamander 2 and XEXEX, was also released for the PSP, but in Japan only. The same goes for the Parodius Portable collection.
  • Shining Force CD for the Sega CD was a compilation of the two Shining Force Gaiden games for the Game Gear.
  • Konami likes releasing compilations of its old games:
  • Digimon Anode/Cathode Tamer: Veedramon Version, a Wonder Swan Color title compiling two near-identical Digimon Adventure games (Digimon Adventure Anode Tamer and Digimon Adventure Cathode Tamer), giving them a colour facelift in the process.
  • Toaplan Shooting Battle Volume 1 for the PlayStation included Tiger Heli and both the Japanese and international versions of Twin Cobra. No second volume was released.
  • Data East Arcade Classics on the Wii.
  • The Xbox 360 has a compliation of Plants vs. Zombies, Peggle, and Zuma.
  • The recent trend of Play Station 3 (and sometimes Xbox 360) high-definition compilations, which shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Franchises which have been given this treatment include, but are by no means limited to, Sly Cooper, Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, Silent Hill, and Metal Gear Solid.
  • Microsoft Arcade, released for the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh in 1993, was the first compilation of golden age Atari games. Microsoft later released Return of Arcade and Revenge of Arcade for Windows 95; both were compilations of old Namco games.
  • Hudson Soft released a fair number of these, but only in Japan:
  • Irem Arcade Hits for the PC compiled together many Irem games excluding R-Type (though it did include R-Type Leo).
    • Earlier, two single-disc collections were released in Japan for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn: Irem Arcade Classics (10-Yard Fight, Zippy Race and Spartan X) and Image Fight & X-Multiply.
  • Arcade Smash Hits for the Sega Master System had Missile Command, Breakout and Centipede.
  • Ultimate Play the Game: The Collected Works for the ZX Spectrum.
    • The bizarrely titled Cosmic Battlezones for the BBC Micro was a compilation of Jetpac, Lunar Jetman and Alien 8.
  • The Turbo Duo was released with a pack-in compilation of Gates of Thunder, Bonk's Adventure, and Bonk's Revenge on a single Super CD, with Bomberman as a hidden extra.
  • Nintendo Puzzle Collection, a Japan-only Game Cube compilation of Dr. Mario, Yoshi's Cookie and Panel de Pon.
  • Ninja Gaiden Trilogy for the SNES collected all three NES games with relatively few enhancements other than the addition of a Password Save.
  • Thunder Force Gold Pack 1 and Pack 2 for the Sega Saturn had the three Mega Drive Thunder Force games and Thunder Force AC.
  • The Intellivision Lives! compilations for the PC, Macintosh, PlayStation, Xbox, PlayStation 2, Game Cube and Nintendo DS have emulated versions of most of the Intellivision's first-party releases, plus a few bonus games that were never released for the actual system. There was also the Intellivision Rocks! compilation, mostly featuring games developed for the system by Activision and Imagic, and again including a few previously unreleased games.
  • Namco collected most of their PlayStation Light Gun Games on the Japan-only PlayStation 2 release Gunvari Collection + Time Crisis, "Gunvari" being the Japanese series title for Point Blank.
  • Sega Ages Volume 1, a US-only release for the Sega Saturn, crammed onto one disc Arcade Perfect Ports of Out Run, Space Harrier and After Burner II which had been released separately in Japan. A similar collection (including Super Hang-On) was later released for the Game Boy Advance.
  • Tecmo Classic Arcade for the Xbox featured 11 of their old arcade games.
  • Kunio-Kun Nekketsu Collection, another Japan-only compilation of Famicom games for the Game Boy Advance, with two on each of three volumes.
  • AliceSoft released the first three Rance series and other old games in Alice no Yakata 456. That's so you could play those games on Windows.
  1. ↑ (Yes, that's right -- an anniversary collection that omits the original Street Fighter.)
  2. ↑ To be fair, fans would rather forget that game, and it wrecked Interplay altogether; see They Just Didn't Care for more details
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