Capcom Goes Retro with ‘Dark Void Zero’ for DSiWare

As the ‘80s were drawing to a close, the developers at Capcom began work on a top secret project that aimed to set new standards for the platformer genre. That game was called “Dark Rift”, and it blended the intense shooting action of Section Z™ with the latest innovations in platform jumping from Mega Man. In order to properly fulfill the producer’s vision for Dark Rift (later renamed Dark Void), the hardware engineering team at Capcom was enlisted to design and produce an all-new chipset that would be included in every cartridge, enabling huge numbers of sprites and never-before-seen special effects to be displayed on the aging NES® platform and the PlayChoice-10 NES arcade cabinet.

Alas, time waits for no man and game developers are no exception. The dawn of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System® made the additional hardware requirements for Dark Void redundant. Capcom suspended development on Dark Void as it began to evaluate the SNES. Before long, the game was shelved and drifted into the annals of gaming history. Even the internal tape-based archives were lost due to an unfortunate magnet incident which even today is best left un-discussed. Dark Void became a legendary “lost project” at Capcom…until now.

Nearly twenty years later the next gen version of the game, Dark Void, is back on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC! But to commemorate the game’s humble origins, Capcom has commissioned this recreation of the original 8-bit classic, now re-titled “Dark Void Zero,” on the DSi platform. You play Rusty, the first human born in the Void, who must take on the Watchers in a quest to stop their domination of Earth. With the aid of Nikola Tesla, and his state-of-the-art rocket pack, Rusty must take down the Watchers and their minions across three intense levels of action and intrigue.

I’ve gotta’ admit, when Dark Void was originally announced, I was pretty excited, but I haven’t really been keeping up with it. The announcement of an 8-bit Dark Void DSiWare game has my interest piqued once again. This is the DSiWare that I’ve been waiting for -- the type of DSiWare that should have been out with the system’s launch. Oh Capcom, so glad you’ve found that the way to a nerd’s heart is through pixels and chiptunes.

Yes, this is an actual screenshot from the game. You actually have to blow into the DSi microphone to get the game started. Freaking brilliant!

More screens after the jump.

Dark Void Zero will be available exclusively as a DSiWare download in January 2010.