Console Archives Dezaemon drops you straight into a retro workshop where imagination becomes firepower, inviting you to sculpt your own shoot‑’em‑up worlds with the same quirky charm that defined its original NES roots. From hand‑drawn sprites to custom enemy waves, every moment feels like rediscovering a lost era of DIY creativity. This deep dive into Console Archives Dezaemon explores how well its revived toolkit holds up today, and whether its nostalgic spark still ignites modern players looking to build, blast, and tinker.

Console Archives Dezaemon Review Pros

• Classic 8 Bit graphics. 
• 164.5MB download size. 
• Four trophies, yes, just four trophies!
• The game was originally released in 1991 for consoles. 
• Audio volume sliders for – menu sound, game sound, and general volume. 
• Display settings – wallpaper choices, screen display border, screen layout, screen filter, and custom screen settings. 
• You can remap the controls. 
• 3 save slots. 
• Shmup creator gameplay. 
• The manual is a text and images-based manual that you can access instantly in the menu. 
• You build and play your own Shmup games from scratch and have total control. 
• The whole game is in Japanese, or should I say 95 per cent is Japanese, as the save and load pop-ups are English. 
• In the game, you are charged with creating the ship, projectiles from the ship, and any animations, the background of the levels, a title screen, and credits! You can make rolling credits, and the soundtrack can be created. 
• The manual shows all translations and does a good job, as it shows the Japanese text, but also shows a grid you can then line up translations. 
• All character/ship creations are done on a grid-based system; you can change the colour of the grid and then individual squares on the grid. At all times, you can see your creation on the side in real time, and it will show how the creation will look in-game. 
• The game supports the stick and the D-pad. 
• You create between 1 and 3 levels and can play-test each one individually. 
• The level of detail is insane; you can create projectiles, power-ups, and even the projectiles that enemies fire. 
• Enemies can be individually tweaked for speed, enemy health, score for killing them, movement pattern, animation screens, and their perimeter within which they detect you. 
• Background creation has 16 16×16 grids to draw on and uses the same controls and menus as the others. 
• The music creator is deep; it lets you set the BGM, tempo, half bar loop, and you have two tones to tweak. The creator is simple in its layout, and you can hear sounds as you drag and drop them in. 
• Save and load when you want.
• Yes, you can create bosses as well as enemies, and the enemies and the bosses both have their own set of movement choices. 
• This is software more than a game, and it will appeal to a certain set of gamers, me being one who spent way too long on Music and Music 2000 and couldn’t afford a Net Yaroze in later life. 
• If I got this when I was younger, I would have lost my mind, I know, and already have spent hours creating ships and backgrounds. 
• I managed to make a Sleep Token logo ship and a kind of Arcadia flower/tree background, but that took me hours. 
• You can load in the default templates of enemies, ships, etc and then edit and save them for yourself. 
• If you have the time, the game has the goods. 
• This is what I like to see, obscure or previously unavailable Japanese games coming to our shores, and Hamster have done the manual in such a way that it makes it easier to play. 
• Easy trophy list, all four can be earned in just a few days, this is because the trophies are for playing for ten minutes for a few days. 
• I love this release and to be honest, it’s my favourite Console Archives release so far! 
• OK, there is a sample game, it’s basic but shows you what’s capable, and honestly, for 1991 at home, you can build a detailed game. 
• It’s a game/software that had me breaking out the grid paper again! 

Console Archives Dezaemon Review Cons

• I personally wish I could have an easy Official way to put the manual on the mobile phone, just to cut down on menu surfing. 
• As said, the game is 95 per cent Japanese, but I also said they did amazing work on a simplified, easy-to-follow manual. 
• I did find I got lost a lot, but again it’s getting used to the menu structure. 
• You will eventually hit the limit of how many ships, backgrounds, etc you can make until you have to save over, but I mean it was 1991.
• There is no way to share or download other players’ creations. Obviously, the tech didn’t exist then, but this serves as a FYI. 
• Don’t expect any tutorials in the game. 
• Honestly, the biggest issue is always going to be the language barrier, and unless you take Screenshots and save them on your fone you will always be manually surfing, and the ui is not as nice or clear as you would like. 
• Only four trophies.

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Console Archives Dezaemon

Official Website: 

Developer: Athena

Publisher: HAMSTER Corporation

Store Link:

PlayStation