The MSX Year in Review - 2025 | The Odd Bit Machine

The year of 2025 brought a lot of new game developments for the MSX platform, but the information was scatterer throughout so many different medias that was quite really hard to keep up with all of them. That’s why we wil try to list the most important releases and news from the year, and we will try to keep the list updated with any missing pieces.

Some of these developments may become a final product, and some of them are just proof of concepts or lack the license from the original material, but all of them are worth noticing and celebrating, as the community effort seems to still be strong on keeping the platform alive and relevant after more the 40 years. Let’s check them out 😎!

- January

XeGrader 🇯🇵

The first game announced early in the year, XeGrader went from a playable demo to complete physical game with months. Developed by the M2 team’s legend Tokihiro Naito, it’s a vertical shumup for the MSX2/2+/Turbo-R machines with lots of secrets and fun gameplay.

February

The Rise

With the demo released by the XL2S Entertainment team, this game left a lof of people wondering if it was indeed running on a stock MSX machine. Let’s hope for more news related to this one soon in 2026.

- April

Nightstalker

This Castlevania-inspired adventure game comes with an extensive article from TimeExtension, and is being developed for the MSX 2 machines.

Mortal Kombat PoC 🇧🇷

Another proof of concept for the MSX 2 by the relentless developer Andre Silva, showing that the system could have a pretty nice and playable MK port without additional hardware.

MSX Wings 🇧🇷

Dubbed as probably just a demo by the brazilian developer Andre Silva, this impressive-looking MSX 2+ game inspired by Sonic Wings has three stages and can be downloaded from his GitHub page.

- August

Karateka PoC 🇯🇵

This one really came out of nowhere, and was a huge surprise when unveiled. The MSX BASIC wizard P.B.S used the power of the R800 processor to recreate Jordan Mechner’s first successful game on the MSX Turbo-R, something that was long overdue. It’s unfortunate that there are no plans to release the game in any form, but it works as a proof that the platform can handle the task of running this masterpiece.

- October

Caleb Adventure 🇧🇷

Under development by Paulo Gonçalves and his son Caleb in MSX BASIC, and using Amaury Carvalho’s MSXBAS2ROM tool to generate the ROM file, this game is another nice surprise that was promised to be be released in 2026 by the Bitnamic publishing team.

Delta

There isn’t much information about this one other than this reddit post, but is said that it’s aimed to be release for the MSX 2 on March 2026. The short video is truly enticing.

- November

Another World / Out of this World port

Another impressive work developed for the Turbo-R machines with the v9990 video cartridge and support for OPL4 audio, by the team known as Cave Fish. Saying that the results are impressive is an understatement, and better than all it’s that the game is available for download from File-Hunter’s website.

- December

Yie Ar KUNG-FU PoC 🇯🇵

This proof of concept based on the original Yie Ar Kung-Fu games was made using MSX BASIC by B.P.S. for the Turbo-R machines, taking advantage of the added processor speed and modern development tools. Might not become a complete game, but fills our eyes with cheer.

Ninja Training 🇧🇷

Another complete game released by Mario Cavalcanti of the Clube MSX magazine, Ninja Training is a fast-paced game where you test your reflects to prove that you are worth the title of Ninja. It was sold by the developer during the MSX meeting on the same month, and can be also ordered on the MSX Clube website when available.

Kanirus Encounter 🇧🇷

The great brazilian developer and Clube MSX magazine publisher Mario Cavalcanti came with this nice demo for a Christmas-themed shoot-em-up for the MSX 2, where you control one of the Santa’s reindeers and face a huge crab with comic eye-popping reactions when hit. Expect to see this game on a physical cartridge anytime in 2026, as Mario usually releases his games. More details on the Clube MSX page dedicated for the game.

YOKOXEVI preview 🇯🇵

On the last minutes of the year, the developer Nobuaki Washio released a video for a reimagined version of the classic Xevious game with a twist: A side-scroller shumup with the same elements and mechanic of the original piece. Nobuaki usually posts a lot of updated on his twitter account, but this update came straight from his youtube channel, so it seems that this may be the best source for follow him at the moment.

Things to look forward this year

While I’m revamping the oddbitmachine.net website and moving from the usual WordPress content management system to a simpler static page system with Jekyll, I’m also planning to write more about the MSX scene and other things. This year I will post more info here than in the other social media services, so stay tuned for news on this channel.

If you have suggestions for missing games released in the year of 2025, please feel free to toss me an email and I will check it promptly, since I’m not planning to add comments on this website in the foreseeable future.

Cheers and an excellent 2026 to everyone!

Welcome to The Odd Bit Machine