Thirty-four years ago this week, a mech strategy game launched on the Sega Mega Drive in Japan — and never left. This Friday, that finally changes.
According to Gematsu, publisher Ratalaika Games and developer Shinyuden are bringing Vixen 357 to PS5, Xbox Series, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam on October 23, 2026 — exactly 34 years to the day after its October 23, 1992 Japanese release. This is the game’s first official English release ever (in Spanish too, per RPGFan), and it costs $5.99 USD — about $8.50 CAD at today’s rate. That’s not a typo: under ten bucks.
So what took 34 years? Vixen 357 is a 16-mission, turn-based mech strategy RPG from NCS Corporation’s legendary Masaya Games label — the folks behind Assault Suits Valken and Langrisser. You command the Slash unit in the year 2394, a decade after a devastating war against alien forces, piloting high-mobility combat mechs called VECTORs. Any VECTOR can be assigned to any character, combat plays out on a tactical grid, and there’s strict permadeath — pilots who die in battle are permanently removed from your roster. Mistakes are permanent, as the official overview cheerfully puts it.
Here’s the hook for the Front Mission crowd: Vixen 357 was produced by Toshiro Tsuchida, who left Masaya a few years later to create the Front Mission franchise at Square in 1995. The game shares a universe with Masaya’s 1990 PC Engine title Hisou Kihei X-SERD, and Pants Pants Revolution notes its grid-based combat and modular mech assignments laid the mechanical groundwork for what Tsuchida would go on to build at Square. The Mega Drive never had many strategy RPGs — Shining Force hogged the spotlight — and this was one of the cult-classic also-rans.
The port itself is unfancy in the best way: rewind, turbo to speed up enemy turns, cheats (infinite lives, invulnerability), save states, screen filters including a retro-monitor look, and a digital gallery of the original game’s illustrations, posters, and box art. There’s also a fun bit of history here — Super Fighter Team tried to bring the game West on cartridge back in 2019, but that project was cancelled. Shinyuden’s 2026 release is the first time Vixen 357 has been officially translated and sold outside Japan. And if you’d rather play it on original hardware, Shinyuden also sells an aftermarket physical Mega Drive/Genesis cartridge for €69.50, with a reversible cover, double-sided poster, collector’s card, and a full manual — a tidy sum, but it runs on a real Genesis.
Check out the trailer below:
Thirty-four years is a long time to wait for a translation, but honestly? The timing could hardly be better — permadeath tactics are having a moment, and at $8.50 this is one of the cheapest doors into one of the Mega Drive’s best-kept secrets. Are you grabbing this one on day one?
Sources: Gematsu, RPGFan, Pants Pants Revolution, Nintendo Everything