The Earthworm Jim Chromatic release arrived without a whisper of marketing, bundled alongside Rayman 2 Forever as ModRetro quietly added two new titles to its Classics Collection for the ModRetro Chromatic and original Game Boy hardware.
Both titles are available now from ModRetro’s website, priced at $44.99 / £41.00 / €48.95 each. Compatible hardware spans the ModRetro Chromatic, Game Boy, Game Boy Colour, and the Analogue Pocket, so whether you are running original cartridges on a DMG or playing through the Chromatic’s crisp display, you are covered.
A Shadow Drop Worth Waking Up For
No trailer. No countdown. No drip-feed of screenshots on social media. ModRetro simply put both games up for sale, letting players discover them on their own terms. It is exactly the kind of release a cartridge-on-the-shelf era of gaming used to produce, and it suits the Chromatic’s whole ethos rather well.
Rayman 2 Forever arrives on a yellow cartridge, complete with a new Chromatic charm, a full-colour booklet, and a proper retail box. It is not the first time the franchise has appeared on the platform: the original Rayman launched on the Chromatic almost a year ago, back in September 2025, on a purple cartridge. The yellow shell for the sequel keeps that colourful cartridge tradition going, and the packaging alone makes it feel like a genuine product rather than a mere ROM on a board.
The headline enhancement for Rayman 2 is a whole new soundtrack, composed specifically for this release. Fitting new music to a Game Boy cartridge without losing the feel of the source material is a proper technical and creative challenge, and it is the kind of effort that separates a considered Classics Collection entry from a straight port.
Earthworm Jim Gets Auto-Save and Level Select
For many, the Earthworm Jim Chromatic release will be the more arresting of the two. The original game had a reputation for being wonderfully strange, and the Chromatic version leans into the Game Boy’s heritage rather than trying to modernise the look: it runs in the traditional DMG green-hue graphics, presented on a standard grey cartridge. No colour palette, no filters. Just that familiar phosphor-green aesthetic that anyone who grew up with an original Game Boy will recognise immediately.
The Chromatic charm included with Earthworm Jim has already been flagged as a particular highlight of the physical package. Beyond the aesthetics, the two gameplay additions are the ones that matter most. Auto-save has been added, removing the frustration of losing progress mid-run, and a level select feature means players can revisit individual stages without grinding through the full game from the start. For a title that was never the most forgiving, those two changes make a genuine difference to how the game plays in 2026.
Both releases sit within ModRetro’s wider Classics Collection, a line that treats the Game Boy hardware family as a living platform rather than a museum piece. The Chromatic itself is designed to play original Game Boy and Game Boy Colour cartridges, and the Classics Collection slots original licences back onto physical media with period-appropriate production values: printed manuals, retail boxes, and cartridge-specific charms that make each release feel distinct.
Rayman 2 Forever and Earthworm Jim are both available to purchase directly from ModRetro’s website now, with no pre-order window or regional delay announced at the time of writing.
