Antstream, Arcade, Unico Electronics

Fancy World, Arcade

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I can’t bring myself to use the subtitle of this game in the main title, because it’s such a hideously bad translation… I’ll just call the game “Fancy World” and leave out the “Earth of Crisis” part… 🙂 The intro sequence also has some of the funniest English videogame translations I’ve ever read… So, for lovers of bad translations, this game is a goldmine. 🙂

Developed by Unico Electronics of South Korea in 1995 and first released into arcades in 1996, Fancy World is an obscure arcade game that few people will have ever heard of. In spite of the dodgy title screen, the bad translations, and the silly name, this game is actually really rather good. It’s a bit like Taito‘s superb Parasol Stars, or SNK‘s Nightmare in the Dark, and it even has a two-player cooperative mode, like those games.

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Arcade, Toaplan

Out Zone, Arcade

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Out Zone is a somewhat obscure, but rather excellent, two-player vertically-scrolling shooter, in the style of Ikari Warriors, released into arcades in 1990 by Toaplan. It’s not a game many will have heard of, but it certainly manages to provide some entertainment, when played today.

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Arcade, Atlus, Mitchell Corporation

Osman, Arcade

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Atlus/Mitchell Corporation‘s 1996 arcade game, Osman, is something of a ‘tribute’ to Capcom‘s Strider. It features a lone protagonist who can clamber all over the landscape and has multiple attacks and abilities at his disposal.

Some of the development team on this worked on the Strider arcade game, so Osman could be seen as a spiritual successor to Strider.

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Arcade, Technōs Japan

The Combatribes, Arcade

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The Combatribes is a scrolling fighting game, similar in style to Double Dragon or Renegade. It was developed and published by Technos Japan in 1990. In arcades the cabinet had three joysticks for simultaneous multiplayer action.

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Arcade, Fabtek, Seibu Kaihatsu

The Double Dynamites, Arcade

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The Double Dynamites is an excellent cooperative two-player shooter. It was developed by Seibu Kaihatsu and first released into arcades in 1989. Fabtek released the game in North America.

The Double Dynamites is a bit like a third-person Operation Wolf, with continual scrolling, lots of shooting, lots of carnage, and lots of explosions. Each player is represented as a see-through torso, with guns blazing, visible only from behind and from the waist up.

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Arcade, Brøderbund, Irem

Spelunker, Arcade

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Here’s a rare instance of a home computer game becoming an arcade game. The original version of Brøderbund‘s Spelunker was coded by Tim Martin. The 1985 arcade version was created by a (largely unknown) Japanese team at Irem. And it is a very good conversion and a decent game in its own right.

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Arcade, Capcom

The King of Dragons, Arcade

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Capcom‘s somewhat obscure 1991 arcade game, The King of Dragons, is a scrolling three-player fighting game set in a colourful fantasy world.

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Aicom, Arcade, Sega

A.B. Cop, Arcade

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A.B. Cop is an arcade game developed by Aicom and released by Sega in 1990. The “A.B.” stands for Air Bike. So it’s “Air Bike Cop“. A.B. Cop uses the “Sega X Board“, which originated with 1987’s After Burner.

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Atari 8-bit, Atari, Inc.

Galaxian, Atari 8-bit

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The 1982 Atari 8-bit version of Galaxian, released by Atari, Inc., is authentic enough, and plays pretty much like the arcade original, even if it does look quite basic in comparison. Where it does outdo the arcade version, though, is in the variety of play modes that it offers.

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