Konami‘s Cave Noire is a smart little handheld ‘Roguelike’ dungeon crawler for the Nintendo Game Boy that was first released in Japan in 1991. Cave Noire did not receive a release outside of its native country, which is a pity because it’s an excellent game.
Category Archives: Konami
Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge, Game Boy
Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge was first released in 1991 and is the sequel to Castlevania: The Adventure on the Nintendo Game Boy.
Castlevania II makes much better use of the Game Boy‘s hardware than its predecessor, and is considered to be one of the best titles on Nintendo‘s monochrome handheld.
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Track & Field, Arcade
Konami‘s 1983 arcade hit Track & Field broke new ground with its button-bashing gameplay.
It also broke a fair few cabinets along the way, with arcade machine operators having to repair the buttons on machines quite often, to keep them operative (and therefore earning money). A broken Track & Field machine was no good to anyone, and people tend to get carried away and hit too hard when playing this game.
Nemesis/Gradius, Arcade
Known as Gradius in Japan – but Nemesis everywhere else – Konami‘s classic 1985 shoot ’em up is one of the earliest progressive weapons blasters, with distinct levels and boss battles.
The game is somewhat reminiscent of the classic side-scrolling Scramble (also by Konami), but in Nemesis you fly a ship called the “Vic Viper”, and which has a variety of different weapons which can be powered-up by collecting capsules left by destroyed enemies.
Scramble, Arcade
Scramble was the first ever side-scrolling shoot ’em up, coming out in arcades in 1981.
It was certainly one of the earliest colour video games, and was a big hit for developer Konami and distributor Stern Electronics.
Legend of the Mystical Ninja, Super Nintendo
Konami‘s classic Super Nintendo platform game, Legend of the Mystical Ninja (1991), is about as much fun you can have on this particular system – it is just so chock full of variety and fun that it is undeniably one of the best games on the SNES.
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Axelay, Super Nintendo
Konami‘s Axelay is considered a cult classic among shoot ’em up fans.
First released on the Super Nintendo in 1992, Axelay cleverly mixes side-scrolling and vertically-scrolling blasting action, and also makes excellent use of the Super Nintendo‘s infamous ‘Mode 7’ scaling technique, to create a weird ‘cylindrical’ rolling effect on some of the levels.
SD Snatcher, MSX
SD Snatcher is a great, futuristic, level-grinding RPG that was first released on the MSX2 (in Japan only) in 1990 by Konami.
The game was co-written by Hideo Kojima (of Metal Gear fame) and features overhead exploration sections, and first-person combat sections.
Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand, Game Boy Advance
Produced by Hideo Kojima (of Metal Gear fame) and released by Konami in 2003, Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand is a clever little action game that uses actual sunlight (as detected by a sensor on the game cartridge) to charge up a solar weapon, to be used against undead and vampires in the game.
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Ninja Cop, Game Boy Advance
Ninja Cop (also known as “Ninja Five-O“) on the Game Boy Advance is a brilliant side-scrolling action game. Sort of like a cross between Shinobi and Bionic Commando.
The King of Grabs 