MSX games.
Konami‘s “Akumajō Dracula” was first released in 1986 for the MSX2. It helped set the template for a series that is still going (relatively) strong to this day – the Castlevania series.
This MSX game was also the first game in the Castlevania series to be given an English language release, and it was released in 1987 in Europe under the title of “Vampire Killer“, which then changed to “Castlevania” when the North American NES version of this game was released on cartridge.
Mac Attack is another malformed home computer clone of Data East‘s BurgerTime – this time for the MSX. It was written by Ronald van der Putten of Byte Busters and first came out in 1986. I’m not entirely sure who published it, but it could be Eaglesoft or Aackosoft International, or maybe both, but sources seem to vary on that detail. As well as infringing on Data East‘s intellectual property, Mac Attack also cheekily apes McDonald‘s Big Mac burgers with its title.
This 2009 MSX2 remake of the classic Knight Lore was created by Manuel Pazos and Daniel Celemin of Retroworks, and it is a fun addition to the ever-growing number of Ultimate remakes on the internet. The same guys who made this also made the MSX2 remake of Alien 8, which I quite liked.
The 1987 MSX2 version of the classic coin-op, Ikari Warriors, is arguably the best 8-bit conversion of this scrolling shooter around. It was converted by SNK themselves, so is about as authentic as an MSX fan could hope for. In fact: the producer of this port was Koji Obada, who designed the original arcade game.
The MSX version of Boulder Dash II is subtitled “Rockford’s Riot“, which is different to the Commodore 64 version (which is subtitled “Rockford’s Revenge“). It was ported by Orpheus and published by Databyte in 1985.
The MSX version of Boulder Dash was developed by Orpheus and published by Comptiq in 1985. It is another excellent 8-bit conversion, with feather light controls (TM) and authentic gameplay.
Penguin Adventure is the sequel to 1983’s Antarctic Adventure and was first published for the MSX in 1986 by Konami. The story again follows Penta, the Konami mascot penguin, who this time must bring home a golden apple in order to cure Penguette, the penguin princess.
Another fine 8-bit conversion of the classic arcade game Gauntlet, by Gremlin Graphics and published by US Gold in 1987. The MSX version was created by the same team who did the ZX Spectrum version and therefore is quite similar. Which is not a bad thing as the Speccy conversion is quite excellent.
The MSX conversion of Datasoft‘s classic Atari 8-bit/Commodore 64 game, Bruce Lee, was coded by Mike Livesay and published by Comptiq in 1985.
A list of all the official Ultimate Play the Game releases, plus known, completed homebrew conversions, remakes, and unreleased titles.
Continue reading Complete list of Ultimate Play the Game releases
