Taito‘s brilliant Parasol Stars (aka The Story of Bubble Bobble III) made an appearance on the original black and white Game Boy in 1992, courtesy of Ocean Software. In spite of the lack of colour the game is a faithful conversion of the original game (which first came out on the PC Engine), with cute graphics and wonderful, jolly tunes, and it is sure to bring joy to the heart of anyone who plays it.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team, Game Boy Advance
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team is a ‘Roguelike‘ RPG, paired with Blue Rescue Team, and released for the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS in 2005 by The Pokémon Company. It was developed by Chunsoft (famous for creating the early Dragon Quest games) and is based on Chunsoft‘s “Mystery Dungeon” franchise, but with Pokémon in it. It was the last Pokémon game released for the Game Boy Advance.
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Benefactor, Amiga CD32
Benefactor is an unusual platform/puzzle game developed for the Amiga by Swedish team Digital Illusions CE and published in 1994 by Psygnosis. It could be described as a “miniature Flashback“, because it has similar game mechanics to that game, but tinier graphics.
Ranarama, ZX Spectrum
Steve Turner‘s classic Ranarama originated on the ZX Spectrum in 1987. The game is an overhead Gauntlet derivative where you play as a frog (actually a wizard’s apprentice, called Mervyn, whose botched spell has turned him into a frog), who must fight his way through various levels of a maze, defeating warlocks and taking their runes.
The Second Samurai, Megadrive/Genesis
The Second Samurai is the sequel to First Samurai and was developed by Vivid Image and published by Psygnosis for the Megadrive and Amiga in 1994. It is a scrolling platform action game with a samurai sword-wielding hero on a mission to defeat The Demon King. In this sequel Mr. Samurai has a female partner who can fight alongside him.
The game was programmed by Raffaele Cecco (famous for Cybernoid, Exolon and Stormlord, among other things), with graphics by Teoman Irmak and music by Brian Marshall.
Falcon 3.0, PC
Developed by Sphere Inc. and published by Spectrum HoloByte (MicroProse in Europe), Falcon 3.0 is a DOS-only combat flight sim from 1991. It is the third entry in the F-16 Fighting Falcon series of games.
Torneko no Daibōken: Fushigi no Dungeon, Super Nintendo
Torneko no Daiboken: Fushigi no Dungeon (translating as “Torneko’s Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon“) is the first game in the Mystery Dungeon series from Chunsoft, the developer known for creating the Dragon Quest series. It is a ‘Roguelike‘ dungeon-crawler, with randomised maze-like dungeons and was first released in 1993.
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Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, Game Boy Advance
Developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo in 2003, Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising is the sequel to Advance Wars and is a turn-based tactical strategy war game with cartoony graphics and a variety of single and multiplayer game modes.
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Deliverance: Stormlord II, ZX Spectrum
Deliverance: Stormlord II is the sequel to Stormlord and was published by Hewson Consultants in 1990. Programming and art were once again handled by Raffaele Cecco and Hugh Binns respectively, with game design by Paul Chamberlain and Barry Simpson.
It’s a single-player platform game where you once again take control of Stormlord to rescue kidnapped fairies from the evil forces of the defeated Black Queen; fighting from ‘Hell’, all the way up to ‘Heaven’.
Stormlord, ZX Spectrum
Stormlord is a scrolling run-and-gun platform action game designed and written by Raffaele Cecco and Nick Jones, with graphics by Hugh Binns, and was published for the ZX Spectrum by Hewson Consultants in 1989. In it you play the titular Stormlord, a Norse-style warrior who is fighting to rescue fairies from the evil Black Queen.