Palace Software‘s Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior is a fondly-remembered and controversial one-on-one fighting game from 1987, where two gladiatorial combatants slug it out to the death in a variety of different locations. Actually, there are two different versions of this game, each with different backgrounds. The first version has a throne room and then a pit. The second version has a meadow and a clearing in a forest. I’m not sure why there are two versions of this game, but that definitely seems to be the case.
Eliminate Down, Megadrive/Genesis
Eliminate Down is a top-quality single-player, side-scrolling, bullet hell shooter developed by Aprinet and published exclusively for the Megadrive/Genesis by Soft Vision in 1993. The game was only ever released in Japan, but is in English, so is easy to understand. There are fan translation patches available, and those translate the game into Spanish and Dutch.
Midnight Resistance, ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum conversion of Data East‘s Midnight Resistance was created by Jim Bagley and Keith Tinman and was published by Ocean Software in 1990. It wouldn’t be unfair to say that it is probably the best run-and-gun shooter on the humble Speccy, and punches well above the machine’s weight.
Adventure Island IV, NES/Famicom
The fourth and final Adventure Island game for the NES/Famicom was only ever released in Japan, in 1994. Now – thanks to the magic of fan translation patching – the game can be played by people who don’t read Japanese. In fact: Adventure Island IV has been translated into more than just English. It’s also patchable into Spanish, Polish and Arabic, thanks to the efforts of various fan translation groups.
Super Adventure Island II, Super Nintendo
Super Adventure Island II is the sequel to Super Adventure Island and was developed by Make Software, Inc. and first published by Hudson Soft in 1994. It is somewhat different to the first game, though, and has RPG elements, as well as also being more open-ended in how you play it.
Adventure Island II, Game Boy
Adventure Island II on the Game Boy is actually a port of Adventure Island III on the NES/Famicom. The Game Boy Adventure Island numbering scheme ignores the first game in the series and this 1993 handheld conversion is the rather excellent part three for the NES/Famicom, but re-titled as part two for the OG Game Boy. Because it’s always fun to confuse people with mismatched titles in a series…
Super Adventure Island, Super Nintendo
Super Adventure Island was the first Adventure Island game released for the Super Nintendo and was developed by Produce! and published by Hudson Soft in 1992.
Adventure Island III, NES/Famicom
Developed by Now Production and published by Hudson Soft in 1992, Adventure Island III is the third outing of Master Higgins, the cave boy hero who is the star of this game and a number others, and who started out life as a port of Wonder Boy in the very first Adventure Island game.
New Adventure Island, PC Engine
New Adventure Island was first released by Hudson Soft in June 1992 in Japan, for the PC Engine, and later that same year for the TurboGrafx-16 in North America. It is more or less a remake of the original Adventure Island, which in turn was a port of the Sega arcade game, Wonder Boy.
Adventure Island, Game Boy
Thankfully this is an adaption of Adventure Island II on the NES/Famicom, rather than a port of the original Adventure Island. I say “Thankfully” because the original Adventure Island was nothing more than a port of the Sega‘s 1986 arcade game, Wonder Boy, and Adventure Island II on the NES/Famicom was a step towards something a bit more substantial. Which is what we’re getting here.
The King of Grabs 