Datasoft‘s 1984 release, Conan, is a curious game. It doesn’t seem to be directly related to either of the two Conan films released in the early ’80s (although it does use artwork from the sequel, Conan the Destroyer), so my guess is that it was a quick cash-in on the popularity of Arnold Schwarzenegger by the developers.
The game was originally written for the Apple II by Eric Robinson and Eric Parker, and the Commodore 64 version was created by Ron J. Fortier and John Butrovich.
Ocean Software‘s Amiga port of RoboCop was fairly impressive when it first came out in 1989, but – playing it now – it hasn’t stood the test of time particularly well. It’s a scrolling run-and-gun shooter that is loosely-based on the Data East arcade game of the same name (although the arcade game and the home computer versions were developed in parallel).
The ZX Spectrum port of Nebulus was coded by John M. Phillips – the author of the original C64 version – and is therefore a very authentic conversion of this excellent platform/puzzle game. It was first published by Hewson Consultants in 1987.
Legacy of the Wizard is the North American localisation of Dragon Slayer IV, released for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Brøderbund in 1989. It’s a fantasy-based platform/action game featuring a family of four heroes – and their pet – on a mission to retrieve a mystical sword and slay a dragon, inside a sprawling dungeon.
Originally released in Japan as “Dragon Slayer IV: Drasle Family“, the version I’m showing here is the fan-translated MSX2 version of the fourth game in the Dragon Slayer series. The game was developed and published by Falcom in 1987, and the fan translation was released by “MSX Translations” in 2010 under the title of “Dragon Slayer IV: Draslay Family“.
The Nintendo Famicom version of Romancia – aka Dragon Slayer Jr. – was developed by Compile and published by Tokyo Shoseki, in Japan only, in 1987. A fan translation makes the game playable in English (and Spanish), which is good because this version of the game is considerably better than the MSX version.
Romancia: Dragon Slayer Jr. is the third game in the Dragon Slayer series and was developed and published by Nihon Falcom in 1986. This game was designed to be “cute”, and more attractive to younger players (thus the “Jr.” suffix), and is therefore more simplistic than Xanadu, the previous Dragon Slayer game.
Faxanadu is an action/platform game, developed by Hudson Soft and first published for the Nintendo Famicom in 1987. It is a spin-off from the Falcom Dragon Slayer series and its name is a combination of the words “Famicom” and “Xanadu“, so could even be considered a remake of the second Dragon Slayer game.
Xanadu: Dragon Slayer II (aka just “Xanadu“) is the 1987 sequel to 1984’s Dragon Slayer. It was developed and published by Falcom in Japan only, but the game is entirely in English so is playable by non-Japanese speakers/readers.
Xanadu is an action RPG that looks and plays similarly to Falcom‘s own Ys series, with side-scrolling town and dungeon sections and overhead, real-time combat taking place on a separate screen. Xanadu was a much bigger hit than its predecessor and was released in MSX and MSX2 versions.
Although it may look extremely basic, Dragon Slayer is an important game in the development of Japanese Role-Playing Games. It is a real-time action/exploration game where you control a fighter who must collect gold, orbs, potions, and various other useful items, inside a scrolling maze that is crawling with deadly monsters.
Dragon Slayer was initially released in 1984 for the PC-8801, PC-9801, X1 and FM-7, and the MSX version followed in 1985, being ported and published by Square. It was, in fact, one of the earliest releases from Square.
The King of Grabs 