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.
Venture is a conversion of Exidy‘s 1981 arcade game of the same name, and was a launch title on the ColecoVision in 1982.
Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel’s Castle is a simple platform-based cartoon adventure for kids that is based on the TV series, The Smurfs, and was developed and published by Coleco and released for the ColecoVision and Atari 2600 in 1982.
Continue reading Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel’s Castle, ColecoVision
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.
Hudson Soft‘s Adventure Island on the NES/Famicom is an adaptation of Sega‘s Wonder Boy arcade game, although subsequent Adventure Island games were original titles and the series went on to become a relatively popular ‘spin-off’ in its own right. Adventure Island was initially released in Japan in 1986, then in North America 1988, and finally in Europe in 1992.
The Megadrive/Genesis version of Bits Studios‘ Mary Shelley‘s Frankenstein is a bit of a poor relation to the Super Nintendo version of the game. Mainly because the lack of colour in the visuals tends to make this version look a bit rough when compared to the SNES version. But it is what it is: a fairly bog standard platform game loosely based on Kenneth Branagh‘s 1994 film.
Continue reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Megadrive/Genesis
The 1994 Super Nintendo game, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is an adaptation of the film of the same name, starring Robert De Niro, Helena Bonham Carter and Kenneth Branagh. It was developed by British company Bits Studios and published by Sony Imagesoft in North America only.
Continue reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Super Nintendo
***CANNED GAME***
The NES version of The Adventures of Dr. Franken was developed by Cygnus in 1993 and was cancelled before release. A prototype exists online, though, which is what these grabs are from.
Dr. Franken II is the sequel to the Game Boy platform game, Dr. Franken, and is once again a satirical take on Mary Shelley‘s classic horror story, Frankenstein. It was developed by Motivetime and published by Elite Systems in 1993 (some sources online say “1997”, but that doesn’t seem to be right; it doesn’t make sense that a sequel would be released five years after the original game, on a time-limited handheld console).
Frankenstein for the Commodore 64 was developed and published by Zeppelin Games in 1992 and in it you play Egor, Professor Frankenstein‘s hunchback assistant, on a humorous and satirical quest to collect dead bodies for his master’s experiments.
