Tag Archives: Boss Battles

Ghosts ‘N Goblins, NES/Famicom

The NES/Famicom port of Capcom‘s classic arcade game, Ghosts ‘N Goblins, was developed by Micronics and first published in 1986. And – just like its parent – it is a very difficult game to make progress in.

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Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, Nintendo 64

Set eight years before the events of Castlevania 64, Legacy of Darkness is a prequel to the first N64 Castlevania, featuring a ‘man-beast’ called Cornell who is trying to save his sister, Ada, from being used as a sacrifice to resurrect Dracula.

The game is set in 1844 and begins with Cornell arriving at his home village, only to discover that it’s been burnt to the ground by Dracula’s skeleton army. He finds Ada’s pendant on the ground and follows her scent to Dracula’s castle.

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Castlevania, Nintendo 64

Developed by Konami‘s Kobe division and first released in 1999, Castlevania on the N64 (sometimes referred to as “Castlevania 64“) is a third-person 3D game – the first 3D game, in fact, in the popular horror/platform/action series.

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Vradark’s Revenge, ZX Spectrum Next

The sequel to Vradark’s Sphere on the ZX Spectrum, Vradark’s Revenge is another fantasy-based Roguelike from the same development team, SaNchez, only this time it has been created specifically for the ZX Spectrum Next, which is an enhanced, modern ZX Spectrum remake/variant that first came out in 2017.

Vradark’s Revenge was initially released in 2022 and an emulated version, that runs in Windows, was later released on Steam in 2023 through publisher “Drunk Fly Oy” (which is a bizarre company name if ever there was one).

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Fire Shark, Arcade

Fire Shark is a vertically-scrolling shoot ’em up developed by Toaplan and first distributed into arcades in 1989. It is the sequel to Flying Shark, which came out in 1987, and once again features biplanes that must blast their way through ten different stages of military mayhem.

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Flying Shark, Arcade

Developed by Toaplan and first released into arcades in 1987, Flying Shark (aka Sky Shark in North America) is a challenging vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter with a military theme. You fly a biplane over jungle and sea and must blast your way through five increasingly more difficult levels.

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Beyond the Forbidden Forest, Commodore 64

Beyond the Forbidden Forest is the 1986 sequel to 1983’s classic 8-bit survival horror game, Forbidden Forest. It was again devised and programmed by Paul Norman, and published by Cosmi Corporation in North America and US Gold in Europe.

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Dragon’s Curse, PC Engine

Dragon’s Curse is the American TurboGrafx-16 conversion of the classic Sega Master System game Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap. It was ported by original developer Westone and published by NEC in 1990 in North America and Hudson Soft in Japan in 1991. In Japan the game was confusingly released as “Adventure Island” (not to be confused with Hudson Soft‘s own Adventure Island series), and has a short intro sequence not seen in the American version.

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Rainbow Islands, ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum has an excellent port of Taito‘s classic arcade game, Rainbow Islands, thanks to the developers at Graftgold. It was first published by Ocean Software in 1990.

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Impossamole, ZX Spectrum

Impossamole on the ZX Spectrum is a multi-load expanded re-imagining of Gremlin Graphics‘ classic first Monty Mole game: Wanted: Monty Mole. It was developed by Core Design and first published by Gremlin in 1990, which was very late in the Spectrum‘s lifespan.

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