Tag Archives: Boss Battles

Impossamole, PC Engine

The 1991 PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 version of Gremlin Graphics‘ classic Monty Mole game is a rare treat: it’s a British-developed PC Engine game, and an alright one at that. And, believe it or not, but the PC Engine version of the game is the one that’s currently available on Steam and GOG.com.

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The Fairytale Dreams of Alice, PC Engine

Originally released for the PC Engine in 1990 in Japan only as “Fushigi no Yume no Alice” (aka Alice in Wonderdream), this challenging and colourful platform game was fan-translated in 2021 as The Fairytale Dreams of Alice and is now fully playable in English.

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U.N. Squadron, Arcade

Released in Japan as “Area 88” and based on the Manga series of the same name, U.N. Squadron is a horizontally-scrolling bullet hell shooter arcade game developed and distributed by Capcom in 1989. It features three playable characters, each flying a different aircraft, and one or simultaneous two-player gameplay.

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Re-Bounder, Commodore 64

Re-Bounder is the 1987 sequel to the brilliant ball-bouncing game, Bounder. It was once again developed and published by Gremlin Graphics and this time features both horizontally and vertically-scrolling gameplay, whereas the previous game scrolled only vertically.

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Santa Claus Saves The Earth, Game Boy Advance

Created by Lithuanian developer Ivolgamus and released for the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance by Telegames in 2002, Santa Claus Saves The Earth is a Christmas-themed platform game that plays better than it looks. Not that it looks particularly bad – it doesn’t; it just doesn’t look that good either. Let’s just call it “middle of the road“… 🙂

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Santa Claus Saves The Earth, PlayStation

Santa Claus Saves The Earth is a Christmas-themed platform game developed by Lithuanian company Ivolgamus and released for the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance by Telegames in 2002.

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RoboCop, ZX Spectrum

The ZX Spectrum version of RoboCop – based on the 1987 film of the same name – was developed and published by Ocean Software in 1988, and was such a hit that it went on to become the top-selling Spectrum game of 1989, according to Gallup (the company that used to collate and publish the UK’s music and video game charts). The Spectrum version actually remained in the sales charts for over a year and half – it entered the charts in December of 1988 and was still in the top five in February of 1991, which is insaneTHAT is what you call a “big hit“!

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Ghosts ‘N Goblins, PC

The 1987 PC MS-DOS version of Ghosts ‘N Goblins, I’m sorry to say, is a bit of a travesty. It looks terrible, and also plays like a lame duck. In fact, unless you can get the game set up properly in DOSBox (which took me some time to do), then it’s pretty much unplayable*.

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Ghosts ‘N Goblins, Amstrad CPC

The Amstrad CPC version of Ghosts ‘N Goblins was developed and published by Elite Systems in 1986, and it looks pretty rough, and seems to be missing a good chunk of the original game.

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Rainbow Islands, Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 port of Taito‘s classic Rainbow Islands was developed by Graftgold and first released by Ocean Software in 1990, and – gosh-darn it – it is a fantastic port of the arcade game!

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