Tag Archives: Boss Battles

Wiz ‘N’ Liz, Megadrive/Genesis

Wiz ‘N’ Liz was developed by Raising Hell Software for the Amiga and Sega Megadrive only and was first published by Psygnosis in 1993. It is a side-scrolling collecting game with cute graphics and jolly music and can be played one or two-player.

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Thunder Blade, Arcade

Thunder Blade is a single-player helicopter combat game that debuted in arcades in 1987, courtesy of Sega. It combines overhead shooting sections with third-person, ‘over-the-shoulder’ shooting sections and it features lots of impressive graphical scaling effects on the buildings and enemies.

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Skull & Crossbones, Arcade

I hadn’t seen this 1989 arcade game from Atari Games before, until I played it recently, and even then I found it on the Commodore 64 first, then realised that it was an arcade conversion.

Skull & Crossbones has all the ingredients of a classic arcade action game, but – having played it extensively now – I can see why it failed…

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Mercs, Arcade

Mercs is a classic arcade shooter from 1990. It was jointly developed by Sega and Capcom and features simultaneous three-player cooperative gameplay.

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Salamander 2, Arcade

Released ten years after the original Salamander, Konami‘s 1996 sequel – Salamander 2 – is more of the same horizontal/vertical scrolling blasting action, but with a different style of graphics, bigger, better weapons, and more spectacular events.

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Bubble Memories, Arcade

Bubble Memories: The Story of Bubble Bobble III was released into arcades by Taito in 1996, and – as the subtitle makes clear – this is a canonical Bubble Bobble sequel. It has been described as “Bubble Bobble on steroids”…

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R-Type Leo, Arcade

R-Type Leo is a spin-off from the famous R-Type series and was released into arcades in 1992. It was the last R-Type game to be made as an arcade game and was developed by Nanao, the parent company of Irem.

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Final Fight, Arcade

A side-scrolling beat ’em up released into arcades by Capcom in 1989, Final Fight was originally intended as a sequel to Street Fighter, but was eventually changed after the success of Double Dragon.

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Psycho-Nics Oscar, Arcade

This obscure 1987 arcade game from Data East was a big influence on many games that came after it, in particular Manfred Trenz‘s Turrican series. It is obviously itself influenced by Nintendo‘s 1986 game, Metroid.

It also displays some similarities to Karnov, another Data East arcade game released the same year.

And, while you may have never heard of this game, it’s safe to say that it’s a bit of a ‘hidden gem’ in terms of old arcade games still worth playing today.

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Golden Axe, Arcade

Sega‘s classic Golden Axe is a scrolling beat ’em up first released into arcades in 1989. It is fondly-remembered, often re-released, and has been converted to many other systems.

What’s so good about Golden Axe, then?

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