Tag Archives: fantasy

Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Super Nintendo

The third and final entry in the “Super Star Wars” series was of course Super Return of the Jedi, which was first released in 1994 through JVC. It was again developed by Sculptured Software for the Super Nintendo. Unlike the other two games in the series this one also made it onto the Sega Game Gear and Nintendo Game Boy that same year (no other platforms received it, though, until the Wii Virtual Console in 2009).

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Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Super Nintendo

This sequel to Super Star Wars was once again developed by Sculptured Software and published by JVC, this time in 1993. Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is another hectic run-and-gun platform game, with added variety in the form of Mode 7 stages and a cockpit shooter.

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Super Star Wars, Super Nintendo

Super Star Wars is a run-and-gun, side-scrolling action game based on the 1977 film Star Wars. It was developed by Sculptured Software and published by JVC for the Super Nintendo in 1992.

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Gemfire, Super Nintendo

Gemfire is a turn-based medieval strategy game developed and published by Koei. It was first released for the NES/Famicom in 1991 and given an updated Super Nintendo release in 1992.

The NES and Super Nintendo versions are essentially the same game, but the SNES version has updated graphics and sound.

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Gemfire, NES/Famicom

Gemfire is a fantasy, turn-based, conquest/strategy war game developed and published by Koei for the NES/Famicom and first released in 1991. It is known as Royal Blood in its native Japan and was called Gemfire for its North American English language release.

The game is similar to the classic Defender of the Crown, in that the aim is to dominate a map of territories that are occupied by opponent’s castles and armies.

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Dragontorc, Amstrad CPC

I didn’t know that Dragontorc existed on the Amstrad until recently and was pleasantly surprised to find out that it did. Dragontorc is one of my all-time favourite ZX Spectrum games and it translates well to the CPC, flickery graphics included.

Dragontorc was designed and programmed by Steve Turner (of Graftgold fame) and is a sequel to the game Avalon, both of which feature a levitating mage called Maroc on a quest to defeat the forces of evil.

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Sorcery Plus, Amstrad CPC

Sorcery Plus is an expanded version of the best-selling Amstrad game Sorcery, catering for 128K disk-based machines and featuring new rooms and other enhancements. It was developed by Gang of Five and published by Virgin Games in 1985.

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Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures, Super Nintendo

Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures is a run-and-gun platform/action game developed by Factor 5 (the German team who made Super Turrican, among others), with the supervision of LucasArts, and published by JVC in 1994.

The game features sequences based on the first three Indiana Jones films; the first being Raiders of the Lost Ark obviously; the second being Temple of Doom (my favourite), and the third being The Last Crusade.

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The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, GameCube

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was developed and published by Nintendo for the GameCube and Wii in 2006 and is an unusual, beautifully-produced game with stunning visuals and evocative gameplay. It was the final first-party release from Nintendo for the GameCube.

Twilight Princess features involving, varied, and ever-evolving gameplay, with a more mature-looking Link in the title role (possibly in response to criticism of its predecessor, 2002’s The Wind Waker, due to its cartoony, cel-shaded graphics). The story involves Link trying to stop Hyrule from being engulfed by a corrupt parallel dimension called The Twilight Realm.

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