Haunted Castle is an obscure Castlevania arcade game, developed by Konami and first released in 1988. Until recently, I’d never seen it before, and playing it now I have to say that it is pretty unsophisticated for a late Eighties arcade game, and it pales into insignificance compared to other Castlevania games, like Super Castlevania IV or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. It’s also insanely difficult. Maybe unfairly so.
Tag Archives: Japanese
Rod Land, Arcade
Rod Land is a one or simultaneous two-player platform game created by Jaleco and first distributed into arcades in 1990. In it you control one of two fairies – Tam or Rit – each armed with a magic wand (or a ‘rod’, as the game’s title implies) which can immobilise monsters that chase you on each stage. The aim of the game is to rescue your ‘mom’ (and later, your dad) who has been kidnapped and taken to the top of a large tower.
Marvel Land, Arcade
Marvel Land is a cute, colourful, scrolling platform arcade game, first released by Namco in 1990. The European version was called “Talmit’s Adventure“.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Game Boy Advance
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones is a tactical Role-Playing Game, developed by Intelligent Systems and first published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance in 2004. It is the eighth entry in the Fire Emblem series and the second to be released outside of Japan.
Continue reading Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Game Boy Advance
Sunset Riders, Super Nintendo
The 1993 Super Nintendo conversion of Konami‘s 1991 arcade hit, Sunset Riders, is considered to be something of a classic on the system, and it is a lot of fun to play, either single-player, or with two players playing simultaneous co-op.
Energy Breaker, Super Nintendo
Energy Breaker is an isometric, tactical, turn-based RPG, developed by Neverland and published exclusively for the Super Nintendo by Taito in 1996. It was only ever released in Japan but does have an English fan translation patch available for it, which makes it playable to Western audiences.
Super Fantasy Zone, Megadrive/Genesis
Super Fantasy Zone is a conversion of the 1986 Sega arcade game, Fantasy Zone, re-programmed by Sunsoft and published by Sega in 1992. The game was initially only released in Japan and Europe, but North America did finally receive an official release of the game via Virtual Console in 2008. The game is also included on the Sega Genesis Mini.
Alcahest, Super Nintendo
Alcahest is a scrolling, overhead action game – with RPG elements – that was developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Squaresoft in 1993. It was only ever released in Japan, but a fan-made, English translation patch is available to make it fully playable to Western audiences. Which is what I’m showing here.
Dig Dug, Arcade
Dig Dug is a cute arcade digging game from Namco that was a cult hit during the early to mid-1980s. It was first distributed into arcades in 1982 and was much cloned by other game developers, and was also officially ported to many home systems of the time, including for the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision (among many others).
Katamari Damacy, PlayStation 2
Katamari Damacy – meaning “clump spirit” – is a third-person action game that involves rolling-up items onto a ball called a ‘Katamari‘. You play as ‘The Prince‘ – a small, green boy who is the son of ‘The King of All Cosmos‘ and who pushes the Katamari around the landscape, making items stick to it, which in turn makes it grow in size. The aim of the game is roll-up a Katamari of a certain size in each of the game’s various levels.
The King of Grabs 