Tag Archives: Japanese

Dark Savior, Sega Saturn

Dark Savior is an isometric action game developed by Climax Entertainment and published by Sega for the Saturn in 1996. In my opinion the game is a bad idea, badly translated, poorly executed, and with some pretty awful story-telling.

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Somer Assault, PC Engine

Somer Assault – also known as Mesopotamia in Japan – is a weird-but-imaginative scrolling action game where you control a pink Slinky-type creature that must battle its way through twelve stages of enemies to defeat an evil sorceress who is trying to conquer the world. It was developed and published by Atlus in 1991.

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Ikari Warriors, MSX

The 1987 MSX2 version of the classic coin-op, Ikari Warriors, is arguably the best 8-bit conversion of this scrolling shooter around. It was converted by SNK themselves, so is about as authentic as an MSX fan could hope for. In fact: the producer of this port was Koji Obada, who designed the original arcade game.

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Thunder Force IV, Megadrive/Genesis

Known in North America as “Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar” (shouldn’t that be “Lightning Force“?!), Thunder Force IV was developed and published by Techno Soft for the Sega Megadrive in 1992.

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Thunder Force III, Megadrive/Genesis

Thunder Force III is a shoot ’em up developed and published by Techno Soft for the Sega Megadrive in 1990. It drops the overhead view stages from the first and second games and is entirely side-scrolling, which personally I find a little disappointing.

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Thunder Force II, Megadrive/Genesis

Techno Soft‘s Thunder Force II originally came out for the Sharp X68000 home computer in 1988 and this Megadrive port followed later, in 1989. It’s official title is “Thunder Force II MD” – the ‘MD‘ of course meaning ‘Megadrive‘.

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Aliens, Arcade

This 1990 arcade game from Konami plays fast and loose with the storyline, locations and situations from James Cameron‘s famous film, Aliens, but is still reasonably enjoyable to play.

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Sexy Parodius, Arcade

Parodius is a spin-off series from Konami‘s classic Gradius/Nemesis series. It’s a parody of Gradius, thus “Parodius“, and “Sexy Parodius” is the arcade version of it.

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Shaman King: Master of Spirits 2, Game Boy Advance

Shaman King: Master of Spirits 2 is the 2005 sequel to the accomplished Shaman King: Master of Spirits and was again developed and published by Konami, only for the Game Boy Advance.

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Shaman King: Master of Spirits, Game Boy Advance

Shaman King: Master of Spirits, much like the anime and manga that it’s based upon, is centred on the character Yoh Asakura and his battles to become Shaman King. It was first released for the Game Boy Advance in 2004, by Konami.

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