Tag Archives: Japanese

Mega Bomberman, Megadrive/Genesis

I have said previously on this blog that no system is complete without a version of Hudson Soft‘s Bomberman, and the Megadrive has one in the form of Mega Bomberman.

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Gunstar Heroes, Megadrive/Genesis

Gunstar Heroes is a classic run-and-gun shooter, published initially on the Megadrive/Genesis by Sega in 1993. It was the debut game of the famous Japanese developer, Treasure.

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Sega Megadrive/Genesis Special

Known as the Megadrive in Japan and Europe, and the Genesis in North America, this was Sega‘s fourth generation home video games console and it was launched in 1988 in Japan (1989 in North America and 1990 in Europe).

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Ghostbusters, NES/Famicom

The Nintendo Entertainment System version of David Crane‘s Ghostbusters is known for being a bit of a mess, compared to all the other versions.

It was initially released in Japan in 1986 and later in North America in 1988. Why the two year delay? Probably something to do with the fact that the game is terrible…

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Fighting Hawk, Arcade

A relatively obscure Taito arcade game from 1989*, Fighting Hawk is a vertically-scrolling bullet hell shooter where you fly an A-10 ‘Tankbuster’ up the screen, fighting its way through waves of enemies and bosses.

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Fantasy Zone, Arcade

Fantasy Zone is a colourful scrolling shooter from 1986. It was created by Sega and it looks simple and cartoony, but is in fact very challenging.

The main character, Opa-Opa, is sometimes referred to as “Sega‘s first mascot” and is very similar to the one seen in the earlier TwinBee. Both TwinBee and this game have been credited with the creation of the “cute ’em up” genre, and that is probably not too far from the truth.

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Herzog, MSX

This obscure Japanese action game is a prototype of one of the first ever real-time strategy games – Herzog Zwei on the Sega Megadrive – and it is also one of the best games you can play on an MSX.

Herzog was developed and published on disk for the MSX2 by Techno Soft (nee, Tecno Soft) in 1988.

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Cosmic Avenger, Arcade

Cosmic Avenger is a groundbreaking arcade shooter first released in 1981 by Universal. It was one of the first ever side-scrolling shoot ’em ups, and was released the same year as Konami‘s Scramble.

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Mario Kart 64, Nintendo 64

Mario Kart 64 is the successor to the brilliant Super Mario Kart on the SNES and the second game in the famous Mario Kart series. It was first published by Nintendo for the N64 console in 1996.

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Legend of Mana, PlayStation

Legend of Mana is the fourth game in the Mana series. It was once again directed by Koichi Ishii and was published by Square on CD-ROM for the PlayStation only in 1999.

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