Tag Archives: Japanese

Ikari Warriors, Arcade

SNK‘s famous arcade shooter, Ikari Warriors, was released in 1986 at a time when many Commando clones were saturating the market, but managed to stand out against the competition.

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Contra: Hard Corps, Megadrive/Genesis

Contra: Hard Corps is Konami‘s attempt to recreate the thrills and spills of the legendary SNES game, Contra III: The Alien Wars (aka Super Probotector), on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis, and – to be honest – it falls a little short of its SNES cousin.

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The Treasure of Usas, MSX

Back in 1987, Konami‘s MSX2 release, The Treasure of Usas, wowed everyone with its ace graphics, colourful sprites and smooth movement. It really showed that the MSX2 was a machine to be reckoned with.

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Vagrant Story, PlayStation

Vagrant Story is an action/RPG released by Square in 2000 for the PlayStation. Some people rate it as one of Square‘s best games of all time. Which is saying something.

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Golden Axe Warrior, Sega Master System

Golden Axe Warrior is an attempt by Sega to replicate the successes of Nintendo‘s The Legend of Zelda, and it kinda works pretty well.

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Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys, PC Engine

This Japanese RPG was released on CD-ROM only on the PC Engine, so required a disc player to work. Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys was first released in 1993 and was developed by Hudson Soft as a single-player, cinematic, cartoon-style RPG, with real time combat and exploration.

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Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, NES/Famicom

Although this second Zelda game sold well (more than 4 million copies worldwide at the time), it is not particularly well-liked.

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Pieces, Super Nintendo

Known in Japan as Jigsaw Party, and in the West as Pieces, this 1994 Super Nintendo game is an intriguing and compelling mix of Tetris and jigsaws. Which might sound as dull as hell, but it’s actually surprisingly good.

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