Developed by Nintendo R&D1 (with assistance from Tose Co. Ltd.), and first released for the Famicom Disk System by Nintendo in 1986, Kid Icarus is a cult classic scrolling platform game that is known for its high level of difficulty. The original Japanese title for the game is “Hikari Shinwa: Palthena no Kagami“. An NES cartridge version, with a different ending, an English language title screen and staff credits, was released in 1987.
Tag Archives: platform game
Toki, Atari ST
The Atari ST version of the 1989 arcade platform game, Toki, was developed and published by Ocean Software in 1991. And it is a decent adaptation of the arcade game, but with a reduced colour palette and screen size.
Heartland, ZX Spectrum
Heartland is a platform action game developed and published by Odin Computer Graphics for the 48K ZX Spectrum in 1986. It features gameplay that is similar to previous Odin games, Nodes of Yesod and Arc of Yesod, with a well-animated protagonist exploring a maze-like platform world of doors and elevators.
Haunted Castle, Arcade
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.
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.
Flimbo’s Quest, Commodore 64
Flimbo’s Quest is a scrolling platform shooter that basically recycles the gameplay from the classic C64 game, Hawkeye. Designer/programmer Laurens van der Donk was a member of demo scene coders Boys Without Brains (who created Hawkeye), which explains the connection. From what I can tell, though, van der Donk was not involved in creating Hawkeye, so I’m not entirely sure how or why Flimbo’s Quest came to be.
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“.
Duke Nukem, Game Boy Color
Duke Nukem on the Game Boy Color is a conversion of the classic MS-DOS game and was developed by Australian company Torus Games and published by GT Interactive in 1999. It is based on both Duke Nukem and Duke Nukem II although it plays more like the second game than the first.
Duke Nukem II, PC
Duke Nukem II is the sequel to 1991’s Duke Nukem and is another side-scrolling, platform-based shooter, only this time with larger, bolder graphics and jerkier scrolling. It was once again developed and published by Apogee Software, and was first released in 1993.
Duke Nukem, PC
The first Duke Nukem game is a simple side-scrolling platform shooter, developed and published for PC MS-DOS by Apogee Software in 1991.
The King of Grabs 