Switchblade II is a platform action game that originated on the Amiga; was developed by Gremlin Graphics, and published for the Atari Lynx by Atari Corporation in 1992. It is similar in some respects to Capcom‘s Strider, although the main character – Hiro – isn’t quite as dynamic as Strider Hiryu. The first Switchblade wasn’t released for the Lynx – just the sequel was.
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Switchblade II, Amiga
The sequel to Switchblade, Switchblade II originally came out on the Amiga and was developed and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1991. The designer/programmer of the original Switchblade, Simon Phipps of Core Design, had no involvement in the creation of this follow-up.
Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible III, Super Nintendo
The third game in the Last Bible series (a subseries of the Megami Tensei games), was developed by Multimedia Intelligence Transfer and published by Atlus – in Japan only – for the Super Famicom in 1995. It is a Role-Playing Game with random encounters and turn-based combat, and features the unique Megami Tensei trait of talking to monsters to try to recruit them, calling them into your party, and fusing them together to make more powerful monsters who will fight with you. This is a Japanese-only release that currently benefits from fan translations into both English and Spanish, which makes this excellent game playable to a good proportion of the Western world.
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Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible II, Game Boy Color
Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible II is the second game in the Last Bible series, which is a spin-off from the Megami Tensei RPG series. Last Bible II was originally released in Japan in 1993 for the original B&W Game Boy, with the Game Boy Color version coming out in 1999, some six years later. Neither version was ever officially released in the West, but there is an English fan translation for the Game Boy Color version, which is what I’m showing here.
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Revelations: The Demon Slayer, Game Boy Color
Revelations: The Demon Slayer is the localized English language version of Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible, which was first released for the original Game Boy, in Japan only, in 1992. This Game Boy Color version was developed by Multimedia Intelligence Transfer and published by Atlus, in Japan and North America, in 1999.
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Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible, Game Gear
Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible is a handheld RPG that was developed by Multimedia Intelligence Transfer and initially published by Atlus for the original black and white Game Boy, in Japan only, in 1992. The Game Gear version was developed by Sega and was first released in 1994 – once again: in Japan only. A fan translation into English was released in 2019, which made the Game Gear version finally playable to Westerners. Which is great because the Game Gear port is the best version of the game available. Let me explain…
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Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, FM Towns
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is the second SCUMM game from Lucasfilm Games (aka LucasArts), after Maniac Mansion, with game development led by David Fox, and with Matthew Alan Kane as co-designer and co-programmer. It was originally released for the Commodore 64 in 1988, and this enhanced FM Towns port was published in Japan in 1990 by Fujitsu. The game is playable in both English and Japanese.
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Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa, Sega Master System
Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa is the sequel to the classic 1986 Sega arcade game, Fantasy Zone. Rather unusually, it came out first on the Master System, before later being released as an arcade game. Usually the opposite occurs, but in this case the Master System version was released in 1987 and the arcade version came out in 1988.
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Turbo Sub, Atari Lynx
This 1991 release from Atari Corporation is a conversion of relatively obscure arcade game from 1985, and it is a decent game on the Atari Lynx, with excellent graphics and absorbing gameplay. It was developed for the Lynx by NuFX.
Turbo Sub is a fast-moving first person shooter in which you pilot a futuristic attack submarine and must fight off an alien force attacking the Earth.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Sega Saturn
Konami‘s brilliant PlayStation game, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, was released for the Sega Saturn in 1998, but it was only ever released in Japan (under the title “Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku“). Thankfully, an English translation patch is available to make the game playable to those who can’t read Japanese. The patch – created by ‘Knight of Dragon’ – also features numerous bug fixes and improvements.
For those who’ve never played Symphony of the Night before: it is a direct sequel to Rondo of Blood and is rightly regarded as one of the best Castlevania games in the long-running series (if not THE best).
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