Tag Archives: Single-Player

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, Nintendo DS

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin was the second Castlevania game released for the Nintendo DS and was released by Konami in 2006. Portrait of Ruin is set in 1944, before the end of the Second World War, and Dracula‘s castle has appeared in man’s darkest hour, to push humanity over the brink into ruin.

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Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Nintendo DS

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow was the first Castlevania game released for the Nintendo DS and was released by Konami in 2005. It is a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow on the Game Boy Advance and continues the story of that game.

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Swords and Serpents, NES/Famicom

Developed by Interplay Productions and published by Acclaim Entertainment in 1990, Swords and Serpents is a first-person, party-based RPG with tile-based movement for up to four players. You can either build a party of four characters yourself, in single-player mode, or up to four different players can control one party member each in multiplayer mode*.

*= An adapter, like the ‘NES Satellite‘, or another four-player expansion peripheral, is required if you’re going to play with that many players (but, let’s face it, very few will, although it’s nice – and fairly unique – to have the option to do that).

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Krakatoa, ZX Spectrum

Written by Paul W. Reynolds and published for the ZX Spectrum by Abbex Electronics in 1984, Krakatoa – also known as “Escape From Krakatoa” – is a scrolling action game with multiple objectives in which you fly a helicopter in order to rescue people from the infamous erupting volcano.

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Lucienne’s Quest, 3DO

Lucienne’s Quest is a Japanese Role-Playing Game developed by Microcabin for the 3DO. It is, in fact, the only traditional JRPG released for the 3DO and was initially released in Japan in 1995. The game was localised into English and released in North America in 1996 by Panasonic.

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Ordyne, Arcade

Released in Japan only, Ordyne is a cute and colourful (and very Japanese) one or simultaneous two-player ‘bullet hell’ shooter that was developed and distributed by Namco in 1988.

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Gogo the Ghost, Commodore 64

Written by Marcus Charleville and Richard Dagsköld and published by Firebird in 1984, Gogo the Ghost is a simple maze game in which you must guide a friendly spectre through many screens of enemies and traps in order to rescue his “dream princess”.

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Rainbow Islands, NES/Famicom

The NES version of Rainbow Islands was developed and published by Taito (it was published by Ocean Software in Europe) in 1992. It is a decent enough port of the classic arcade game but does have some deficiencies compared to the original.

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Yellow Submarine, MSX

It’s not often you get a game that’s based on a Beatles song, and Yellow Submarine for the MSX is one such rare example. Published by Takeru in 1987 Yellow Submarine is of course not an official license and was slipped out to the Japanese MSX market – on cartridge – in the hope that no one at Apple Records would notice. If they did, it appears that nothing was done about it.

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Salmon Run, Atari 8-bit

Written by Bill Williams (the writer and designer of Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon, among other games), for the Atari Program Exchange, and first released in 1982, Salmon Run is a clever, and uniquely different, video game based upon the life cycle of a fish – a salmon, specifically – that is trying to swim upstream to its spawning ground.

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