19 public written reviews
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Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest was the sequel to the original Nintendo Entertainment System Castlevania, itself released on the NES in 1988. Like Zelda II, Final Fantasy II, and Super Mario Bros 2, Simon’s Quest retains a core of gameplay from the original with the rest of the game being a complete departure. The game opens with vampire hunter Simon Belmont on his titular quest, his goal to reassemble the pieces of…
Old school games have long been known for extreme difficulty and Ghosts ‘n Goblins is one of the biggest contributors to this reputation. Released by Capcom for the arcade in 1985, Ghosts ‘n Goblins is about a knight named Arthur who must save Princess Prin Prin from demons, zombies, and other undead monsters. The game features wildly and constantly respawning enemies, some tricky platforming, and controls that,…
Capcom’s original arcade Bionic Commando was released in 1987. It has become somewhat obscure due to being eclipsed by the famous NES release of the same name the following year. A lot of people probably assume this is just an arcade version of the NES game, but in reality it is a different affair and quite a bit simpler. You take the role of 80’s Capcom mascot Super Joe and must invade an enemy country and kill…
1943: The Battle of Midway is a top-down shoot-em-up arcade game released by Capcom in Japan in 1987 and the United States in 1988. It's essentially a crazy shooter version of the Battle of Midway, as stated by the title, where the United States Navy won its most decisive victory over the empire of Japan in World War II. But you'll shoot down a lot more than four Japanese aircraft carriers in this game version, with…
Read the full review Solid classic shoot-em-up but a little long
The Speed Rumbler is a car combat arcade game released by Capcom in 1986. You take the role of Capcom’s then mascot and ultimate soldier Joseph “Super Joe” Gibson, this time tasked with saving his family and other hostages from terrorists before 24 hours are up. Super Joe comes equipped with a gun and the ability to do a dodge roll, but you’ll find that you tend to die quickly when not fighting in the game’s…
Read the full review Fun despite the old time car combat controls
Space Harrier was something unique and very cool in the shoot-em-up genre when it came out in 1985. It used sprite scaling to achieve a fake 3D look (generally referred to as 2.5D) and put the action behind the player instead of a top-down or profile view. This is similar to the “Mode 7” effect in some Super Nintendo games that would come out years later. The scaling was combined with high frame rates to give the…
Read the full review An incredible experience, especially the original cabinet
Castlevania came out in 1986 and was Konami’s entry into the platform style game with power-ups that was big on the Nintendo Entertainment System thanks in large part to Super Mario Bros. You control vampire hunter Simon Belmont who, armed with the whip Vampire Killer, is invading Dracula’s castle to fight through the dark lord’s minions so he can take a shot at the head vampire himself. This basic story hook would…
Most people who played Duck Hunt likely did so because it came as a pack-in title along with Super Mario Bros for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was created as a showcase for the Zapper, the console’s light gun peripheral. You are an unnamed hunter who is out for a day of duck hunting with your less than faithful dog companion. He’ll help you out by jumping in the bushes to flush the ducks out, but…
Super Mario Bros may be the game that saved the games industry, the industry as it applied to the common man at least. Bad games and even worse business decisions had sunk the console industry and arcade in the United States in the early 1980s. Gaming on computers was poised to do well enough, but in danger of being a niche market only. In 1985 Nintendo released their home console, the Nintendo Entertainment System…
Gradius is Konami’s 1985 sorta kinda sequel to their 1981 horizontal shoot-em-up Scramble. The core of both games involves moving your spaceship around enemies and obstacles, but Gradius’ introductions into the genre make it by far the more important game. A great deal of enemy variety, a power-up system, screens that you can scroll vertically as you move forward ; it’s all here and more. The storyline in Gradius…
Commando is not another thinly veiled rip-off of an American action movie by a 1980s game developer. It actually came out a few months before the famous Arnold Schwarzenegger film in 1985. Regardless, the game is just as much about mowing down bad dudes in the jungle with machine guns and grenades. This is the first game where you take on the role of developer Capcom’s recurring soldier character Joseph “Super Joe”…
Back in the lawless days of pioneers, wild buffalo, and the Apple II known as the 1980s, you could play a game with the first two things on the last. Usually at school of all places. The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) used to publish games in this era that combined teaching subjects like math and history with surprisingly decent gameplay. One of their most famous releases was this game, The Oregon…
The original Donkey Kong was a hallmark in the platforming genre when Nintendo released it in 1981. It doesn’t hurt that it also made some mad money in the arcades. Thus designer Shigeru Miyamoto got to (perhaps was put to) work on the sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. Premiering in 1982, Donkey Kong Jr. stars the game’s namesake as he goes through four levels of platforming to rescue his father, the original Donkey Kong, who…
The original Pac-Man was a worldwide smash success, so much so that it reportedly caused a temporary coin shortage in Japan as most of them sat inside Pac-Man cabinets instead of peoples’ pockets. Naturally this level of success made American distributor Midway eager to get out the next Pac-Man game to keep the money rolling in. While waiting for original developer Namco to deliver they filled the gap by doing…
Space Invaders was a classic shoot-em-up title with a ship fixed at the bottom of the screen that shoots at an alien horde creeping ever lower from the top. Galaga, and its predecessor Galaxian, are an evolution of this game type. It was developed by Namco and released in 1981, going on to become one of the most successful classic arcade titles. Like Space Invaders and Galaxian, the space bugs cluster at the top of…
Read the full review Play this classic and get your questionable initials at the top
Frogger is Konami’s 1981 classic arcade title where you take control of a frog who must hop across a hazard filled road and alligator infested waters just to get back home. The game’s action is confined to a single screen and yet requires more concentration and fast thinking than many other titles with more fleshed out worlds. The screen is divided into two, the first section being the road. Vehicles travel…
Donkey Kong is the 1981 classic arcade title that put both protagonist Mario and the game designer Shigeru Miyamoto on the map, not to mention Donkey Kong himself. The plot is at heart a video game version of King Kong, a fact which lead to an unsuccessful trademark infringement lawsuit against Nintendo in 1982. The protagonist Mario (called Jumpman at the time) has to save his girlfriend Pauline, who has been…
The most successful video games birth franchises, but few are the games that create a cultural phenomenon. In that hallowed company stand the likes of Super Mario Bros, Doom, and, of course, Pac-Man. Developed by Namco and released in 1980, Pac-Man is about the titular cheese-wheel-missing-a-slice looking character navigating a maze to eat dot-size pellets and fruit while being pursued by the most aggressive ghosts…
Space Invaders is an all-time classic of video gaming. Its addictive gameplay and distinctive music and sound have carried it beyond the arcade to releases on most major game platforms and web browsers. This has reportedly generated $2 billion since the game first appeared in the arcade in 1978. The game has no real story to speak of. You find yourself as the unnamed pilot of a space fighter who must shoot down…
