I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese games that manage to retain their heavily localized flavor when brought to the US. There was a silly notion in the early days of the industry that gamers would be turned off by anything too foreign which is why publishers went out of their way to hide the fact […]Hammerin Harry
I’ve always been fascinated by Japanese games that manage to retain their heavily localized flavor when brought to the US. There was a silly notion in the early days of the industry that gamers would be turned off by anything too foreign which is why publishers went out of their way to hide the fact […]
There was something magical about every NES game released in the first year of the system’s life. For those of us that cut our teeth on the Atari 2600 and its contemporaries NES games were on a completely different level. With each new release the foundations of many of the genres we still enjoy today […]
I was always surprised that Irem never produced an NES port of R-Type. The NES/Famicom basically ruled the world at that point and it would make sense to bring your hottest property onto the best-selling console of the day but it never happened. While the Master System and Turbo Grafx-16 ports were well done those […]
For as much as I associate Irem with shooters and R-Type specifically they released many arcade gems that I so desperately hoped would receive home ports. Blade Master, Gunforce 2, and especially Undercover Cops were all games that I loved in the arcade and the prospect of a SNES or Genesis port for any of […]
Launch window games are usually shallow affairs designed to dazzle you with new technology to hide their lack of inspired gameplay. There are exceptions of course; many of the early PlayStation games such as Twisted Metal and Wipeout were incredible. But in that rush to make everything in 3d plenty of 2d games were lost […]
It’s a shame that Irem is mainly known for R-Type as they have crafted a number of little known classics over the years such as Metal Storm and Ninja Baseball Bat Man (look it up its awesome!). While they were partly responsible for unleashing Spelunker on the world everyone has their skeletons in the closet. […]
The NES had Ninja Gaiden, the Genesis had the Shinobi series, it’s only right that the Turbo-Grafx get in on that ninja action as well. Ninjas were all the rage back in the day so why not spread the love? Irem’s arcade game saw ports to many different formats but it’s the Turbo Grafx-16 version […]
Although we were too young to know anything about technical details back in the 8-bit era it was obvious that the NES and Sega Master System were not up to the task of replicating the arcade games of the era perfectly. Arcade perfect ports were the forbidden fruit of the day, always chased but never […]
Now that I look back on it the Turbo Grafx-16 has very few pure side scrolling platformers. Oh it’s well documented just ridiculously over crowded the system is with shooters but for those that enjoy a good butt bouncing like Mario or Sonic there were few choices. Irem’s Legend of Hero Tonma was an arcade […]
What an utterly forgettable game. This wasn’t exactly a beloved classic in the arcade so why Irem thought that would change with a home port is beyond me. And it was released the same year as Contra III! Holy shit, can you imagine someone looking at the back of the box for both games and […]
Now this is how it’s supposed to be done! Good shooters were few and far on the SNES thanks to that slow processor so when a truly exceptional game in the genre appeared it was cause for celebration. Even considering the series pedigree R-Type III is one of the best games in the franchise with […]
The R-Type series is famous for a number of reasons. Ball busting difficulty, unique weapons and that infamous alien that adorns the box art doesn’t hurt either. Most popular in the arcades the original R-Type was ported to nearly every home console of the time with varying degrees of success. With its later release […]
