Introduction Double Dragon is Technos Japan’s original 1987 arcade beat ’em up, created by designer Yoshihisa Kishimoto as a spiritual successor to his earlier Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun after company executives pushed for the next game to support two simultaneous players. Kishimoto drew inspiration from gritty street-gang pop culture of the era, citing the 1979 film…
Introduction Alien vs. Predator was developed and published by Capcom on its CPS-2 arcade hardware, licensed from Twentieth Century Fox and built by a team including designers Tetsuya Iijima, Toshihiko Uda, and Jun Matsumura with a score by Hideki Okugawa, releasing in Japanese arcades in May 1994 before reaching other regions shortly after. Capcom leaned…
Introduction Samurai Shodown, known in Japan as Samurai Spirits, was developed and published by SNK for the Neo Geo MVS arcade system, produced by Eikichi Kawasaki and Tomoaki Fukui with Yasushi Adachi as designer, released in July 1993 with a Neo Geo AES home console version following that August. Where most fighting games of the…
Introduction The Punisher was developed and published by Capcom, directed by Noritaka Funamizu with designers Akira Yasuda, Jun Keiba, and Junichi Ohno, and a score by Yoko Shimomura and Isao Abe, released to Japanese arcades on the CP System Dash board in May 1993 and reaching North America that July. It marked the start of…
Introduction Captain Commando was developed and published by Capcom for arcades, produced by Yoshiki Okamoto and designed by Akira Yasuda and Junichi Ohno, released on the CP System hardware in late 1991 as the seventeenth game built for that board. The title character has an unusual origin story: Captain Commando began life years earlier as…
Introduction Donkey Kong is Nintendo’s original 1981 arcade platformer, the coin-operated cabinet that later inspired the NES home conversion, built around four distinct single-screen stages that each represent 25 meters of a construction site Mario, then called Jumpman, must climb to rescue Pauline from the giant ape Donkey Kong. The first stage has players navigating…
Introduction Galaga was developed and published by Namco for arcades in 1981, led by longtime company veteran Shigeru Yokoyama, and released in North America by Midway. It exists as a direct sequel to 1979’s Galaxian, Namco’s first genuine arcade hit, and came about somewhat by necessity: as Galaxian cabinet sales began slowing by the early…
Introduction Metal Slug was developed by Nazca Corporation, a studio staffed largely by former Irem developers behind games like In the Hunt and GunForce II, and released by SNK for the Neo Geo MVS arcade system in April 1996, shortly before Nazca merged into SNK outright. The game underwent a major shift mid-development: it was…
Introduction Darkwing Duck was developed and published by Capcom, produced by Tokuro Fujiwara with a score by Yasuaki Fujita, adapting Disney’s 1991-1992 animated series into a platformer that reached North America in June 1992 and Europe the following year. It followed the same basic Mega Man-derived formula Capcom had already used successfully on 1989’s DuckTales,…
Introduction Front Line was developed and published by Taito, originally released to arcades in 1982 as one of the earliest overhead-view run-and-gun shooters, predating and helping establish a genre template that countless similarly themed games would follow throughout the 1980s. Taito handled the Famicom conversion itself, bringing it to Japan’s console in August 1985, years…
Introduction Super C was developed and published by Konami as an enhanced NES conversion of the 1988 arcade game Super Contra, known in Japan as Super Contra: The Alien Strikes Back and released across Europe as Probotector II. The NES cartridge programmed by Shigeharu Umezaki with art from Kengo Nakamura and Setsu Muraki reached Japan…
Introduction Contra Force was developed and published by Konami, programmed by Mitsuo Takemoto with art from Koji Horie and a score by Kenichi Matsubara and Tomoya Tomita, releasing in North America in September 1992 as the third NES entry carrying the Contra name after the original Contra and Super C. Its history is unusual for…