Introduction Gun.Smoke began as a 1985 Capcom arcade shooter designed by Yoshiki Okamoto, who would later oversee the studio’s biggest hits like Final Fight and Street Fighter II, with programming by Takashi Aoki and a soundtrack by Ayako Mori that helped make it one of Japan’s highest-grossing arcade games in early 1986. Capcom brought it…
Introduction Super Dodge Ball was developed and published by Technos Japan, directed by Mitsuhiro Yoshida with design work by Koji Ogata, loosely adapting the studio’s own 1987 arcade game of the same name and serving as the second entry in the Kunio-kun series even though that connection was scrubbed from international releases. It launched in…
Introduction Urban Champion was developed by Nintendo R&D1, produced by Gunpei Yokoi, designed by Makoto Kanoh, and scored by Hirokazu Tanaka, releasing on the Famicom and the arcade VS. System in 1984 before reaching the NES in North America and Europe in 1986 as one of the console’s original launch titles. Nintendo built it as…
Introduction Crystalis was developed and published by SNK, known in Japan as God Slayer: Haruka Tenkū no Sonata, directed and produced by Kazuto Kohno with programming from Yukio Gu, F. Sasami, and Satoru Okada and a soundtrack by Yoko Osaka, releasing there in April 1990 before reaching North America that July. It marked a notable…
Introduction Gun-Nac was developed by Compile, a studio best known for shooters like Zanac and the Aleste series, and released in Japan by Tonkin House in October 1990 before ASCII Corporation brought it to North America the following September. It turned out to be the last game Compile ever made for the NES, closing out…
Introduction Shatterhand was developed by Natsume, with programming by Kazuhiko Ishihara, art from Shunichi Taniguchi, Norihide Mizoguchi, and Sachiko Matsuura, and music by Iku Mizutani and Hiroyuki Iwatsuki, originally releasing in Japan in October 1991 under Angel (a Bandai label) as a licensed tie-in to the live-action tokusatsu series Super Rescue Solbrain. For the Western…
Introduction Mega Man 6 was developed by Capcom and released in Japan in October 1993, but by that point Capcom’s Japanese arm had largely moved on from the aging NES, so for the first time Nintendo of America stepped in to co-fund and publish the game in the West itself, bringing it to North America…
Introduction Mega Man 5 was directed by Ichiro Mihara and produced by Tokuro Fujiwara, with Keiji Inafune once again handling character design, and released in Japan in December 1992 as part of Capcom’s continued annual cadence for the series. Rather than reinvent the formula, the team focused on refinement, again running a public design contest…
Introduction Mega Man 4 was developed and published by Capcom, produced by Tokuro Fujiwara with Keiji Inafune continuing on as character designer, and released in Japan in December 1991 under the studio’s push for annual sequels following the series’ continued commercial success, reaching North America the following month. The biggest gameplay addition was the Mega…
Introduction Life Force was developed and published by Konami, originating as the 1986 arcade shoot ’em up Salamander, a spin-off of the studio’s hit Gradius built instead of an immediate direct sequel and released internationally under the Life Force name. Rather than a straight arcade port, Konami used the NES conversion, which reached Japan in…
Introduction River City Ransom was developed and published by Technos Japan, directed by Mitsuhiro Yoshida and Hiroyuki Sekimoto with music by Kazuo Sawa, and released in Japan in April 1989 as the first game the studio built specifically for a home console rather than adapting from arcades. It’s the third entry in the Kunio-kun series…
Introduction Mega Man 3 was developed by Capcom and released in Japan in September 1990 and North America that November, arriving under a troubled production: original director Akira Kitamura had left the company, and his replacement, programmer Masahiko Kurokawa, clashed with the rest of the team over the series’ direction badly enough that lead artist…