Introduction Metal Gear began life as Hideo Kojima’s directorial debut, originally released by Konami for the MSX2 computer in Japan and parts of Europe in 1987. The NES version that followed, reaching Japan in December 1987 and North America the following June through Konami’s Ultra Games label, has a notably messier history: a separate Tokyo-based…
Introduction The Goonies is a 1986 platform game produced by Konami and based on the Richard Donner film of the same name, released for the Family Computer in Japan in February 1986 but never officially published outside the country on cartridge, though Nintendo did bring a US-exclusive arcade conversion, VS. The Goonies, to PlayChoice-10 and…
Introduction Dragon Warrior III, known in Japan as Dragon Quest III, was developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix, releasing for the Famicom in Japan in February 1988 and reaching the NES in North America in March 1992. It became a genuine cultural phenomenon in Japan, reportedly selling 1.1 million copies in a single day…
Introduction Dragon Warrior II, known in Japan as Dragon Quest II, was developed by Chunsoft and published by Enix, again written and designed by series creator Yuji Horii with Koichi Nakamura directing, character art from Akira Toriyama, and music by Koichi Sugiyama. It released for the Famicom in Japan in January 1987 and reached the…
Introduction Dragon Warrior is the North American localization of Dragon Quest, developed by Chunsoft under creator Yuji Horii and published by Enix, with character art from Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama and a soundtrack by Koichi Sugiyama, originally released for the Famicom in Japan in May 1986 before Nintendo brought a visually updated version to…
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…