HEIANKYO ALIEN – by Jeremy Parish

Gaming historians often write about popular media in the pre-internet age as if it all existed in vacuum-sealed silos by country, but that’s not true at all. Intercontinental communication may have been a lot more complicated back then, but consider Heiankyo Alien, a minor 1970s video game hit in Japan that demonstrated how Western and…

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Ninja Gaiden-Inspired Platformer ‘Eclipse Blade’ Sneaks Out Of The Shadows

Teases “old-school” challenge & plenty of throwables. The last year was a great one for fans of ’90s ninja-themed action games, with Game Kitchen’s excellent Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Lizardcube’s Shinobi: Art of Vengeance doing a superb job of paying tribute to their respective franchises. Interestingly, though, as we recently learned, these don’t seem to…

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“I Knew The Project Must Go Wilder” – Originator Of Darkstalkers’ Idea Shares The Birth Of Capcom’s Monster-Filled Classic

Katsuya Akitomo pitched the game to his bosses at Capcom. If you’re a fan of the Darkstalkers series and have ever been curious about how Capcom got the idea to make a fighting game themed around classic movie monsters, then you’re in luck. That’s because Katsuya Akitomo, the former Capcom developer credited with pitching the…

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“I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This” – This Freshly Released Punch-Out!! NES Prototype Has Historians Stumped

The pre-Tyson build has now been dumped online. A rare pre-Mike Tyson prototype of Nintendo’s 1987 NES title, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, has appeared online, giving “a basically unheard of” insight into the early development of a first-party Nintendo game, while stumping historians in the process. The NES prototype cartridge was shown off yesterday in a…

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After Last Year’s Delay, ININ Games’ ‘Parasol Superstars’ Is Now Less Than A Week Away

Features ‘Spica Adventure’ & ‘Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III’. Taito and ININ Games’ retro collection Parasol Superstars will finally launch digitally on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch next week (April 14th). As you may recall, the collection, which contains Spica Adventure and Parasol Stars: The Story of…

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