These are two more games about which my first reaction is to ask, "Why oh why are there so many ports for such mediocre games?" I also had this reaction to Ghosts n' Goblins, which in my view is a more memorable and distinctive title than either of these, but mostly in a bad way.
I guess a number of Japanese developers like Konami and Capcom experimented with the idea of porting even the most mediocre titles to every variety of Western PC when they were first exporting games to the West in 1986-87. They apparently figured out this was a bad idea pretty quickly. I don't know anyone who owned anything like Rush'n Attack for DOS, I can't imagine it sold well.
As for playing them on NES, I rented both of them way back when and found both of them OK. I agree that Rush'n Attack has aged reasonably well. But I've definitely always noticed the main character's fragility and remember it really bugging me as a kid. In Super Mario Bros., those are at least monsters running into you. But why (I ranted to my friends) should a man die instantly from being touched by another, unarmed man?
I remember contrasting this to Legend of Kage, which I guess we would say was a bad game. But as a kid I thought it was such a breath of fresh air that your enemies (also humans attacking a human) actually had to swing at you in that game; a mere touch did nothing.
I have not studied arcade history, so I guess my question to your thought would be, “What games should have been ported to the NES that weren’t?”
Both of these games are fine for 1987, I imagine, but they’re not super great today? Just typical arcade fodder slightly watered down for an 8-bit console.
The Legend of Kage is a fascinating example of an excellent mechanic in an otherwise lackluster game.
I think you misunderstood my point on ports. The NES/Famicom ports make enough sense for these games. It’s the port to every computer under the sun that you showed that makes a lot less sense to me. And that strategy seemed to be short-lived.
I totally misunderstood it! Thank you for clarifying.
I’m definitely with you on these computer ports. I get it, when you’re a kid, you’re just excited to have games, regardless of how ill-equipped your platform may be to run them. Some of these UK computers, though… yikes.
Seems like a winning plan to me. License out your game to another company for a fee and/or royalties. Then that company pays some young programmer peanuts to develop a version that vaguely resembles the arcade original. Everybody wins. Well except maybe the programmer and the consumer, lol
What DOES seem to have been limited is the number of arcade-to-DOS ports. Americans might have been more reluctant than Europeans to play arcade games on our home PCs once the NES and the 16-bit consoles took off. My understanding is that Europe was slower to adopt these consoles, in part because Nintendo was less interested in marketing to them. And I think non-DOS PC gamers in the late 80s / early 90s were largely European.
These are two more games about which my first reaction is to ask, "Why oh why are there so many ports for such mediocre games?" I also had this reaction to Ghosts n' Goblins, which in my view is a more memorable and distinctive title than either of these, but mostly in a bad way.
I guess a number of Japanese developers like Konami and Capcom experimented with the idea of porting even the most mediocre titles to every variety of Western PC when they were first exporting games to the West in 1986-87. They apparently figured out this was a bad idea pretty quickly. I don't know anyone who owned anything like Rush'n Attack for DOS, I can't imagine it sold well.
As for playing them on NES, I rented both of them way back when and found both of them OK. I agree that Rush'n Attack has aged reasonably well. But I've definitely always noticed the main character's fragility and remember it really bugging me as a kid. In Super Mario Bros., those are at least monsters running into you. But why (I ranted to my friends) should a man die instantly from being touched by another, unarmed man?
I remember contrasting this to Legend of Kage, which I guess we would say was a bad game. But as a kid I thought it was such a breath of fresh air that your enemies (also humans attacking a human) actually had to swing at you in that game; a mere touch did nothing.
I have not studied arcade history, so I guess my question to your thought would be, “What games should have been ported to the NES that weren’t?”
Both of these games are fine for 1987, I imagine, but they’re not super great today? Just typical arcade fodder slightly watered down for an 8-bit console.
The Legend of Kage is a fascinating example of an excellent mechanic in an otherwise lackluster game.
I think you misunderstood my point on ports. The NES/Famicom ports make enough sense for these games. It’s the port to every computer under the sun that you showed that makes a lot less sense to me. And that strategy seemed to be short-lived.
I totally misunderstood it! Thank you for clarifying.
I’m definitely with you on these computer ports. I get it, when you’re a kid, you’re just excited to have games, regardless of how ill-equipped your platform may be to run them. Some of these UK computers, though… yikes.
Seems like a winning plan to me. License out your game to another company for a fee and/or royalties. Then that company pays some young programmer peanuts to develop a version that vaguely resembles the arcade original. Everybody wins. Well except maybe the programmer and the consumer, lol
I guess my counter-argument was going to be that they mostly cut this behavior out within a few years.
But then I'm seeing they didn't! There was an apparently awful Final Fight port for the ZX Spectrum!
https://youtu.be/E0KMT8yFi4Q?si=3TuH6oTpWlwws5FH
What DOES seem to have been limited is the number of arcade-to-DOS ports. Americans might have been more reluctant than Europeans to play arcade games on our home PCs once the NES and the 16-bit consoles took off. My understanding is that Europe was slower to adopt these consoles, in part because Nintendo was less interested in marketing to them. And I think non-DOS PC gamers in the late 80s / early 90s were largely European.
Yeah, the consumer definitely doesn't win, haha.
I do miss this 1980s movie trope of the one man army. And Rush’n Attack seems to be one such example of it..
I do too. Jason Statham sort of keeps it alive in movies today, but you definitely don't see it in gaming like you used to.
Track and Field ports, destroying joystick buttons and keyboard keys since the '80s.
Absolutely, can't stop, won't stop