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Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road
PUBLISHER: SNK
DEVELOPER: SNK (port by Micronics)
RELEASE DATE: Apr. 16th, 1988 (JP), Apr. 1988 (US)
Sequels on the NES can be strange. There are the obvious bizarro Nintendo titles, Super Mario Bros. 2 and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, two games that, for better and for worse, chose not to follow the mechanical outlines of their predecessors. Then there’s Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, an overwhelmingly obtuse adventure sequel to an arcade action title.
The most interesting NES sequels, though, are the ones that never needed to exist. Games like Baseball Stars II, a mediocre follow-up to a legendary baseball title. Speaking of baseball, remember Bases Loaded 4? Of course you don’t. Or what about all the licensed drivel, like RoboCop 2 (and 3), Home Alone 2, and Back to the Future 2 and 3? Sure, the latter games exist because every blockbuster movie had a video game tie-in back then, but they’re still terrible sequels to terrible games.
Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road also falls into the “shouldn’t exist” category, specifically the NES port. The first Ikari Warriors game was ported by Micronics, a notorious company that worked primarily with Capcom and SNK in the Famicom/NES’ early days. Micronics ports are, at best, functional and at worst barely playable. NES Ikari Warriors falls somewhere between the latter categories. You can play it, in all its misery-inducing, 10 FPS glory. You will also have a terrible time unless you have a buddy who’s willing to endure the pain with you.
Ikari Warriors II’s very existence on the NES implies that the original Ikari Warriors sold well. And who knows, maybe it did. NES game sales data is notoriously hard to come by unless the game sold gangbusters. But even if Ikari Warriors sold a few hundred thousand copies, I can’t imagine many of those formerly excited players coming back for seconds. Especially not with Micronics back in the porting chair.
Victory Road transports our heroes Paul and Vince away from the sweaty, bullet-filled jungles to mysterious, barren landscapes of a future Earth. Turns out, a villain named Zip Zang has enslaved humanity in the future and only Paul and Vince, still in full Rambo gear, can stop him. Aliens move the warriors forward in time, equip them with the best firepower 1988 AD has to offer, and off the boys go, into the fray.
Just like the first Ikari Warriors, Victory Road is a top-down shooter where you blast anything and everything that moves. Paul and Vince have their basic unlimited machine gun rounds and grenades to keep them warm at night, but they can also pick up other weapons, like Bazookas, Boomerangs (best weapon by far due to its wide range), and even flame-throwing Swords for good measure.
Unlike the first game, however, our boys have an inventory. Whatever weapon you collect in-game can be selected from an option screen. Not only that, but all the weapons can be upgraded a few times simply by collecting the weapon icons whenever you see them. And as if all this choice wasn’t enough, single-use Power-Up items, like screen-clearing Thunder Power or bullet-repelling Armor Power, can also be collected (or purchased at shops) and used whenever you need them.
BARSHOPS, as the manual calls them (all caps and everything), are venues where you can purchase items for hearts or, if you don’t have many hearts, fight alien scoundrels to win hearts. The latter is an interesting one-on-one battle with weirdos that definitely resemble some Mos Eisley Cantina folk. I could never beat them nor could I tell if I was hurting them. No matter. You gain hearts just by killing enemies, so as long as you’re accomplishing this one task that the game asks of you, you should have more than enough hearts for a Life Power.
Paul and Vince have life-bars, but they’re pretty trash. A few hits from projectiles will drain your life, while direct contact with any enemy kills you automatically. Death means you lose all your weapons and start from the beginning. There is a code, however, that’s worth its weight in gold. Once you’ve died, hit A, B, B, A to start again right where you were killed. You might not have any special weapons, but at least you won’t have to venture all the way back to the beginning.
The level design does not give Future Earth vibes at all. Each area has more or less the same layout and requires the same basic actions. At first, wide open spaces, then a maze-like section where you need to blow up walls with your grenades to progress forward. Enemies come at you constantly, and while you don’t have to kill them, your heart currency will go up the more you do. Eventually, you reach the boss, which can be easily killed by spamming grenades onto their face (as fun as it sounds). Once the boss is destroyed, gather the key in front of a stone structure, then blow up one of the two stone faces in said structure and move forward. Because each level looks so similar, they’re distinguished by different color schemes and slightly more difficult enemies.
I am conflicted. On one hand, Ikari Warriors II is a shoddy port through and through. Just look up Victory Road arcade gameplay in YouTube, then compare it to the NES version.
I know the NES was a fairly weak system, but Micronics really fails to capture the arcade game’s intense chaotic nature. I also can’t deny how half-cocked everything feels. As in the Ikari Warriors NES port, Paul and Vince move like they have fifty-pound weights shackled to their legs. The arcade game’s eight-way directional control also does not translate well to the NES’ controller’s stiff D-pad. The overall look and sound of the game is rough, as well, in line with other Micronics ports. On the other hand, like most top-down shooters, when your weapon of choice is leveled up and enemies can’t even touch you without getting killed, you feel like an unconquerable badass. This euphoric feeling is wonderful when it happens and briefly transcends the otherwise garbage surroundings.
Ikari Warriors II: Victory Road is not quite the worst NES sequel and not even close to the best. It exists in the NES’ overflowing pile of sequel mediocrity, the games we rented when we didn’t know what else to rent, when we had already played and conquered far superior titles. Who knows, maybe we got some crude enjoyment out of Victory Road at the time; Paul and Vince are amiable enough chaps. Both then and now, though, we knew the truth.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, dammit SNK, stop hiring Micronics to port your awesome arcade games.
"Ikari" is a Japanese word meaning "anger," and that's exactly what players feel trying to make their way through Ikari Warriors II.