Cho Ren Sha 68K (超連射68K) translates to Hyper Rapid Fire 68K and is a classic Shoot'em up (Shmup or STG in Japan) for those who really like a challenge. A serious challenge; like you think Dark Souls is Way to casual for your taste (or maybe I'm just bad at this game).
It was created by Famibe no Yosshin in 1995 for the Sharp X68000; a home computer exclusively sold in Japan.
In 2001 it was ported to Windows 98.
It plays much like any other shmup from the time, controlling your spaceship with the arrow-keys, shooting with the z-key and activating bombs with the x-key. Fighting enemies, collecting power-ups, and fighting huge bosses at the end of each stage.
It has beautiful graphics (although a bit pixely and low-res, it is a 1995 game after all). good sound effects, a great sound-track and smooth controls.
Every thing you can ask for in a classic shmup,
The game has 7 stages, and after the last of the 7 you get to play two additional loops of the stages on increasing difficulty, adding up to 21 stages in reality.
(Personally I haven't got past stage 4 on the first loop though.)
The high point of the game is definitely the music, which was also released as a separate CD in Japan. You can have a listen on YouTube:
The best thing about the game though, is that it's Free!
You can download the Windows and Sharp X68000 versions from the creators homepage (in Japanese):
Most of you may know of the Koei series "Romance of the three Kingdoms", but less of you may have heard of "Nobunaga's Ambition", since fewer of the games in that series was ever released outside of Japan (Only 6 of 14 games to be specific).
This post is more about the series as a whole than any specific game, although the latest game being released in 2013 doesn't exactly make it "retro".
The premise for the games is to achieve Oda Nobunaga's ambition, which was to unite Japan during the warring states period (ca 1600). You are however free to play any Daimyo (warlord) of the time.
The first game in the series was only released in Japan and had the title Nobunaga No Yabō (信長の野望) and was written entirely in BASIC. It was released in 1983 and was one of the very first turn-based grand strategy role-playing simulation games (the more widely known ROTK was first released in 1985).
Although the title of the first game translates into Nobunaga's Ambition, since the second game was the first to be released outside of Japan, it got the title Nobunaga's Ambition. although the original Japanese title; Nobunaga No Yabō: Zenkokuban (信長の野望・全国版) actually translates to Nobunaga's Ambition: Country-wide edition.
It was released 1986 for the Japanese computer PC-88SR and later ported to NES, and later SNES, and Mega Drive.
Admittedly a bit overly simplistic by today's standard; just carefully beef up your army and invade when your army is significantly stronger than the opponent while still leaving behind a strong defending force. It is rather fun to finally achieve the goal of unifying Japan.
In 1988 Nobunaga's Ambition II, the original title being Nobunaga No Yabō: Sengoku Gun'yūden (信長の野望・戦国群雄伝) literary meaning Nobunaga's Ambition: Tales of the Sengoku Warlords, was released for the PC-88SR, and then ported to the NES.
The fourth game was titled Nobunaga's Ambition: Lord of Darkness outside Japan and was originally created in 1990 for the Japanese computer PC-98 and later ported to SNES, Mega Drive and PlayStation, among others.
Its Japanese title was Nobunaga no Yabō: Bushō Fūunroku (信長の野望・武将風雲録), which translates to Nobunaga's Ambition: Records of the Generals.
At this point the games where in many ways quite similar to the ROTK series, but they would develop into very distinct games as the respective series continued to evolve.
The six subsequent games where not released outside of Japan.
The fifth game in the series was titled Nobunaga No Yabō: Haōden (信長の野望・覇王伝) which translates into Nobunaga's Ambition: Tales of the Conquerors and was released 1992 for the PC-98, and later ported to the Super Famicom (the Japanese SNES), Mega Drive and Mac OS, among others.
The sixth game was titled Nobunaga No Yabō: Tenshōki (信長の野望・天翔記) which translates into Nobunaga's Ambition: Chronicles of Ascension released 1994 for the PC-98 and later ported to the Super Famicom, PlayStation and Sega Saturn.
The seventh game was titled Nobunaga No Yabō: Shōseiroku (信長の野望・将星録) which translates into Nobunaga's Ambition: Records of the Star Generals released in 1997 for Windows 95 and later ported to Mac, PlayStation and Sega Saturn and Dreamcast.
The eight game was titled Nobunaga No Yabō: Reppūden (信長の野望・烈風伝) which translates into Nobunaga's Ambition: Tales of the Storms released in 1999 for Windows 95 and later ported to Mac, PlayStation and Dreamcast.
The ninth game was titled Nobunaga No Yabō: Ranseiki (信長の野望・嵐世記) which translates into Nobunaga's Ambition: Chronicles of Turbulent Times and was released in 2001 for Windows 98 and later ported to PlayStation 2 and Xbox.
The tenth game was titled Nobunaga No Yabō: Sōtensoku (信長の野望・蒼天録) which translates into Nobunaga's Ambition: Records of The Blue Skies and was released in 2002 for Windows 98 and later ported to PlayStation 2.
The eleventh game in the series, and the fourth to be released outside of Japan was originally titled Nobunaga No Yabō: Tenka Sōsei (信長の野望・天下創世) which translates to Nobunaga's Ambition: The Creation of the World was released in 2003 for Windows 98, it was renamed Nobunaga's Ambition: Rise to Power in the U.S. and ported to PlayStation 2 in 2008.
This was the first release outside of Japan for 17 years.
The twelfth game in the series, and the fifth to be released outside of Japan was originally titled Nobunaga no Yabō: Kakushin (信長の野望・革新) which translates to Nobunaga's Ambition: Innovation and released for Windows 98 in 2005, and later released in the U.S. in 2009 for the PlayStation 2 under the title Nobunaga's Ambition: Iron Triangle.
Nobunaga no Yabō: Tendō (信長の野望・天道) which translates to Nobunaga's Ambition: Roads of the Heavens is the thirteenth game in the series and was only released in Japan.
It was released for Windows XP in 2009 and later ported to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
The fourteenth and latest game in the series is also the sixth game to have been released outside of Japan. The original title was Nobunaga no Yabō: Sozou (信長の野望・創造) meaning Nobunaga's Ambition: Creation.
It was released in 2013 for PlayStation 3 and 4, and Windows, marking the 30th anniversary of the series.
It was released in the U.S. and Europe in 2015 for PlayStation 3 as a digital release, for PlayStation 4 as a physical release and for Windows as a steam release under the title Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence.
I highly recommend this game for anyone who likes historical strategical simulations. In particular those interested in the Sengoku period of Japanese history.
A new version of the game was released earlier this year (2016) entitled Nobunaga's Ambition: Sphere of Influence: Ascension.
Most people may be familiar with Phantasy Star Online, but it was originally a quadrology for Segas 8 and 16 bit home consoles.
The first game in the series was really progressive, but might have been missed by most gamers due to the fact that it was released on the Sega Master System, rather than the dominating console of the time; the Nintendo Entertainment System. Ironically many of the technical feats of the game was intentionally made because it was not possible to accomplish on the NES, but on the SMS.
It was also one of the first jrpgs, the very first having been released the year before: Dragon Quest (1986), later released under the title Dragon Warrior (1989) in the US.
Phantasy Star was released 1987 in Japan and 1988 in the US and UK, but only the Japanese release used the Yamaha YM2413 FM sound-chip (Since the Sega Mark III was only released in Japan), which improved the sound.
Here is a comparison, the Japanese sound from the left speaker, the American from the right speaker.
The main protagonist is a female who set out to avenge the death of her brother.
Even today this is rare, the common trope in video games is for the main protagonist to be a male avenging the death of a female family member.
Back then it was rare to have a female main protagonist at all of course, the only other games I even know of is Metroid (1986 NES) and The Great Gaina Sisters (1987 C64), the second one being a shameless rip-off on Super Mario Bros. (1985 NES).
The team behind the game made a lot of choices to be intentionally different, that is why the game is set in space, rather than a medieval fantasy setting, which was (and still is?) most common for the genre. Although the game was originally planned to take place at 4 different planets, space restrictions only made it possible to have 3 planets in the game.
The battles are much like you would expect from a jrpg, but you could actually talk to some enemies! Also some of the battle backgrounds where animated.
The over-world and towns are viewed top-down, but the dungeons are in first person, which was a first in jrpgs, but not in rpgs all together, although it probably was the best looking first person dungeons of the time.
This was a time before auto-mapping, which means you would have to draw the maps of the dungeons yourself. This is a part of rpg gaming that is lost nowadays, although it did add to the experience of exploration. It's a shame the rest of the games in the series switched to top-down dungeons.
Since it's such a rare gem, you are looking to pay about €230 for a used copy of the game, if you already own a copy, but for some reason can't play it, you can always download a rom and use an emulator to play.
