Ikari Warriors

"This game (and series) is unworthy of being on the NES."

It never ceases to amaze me how SNK, makers of such brilliant arcade games, the incredible Neo Geo console and so much other great games, managed to release so many trashy games for the NES. On top of that I'll never understand why some consider Ikari Warriors a classic on the NES, come on it's based on their own arcade game which was quite popular and featured 16 direction fire that made the arcade a unique run'n gun overhead type game. I know that Nintendo's console was more than capable of handling it had it been done right and even Atari who was renowned for their failures even managed to release a great version for their Atari 7800 but here on NES turf SNK managed to ruin the game in every way possibly known and make it feel as little like the arcade that they could.

So tell me SNK, if you are gonna send two men to go guns a ‘blazin into some enemy military camp commando style, do you think you could've dressed them any less like they were going in to pick someone up? Maybe the characters just decided that flamboyancy would win the war because one wears pastel pink the other is sportin' pastel blue, a little more cross dressin' colors than military garb don't you think, it's also a far cry from the original dark blue and red outfits seen in the arcade. To top that off, even the title screen is in pastel colors. Heck even most enemies are garbed in blue and pink, HUH, a military game SNK?

So how about the game play? Run around, gun down a bunch of noobs then get silently gunned down yourself as there's no sound effect when you're killed and the enemies can gang up on you pretty easily since the controls are so sloppy, and if you try to turn around you do this pivoty side step that will generally move you right into the line of fire when you can't turn fast enough and enemies will get plenty of free shots in while you fumble with the controls. The tank and the helicopter are also quite useless, you can aim the turret with A and fire with B and press A and B to exit but when you get hit you can't exit the tank fast enough and it usually blows up and you lose a life, not too fun to me!

The backgrounds look are also pretty poor, the first stage is passable but each stage is unforgivingly long taking a good 15-20 minutes to complete so you get to look at the same repeating ugly backgrounds for over an hour to complete the whole game, and that's if you're good at the game. The other three stages are just plain ugly and to top it off, the arcade only had the first stage in it and the other three stages were thrown in the NES version to pad the length of the game. Honestly, a Game Genie won't help you much either with this game because the game has a habit of respawning you in walls or areas that you can't get out of causing you to lose your lives or making you reset the game. If you ask me, it's one of the worst programming flaws I've seen in a game to date!

The sound effects are pure trash too! All of the sound effects are purely underwhelming and don't have any kick to them whatsoever and definitely aren't using the NES sound chip to strengths. The only remotely good point worth mentioning is the background tune, it's a semi catchy and sounds like a ‘70s war movie.

SNK was on a roll with their lameness and they figured out how to run the franchise further in the ground with its sequels and they released that embarrassment known as Athena along with several other duds so don't expect much. Other than that this game is a waste so go play the Atari 7800 version which is far superior and is truly an incredible game. Just pretend this whole series doesn't exist on the NES.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 09/15/09

Game Release: Ikari Warriors (US, May 1987)