The Classic Arcade and Console Era (1972-1989) - Enjoying the Sidescrolling Action Adventure Genre Today
Need more recommendations on sidescrolling action adventure games from the 1980s? I've got you covered!
Action-adventure games from the 1980s can be a bit frustrating to play today because their simple mechanics (often just running, ducking, jumping and attacking) can feel frustrating in an era where players are used to having many ways to interact with a game world. But at the same time, the genre produced some stone-cold classics that are still well worth experiencing even if their level of difficulty can be punishing at times.
The games we’re not going to cover (because they have been so extensively covered by gaming media) are the following notable or essential titles:
Jungle King (a.k.a. Jungle Hunt) (1982) – Taito’s scrolling action arcade game is no mere platform jumper – you swing from vine to vine, swim through dangerous waters, dodge rolling boulders and leap over cannibals to save your lady love, who seems to have a knack for getting kidnapped over and over again. It’s a primitive game with a primitive theme by today’s standards, but it was a majorly influential title that Taito even re-released again later that year (with a new main character) as Jungle Hunt and then months later again as the retooled Pirate Pete.
Pitfall! (1982) – One of the best-loved games on the Atari 2600, David Crane’s Pitfall! was one of the first games to allow players to traverse a huge interconnected world in search of treasure. It’s a tough game that hasn’t aged very well, but it’s also one of the most iconic early 1980s console games because it was such a revelation for its time.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1982) – An interesting adaptation of the popular film that attempts to map Indiana Jones’s adventures onto a series of minigames. It’s particularly notable for requiring two joysticks to play – one for movement and one for inventory management. Some remember it as one of the Atari 2600’s most exciting titles; I remember it was one of the most abstract and frustrating.
Tron (1982) – A very popular arcade adventure from Bally Midway where you progress through four minigames based on the feature film from the same year. It’s mostly known for its license; the game itself isn’t that great, and it’s notably missing the film’s disc battles. In 1983, Bally Midway released Discs of Tron to address that, but it’s such a shallow experience that it feels like a minigame rather than a full arcade title.
Circus Charlie (1984) – A circus-themed arcade game from Konami where you play as a clown who’s tasked with completing six circus tasks like riding a lion and jumping through flaming rings, swinging from a trapeze to trapeze or walking across a monkey-infested tightrope. It’s actually a decent game, but the theme is so dated it doesn’t have much appeal today.
Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (1985 and 1988) – You know an arcade game’s good when it’s difficult to get through the first level and yet you still want to come back for more. Such is the case with both of Capcom’s legendary action platformers, which feature the knight Arthur battling the forces of evil to save the Princess Prin Prin and the locals from the demon lord Astaroth and the demon king Lucifer (or Loki in some versions). If you’ve never played this series, you owe it to yourself to try. It’s not every game where the hero starts off in his underwear with a girl, only to be battling demons as soon as he can strap his armor on, and the second game ups the ante with better armor and fun new weapons.
Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest and Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse (a.k.a. the Akumajō Dracula series) (1986, 1987 and 1989) – Konami’s epic action series began as a journey through a castle filled with movie monsters, but it evolved into a horror franchise with a complex mythology of its own that details the legacy of the Belmont clan amidst the framework of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The second game is very different from the first and offers a non-linear adventure more in the vein of Metroid. The third game, which turned out to be a prequel to the first two, is one of the high points in the series, and it’s the basis for the Netflix animated series as well as the first game that includes Alucard, Dracula’s heroic son.
Kid Icarus (1986) – A classic exploration game from Nintendo R&D1 that has not held up very well due to its high level of difficulty. At the winged Pit, you must defeat Medusa and rescue Palutena so Angel Land can be free of Monsters. One of the iconic enemies from this game is the Eggplant Wizard, who turns you into a walking eggplant. The NES original is old school to a fault; I recommend the 1991 Game Boy sequel Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters as a better starting point.
Metroid (1986) – While the original was pretty much made irrelevant by 1993’s Super Metroid, the first outing for Samus Aran is a classic for a reason – it includes a vast and creepy non-linear world, tons of secrets and awesome power-ups. Defeating Mother Brain is a badge of honor, especially if you can do it within the game’s secret time limit to get the best ending.
Rygar (1986) – While it was originally released in the arcades as an action platformer with a unique weapon and a distinctive aesthetic, the 1987 NES adaptation of Rygar is the one people really remember because it’s a game with a huge interconnected world and shifts in perspective between sidescrolling and top-down action. While it’s quite difficult and doesn’t hold up terribly well today, the NES version is nonetheless interesting and was one of the early third-party hits in the system’s library. Surprisingly, Tecmo waited until 2002 to release a sequel.
Bionic Commando (1987) – One of the truly great NES games from Capcom started life as a mediocre arcade game with an interesting premise – instead of jumping, you use your bionic arm to grab surfaces and swing around. The 1988 NES adaptation elevated the concept into a sequel to Commando with a more mature storyline, a cool fusion of side-scrolling and overhead styles of play and light puzzle elements. It’s one of my all-time favorites, and the soundtrack is excellent too.
Karnov (1987) – Is Jinborov Karnovski actually a hero, or just a greedy guy on a quest for treasure? Data East never game a definitive answer, but in his first outing, the shirtless, fire-breathing bald man known as Karnov defeats a lot of enemies in his Wario-like quest for gold, and he shows up as a villain in several games that follow. Karnov is a weird game with enemies like centipede women and leaping mermen, some unusual mechanics for its time like being able to place a ladder for climbing (though it may attract a dragon!) or using wings, scuba gear, a mask or a trolley to traverse various environmental hazards. I prefer the arcade original to the NES port.
Mega Man and Mega Man 2 (1987, 1988) – Capcom’s Rockman series (better known as Mega Man in North America) started out good and then got great with its first sequel. Featuring non-linear levels, cool boss battles, increasing power-ups and some of the best endgame levels of any video game ever made, the Mega Man games are beloved because they’re truly something special.
Wonder Boy in Monster Land and Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap (1987 and 1989) – While the Wonder Boy-inspired Adventure Island was content to use the original game’s template for more adventures created by Hudson Soft, developer Westone (then called Escape) decided to make something more in the vein of an action RPG for Wonder Boy’s next outing. The result is one of the deepest and most challenging arcade games of the 1980s, translated almost perfectly to the Sega Master System in an excellent port. Even better, the Master System got a sequel that’s one of the finest action adventure games ever made If you haven’t played these yet, rectify that immediately. They’re golden.
Blaster Master (1988) – Jason is hanging out with his pet frog Fred one day when all of a sudden, it hops away, touches some radioactive substance, and then descends into a hole in the ground, growing at an alarming rate. Jason follows Fred and finds a vehicle called Sophia the Third, a tank-style rover he can use to blast the underground mutants his finds in the caverns beneath his home. That’s the setup (at least in the North American version) for this epic exploration game from SunSoft, which is legendary not only for its combination of sidescrolling and overhead shooting sequences, but also for for its level of difficulty since it’s a lengthy game with no saves or passwords. Play it with saved states on an emulator and enjoy.
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones (1988) – While it’s not a great game by any means, it was the pack-in launch title for the TurboGrafx-16 and thus is at least slightly familiar to many North American gamers. Gamers could travel through different maps as the sword-wielding human Keith Courage or in his far more impressive mechanical Nova Suit. It was based on an anime called Mashin Eiyūden Wataru (“Spirt Hero Wateru”), but all of the references were stripped out of the American release.
Ninja Gaiden (NES) (1988) – We won’t waste our time talking about the visually cool but terrible to play arcade 1989 Tecmo game (also known as Shadow Warriors). We will instead focus on the hard-as-nails NES action adventure starring Ryu Hayabusa and his battle against the occult forces of Jaquio. It’s one of Tecmo’s finest games, and if you can manage to complete it without cheating or using saved states, my hat is off to you. Its 1990 and 1991 NES sequels are also decent, and all three were compiled and released on the Super NES in 1995.
Batman: The Video Game (1989) – SunSoft’s NES adaptation of the popular film is entirely different from the 1990 Atari Games arcade game or the 1989 PC game by Ocean Software, but it’s today considered one of the best games in the entire NES library. It’s a tough platformer with a lot of wall-jumping and limited ammunition powering your batarangs, spear gun and three-directional dirk. It also features additional supervillains not seen in the film like Killer Moth, Firebug and Electrocutioner.
If you haven’t played these games, you ought to.
Games I’ll Feature in the Book
I’ve spotlighted quite a few arcade action titles already, but a few titles I’ll additionally feature in the book edition of The Greatest Games You’ve (Probably) Never Played Vol. 2 include:
Ninja Kid (1988) – A ninja-themed game reskinned from Bandai’s Famicom adaptation of the anime GeGeGe no Kitaro where you traverse an overworld to enter levels with different objectives. It has some of the least appealing box art of any of the 1980s NES games, but it’s quite fun!
Rad Action (a.k.a. Ninja-Kun: Ashura no Shō or Ninja-Kid II or JT-104) (1987) – An amazingly varied action platformer from UPL Co. with branching paths, starring a rad little red ninja who’s the foundation for Jaleco’s later Ninja Jajamaru-Kun games.
Kenseiden (1988) – A somewhat non-linear Castlevania-style samurai action adventure for the Sega Master System where you fight spirits and learn new sword techniques - sort of like a spiritual ancestor to Capcom’s Onimusha: Warlords.
Games You Might Want To Try
A few other titles that I opted not to feature in detail, but which are worth checking out, include:
Ice Trek (1983) – An unique Intellivision game from Imagic where you navigate a caribou stampede, then build a bridge across a frozen moat by hooking icebergs, then assault an ice castle with a fireball launcher where a madman named Kalktron throws what appear to be spiders at you. (The manual says they’re crystals.)
Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventures in the Park (1984) – A colorful, cheerful Pitfall!-style game where you play as Anna Lee and navigate a series of obstacles in Babyland Park like swinging vines, climbing poles, ponds with lily pads and lanes with rolling bowling balls. The game’s repetitive and surprisingly challenging, but way better than you’d expect, in part because it was made by Konami.
Quest for Quintana Roo (1984) – An initially baffling game for the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision by VSS and Sunrise Software where you help Yucatan Sam explore a Mayan pyramid level by level, searching for secret items and dodging monsters. It’s a repetitive and unintuitive game that requires some time to learn, but it’s better than it appears on the surface once you understand how to play it.
Zwackery (1984) – A truly complex, but great-looking, action platform adventure from Bally where you play as a wizard named Zachery Thwackery who’s armed with a sword, shield and range of magic spells. You have to navigate a multi-screen world to open doors and complete scenarios, such as turning your beloved from a frog back into a human or defeating the evil Ghoulum or navigating the Corridors of Confusion. Eventually, you battle a dragon flanked by a goblin army. The controls are bonkers – you have a 4-way joystick, rotary dial and 4 buttons, making it tough to play in emulation. If this game had received a console home release with streamlined controls, I’m confident we’d know more about it today.
Alien Sector (a.k.a. Baraduke) (1985) – An interesting adventure arcade shooter from Namco where you play as the space-wearing women Kissy and Takky and explore the planet of Paccet with your jet pack, blasting grotesque Octi aliens along the way through 48 stages. The art style and gameplay are quite unusual for an arcade game, and this really feels like it should have been a PC game rather than an arcade release. If you can complete the game, you’ll see a picture of your female hero and her alien companion, but the game congratulates you for being a “brave man in Paccet Planet.” (Fun note: Kissy later became a character in the Mr. Driller series and apparently has a romantic past with Taizo Hori, the main character from Dig Dug and Mr. Driller.)
Captain Silver (1987) – An odd pirate-themed arcade game from Data East where you navigate a variety of locales in search of the treasure you need to go back to a castle and win the heart and marriageable hand of a beautiful young princess. Many of the enemies are horror creatures like werewolves, bats, ghosts, skeletons and witches, and Cheshire cats. Once you defeat the ghost pirate at the end, you go back and play the game over a second time to get the true ending. Interestingly, the home console versions are more linear and only have a single quest with boss battles on every stage. The Sega Master System port made it to the US, but the distinctly different Famicom one never did.
The Goonies II (1987) – Konami’s first adaptation of the 1985 film The Goonies never made it to North America, curiously leaving NES gamers with the sequel instead. The story involves Mikey working to rescue his fellow Goonies and a mermaid named Annie from the Fratelli gang, but the gameplay itself is an intriguing fusion of platform adventure games like Metroid or Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest with doors you can enter to explore menu-driven rooms that may have items or NPCs inside. The world is split into front and back layers, making navigation a bit confusing at first. The game’s biggest sin is that it pretty much requires a guide if you want to complete it, but it is worthwhile.
Wizards & Warriors and Ironsword: Wizards & Warriors II (1987 and 1989) – I’m not a huge fan of most of Rare’s NES output, but the Wizards & Warriors games, starring the knight Kuros, are among their most popular games and are certainly worth a look. The first game is a platform jumper where you collect loot as you dodge aggressive enemies while you move up and down vertical stages by leaping onto invisible platforms suggested by background objects. The second game is far more fun since it tones down the enemies and adds questing elements and big boss battles, but it’s still not everyone’s cup of tea.
Yokai Dochuki (a.k.a. Shadowland) (1987) – A wonderful action platformer from Namco that’s sort of like Wonder Boy in Monster World crossed with Japanese mythology. Nearly half of the top portion of the screen is taken up by a map and an inventory and health bar display while the rest depicts smooth-moving action through a spiritual fantasy world. You’ll need a translation to play it since the text is all in Japanese, but the game was recently released for global audiences as part of the HAMSTER Corp.’s Arcade Archives series and is well worth your trouble.
8 Eyes (1988) – A flawed but interesting globetrotting Castlevania-style game from Seta that offers a lot of neat ideas – like a falcon you can control to attack enemies or which a second player can control in co-op mode! – but which features really difficult boss fights and iffy controls. If you want to maximize your chances of a good time, play with a game guide and take the time to learn the game’s mechanics.
Cyborg Hunter (1988) – An action adventure game for the Sega Master System based on the anime Sonic Soldier Borgman, but with all of the references to the show removed for the English-language release. The premise is that you’re a bounty hunter named Paladin who’s invading the fortress of deadly cyborgs who are threatening the universe. The game’s screen is split between an action window, a 3D radar and a map. I would recommend it more strongly if it offered some puzzle elements and wasn’t such a repetitive grind, but it is an interesting game worth checking out.
The Legendary Axe (1988) – An action platformer from Victor Musical Industries that was one of the North American launch window titles for the TubroGrafx-16. It’s a nicely animated arcade platformer where you play as a primitive warrior armed with a loincloth, an axe and some serious bloodlust as you try to rescue your girlfriend. If this had been the pack-in title for the TurboGrafx-16, it might have been a more impressive console.
Demon Sword (a.k.a. The Legend of Acala) (1989) – An NES game from TOSE and Taito in the vein of The Legend of Kage and often (erroneously) listed as a sequel. This time, you’re Victar, a guy trying to rebuild a sword to slay an evil demon. The game’s Conan the Barbarian-style box art famously looks almost nothing like the very Japanese game it’s supposed to depict.
Holy Diver (1989) – I intended to provide a longer feature for this Castlevania-style action adventure game from Irem because it’s one of the coolest heavy metal concepts for a 1980s game I’ve encountered. Unfortunately, the game is just too hard to recommend. But the story! It’s the 666th year of the Crimson Kingdom and The Black Slayer is about to destroy the land. Enter the cape-wearing battle mage Randy, who has to retrieve five seals and use his formidable magic to traverse six stages, one of which is literally the belly of a beast. You even have to rescue your friend Zakk from being crucified at one point. Oh, and Randy can turn into a dragon at one point in the game. I wish I were better at it; I’ll just have to settle for watching a longplay.
Secret Quest (1989) – It’s not much to look at today, but Secret Quest was one of the last and best games on the Atari 2600, challenging you to navigate several large space stations full of hostile encounters as you work to set a detonation code and escape. It’s a challenging and engaging game with an odd password system to help save your progress. A fun bit of trivia: Atari founder Nolan Bushnell designed this one, and it’s the only game he’s solely credited with creating.
Toki (1989) – An arcade action adventure from Tad Corporation that was ported to the PC and many consoles. After a run-in with a wizard transforms you into an ape-man half your normal size, you guide Toki through an island of prehistoric foes to rescue the beautiful Miho (or Moho or Wanda, depending on the version), a blonde lady in a skimpy dress who’s been captured by the evil hand of Bashtar. It’s hard to say exactly what Toki is – he appears to be a semi-evolved simian who can breathe fire. The Sega Genesis port, Toki: Going Ape Spit, is not a sequel, but is a different game. The 2018 Nintendo Switch version (since ported to other platforms) is a full-on remake.
As Our Series Continues…
It’s time to move on to console and arcade gaming in the 1970s and 80s, and we’re going to cover it all with an exploration into hundreds more games you’ve probably never played but definitely ought to check out. Come for amazingly great early 1980s games like Warlords, Super Locomotive, Shark! Shark!, Acrobatic Dog-Fight, Mysterious Stones: Dr. John’s Adventure and Intrepid and stick around for mid-to-late 1980s greats like Peter Pack-Rat, Penguin-kun Wars, Momoko 120%, UFO Robot Dangar, Wonder Momo, Raimais, Last Alert, The Legend of Valkyrie and the arcade version of Twin Eagle: Revenge Joe’s Brother, complete with a rockin’ soundtrack with wonderfully inscrutable lyrics.
If you’ve never heard of any of those games, you’re in for a treat as we explore them one by one. And If those games are all old hat to you, don’t worry; they’re just the tip of the iceberg for what we’ll be discussing!
If you missed my series on the hundreds of 1980s PC games you probably never played, you can find the entire archive at https://greatestgames.substack.com.
Anything I don’t share here will be in my upcoming book, tentatively titled The Greatest Games You (Probably) Never Played Vol. 2. Subscribe to this newsletter so you won’t miss it!