In 1986 SNK released Ikari Warriors, it had all the makings of a classic title. Cool weapons, time strategies, two player action and a great challenge. We’re now seeing folks reproduce some of the essence of classic games by creating platformers like Little Big Planet and Mega Man 9, where is the love for the top-down scrollers?
Ikari Wariors was one of the first game titles to use a rotary joystick along with a directional system. Looking at the current generation Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 it’s plain to see the joystick is equipped with this design. We’ve seen Geometry Wars utilize the analog stick to create a 360 directional attack, so it’s possible to utilize this behavior for Ikari Warriors.
Given SNK is still alive under the name SNK Playmore the intellectual property must still exist to breath fresh life into an Ikari Warrior remake, with about six to eight months development time a classy title could be re-developed using old concepts brought to the current generation hardware.
Blast grenades, RPG’s, smart bombs, air strikes the options are limitless and the concept has been proven to work. Given the gamer demographic of 18-34 it’s plain to see old gamers of the Arcade and NES would recall and rebuild their love for the title while attracting younger audiences whom have never seen an Ikari Warriors title; if it worked in 1986 are we so adverse to it working again?
Games do not have to implement full 3D perspective graphics to be cool, we’ve seen proof in that with the Wii and the demand for titles like Little Big Planet. We neeed another Ikari Warriors.
Great show guys!
@Final Fantasy: This was one of my favorite series growing up I started with the very first game when it came out! So imagine having spent hours playing that first game, then when FFIV(2 in USA) came out it looked like leaps and bounds in improvement. To me FF6 was an improvement in graphics, story and characters over FF4. Hearing Paul having trouble differentiating between 4 and 6 got me thinking that the characters may have been a bit bland in comparison. As there is no other “green summoner girl” besides Rydia and no other Dragon Knight other than Kain. I haven’t played those games in years and I still remember their names. The characters in FF6 were very different than in FF4. Also bad Paul getting my hopes up that I had perhaps missed a sequel to FF6 when he had been thinking of FF4 sequel.
@Backwards compatibility: The problem for me is that the old hardware breaks down and they stop making the older systems so it’s not as easy or cheap to get a hold of. I looked on Ebay for fully backwards compatible PS3 and most were very expensive AND had “Yellow light of death”.
@Kinect: If they want me to buy a next gen system they SHOULD make a Star Wars Lightsaber or some sword dueling game. There was a Red Katana or something for Wii but that was a FPS with a few sword fights peppered in there. If either the Xbox or PS4 came out with a sword fighting game, especially one I could play with friends I would buy it in a heart beat. Obviously they don’t want me as customer.
QorW: I think Animal Crossing: New Leaf counts right? I’m having fun playing this with my wife and daughter we go on the island tours. I am like Jordan though I don’t play many portable games I’m mostly a PC guy.
Oh and sorry for spelling errors in last weeks comments. I think I had a dyslexic moment myself and I always think Indy when I see Indie. It’s hard not to when he was a childhood hero of mine.
I forgot to mention I loved hearing the Clue reference to Mrs White’s bit. That’s one of my all time favorite movies.
I never understood being a Final Fantasy person VS a Phantasy Star person, can’t one enjoy both series? I particularly enjoyed Phantasy Star 3 with it’s Family generational story, I don’t think there is any other game that has you going down the line of a family tree while trying to save the world. I thought it was a pretty great concept that I would love to see more of.