Solomon’s Key (Spinoffs / Ripoffs)
Zipang (ジパング ) – PC Engine (1990) For some unfathomable reason, the 1990 Japanese fantasy samurai film Jipangu/Zipang spawned not …
Monster Rancher Explorer
Monster Rancher Explorer is yet another reinvention of the original 1986 Solomon’s Key, and yet another example of a popular …
Solomon’s Key
For some reason Japanese retro gamers often fondly remember old arcade games that are nowadays seen as ridiculously difficult, frustrating …
Fire ‘n Ice
Solomon’s Key 2 is a follow-up that came out in 1992 but only for Nintendo’s 8-bit console. North American NES …
Ghostly Matter
Ghostly Matter is a retro-styled 2D Metroidvania dropped on Steam without any fanfare, whose claim to fame is that it …
Three Wonders
In 1991, Capcom decided to release a very unusual coin-op consisting in three relatively short games of different genres: an …
Prehistorik
For some reason, in the early Nineties several games with cavemen heroes were made: Joe & Mac, Bonk’s Adventure, Chuck …
Prehistorik 2
Prehistorik came back two years later, as hungry as ever, in this improved sequel that owes much to collect-a-thon console …
Prehistorik Man
Prehistorik Man‘s console adventure (published by Kemco in Japan as P-Man) is technically a remake of the second game, but …
Prehistorik (2013)
Prehistorik was once again resurrected for PCs, Steam and Apple devices in 2013 by French companies. It was published by …
Million Onion Hotel
Yoshiro Kimura is a Japanese game designer who became known even in the West for his games full of interesting …
Dandy Dungeon
The mobile game market is often considered a cesspool full of allegedly free games plagued with ads and microtransactions, rip-offs …
MediEvil: Resurrection
MediEvil 2‘s secret ending was a strange joke that seemingly precluded the possibility of a sequel, and a MediEvil 3 concept was apparently pitched …
MediEvil II
Sir Dan’s game was successful enough to warrant a sequel, which came out two years later. The plot is largely …
Liquid Kids
Liquid Kids, also known as Mizubaku Daibouken (“Water Bomb Big Adventure”), is one of Taito’s many cutesy platform games. It never …
Beast Busters – Second Nightmare
Note: the screenshots come from YouTube user turfmasta‘s gameplay videos. Almost exactly a decade later Beast Busters received a sequel on the short-lived …
Dark Arms: Beast Buster 1999
The third installment of the series was released more or less at the same time of the arcade sequel. This …
Beast Busters Featuring KOF
During the New Tens mobile gaming, especially in Japan, garnered a lot of attention, so SNK Playmore decided to resurrect …
