In my personal opinion, one of the hardest video game genres to screw up would be the run ‘n gun genre. I have talked about it plenty already with plenty of games, whether it be with franchises like Contra or with standalone games like Ninja Commando, and so far, based on what I have remembered playing, I have been mainly positive about it. Sure, not all of them have been incredible games, but most have managed to keep the gameplay fun enough, and even if they don’t do anything to really advance the genre, I could still say at the end of the day that these games are good enough, to where you could play through them once, have a good time, and move on with your life. However, as I should’ve expected, every video game genre, no matter how popular or simple it may be, always has to have at least one dud lying amongst the many winners. That dud, from what I have experienced, would be Ikari Warriors.

I had only heard of Ikari Warriors in very small doses before, with my first time ever hearing about it being from the AVGN episode on it, and I have seen it from time to time while looking through SNK’s lineup. I had wanted to try it out for a while, because despite the fact that I heard it was bad, who knows, maybe I would end up liking it where others didn’t. And besides, that AVGN video was on the NES version, so why don’t I just try out the arcade version and see how that one is?

one arcade playthrough later

Yeah, you know what, AVGN was right, this game kinda blows. Sure, for the time it came out, it is pretty impressive, and it does implement several elements that other run ‘n gun games of its kind weren’t doing at the time, but alongside all of that is the bad side of what the arcade has to offer at its absolute worst that I have seen so far.

The story of the game, from what I gather, is that these two random army generals have to storm the Ikari village in order to kill who I presume is Mecha Hitler and rescue your colonel before it is too late, which is good enough of a story for a game like this, I suppose, the graphics aren’t anything too special, looking exactly like Capcom’s Commando (which is appropriate, considering this is a clone of that game), and not really doing anything too impressive, the music is good, all things considered, and it is cool how it changes up depending on where you are at in the game, despite it all being one continuous stage, the control is… something, to say the least, which I will get into in a little bit, and the gameplay is pretty basic for the time, but, to its credit, it does innovate in places Commando was lacking in.

The game plays almost exactly like Commando, where you take control of either Colonel Ralf Jones or Second Lieutenant Clark (two names that just strike fear into the hearts of many, as you can tell), storm through Ikari Village in one giant level, which does work for this type of game, shoot up every single enemy soldier, tank, and helicopter that will try to stop you in your path using either your guns or a batch of grenades, all while viewing it from a top-down perspective, gather plenty of powerups and vehicles to help you gain an advantage over the enemy forces, and take on all the bullshit that Mecha Hitler has in store for you. It is all pretty basic stuff, and it does make you wonder why you would play something like this over Commando, but to the game’s credit, it does bring new stuff to the table that Commando didn’t.

Throughout the game, you can locate various powerups to help you out through the game, along with additional ammo for your guns and grenades. In Commando, you only stuck to just one weapon the entire time, which did make things pretty repetitive, so it is cool that this game offers plenty of ways to change up your firepower… even though I never was able to keep these changes for that long, but still. Alongside that though is definitely the best element of the game you can take advantage of: the tanks. These babies are absolute MONSTERS in this game, with you being able to take control of one and blow everyone away, and as long as you avoid all explosions, grenades, and what have you, nothing stands in your way of total domination of this village………. that is, except for the limited fuel that the tank has, which does kinda suck, but you do find plenty of fuel canisters lying around, so you won’t have to worry about that running out most of the time.

However, you will have to worry about plenty of other elements that this game has to throw at you, such as the EXTREMELY ROUGH control. Now, when I say it is rough, I am not referring to the basics, because when it comes to moving and shooting, you can perform these actions just fine. But, when it comes to aiming and going in different directions such as diagonally, GOOD GOD, it feels absolutely horrible. Not only do you move way too slowly, making dealing with enemy fire always feeling like a gamble half the time, but the way you aim is so finicky, to the point where I can barely rely on it to stay aiming in a certain direction. Maybe it works better with an actual arcade machine, but since I am stuck with the Arcade Archive’s emulation, I will never know.

But anyway, going back to that thing I said about enemy fire, that leads into my next huge issue with this game: ARCADE SYNDROME. Good god, this has got to be one of the worst cases of arcade syndrome that I have ever seen in any video game. The way enemies will gang up on you and try to shoot you down, coupled with the amount of explosions that will be happening around you, it just feels absolutely relentless most of the time. And on top of all that, you have limited lives, so if you die and get a Game Over, you have to start the whole thing all over again, which completely drained me of my will to life numerous times. This isn’t a complete game killer, as there are times (I’ll be it very brief times) where you do have the upper hand against your enemies, and the game itself is pretty short, but either way, it is still unbelievably painful to try to slog through a mess like this.

Overall, despite making what should be a better Commando with powerups and tanks, SNK instead ended up making Kaizo Commando, which is saying a lot, considering Commando was already hard enough as is, but this game takes it to a whole nother level. The amount of enemy fire at once is absolutely ridiculous, there are obstacles that you can’t see until it is too late a lot of the time, you have very little room to maneuver to avoid oncoming fire, and again, you have limited lives, making beating this game a test of stubbornness and will in the worst way possible. I don’t recommend anyone plays this, unless they feel that most other run ‘n gun games are way too easy, because trust me, this game will challenge you and then some. But hey, I will admit, it is still cool to say that I ended up killing Mecha Hitler at the end of the day…………… someone is probably gonna correct me and tell me what his name really is, but I don’t care. It is Mecha Hitler in my canon, so I will say that to claim that I helped stop World War III.

Game #401