Ikari Warriors

Ikari Warriors is a 1986 arcade game by SNK (manufactured in the United States by Tradewest). Known simply as 怒 (Ikari, literally "anger") in Japan, this was SNK's first major breakthrough US release and became something of a classic. This game was very innovative and spawned several similar games.

Ikari Warriors involves Ralf Jones and Clark Steel of the later King of Fighters series (known here as Paul and Vince) battling through hordes of enemies. According to designer Keiko Iju, the game was inspired by the then-popular Rambo films. Ralf and Clark also make an appearance as playable characters in the sixth Metal Slug game.

Overview

The player (or players: see below) takes the role of a commando-like warrior, who must try to reach the village of Ikari. Enemy units attempting to kill the player include tanks, enemy soldiers and helicopters. A number of power-ups along the way help the player to achieve victory.

Ikari Warriors was the first to use rotary joysticks: those which could be rotated in addition to being pushed in eight directions. The game also featured two buttons, one for the standard gun and another for lobbing grenades. It allowed two players to play cooperatively, side by side - one of the few games to do so at the time. The game cabinet was a standard upright.

Description

The player begins as one of two commando-type warriors, garbed in red or blue (depending on whether they are player one or two). They must proceed from the bottom of the screen upwards, toward the village of Ikari. Trying to prevent them from reaching the village are enemy soldiers and other units with a frightening arsenal of firepower. Along the way, players may commandeer enemy tanks to help fight their way through the enemy personnel. The tanks are immune to enemy bullets, but have a limited supply of fuel and will sustain damage when it runs out or the tank is caught in an explosion, taking the player with it unless he can exit the tank and get clear before it blows up.

Ikari Warriors was the first 'Commando' style game to give the player a limited amount of ammunition (99 bullets and 99 grenades, not actually a great handicap) as well as power-up and bonus icons to improve your firepower, dropped by red soldiers. These are listed as follows:

Gun: restores machine gun ammo to maximum.
Grenade: restores grenade ammo to maximum.
Gas: restores all ammo to maximum and refuels the tank if the player is driving one.
K: Kills all enemy troops on-screen, except ones hiding underwater.
S: Gun and tank shots are sped up.
L: Long-range shot. Bullets travel the entire length of the screen.
F: Bullets turn red and can destroy trucks, gun emplacements and bases. Pierce shot. Bullets pass through rocks and other barriers without being blocked. Tank shots become rockets.
B: Blast grenades. Grenades turn red and produce giant-sized explosions. All tank shots become blast grenades as well.

The game's joysticks could be rotated in clockwise and counter-clockwise directions. Turning the joystick changed the direction the character faced independent of the direction the character might be moving. This gave the player freedom to attack or walk in eight different directions. This made it generally easier—but sometimes harder—to take out enemy units. Aiming must also be taken into account by the warrior using the machine gun in his right hand, while throwing grenades with his left; no shot is fired from directly in front of the player.

Because of its innovative controls, this game was initially very popular. However, the joysticks proved somewhat fragile, especially when played heavily as this game was. They need to be repaired often since being unable to turn makes the game almost unplayable.

Game Tip

The arcade version of Ikari Warriors can only process one giant explosion at a time, with any others being held in a queue until their turn. If you have the blast grenades and trigger an invisible homing-missile mine, quickly throw a grenade before the missile can explode; your grenade will take precedence and explode first, giving you enough time to get out of the way before the missile goes off. You can employ the same tactic when anticipating enemy soldiers who are also armed with blast grenades; it becomes especially easy and useful when driving a blast-powered tank, as you can charge up the screen cutting a whole swathe of impenetrable blast-grenade death without giving anything else the chance to fire back.

Legacy

This game spawned several similar games as well as several direct sequels. The game's sequels are:

Victory Road (1986)
The Rescue (1989)

Similar games include:

All of the latter games featured the innovative 8-way rotary joysticks that made Ikari Warriors so popular.

Ports

In 1986, Ikari Warriors was ported to several home systems of the era including Nintendo Entertainment System, Apple II, DOS, Atari ST, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Amiga, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. Because the systems lacked rotary joysticks, however, some felt they were not as compelling as the arcade version. Jeff Rovin's classic book, How to Win at Nintendo Games, opined that precision shooting was difficult in the NES port.

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