Konami Ports:
Already mentioned was the crown jewel of the X68000
games, Akumajou Dracula, which leaves the rest of the
great games from Konami that made it to Sharp’s gaming
computer. Get ready because Konami was not shy about
bringing their shooters to the X68000. Nemesis ’90 Kai
is an enhanced port of Gradius 2 with some graphical
enhancements. This version didn’t have players flying the
iconic Vic Viper but instead a new ship called the
Metalion and there is an emphasis on speed running, long
before it was popular on Youtube.
One last Capcom game that needs to be mentioned is
Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, another ar cade per fect por t that
challenged what Sega was able to bring home on the
Genesis.
While the Sega Genesis version was
respectable, covered in issue #1 of RGM, it simply paled
in comparison to the competition. That sentiment is more
profound when you look at the X68000 version which
features nearly ALL of the arcade tidbits that Sega simply
couldn’t fit into their cartridge.
Konami ported a lot of their arcade shooters over to the
platform. Gradius, Gradius 2/Nemesis ‘90 and Parodius
all made it. We did not see a port of Metal Gear though
which is a bummer, judging from the way the MSX
handled that series (pages 14 and 15) it would probably
had bee n awesome on the Sharp computer.
Capcom were pretty smart with the marketing of the
Street Fighter II series. With minor updates to the arcade
game they were able to keep the game alive and making
money long after it should have been relegated to the
discount sale and with each new addition, home gamers
wanted a port to their console of choice. Didn’t matter if
it was SNES or Genesis gamers, both wanted the newest
version which Capcom did their best to bring home, in
due time. The Sharp X68000 is no different, it received at
least two Street Fighter games, Championship edition and
Super Street Fighter II (pictured below).
Salamander is another popular Konami shooter to
make the jump. Check the screenshot below for a good
idea of how it looked. There is a bit of slowdown on this
boss showing Capcom was probably a lot better verse at
programming for this platform.
Konami was one of the few “big name” companies to
release an original title for the Sharp X68000, Akumajou
Dracula. Much like other companies Konami was
content with nearly arcade perfect ports though Capcom
holds the crown